Back in Karatu

It feels like coming home to return here. It was wonderful to see Jolene, the country director, and the staff again and be greeted as familiar friends. It is so beautiful here. It is warm, sunny and breezy; perfect Minnesota days. There has been rain so it is green, unlike last year. The rolling hills and mountains are a wonderful contrast of red and green. Some of the trees are blooming, and of course the birds are amazing.

We plunged right into our project. We had sent the questions we wanted to ask in the villages and Jolene and Innocent had organized them and made some changes. So we started from there, and had it translated by a very talented young woman, Rehema. Her English is excellent and she could quickly translate the documents. She happened to walk into Jolene’s office the week before we arrived looking for work, which was so fortunate for us.

We were eight in the Toyota Land Cruiser going to Endobash where we spent the week in the guest house there. We visited a different village each day, and each village was different.

When you visit a village you sign in with the village officer. We were able to interview these men, several farmers, traditional birth attendants, young single mothers in the Survive and Thrive Groups and some shopkeepers. We saw several schools and visited the wells or pumps. The village people were, as last year, happy to see us and most generous to spend an hour with us answering detailed questions about agriculture, transportation, water issues, family, work and other aspects of village life. Our days were long, but very interesting.

Some of the issues that stand out: schools are generally overcrowded and understaffed and resourced. One primary school we visited has 800 students and 8 teachers. They use benches with attached tables for desks, which is common here but the children were so crowded that I don’t know how they could write. Still there were not enough desks for the 118 students in the room so many had to stand at the back of the room. In one village a TZ NGO had planned to build two classrooms. But the village chairman was very effective and organized village labor so they were able to get three rooms for the cost of two.

In talking with one of the farmers who had good English, he asked how big farms were in America. When I told him several hundred hectares, he said “That is not a farm, that is a plantation!” Some farmers here are lucky enough to be able to plow with bulls, but once the crops are up the fields are full of men and women with hoes working very hard.

The last village we visited was very isolated. They were about 6 kilometers off the road. The village road was clearly washed over during the rains. Several stretches were just rock jumbles. We were one kilometer from the meeting site when the road ended in a drop off into a dry gully. Often the car can drive down into these and up the other side, but it was so steep and deep that we could not cross. So we walked the rest of the way. But this means the village is cut off now, even when it is not raining. How do they get a pregnant woman to a clinic? The houses here were very spread out, so it seemed very sparsely populated. The water source, a spring, was about 3 kilometers from the site of the office and the only one for the whole widespread village. Life there is clearly very hard. Yet this is the place we saw many white butterflies flitting among the flowering shrubs and trees.

We had a new cultural experience. Rick got up Monday morning to find a goat hanging from the tree outside our room in the courtyard of our guesthouse. They proceeded to skin and slaughter it right there. Then on Wednesday, they did it again. Our tree had a crook in the branch at just the right place, I guess.

Another interesting experience: we stopped at a Catholic mission in one village. There were women sitting under trees in groups waiting to have petitions heard. We walked over to one group of about 12 to interview them. Soon, the women were migrating from every direction; I suppose to see what was going on. Soon we had over 60 women and even some men in our group. Some were very outspoken in answer to our questions and clearly wanted to be heard.

We also enjoyed some stimulating after hours discussion with staff about various issues in the country and the challenges they face.

This week we are in the office translating Rehema’s notes, compiling the information to see what we know. Then, it will be out to the field again.