GUESS WHAT? It's finally online! The grant that feels like I submitted a millenia ago is ready and pleading for your help. If you remember, in February I wrote a grant to build new school toilets. Not only do we not have enough to accomodate nearly 500 students, but between you and me, you'd rather find an airy patch of wilderness to relieve yourself than enter the nausea-inducing captivity of the school toilets. But don't you dare do that, because the last thing my village needs in a cholera outbreak. Anyway, I digress. About a month after submitting the grant, a terrible rainstorm destroyed every single toilet. They literally sunk into the earth. Can you say, pee-yew? The students were then forced to use the two teachers toilets convienently located about 300 meters from my house. Can you say, peeee-yewwwwww? So as you can imagine, the timing was ironic and suddenly extremely immediate. School had to be closed early until new temporary toilets were built by volunteer parents. They're made of wood planks and will probably be suitable for a few more months, max.
My grant, to build 18 new, sparkling toilets is online at this very moment. I need to raise $2,398 and combined with my villagers' pending contribution of about $800 we've got some toilets to build! The goal is to have them ready before the next rainy season in November. We can do this! Usually asking so blatantly for money makes my skin crawl. But this is just too important for reservations. Any contribution is significant. What if you can only donate $5? Hey, that buys a kg of nails! Trust me, every dollar goes to something. And the greatest part is, not a single percent funds cushy administration jobs. It's just me and my village. No middle man sticking his finger in the pot. You can be assured that your contribution will go directly toward labor and materials. For years to come, you will have the satisfaction of having helped children poop safely and hygienically. Now that is something you can brag about at a cocktail party!
The website is
www.peacecorps.gov/contribute and select project (Project Number 621-181). The web site is the safest and quickest way to make a donation. You can also make a check payable to Peace Corps Partnership Program and send it to:
Paul D. Coverdell Peace Corps Headquarters
Peace Corps Partnership Program, OPSI
1111 20th Street NW
Washington DC 20526
Be sure to indicate the project number on the check so it will be applied to the correct project. Also, check with your employer to see if they provide matching gifts as many will match your gift dollar for dollar, and remember that your gift supporting this project is tax-deductible!
Together we can prevent diseases like typhoid, cholera, and classroom tardiness. By building sufficient toilets, it is not a stretch to say the quality of thousands of students over the next 10 years will be improved. Just imagine a Save Our Children commercial with the slogan, 'Help our Children Poop Safely!' Catchy, ya? Alright, get outta here and go to the donation website!
A million hugs, Kate
May 3, 2009
No need to read this entry with one hand over your eyes. Unlike the entry below (read that one first!) there is no mention of death, funerals, or dingy government hospitals. This is an entry of hope and a few rays of sunshine as we leave the long rainy season behind. Before you cue the Barney the Dinosaur soundtrack and I ask everyone to hold hands, give me some time to explain. April was a watershed month in productivity. Of course for every hour of work, there are 4 more of Sudoku, day dreaming, and reading the same People magazine for the 35th time. April was a month of Life Skills and English classes, grant writing, and well...there's no snappy two-word name for the rest of it. I'll highlight a few of my favorite current projects.
Chicken Raising-
You've been hearing for awhile about my intentions to raise chickens at the primary school. It's coming together so well! I submitted my grant to Peace Corps-Dar es Salaam almost two weeks ago. After many, many emails of minute and agonizing questions, the grant will pass through inspection with ease and after approximately one month, the $500 maximum limit for this type of grant will be deposited in my bank account. Then the real fun will begin! There is only a small snag in this fabulous plan. It seems my grant has lost somewhere in transit. Whether the Tanzanian postal service 'misplaced' it or it's simply buried under other files in the Peace Corps office, it is M.I.A. In America, this would be terms for absolute fury. Wrath I tell you. A grant, practically my infant child, has gone missing. As you may have guessed, there are no Amber Alerts in Tanzania, and there is also no rush. I will simply mail it again on Monday. Of course it's stressful, and will most certainly push back my start date by a month, I've just gotta roll with the punches. I will keep you all posted on the status of progress.
Upendo Consultations-
Upendo is a word in Swahili that means like or love. It's a pretty dangerous word to have a double meaning. Lots of mixed messages, let me tell you! Anyway, after organizing an orphan census at Mhaji Primary School and reeling by the statistics: 17% of children have lost one of both parents, there are 65 children with one parent and 15 with none, I decided to take action. Although the profit from chicken raising and egg selling will benefit those without parents, who is going to show them some love? I created a new notebook (love doing that!) to chart the progress and condition of every child without parents. I devised a list of questions ranging from how old are you, when did your parents die, do you sleep on the floor or in a bed, what do you eat in the morning and evening, what work do you do at home, etc. Of 15 orphans, one girl, Yunis, the sweetest, meekest child born with a birth defect that left her without a nose, knows her birthday. Some, albeit the younger ones, couldn't even tell me their age. But let's talk about Yunis. Yunis stopped attending school for nearly a year because a former teacher would call on her in class by saying 'Pua' or 'Nose'. She now lives with her teenage sister and her sister's infant child. After school, she heads straight to the farm to weed the corn, which will be the primary source of food for the next year. This is a child who could use some Upendo.
