Our Second Week

Our second week has been a wonderful mixture of nature and culture. We started with a day safari to Manyara National Park, about ½ hour from our place. We saw baboons, different kinds of monkeys, gazelles, giraffes, hippos, water buffalo, wildebeest, zebra, elephants, and lots of birds, including storks, egrets, hornbills, flamingos and many more. It was a great day.

On the culture side, an integral part is languages. Swahili is the lingua franca, with most people having a local/tribal one as their first language. It seems nearly everyone speaks two languages, quite a few three (including our coworkers who speak English), and some four or more. Given how little progress we have made in our poor attempts at other languages (Japanese, Spanish and Swahili), we are truly humbled.

The other issue with language is how it limits our understanding of our surroundings. Our coworkers are wonderful, but there is only so much they can convey in trying to translate what we are experiencing. As we wander through the open markets and the town of Karatu alone, fumbling with our limited Swahili, our experiences are obviously filtered through our lack of language, Midwestern perspectives, the relatively small part of Tanzania we are seeing, and the short time we are here. So, we offer the following and future information with the knowledge that the slice of life we are experiencing is very limited, and we will make corrections later if new information changes that perspective.

With that, here goes. This last week has mostly been spent in two villages. In both cases staff was building Survive and Thrive Groups (see 9th paragraph from our previous entry). This involves two days of training with traditional birth attendants (TBAs) and a third day with the TBAs and young mothers. (We will try to limit acronyms to only two – MIHV for Minnesota International Health Volunteers, our host organization, and TBAs as above).

The TBAs are truly remarkable women. To put this into perspective, we had to drive between 45 and 60 minutes to get to each village, which is only 20-23 miles away. The roads are unpaved, often rutted, rocky, very rough, and should only be driven with a decent size four-wheel drive vehicle. Ours is a Toyota Land Cruiser. When the rainy season comes, some villages become isolated as the roads become impassible.

The village homes are widely spread out among fields, with sub-villages. In the second village we visited there was no electricity and we didn’t see a car or truck. Cell phones work everywhere, but to get anyplace, people generally either walk or use a bike, the latter being beat up versions of the old bikes we grew up on. Even with a mountain bike, the roads would be extremely challenging.

Although the Tanzanian government and MIHV are working hard to encourage women to get to clinics for deliveries, for many of them this is impossible. The reasons include the roads, long and sometimes difficult distances to clinics, needing to plan ahead for the delivery and hoping the due date is accurate, along with the impossibility of leaving family behind.

The TBAs are not paid for their work, expect if the delivering mother and family can afford to offer a chicken or other goods. Sometimes the TBA is buying supplies from her own funds. Some have even been known to take in a young mother and child if the woman is unmarried and the family is not able to care for her. As you might imagine, TBAs often have to go long distances, sometimes in the dark of night where wild animals could present a danger. Add to this that they teach women of all ages before and after delivery on health and safety issues, and their roles are challenging.

Traditionally, TBAs’ knowledge was passed on from one woman to another within the village. It is obvious they are eager for the training they receive, and happy they can bring more tools to their work. Some have limited literacy or less than adequate Swahili, yet they show incredible motivation to learn.

The TBAs we saw have already received training from MIHV on antenatal, delivery, neonatal and maternal care. What we witnessed was additional education and help in starting their Survive and Thrive Groups. The latter will help unmarried mothers learn more about care for themselves and their children. The mortality rates for both are high, with a large percentage of them preventable. For children under five, 51% of deaths are from acute respiratory infections/pneumonia, 31% from malaria, and 3.6% from diarrheal disease. The education provided by the government, MIHV and other non-governmental organizations can eventually reduce the numbers dramatically.

As mentioned last time, MIHV wants to introduce a system for income generation in these groups. By doing so, the young mothers will be able to help support their families, hopefully help TBAs cover their costs, employ good health practices and encourage the mothers to stay in their villages rather than seek their fortune in Karatu town. The income generation aspect of the Survive and Thrive Groups is the focus of our time here.

Karatu is the gateway for Ngorongoro Crater, the Serengeti and other famous parks nearby, with an estimated 500,000 tourists each year. The town has only about 15-20,000 people, and most of the handicrafts sold in the tourist shops come from Kenya. The women of Karatu District produce traditional crafts, including baskets and bead work that can be sold to visiting tourists. The goal of MIHV is to develop skills in the groups to perfect the crafts, help the women start agricultural projects or small animal husbandry, provide the knowledge to manage these small businesses, and have the enterprises self-sustaining. Our hope is to contribute to that effort.

On the nature side, next weekend we go to Ngorongoro Crater, which is said to have the largest concentration of mammals in all of Africa.

We are having a wonderful time.

Now, for all of you in the northern climates of the US, a weather report. The temperatures here have so far been nearly perfect, with low humidity. Days can be like that perfect summer weather in Minnesota. In the evenings we sometimes have to put on a light fleece. Sleeping temperatures are just right.

The down side is precipitation. Karatu didn’t get the rains expected in November and December, so it was dusty. The soil here is a burnt orange color, and when the winds blow, the dust rises and delivers a fine coating on everything.

A few days ago the rains started, usually in the latter part of the day and sometimes at night. Then the soil turns to a slick mud because of all the clay. Riding in the Land Cruiser feels like being on a winter road in Minnesota, slithering along. And of course the mud is quick to grasp our shoes and not let go.

However, 90% of the people here live off agriculture and need the rain, so the combination of sunlight during much of the day and needed rain later is just what they need. And, we do love the temperatures.