A (Fake) Disaster

A (Fake) Disaster Strikes

On Wednesday another volunteer, Amy, an ER doctor, worked with the District Medical Officer to put together a mass casualty event. Health workers from the local hospital and clinic joined district staff and treated the “victims” (WellShare staff and volunteers, along with some of the medical participants) of an earthquake. There is an active volcano in the area and earthquakes do occur.

We had broken necks, ribs and limbs, concussions, sucking chest wounds, abdominal lacerations with spilling guts, anxiety reactions, injured babies and pregnant women. Everyone was made up appropriately and we were told how to respond when touched. It was quite a production. The medical people seemed to really get into it, which they should have since so many of us were screaming. There was a discussion afterwards about what was handled well and what needed improvement. Jolene gave out wonderful medical books that had been shipped by Books for Africa and people clearly valued them. Lunch was served. Amy is planning on leaving them with other scenarios so they can do more of these in the future.

An Educational Village Visit

On Friday, we were part of a wonderful event at Bassodawish. This is the local village that our friends Welcome Jerde and Dan Berg have adopted along with the 14 people who traveled with them last year to safari and do a service project in Bassodawish. When they left they asked the village what they could do to help. They were told, among other things, primary school uniforms and secondary school books. Since Welcome will not be back until next year, and the leaders of Bassodawish know we are friends, they invited us to be Mama Welcome’s representatives at a ceremony to distribute uniforms and books.

We were very honored to be there and know how much Welcome and Dan would have liked to accept these thanks in person. Bassodawish invited the ward chancellor and the district education officer so this was a very big deal. Since the officials were late, the primary and secondary children took turns singing songs for us. When everyone was present there were introductions and speeches. We told them we were honored to be there and that Mama Welcome and her Minnesota fiends said hello. (Mama Welcome na marafiki wanasema Hamjambo.) We told them we were so happy to see the children in their new uniforms and hoped they would take good care of them, but more importantly, that they would study hard. The village chairman charged the students and parents to take good care of these uniforms because there would be no more. For the books, we urged them to make good use of them and become leaders in their village and country.

Then proclamations were read in very good English, even by the primary school student. They said that they now also have benefactors from Belgium who were going to provide them with lab equipment for their new science building. This village is really making strides! It shows the power of good leadership. Now, they would like to get electricity and a water catchment system.

They provided us with printed copies of these statements of thanks to take to Mama Welcome. (I keep wanting to say Mama Karibu since that is welcome in Swahili.) Finally, a secondary teacher thanked us again for all the benefactors have done in their village. He had tears in his eyes. It was all very moving.

Jolene also presented secondary books on English, science, math and social studies for their community library which had been sent by Books for Africa.

It was a great afternoon.

And Other Activities

We have continued to work on ideas for proposals other than USAID. We would like to find some potential funders when we return, but we know money is tight in the non-profit world.

Sunday we leave for Bariadi. This is a area on the other side of the Serengeti, so hopefully we will see wildlife along the way. Bariadi is an area that WellShare is exploring for a new project. We will try to do some village surveys as we did here last year. It is a much poorer area, but they have better roads so it will be easier to get around. The population is much denser also; there are 200 villages rather than 48 and they are closer together. It will be interesting to see this area just south of Lake Victoria where we have never been.