Yunis's missing nose might make her stand out, but the rest of the children are just as scarred. One 10 year old girl lost both parents and her youngest sibling in 2008. All at separate times. Honestly, how do these children endure? Where is that inner source of strength that keeps them stone-faced and brave? Who holds their hand when they're scared and who tells them they have really great handwriting or kick a ball better than any other kid? This is where I come in. Each month I will meet with them one-on-one to check their pulse, so to speak. I'm not sure if they'll ever open up to me, but it's important to know there is someone doting on them. 1 of the 15 children told me he occasionally eats meat or rice, and he may have been lying. Most eat nothing in the morning and in the evening have ugali and a basic leafy green. In case you forgot ugali is corn flour and water turned into a playdough like substance and eaten with your right hand. It can be tasty but has very little nutritional value.
So here is my newest idea. I'm going to start a vegetable garden with the orphans! They will learn how to plant and grow something other than corn and in turn they will take the vegetables home. It would be great to teach them to grow and eat a traditional American salad. Okay, I know this is where every single person that even remotely knows me snickers. You're saying, Kate Elizabeth Glantz, the Happy Meal Queen. What does she know about a traditional American salad? Ya, you're right but I'm turning over new pages everday, so just work with me on this! If anyone would be interested in supporting me in this endeavor, it would be greatly apprecaited. Seeds aren't extremely expensive, but they certainly go beyond my monthly stipend. Because I already have 2 grants open and the capitol needed is relatively small, this is not something that would require the lengthy paperwork of grants. I probably should have looked into this before writing, as I don't know what customs says about sending seeds across borders. (Hey dad, look into this okay?) Anyway, it's also difficult to find a variety of seeds here. Vegetables like lettuce, peppers, zuchini, etc is extremely hard and/or expensive to purchase. If anyone is interested in sending seeds or a very small contribution to help me with this, please send me an email at Kateglantz@gmail.com or leave a comment with contact information on my blog. My parents will be visiting me in June, so sending something within the US would be far more efficient than the cross your fingers luck of the TZ postal service. Then it will be in their hands if they get caught smuggling seeds into Tanzania! That would be a fun start to vacay!
Health Question Box-
One day, sitting on the back of my bicycle 'taxi' to my village, I got to talking with the driver. He was asking me so many questions about AIDS and sex. We are friends so he felt secure in speaking his mind. This amazing and open dialogue got me thinking about the potentially hundreds of villagers that have never been comfortable to so much as say good morning to me. I'm pretty intimdating, don't you think?! Anyway, I started wondering how I could get this silent demographic to warm up. At every government and school office there is a wooden suggestion box. It's the weirdest 1st world tradition to steal. Probably the British that left it behind, those Brits and their politeness. I decided what better way to get a rise out of people than put health ' suggestion boxes' in the most social centers of the village. I immediately ordered two boxes equipped with lock and key and a set of instructions to be posted next to the box. The instructions, although in Swahili, roughly translate to 'Do you have a question about health? Feel free to ask anything about diseases like AIDS, nutrition, family planning, etc. This could all be done anonymously and I promised to post the answers on the wall each week. That way, even people not asking questions have the potential to learn. And because the boxes and answers are in very public places, people will be more apt to discuss the issues together. After one week I got some great questions, some ridiculous ones clearly written by a prankster, and a contigent of drunk men that banded together and word for word copied the same letter, asking me to build them a toilet at the village bar! It's actually a really legitimate request. Whild I have no intention of given them a cent, I will speak with a local leader to see about organizing a day to build one themselves. If they do it efficiently, I might just rescind on my claim of never buying anyone local brew, and have a party for all. 20 Liters of the local stuff would cost me about $8.
6 and 7th grade Tea Parties-
I've mentioned this adorable event before, but there is a new, and slightly funny twist. I had intended the monthly tea parties to be only for the oldest girls, Standard 7. But this month, to put it nicely all of the 7th grade were apathetic little assholes. Ya, I know I just called African children assholes, but teenagers are teenagers wherever you are. The 6th graders, however, really impressed me this month with their attention span and responsiveness to questions and class activities. I had planned to have the 7th grade tea party last Sunday. But as Thursday's class came to a close, I snapped. I told them, pole sana (I'm very sorry) but you do not deserve your tea party this Sunday. We'll see how you do next Thursday and go from there. But then I realized, why not choose the best class each month to treat to the party? It's a very American concept. Bribery, incentive, competion. But I think it just might work. I actually have to hurry home soon to fire up the little charcoal stove and get huge vats of tea boiling. I think it's going to be great!
