Wednesday, February 27, 2019
Friday, July 1, 2016
Save the Date!
This year’s screening will be on Thursday, September 29th. We look forward to seeing you there.
Flight Home
In Abu Dhabi, more of the group broke up. Nick Chiang was flying on to Istanbul for a
connection to Greece. (That was scary,
given the bombing of the Instanbul airport the day before.) Jumana Zahid was headed to her home in
Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. She and Nick
departed for the same terminal. Ivan
left to spend several days in Abu Dhabi and Dubai before heading back to San
Francisco. So, all of a sudden, we were a group of five.
We found our gate and learned what we had to do in terms of
U.S. Customs before going to the food court and having lunch (dinner?) at an
O’Leary’s in the airport. There had been
an announcement on the plane that, during Ramadan, no food or drink could be
eaten in the airport during daylight hours.
I think we were all amazed that an international
airport could restrict food and beverage like that. But we were there after
dark, so we were able to get food.
Later, we went through U.S. customs – minus our baggage – in the airport
and then had another long wait before the flight took off at 2:30 AM.
Some sixteen hours later, the five of us landed in San
Francisco. We retrieved our luggage, and sorted out the equipment for return to
the BECA Cage. Then we said our goodbyes and went our separate ways. Another trip over. It’s always bittersweet; everyone’s so glad
to be home, but it’s hard to say goodbye.
Dar Es Salaam
As soon as we landed in Dar Es Salaam, Ashley said a quick goodbye
to me and headed off to the international part of the airport – a taxi ride
away – with Jumana in tow, to make sure she got to her gate and arrived in time
for the flight. I stayed at the domestic
terminal to wait for the others and to look for the transport from our
Salvation Army hostel in Dar to pick us up. The others arrived, with tales of
landing on a tropical Zanzibar for a few minutes before making the last leg of
the flight.
Finally, we made contact with the taxis from the hostel,
which had been waiting for us at the international airport for an hour before
receiving the call that we were at the domestic airport. Then all eight of us –
with two pieces of luggage apiece -
squeezed into two taxis. We still needed
to pick up Jumana at the international terminal, so one cab headed there while
the other went on to the hostel. Because
phones weren’t connecting in the new city, it took a good half hour to connect
with Jumana. But finally, we were on our way.
By this time, it was rush hour and we were in traffic that
made Arusha look uncongested.
The Salvation Army “compound” was a fenced-in area near the
national stadium. (Soccer, of course!) From the outside, the stadium looks
gorgeous! Inside the fence, there are many (50?) little cottages that contain
two single beds with mosquito netting draped around them, and an adjoining bathroom.
We learned the charge was $25/night for one cottage plus breakfast. Wow!
And there was a big fan in each room to dissipate the heat (84º F) and
coastal humidity. As everyone was tired and ready to go home, we decided not to
leave the compound, but instead, to have dinner there. It was good food in a
pleasant, large dining room.
The next morning we traipsed back to the big dining room for
breakfast. Salvation Army “soldiers” were there this time, dressed crisply in
white shirts and black pants or skirts. Unfortunately, this was the biggest
insight we gained into the work of the Salvation Army while we were there. But
we were surely grateful for the clean, comfortable, and inexpensive housing for
our last night. At !0:00 AM, we again stuffed
ourselves into taxis – this time, three vehicles – and rode to the airport, a
quick ride in the lighter morning traffic.
The plane left Dar at 1:30 PM for Abu Dhabi.
Back to Arusha
The drive back to Arusha was relatively uneventful. By now,
we are used to seeing men and boys herding cows, goats and sheep, and people
carrying huge bundles – on their heads, on their bicycles or in their cars. We
did see Maasai boys who had recently been circumcised. After the initial days of recovery, the boys
wear warrior paint and dress all in black.
It’s not clear to me what the purpose of the attire is, but several boys
dressed in that way were standing along the road, and I was able to get a
photo. Mount Meru, as you approach
Arusha from Karatu, is pretty impressive, as well, and is much more visible than
Kilimanjaro.
We had hoped to stay again at the hostel where we had stayed
enroute from Sinya to Karatu, but Mama Simba’s place was booked up, so we
stayed at a nearby hostel owned by Mama Christina. It was a castle-like structure, and the nine
of us occupied two rooms – bunk beds again.
