ALISON HEADS EAST: Week 10

Monday, October 8^th, 2007

Meaghan and I began the morning very productively and completed a large portion of the first draft to the Cost/Benefit Report and the Charity Ball application. The Charity Ball happens in November and individuals purchase tickets to a semi-formal dinner evening and the money raised are distributed to various charities. Meg and I were applying for a grant to help pay for the initial milk costs to provide probiotic yogurt to approximately 50 HIV+ individuals distributed among 7 different communities in Mwanza. These patients are currently receiving yogurt free-of-charge from the Mabutini Kitchen and are picking up about 10L a day, depending on if they are able to travel to the kitchen and are well enough.

Meaghan has been putting together a Cost/Benefit Report, which summarizes what we have been working on for the past 2 and a half months. It will give the faculty a good review of what to be expecting on their visit to Mwanza next week.

Later in the afternoon, we headed into town to post our blogs, check and send emails, book Meaghan’s Safari for next week, and pick up some pictures we had developed. We also had a few dresses made at a local tailor shop and went to pick them up today. They were very well made and most of them we exactly what we had in mind with only a few minor exceptions that could be altered easily. We were very pleased.

We were very productive in the day and were able to make it to yoga at Tunza in the evening after the Mama’s English lessons. After our yoga class, the Massai usually take a few minutes to practice their aim with the bow and arrows and sometimes they let the ‘wazungu’ (foreigners) try. I was fortunate enough to get a few shots in and actually hit the target, which the Massai were extremely excited about. In the evening, Meg and I finished up more project work at home before heading off to bed.

Tuesday, October 9^th, 2007

Meg and I went to the internet café early this morning to send off the Charity Ball application, but the internet was extremely slow and the file was too large to send. We would try again later in the day at a better internet place. We went into town to send off some letters and grab lunch at Kuleana. We then went to the bank to take out cash for Meg’s safari and then to the internet café again. The Charity Ball application was still too large to send out and we would have to try and condense the file when we got home. After the disappointing internet session, Meg and I went to our Swahili lesson to complete our test and have our 2 hour class.

After our lesson, we decided to go for a swim at the international pool in Isamilo and for a nice dinner at Claire’s home. Ruben met up with us for both swimming and dinner. On the way to Claire’s house after swimming, we got some fresh sugar cane and had it raw for the first time. It was really sweet and refreshing, but a little difficult to tear off the outer core. For dinner, we made a vegetable and meat chili with rice and beans. We also experimented with chocolate chuck cookies for dessert, which turned out quite well.

Trying raw sugar cane for the first time.

Wednesday, October 10^th, 2007

I started my day with a good workout on the roof top. After getting ready for the day I worked on a lesson for the Mama’s English lesson later today. Meg and I headed to NIMR first thing to meet with Simon to check on the viability of the probiotic bacteria. Simon told us that the bacteria have been growing very well and showed us the smear sample. We discussed some of the irregularity with the delivery and pick-up of milk to and from the lab and have set up a routine for all parties to have their tasks accomplished by.

After NIMR, we went to the internet café again, but the internet was down at Marllcom so we tried Karibou Corner. It was working, but we were still unable to send out the Charity Ball application and we were getting frustrated with having to rearrange the file and the photos on the application. We picked up some groceries on our way home and had a quick lunch before heading off to the community kitchen in Mabatini. At the Kitchen, Meg and I were surprised to find some Kivulini staff there helping the Mamas learn how to keep proper accounts of their finances. Kivulini volunteers their skills to several small businesses all over Mwanza and specifically works with Women’s Rights Organizations. Our English lessons went very well and we also discussed the upcoming plans for the Danone Consultant’s visit this coming weekend. On our way home, we received a call from Claire inviting us to a dinner at her co-worker’s home in Capri Point. Meg and I eagerly accepted because we were too tired to think about making dinner and had a very lovely and authentic Ethiopean meal of ‘Shudo’.

Thursday, October 11^th, 2007

This morning Meg and I were determined to shrink down the Charity Ball application file and email it out. We also had to visit the immigration office to inquire about renewing our VISAs, go to the bank, and pick up some more groceries for our dinner party on Friday. We did not get any useful information from the immigration office about the renewal process because we did not have our Passports with us, and for some reason they are not able to give us price quotes or approximation of the procedure without it. A lot of the time the color of our skin makes many processes more difficult and more expensive because we are not familiar with the way things work in a foreign place and are not fluent in the language.

At the internet café we were actually successful in sending out the Charity Ball application after about half an hour of waiting for the email to upload. We then went for a quick and cheap lunch close by and then picked up some groceries. Many of the local ‘Wazungu’ have been extremely kind and hospitable to Meaghan, Ruben and I and we wanted to show our appreciation with a belated Thanksgiving dinner with a Mexican theme of fajitas and potato wedges

In the afternoon we had our Swahili lesson and then went to Tunza for our regular yoga class. We then went out to dinner at the New Mwanza Hotel with Janine, Henk, Claire, Meg and I.

