1.31.2008
The news in Kenya
The pictures and the news from Kenya are shocking. Nobody predicted things would go this wrong this quickly, and it is hard to reconcile the flaming cars and machete-wielding crowds with what I saw when I was there.
One of the largest flashpoints right now is Kisumu, the town where I spent my summer in 2006. Some of my friends who live there have fled to Nairobi to avoid the mobs that have looted even local schools as the students fled the approaching crowd. When I was there, I was charmed by the dreamy lakeside feeling, the carwash/fried fish places, the hordes of bicycle taxis that are the town’s primary mode of transportation. I can’t imagine it now—shops on the main street looted, the few local Kikuyu families killed or driven out with police escort, buses burned in the main stand where we started our weekend trips. I wasn’t there long enough to know the local politics in and out. A lot happened in the local language that I missed. But I never ever would have believed it would be a site for riots and ethnic cleansing.
For now, the impact in Arusha has been small. Prices are up, again, and there are an unusual number of tourists, as the overland trips shift from Nairobi to here and people reschedule their Kenya vacations. Tanzanians with relatives in Kenyan schools are nervously watching the situation, and one of our Kenyan staff was delayed coming back from Christmas break as her police-guarded convoy passed through road blocks set up by local thugs. The whole time, the road to Nairobi has been open. But mostly we, like the rest of the world, are just nervously watching the news.
One of the largest flashpoints right now is Kisumu, the town where I spent my summer in 2006. Some of my friends who live there have fled to Nairobi to avoid the mobs that have looted even local schools as the students fled the approaching crowd. When I was there, I was charmed by the dreamy lakeside feeling, the carwash/fried fish places, the hordes of bicycle taxis that are the town’s primary mode of transportation. I can’t imagine it now—shops on the main street looted, the few local Kikuyu families killed or driven out with police escort, buses burned in the main stand where we started our weekend trips. I wasn’t there long enough to know the local politics in and out. A lot happened in the local language that I missed. But I never ever would have believed it would be a site for riots and ethnic cleansing.
For now, the impact in Arusha has been small. Prices are up, again, and there are an unusual number of tourists, as the overland trips shift from Nairobi to here and people reschedule their Kenya vacations. Tanzanians with relatives in Kenyan schools are nervously watching the situation, and one of our Kenyan staff was delayed coming back from Christmas break as her police-guarded convoy passed through road blocks set up by local thugs. The whole time, the road to Nairobi has been open. But mostly we, like the rest of the world, are just nervously watching the news.
Timber
I started thinking last Saturday, when the power was out all over town, and a crew of men came and chopped all the branches off the tree across from our office. In town, the lady at the supermarket told me that the power company had switched off all the power to avoid being electrocuted as they trimmed branches that were encroaching on power lines around town.
Sunday afternoon I was driving in my neighborhood and saw a row of full grown trees that had been chopped down to jagged stumps. Over the felled branches, my neighbors crawled like a horde of termites, hacking off the leaves and trimming the boughs to firewood length and bundling them onto the heads of children. Free firewood, what a lucky day.
I thought of the logging trucks that come rumbling down through one of the areas we work, in the foothills of Mt. Meru. The big trucks stop halfway down the mountain and unload all the poles, whole trees really, in an incredible display of grunting and muscle, onto borrowed lots. Another truck winds its way up the mountain and the men reload the poles, using ramps and sticks and rhythmic chanting to get all the trees back on. As the reloaded truck rumbles down the hill, chickens and children and women with firewood on their head scatter.
An old Swedish man lives in the same mountain foothills and gives every villager a free sapling who asks for it, but farther up the mountain, the former forest is now fields of potatoes and beans marked by red jagged stumps. A nearby ravine is too steep to farm and shows the tangled jungle that these tidy rows replaced. I gasped when I saw a colobus monkey jumping among the vines and the children accompanying me laughed.
Driving outside of Lusaka in Zambia in 2002, we saw miles and miles of scorched earth, the trees harvested for charcoal for the hungry capital. In the slums there, it is sold in gunny sacks and the people selling it are blackened by the soot.
Sunday afternoon I was driving in my neighborhood and saw a row of full grown trees that had been chopped down to jagged stumps. Over the felled branches, my neighbors crawled like a horde of termites, hacking off the leaves and trimming the boughs to firewood length and bundling them onto the heads of children. Free firewood, what a lucky day.