In the morning, we set off for the airport. The traffic in Arusha is miserable – much
like Silicon Valley, but with poorer roads – and it takes a long time to get
anywhere. Even so, we made it to the
airport with time to spare. That was
good, because we had to sort out the confusion with our flight. Once again, we were booked on a small
propeller plane between Arusha and Dar Es Salaam. BUT, much to our surprise, we
had been split up between two planes run by two different companies. One made a
short stop in Zanzibar enroute to Dar, while the other flew directly to
Dar. Ashley needed to catch an
international flight to Addis Abbaba, a stopover on her way to Lebanon to be
with relatives, and had only a 2-hour window to do it, so she, Jumana and I
flew on the non-stop flight and the others flew on the plane with the brief
stop in Zanzibar.
Tumaini Secondary School
Our final destination on Monday was the new Tumaini
Secondary School just outside the town of Makayuni. Wow! The school opened in
January of 2016 to fulfill a dream of Bayo’s – to start a secondary school to
complement the primary school. And the only word for it now is WOW! It is amazing!
Bayo had been thinking about starting a secondary school for
quite a while, but neither the land – in Karatu – nor the funds were
available. In a rare coincidence, Bayo
offered a ride to a man dressed for business, who was standing along the road,
as Bayo was driving to Arusha for a meeting. The man turned out to be a member
of the city council (or similar government body) from the town of
Makayuni. The man mentioned that the
town was allocating land near town to people with proposals for projects that
would benefit the town. Bayo mentioned
that he wanted to start a secondary school, and the man encouraged him to write
a letter to the city council, proposing that he build the school on land near
the town. Soon afterwards, he was told
that the town was giving the land to him for the school. Within this same time period, Bayo received a
call from TEC founders Carol Hall and Frank Lee, who told him that an alumus
and parent of a Gould School student (Gould brings students to Tumaini each
year.) wanted to donate funds to help with the construction of a school. So . .
. building began, and a year later (!), the school opened!
There is now an administration building with a number of
offices and a large conference room. There is a classroom building with four
sizeable classrooms, as well as a science and technology building that houses
the biology, chemistry and physics labs, and the computer room. Temporarily, the school library is housed in
the computer lab until a separate library building can be built. There are
separate girls’ and boys’ dorms, and there is housing for teachers. A garden, with drip irrigation, stretches
between the two dorms. Between the administration building and the classroom
building is an assembly area and space for netball. Along the side of the
classroom building is the volleyball court, and there is a large space where a
soccer field and a basketball court will be built. The World Leadership group
that was at Tumaini the previous week started building the walkways between the
buildings; it was physical labor that was accomplished in groups of three – one
local workman, one Tumaini Secondary student, and one U.S. student from New
Jersey.
When we arrived, we schlepped our stuff to the girls’ dorm.
We all (SFSU students plus Adrienne) stayed in one large room equipped with
bunk beds, with a bathroom next door.
Then the cooks – who work in a small kitchen building near
the girls’ dorm – presented us with juice and bruschetta as we sat under new
trees, caught our breath, and enjoyed the early evening. Later, we had dinner –
a wonderful meal, served in the other side of the girls’ dorm, which had been
temporarily converted into a dining hall. Then we gathered around a campfire
built in the assembly area, and talked about our impressions of Tanzania, of
Tumaini, both junior and senior, and the trip. When bedtime came, most of us
had no trouble sleeping, even though Bayo warned us that giraffes, elephants
and other wild animals in this dry, arid environment occasionally come up to
the edge of the property. (One night during the school year, elephants broke
down the fence and came onto the school campus!)
The next morning, after a great breakfast, we toured the
buildings and began our shoot. (Note: our Tumaini video, as mentioned in an
earlier post, will focus on sponsorship.
The idea is to encourage sponsoring children at either school, so we needed some footage on the secondary school,
in addition to what we shot at the junior school.) Since exams for the secondary
students are over and no students were around, Bayo and the staff of the junior
school decided to bus the 7th form (oldest) students from Karatu to
the secondary school for the day, both so they could pose as students at the
secondary school for our video and so they could see the school and think about
enrolling there in the year ahead. Their presence added a lot to the shoot. We simulated a class in the computer room for
the purposes of the video. Then some of the students continued looking at the computers
while biology models – a skeleton, an eye and a human body with all the
“innards” – absorbed the attention of others.
I have never seen such an enthusiastic and “hungry” group of students as
those left in the room after the shoot.
Later, some of the girls changed into uniforms to play
netball, again for the purposes of the shoot.
