Mwaka Mpya

The Holidays have come and gone, and I don't seem to be any wiser about the human condition. Even now I wonder at how I am able to spend 2000 shillings on using the internet when I could buy lunch for the poor Tanzanian down the street. I guess constantly going through these feelings at least means that I am questioning. I share food when I'm asked for it anyway. This is not a defensive statement, but I've been reading "Mountains Beyond Mountains" the story of Paul Farmer and it's hard not to feel like a shmuck.

Cooking a turkey for 45 orphans at the Iwambi center for Olive Branch for Children was a fun adventure. I was happily roped into it by Deborah, the founder and executive of the NGO. She turns out to be a wonderful neighbor only an hour and a half away from my site.

A little more than two weeks ago I escorted a guard at the school to the hospital. It seemed that he had elephantitis of his right leg, but I wanted to get x-rays to make sure that it wasn't actually an infection that had entered the bone. They only cost 2000 shillings (see what I mean). Luckily we didn't see any weakening of Elias's shin and he had already gone through the anti-trichonosis regimen (which only somewhat helps). In any event I saw the hospital and found out that there would be a doctor from Finland visiting to speak about UKIMWI (HIV/AIDS). A couple of days later I met in the conference room with hospital staff and the good doctor--who's name I have shamelessly forgotten and will fill in later. I made some excellent contacts in the hospital and among members of the Lutherin Church who are doing work to mitigate the impact of UKIMWI in my district. I look forward to future collaborations with some of my students and community leaders/activists.

I'm also exploring the idea of a media literacy project in Tanzania. After a comment made by a gentleman in his fifties about his children incessantly watching television and the people of Tanzania having only recently been exposed to many images of westernized media, I realized that this could potentially be having a serious effect on peoples' behavior. It'd be interesting to put together a survey to see how many of my students watch television on a regular basis and what they consider to be true to reality in the programming. All this is in it's infancy stages (ie knocking around in my brain) but I end up attempting to put together something of a media production corps in order give young girls the knowledge and power to produce their own mass media messages. We'll see where this goes.