I thought of the logging trucks that come rumbling down through one of the areas we work, in the foothills of Mt. Meru. The big trucks stop halfway down the mountain and unload all the poles, whole trees really, in an incredible display of grunting and muscle, onto borrowed lots. Another truck winds its way up the mountain and the men reload the poles, using ramps and sticks and rhythmic chanting to get all the trees back on. As the reloaded truck rumbles down the hill, chickens and children and women with firewood on their head scatter.
An old Swedish man lives in the same mountain foothills and gives every villager a free sapling who asks for it, but farther up the mountain, the former forest is now fields of potatoes and beans marked by red jagged stumps. A nearby ravine is too steep to farm and shows the tangled jungle that these tidy rows replaced. I gasped when I saw a colobus monkey jumping among the vines and the children accompanying me laughed.
Driving outside of Lusaka in Zambia in 2002, we saw miles and miles of scorched earth, the trees harvested for charcoal for the hungry capital. In the slums there, it is sold in gunny sacks and the people selling it are blackened by the soot.
1.22.2008
At home
The cast of characters at home includes Butch, the Vicious Puppy, Julius, the Gentle Guard, and Glory, the Best Friend. We also have a rotating cast of visitors including my friends from back home, Glory's friends from church, Julius' friends from who knows where, and some stray cats that Butch gives what for.
The house is very comfortable. Three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a living room, and a kitchen; hot water and a big tank so that we are not subject to water shortages (just power outage
s). It's pretty much all furnished now, including a vanity for Glory and a reading table for me. We cook and eat and watch DVDs or read or talk. Sometimes I play with Butch until I get tired of being savagely mauled. Recently, Julius and I have been transferring the plants to new pots, a fun project that involves getting muddy and fending off Butch attacks. Sometimes, though, I am exhausted from work and fall asleep without showering, my dirty feet hanging off the edge of the bed. I wake up at some point to turn off the light, and then the next morning when light comes through the window.
s). It's pretty much all furnished now, including a vanity for Glory and a reading table for me. We cook and eat and watch DVDs or read or talk. Sometimes I play with Butch until I get tired of being savagely mauled. Recently, Julius and I have been transferring the plants to new pots, a fun project that involves getting muddy and fending off Butch attacks. Sometimes, though, I am exhausted from work and fall asleep without showering, my dirty feet hanging off the edge of the bed. I wake up at some point to turn off the light, and then the next morning when light comes through the window. 1.14.2008
Help us, we're broke!
All joking aside, we really do need more resources to continue the work we've started--preventing new HIV infections, and caring for those who are living with the virus in northern Tanzania. Here's more from our Executive Director:
Help SIC win Parade Magazine's Giving Challenge by donating $10! The eight organizations with the most donors by January 31st win an additional $50,000 , and this is money we sorely need to maintain the quality of our services as we expand into a new region of Tanzania in 2008. You can donate by clicking here. (Note: This is not the same as giving through Facebook - donations in the challenge must go through this link.)
This is an opportunity to give a $10 gift that will make a real difference, since it is the number of individual donors for each organization that matters. If we win, the power of your donation will be multiplied many times over by the $50,000 prize. Please consider passing this on to friends and family. We have over 250 volunteer program alumni, and if everyone donates and persuades three friends to donate, we will be comfortably in the lead despite a late start. Making a donation yourself and asking others to do the same are great ways to support the organization.
Note that because we are use the Network for Good online giving system, we are listed in the US domestic section of the competition. However, all funds raised will be used in Tanzania. We are listed under our old name, since we can't fundraise as 'Support for International Change' until our paperwork is approved by the IRS.
Please take two minutes and $10 to support SIC in 2008.
Happy New Year,
Matthew Craven
Executive Director
Support for International Change
www.sichange.org
Help SIC win Parade Magazine's Giving Challenge by donating $10! The eight organizations with the most donors by January 31st win an additional $50,000 , and this is money we sorely need to maintain the quality of our services as we expand into a new region of Tanzania in 2008. You can donate by clicking here. (Note: This is not the same as giving through Facebook - donations in the challenge must go through this link.)
This is an opportunity to give a $10 gift that will make a real difference, since it is the number of individual donors for each organization that matters. If we win, the power of your donation will be multiplied many times over by the $50,000 prize. Please consider passing this on to friends and family. We have over 250 volunteer program alumni, and if everyone donates and persuades three friends to donate, we will be comfortably in the lead despite a late start. Making a donation yourself and asking others to do the same are great ways to support the organization.