Friday, October 12^th, 2007

This morning Ruben and I worked out together and I helped show him several exercises because he was only familiar with skipping, push-ups and sit-ups. This year I worked as a personal trainer at school and at home and so I have a large repertoire of exercises to do outside of a gym without any equipment

We went to Mabatini to pick up yogurt for the children at the Forever Angels orphanage and to drop off the English test for the Mamas. We went with Mama Paskwalina to see where the milk supplier was located for when the Danone Consultant arrived tomorrow. We met with the owner of the ‘farm’ (it was really only about 10 cows in the backyard of her home), Edina, and one of the distributors, Laurent, and they were extremely friendly. From the milk supplier’s home Meaghan and I walked to the orphanage, which was very close to each other, and spent a few hours with the children. I was able to get the growth data for the children old enough to consume the yogurt and I will begin plotting the information to see if the yogurt actually has an impact on the growth rate for these kids. It was a very hot day outside and the children had a great time playing in a small pool of water... of course naked! They were extremely cute.

We spent the rest of the afternoon making dinner for our 10 guests. I was in charge of making Chapatis and made 40 in total. We also had ground beef, guacamole, a vegetable mix, beans, and of course yogurt. We also made some very tasty potato wedges. Meg and I were worried that we didn’t have enough food, but realized that we had made way too much and would be eating leftovers for the next week or more. Claire made banana bread that tasted really good but unfortunately collapsed while trying to flip it out of the pan. After dinner, we headed off to Tilapia, but it was really quiet there and we did not stay long.

Our 'Thanksgiving' dinner

Saturday, October 13^th, 2007

I was able to sleep in this morning and had a very lazy morning. Meg, Claire and I took a walk into town so look at some of the kitenge material and then came home to prepare a lunch of… leftovers. We did not accomplish much in the afternoon because we were waiting around for the Danone Consultant, Ivan, to arrive at 5:30pm. At 4pm, Meg and I went to Mabatini to speak with the Mamas about some changes to Ivan’s schedule and to make sure that some of them were at the Kitchen tomorrow morning (the Kitchen is usually closed on Sunday mornings and especially because it will be the day of Ede, which marks the end of Ramadan).

After Mabatini we went to the airport to pick up Ivan Le Mintier. Ivan is a Danone Consultant from France and is interested in starting up several yogurt kitchens (larger than our Mamas, but not factory size) in one area in Africa to target high stressed areas. He will be setting up the Kitchens very quickly and will create a yogurt that is specific for malnourished children of the areas and making them very affordable for the community. Ivan’s objectives are very similar to WHE’s because he is not interested in sending money to developing regions, but rather teaching the skills to sustain a business and replicate it in a systematic fashion. He has visited 3 other locations in Africa, including Kenya, Senegal, and Malawi and will decide on one area to build. Earlier in February, Ivan and his team began a similar project in Bangladesh and is in the processes of opening 50 other small ‘factories’ throughout the area.

We brought Ivan to his hotel at Tilapia and after he dropped off his luggage we had a pleasant discussion about his project over tea. In the evening, he met with Maimuna (the director of Kivulini) to inquire about several other groups and the problems that they have encountered being in Mwanza. He was very interested in knowing about the health status of the people in Mwanza, specifically the children, and the approximate number of milk suppliers/ farmers. Because Mwanza is a very rapidly developing area these figures are difficult to obtain and especially because most of the milk suppliers are not registered as a business, it makes it hard to even estimate any numbers. Maimuna helped set Ivan up with several reports and contacts to help him acquire some of the information he was asking about and it was a nice dinner.

After dinner, Ivan was very interested in catching the England VS France rugby match and so Meaghan and I stayed to watch the game with him before he went to bed.

Sunday, October 14^th, 2007

We went to pick up Ivan this morning at 9am and he was excited to go to the Mabatini Catholic Church service with Mama Paskwalina and us. The service was slightly delayed because it was Nyerere Day and also because of an additional collection to build homes for the priests within Mabatini. Unfortunately, we had a 30 minutes wait before our service was to begin and because Ivan was having pain and trouble seeing this morning he decided to have them looked at. Meaghan accompanied him to the Hindu clinic and I waited at the church for them to arrive. Ivan was able to get eye drops and they told him it was not an infection, but he still did not know why his eyes reacted as they did. After the eye drops, he was feeling much better.

Meg, Ivan and Jimmy (a Kivulini staff that volunteered to help translate for the weekend) was able to make it to church for the collection and Eucharist, but because of the late start and the extended service we were not able to stay for the entire mass. We headed back to the Community Kitchen to speak briefly with the Mamas about his project and their history with WHE and Tukwamuane.

Ivan meeting some of the Mamas at the Mabatini Kitchen.

After the Kitchen, we dropped Jimmy off at Kivulini and Meg and I went for lunch at the Pizzeria with Ivan. We were able to speak about our roles, difficulties, and accomplishments with the project and it was interesting to hear his advice on several issues. After lunch Jimmy came back to take us to an agricultural farm that was once run by a religious group called the ‘White Fathers’ and then to an abandoned Dairy Factory. It was interesting to see how these places are doing now that they are not functioning in their original ways. The Kimkumaka agricultural farm is now being primarily used to help educate students at the St. Augustine University and now that the ‘White Fathers’ are no longer running the area the machinery has not been kept in working order. The abandoned Dairy Factory was closed very suddenly and all its equipement was sold because the owner was not seeing a fast enough return in the business and had many other projects in progress as well. There was one family that was acting as ‘security’ for the factory and they were living off the land and farming some tomatoes.