Netball, in case you are wondering, is an Australian (?) game that used
nets slightly smaller than those in basketball and smaller balls. There are specific rules about what a player
can touch, and how she or he pivots – and about many other aspects of the game,
I’m sure. Anyway, two groups of girls had a short game, and then posed for team
pictures. At the same time, a group of boys
were playing volleyball in their Tumaini uniforms.
After the shooting was over, we had lunch – again, a
wonderful meal – and the children had soft drinks as a treat. When the meal was
over, Bayo called each of our names and gave the women pieces of khanga cloth
(Tanzanian fabric that has a slogan or motto written on it) and the men a shuka
(the blanket the Maasai men wear much of the time). It was a lovely gesture.
Then, of course, we had to say goodbye.
The children and Adrienne needed to get back to Karatu before the close
of school so the buses could be used to transport students to their homes. And
we needed to get on to Arusha, where we would spend the night. It was hard to say goodbye, especially to
Bayo, who is such a force of nature in the world of Tanzanian education, and to
Adrienne, who has been so helpful to us while we were here. And of course, the
kids are terrific!
Mto Wa Mbu
On Monday morning, we left Karatu. That meant saying goodbye to our housemate,
Allison, and sports volunteer, Chris, and to Janet Bayo and Agnes and her
husband, who had cooked for us. I think we all really enjoyed being in Karatu,
largely because of Tumaini, but also because there is a community of volunteers
that welcomed us in even for a short time. We also enjoyed staying at the
volunteer house, a great environment for us.
In two cars, with all of our luggage, we traveled to Mto wa
Mbu, a small town between Karatu and Arusha, where we had agreed to shoot some
footage at an orphanage called Children Concern Foundation. Gloria Upchurch,
through A Global Connection, had donated playground equipment for the
orphanage, and she had requested we go there.
Two other Bay Area women have been involved with the orphanage as well.
We toured the orphanage, which had moved to this site about
five years ago. Children are referred to
the orphanage by a government agency.
They range in age from 6 to 18.
Children at this orphanage go to government schools, although they are
hoping to start a school on the site.
Some of the children are also getting vocational training. There are separate buildings for the boys’
and girls’ dorms, and there is a dining hall and kitchen. In addition, there is
an administration building in which there is a large classroom where the
youngest children (those not yet ready for primary school) have class. In the
middle of the campus is a playground, with swings, teeter totters, a slide, and
a jungle gym.
This was our only experience with an orphanage and with
children referred to an organization through the Tanzanian government. It’s
clear that the organization is well run and the children are well cared for.
It’s also evident that the support of the U.S. donors helps a great deal.
We had planned to find a place for lunch in Mto wa Mbu, but
before we had a chance to do that, Bayo arranged for us to take a tour of the
town and have lunch at the end of the tour. The town is attempting to increase
its potential as a tourist attraction and, indeed, it's a fascinating place. We
looked up as we got out of the car, only to see what must have been hundreds of
storks in the tops of the trees. We learned later that they are in the process
of migration. That, in itself, was amazing! But the town is known for its
banana production – and especially for red bananas. We learned that bananas are used for eating,
for cooking and for making banana beer. Red bananas, like the yellow ones we
know, are used for eating. It is the green bananas that are used for cooking.
Our tour was through a banana-growing “forest” where we
learned about banana cultivation, the flowers at the ends of the stalks of
bananas, and the fertilization of the land – with elephant dung - to prepare
for growing bananas. The town depends on
bananas because they are not seasonal; they grow all year. That means
continuous revenue for the town. In
addition, we learned that one banana plant will only grown one bunch of
bananas. After that, it is cut down to
make way for a new plant. Our walk
through the forest including the precarious crossing of a plank over a river,
and took us to a workshop where several people were making articles out of
wood. There was some ebony and another
kind of wood. The products – statues, masks, salad tongs, etc. – were
beautiful, but we had seen most of the items in other stores, and no one wanted
to buy anything. Then we arrived at the
place where we had lunch. A variety of
foods were being cooked outside over a fire. After a short wait, the cooks
served our lunch – an array of food including two kinds of rice, ugale, a meat
stew, vegetables, salads, and much more. It was an amazing spread – and
delicious!
After the meal, we went to the Maasai market in Mto wa Mbu,
where a number of us made purchases of items to take home. The market is a
tourist paradise, with masks, wooden statues, beaded jewelry, shukas, and other
items for sale. It is also a place to
bargain – and we did just that. Our
suitcases became much heavier before we left the market.
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