Note that because we are use the Network for Good online giving system, we are listed in the US domestic section of the competition. However, all funds raised will be used in Tanzania. We are listed under our old name, since we can't fundraise as 'Support for International Change' until our paperwork is approved by the IRS.
Please take two minutes and $10 to support SIC in 2008.
Happy New Year,
Matthew Craven
Executive Director
Support for International Change
www.sichange.org
A new year in Tanzania
Well. It's been quite a while since my last update, and I've spent a long time trying to figure out how to share everything that happened. I guess I can start with last August, not long after my last update, when what started out as a misunderstanding at a weekly staff meeting escalated very quickly into basically a strike by the Tanzanian staff. All fingers were pointing at me. My boss was called in, and the board of directors in the US, over allegations that I was difficult to work with, moody, and mean. Not being used to self-doubt, I took the whole thing like a punch in the stomach, and that might be why I haven't sent an update in a while.
Things were much better after a couple months. We managed to have very friendly and productive contract talks and the atmosphere in the office is much lighter, much more fun. Some of the staff told me that they understand me better now, and I feel like the work I've put in to building relationships has been very well received. But five months ago, I thought everything was fine too...
As that crisis abated, I was able to settle comfortably into the grind of this job and the nightly routine of falling asleep in my clothes. One of the most gratifying aspects of my position--the variety of tasks that it encompasses--is also one of the most frustrating. On a daily basis, I am responsible for the accounting, reports, driving, what's going on in the villages, meeting potential donors, "networking", writing proposals, answering emails, overseeing car maintenance, purchasing, hiring and firing, and keeping morale sunny. Plus the occasional task that comes up. The night before my plane took off for the States for a vacation, a few of us were wrapping up details in the office when we heard the sound of falling water. Our office had flooded from the upstairs (don't ask) and we spent two hours mopping, moving furniture, and bailing water out of the building in buckets. It was time for a break.
In the event, my Christmas vacation was more of a whirl than a rest--time with my family and with friends from high school, college, and graduate school--a kind of movie-montage version of my old life in America. I enjoyed it, a lot, and managed to mostly skip over the culture shock, finding myself only occasionally disoriented in supermarkets and traffic. I wasn't really ready to get on the plane, but the day arrived, and suddenly I was back in Tanzania. Stepping out of the plane, the humidity of a Tanzanian summer night felt welcoming and warm. Driving back to town, I was overcome by the smells--cooking fires, banana trees, dust. They were so familiar and yet as exciting as the first time I landed here, more than five years ago.
So the Emily Update is back, emilysworldview.blogspot.com is back, and I am back where I want to be, even when it's hard.
Things were much better after a couple months. We managed to have very friendly and productive contract talks and the atmosphere in the office is much lighter, much more fun. Some of the staff told me that they understand me better now, and I feel like the work I've put in to building relationships has been very well received. But five months ago, I thought everything was fine too...
As that crisis abated, I was able to settle comfortably into the grind of this job and the nightly routine of falling asleep in my clothes. One of the most gratifying aspects of my position--the variety of tasks that it encompasses--is also one of the most frustrating. On a daily basis, I am responsible for the accounting, reports, driving, what's going on in the villages, meeting potential donors, "networking", writing proposals, answering emails, overseeing car maintenance, purchasing, hiring and firing, and keeping morale sunny. Plus the occasional task that comes up. The night before my plane took off for the States for a vacation, a few of us were wrapping up details in the office when we heard the sound of falling water. Our office had flooded from the upstairs (don't ask) and we spent two hours mopping, moving furniture, and bailing water out of the building in buckets. It was time for a break.
In the event, my Christmas vacation was more of a whirl than a rest--time with my family and with friends from high school, college, and graduate school--a kind of movie-montage version of my old life in America. I enjoyed it, a lot, and managed to mostly skip over the culture shock, finding myself only occasionally disoriented in supermarkets and traffic. I wasn't really ready to get on the plane, but the day arrived, and suddenly I was back in Tanzania. Stepping out of the plane, the humidity of a Tanzanian summer night felt welcoming and warm. Driving back to town, I was overcome by the smells--cooking fires, banana trees, dust. They were so familiar and yet as exciting as the first time I landed here, more than five years ago.
So the Emily Update is back, emilysworldview.blogspot.com is back, and I am back where I want to be, even when it's hard.
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