As Dr. Anna Nyaki says,”The village tells you everything you need to know about how people really live.” It was Anna Nyaki who referred Maximilian (above) for help with schooling costs given his academic potential and his mother’s illness. It was ideal for us to have the chance to meet with Maximilian for school planning a few times, most importantly at his home in Komella where we were fed a meal and given a gift of freshly laid eggs! In fact he had already brought a chicken as he has every year, to say thank you. Staying connected with students, and their families by way of home visits is the only way to know if scholarship funding is appropriate and on target. But it is also great honour to be invited into people’s homes and lives.
With all this in mind we set off from Kilema Hospital one day with guide and home based care worker, Augustine, to Kilema chini or ‘ lower’ Kilema to visit the home of student Flora Riwa. She’s been sponsored sinced 2011. By now we knew we needed hats, a liter of water each and biscuits or better yet , mandazis, a deep fried and highly satisfying tanzanian donut just to stay upright. We set off down the mountain, past Kisaluni school and the school garden full of banana palms and some new seed beds. We climbed down the ravine and crossed the awkward slatted footbridge and then followed the clay trail as it skirted around a slope edge and where we could hear waterfalls below. I am only looking at my feet and ask Augustine how many villagers have fallen off the trail. Three. Despite Augustine’s stroke last year he was able to keep the pace and climbing through hilly terrain has likely been a benefit in his recovery. He looks a little older this year but every January, with smiles, we all remind each other we are getting older! We follow red clay footpaths through numerous shambas, calling out “hodi” , a greeting that says ‘I am here passing through”. Some shambas are tidy, well maintained and swept. Some have new houses under construction made of cinder block. Other shambas are in disarray with crumbling huts and show signs of hard living. It is the equivalent of neighbourhoods anywhere; diverse.
Flora’s home is somewhere in the middle, a clay and pole structure sloping mildly off vertical, crumbling clay, chickens wandering everywhere indoor and out. Her mother is present in a well worn kanga ,even though our visit is prearranged, and there are two other daughters both with babies in arms. Flora’s father remains where I last met him 3 years, ago in his bed with withered legs, paralyzed after an old house collapsed on him. One at a time we enter the dark room, just big enough for a small bed, to greet him. Fiona and Dolly check his supra pubic catheter and now healed bed sores. He is some how transferred to Kilema hospital every two weeks for a catheter changes which costs 20,000 per visit not including transport. We guess they carry him out to the road where a taxi picks him up. He shows us anti fungal ointment and rubbing alcohol and we encourage him to turn to prevent pressure sores which he well knows. Flora’s mother tends the shamba on her own, cultivating, carrying out banana to market. Augustine makes the point that household resources are not be produced by the father but are used by him.
Despite having both a father and mother Flora is vulnerable and only when you see the whole picture at Flora’s home does the justice of the term OVC, orphan and vulnerable children, become clear. It is not only orphan’s or AIDS orphans who are vulnerable. There are many paths to vulnerability. OVC is an inclusive term, all over Africa. Of all our visits and outings in the last month perhaps the most illuminating are the visits to student homes.
Checking condition of houses
Stephen Lyimo’s grandmother
Shade seekers
During our visits we’ve met grandmothers, grandfathers, a single mother, aunts and neighbours who have taken over the care and education of children. We visited Stephen Lyimo’s elderly grandmother and sister in upper Lehgo, an arduous Sunday afternoon hike. We visited Deo Kundi in Kyrua who is vulnerable because of his amputation, despite having two living parents. For our tuition project we are interested to see where the student sleeps and lives when not at school and usually that one piece of information sheds light on their circumstance. Stephen Lyimo sleeps under the same roof as the cows we discovered.
Student Selina Mshanga
Once again thank you to everyone who contributed this year to sending children back to school!
We continue to be amazed that requests for help are not for luxuries, comforts or the latest fad. The requests are for schooling. It is hard to resist. In particular I want to thanks my fellow travellers Karen, Dolly and Fiona for partnering to send Elinora Kway back to Tanga to study Record Management. Together they made Nora one very happy young woman. Thrilled actually!
Thank you Eric and Cindy and intrepid Mary Todd for Godfrey Nguma’s laptop. And internet modem!
The following children were funded this January and we are holding funds in reserve (4,420,000) for other students who will be completing semesters and entering new programs later in the year.
$1 can= $1,426 tanz shilling
Winifrida Charles Standard 5 40,000
John Remson Standard 4 40,000
Careen Ayubu Standard 7 80,000
John Silvanus Standard 7 40,000
Lilian Mosha Josiah Kibera University yr.1 2,050,000
Stephen John Lyimo St Augustine University yr1 1,600,000
Happiness Shirima Form 4 1,015,000
Edwin P Shayo Form 2 1,000,000
Paulina H Lyimo Form 3 800,000
Godfrey Nguma Mt Meru University Yr 1 1,245,000
Jonus Aloyce Monduli Teacher College 585,000
Vitalis Vicenti Kessy Form1 145,000
Augustina m. mlsay Form 6 227,000
Daniel Mshanga Form 3 117,000
Selina Mshanga Form 3 117,000
Goodluck Kimarro Form2 127,000
Glory F Ngange Form 3 105,000
Elidaima Tarimo Form 4 181,000
Ester Lyamuya Form 2 127,000
Germin E. Kipokola Form 3 105,000
Emuanuel Lyimo Form 2 127,000
Samuel Shayo Hospitality field work 144,000
Elinora Calisti Kway Tanzania Public Service College 4,015,000
Thank you everyone!!
Happiness Shirima goes to Lombeta School!