Village AIDS Testing Day-
On May 21, an NGO from Njombe is coming to my village to perform free AIDS testing to all who come. I'm really excited about this and hope the response is heavy. My goal is for 300 people to be tested. This number is actually quite low but I have no way to judge interest as it's the first testing day. Once the results are in, all who are HIV positive can immediately start treatment. I know it might sound weird or even apathetic that I'm not worried who has HIV. Come on, 15% of my region has it. It's a fact of life, and it's too late for them to teach prevention. For those living unknowingly, they must be tested. If anything they can start having safe sex and prevent their partners current and future from contracting the disease. They can also start ensuring a longer life by beginning ARVs. I have faith it's going to be a great day!
So that's the update. When I'm not doing something productive or relaxing at home, I'm being eaten alive by the cutest children on the planet. They totally know they own me. While most children are scared or simply unwaveringly polite, my rag tag neighbor children literally walk all over me and I love it. Whenever I come home from town or even leave my house for the first time in the morning I get a swarm of children running full force at me, arms extended wide to line up for hugs. I know I've mentioned that I've taught them how to blow kisses when we say goodbye, but HOW CUTE IS THAT? In their little kiddie voices they say 'Kayteeee, byeeeee' and blow kisses until I'm out of sight. One little girl, I'll admit, my very favorite, somewhere picked up the very Euro action of a kiss on each cheek. This is a 4-year old village child we're talking about. Where the hell did she learn how to great like a French woman? These kids just make every inconvience or frustration worth it
And now that you're sufficiently up to speed, it's time to mess around on Facebook before my internet time runs out. Lots of love to you and you and you!
April 25, 2009
Long time no type. I have every intention of being an attentive and informative blogger but in many ways my life has normalized into a routine not worth mention. While nothing I do is common, it's now commonplace. If everyday is a sensation than somewhere it runs into a pattern of normalcy. It's been 10 months in a 3rd world village and I can really hang. Spiders in the house, so what? Ants in my food, pick them out. Twelve hour bus rides of terror, hey that's just Point A to B. However, there are some things that will never cease to make my stomach turn. In recent weeks I have seen too much truth. The Tanzanian health care system outwardly seems progressive. Treatment is free and medicine as well. But first you have to find a doctor to look at you. A Peace Corps friend of mine recently showed up in town at 10 pm with a dying child. In the dank, hardly lit hospital 10pm certainly felt to them like the last hour. There was one doctor and one nurse on staff for the entire hospital. The fact is, no bribe, no rush. Because the family decided not to slip a few thousand shillings in the doctor's pocket, his fate would have to wait until morning rounds. It took about 48+ hours of a gaggle of Swahili speaking, partially jaded by Tanzania Peace Corps Volunteers making a scene to get this child a blood transfusion. He finally got one, but what about the little girl dying next to him? Without too much graphic detail, this girl, probably around 12 years old was in and out of consciousness, lips swollen so large her mouth was never quite closed. Instead, the most horrible, desperate gasps heaved themselves from her mouth like a pathetic plea for help. Where was her contingent of 'white knights' by her bedside? Next to her was a tired looking father, a little nervous and very confused at the constant train of wazungu trickling in and out of the hospital to look at one otherwise not unique child.
Back to the boy who needed blood. Once he received his transfusion there was a massive sigh of relief. He would live and we wouldn't have to awkwardly comfort another family or another friend who has lost a child too soon. A week passed and his condition worsened. He was essentially in a coma. Apparently once you've received a blood transfusion it's essential to check the hemoglobin count again only hours later. This was not done for one week. One WEEK. What did his h.g. count say? Well, it was just about high enough for a toddler. This boy is 16 years old. There is no climax to this story. To be honest, I haven't asked my friend about his condition. Life doesn't stop for one boy.
In fact, while I was visiting this boy in the hospital, completely unbeknownst to me, one of my own 7th grade students was lying nearby in a hospital bed. He died. What do children die of in Tanzania? Very good question. If you did a survey of death certificates, it would say 'flu' or 'anemia' as well as any other variety of common non-life threatening ailments. It should say BULLSHIT. These children are malnourished, have leaky faucets for noses, and simple infections turn into life threatening emergencies due to lack of education, neglect, poverty, and fucked up government hospitals. Excuse the language, clearly I'm a bit worked up. But I know you would be too.
Let's talk about a Tanzanian mourning party! The day a person dies, in my story, the 13 year old boy from my village, the body is taken to a room of the family's house. The boy was placed on a bed in a small room with dirt floors. His body, covered in two wool blankets. The floor; covered in straw mats. All of the women relatives and children in the family sit on the floor and wail. Screaming incoherently, banging their fists, spit flying from mouths in fervor. It's absolutely horrifying. My first thought-get me out of here! I wasn't emotional, just freaked out. As the women really let go, I stared at the body. It was the first dead body I had ever seen, let alone sat two feet from. I could see his rigid outline under the blanket. His joints stiffened in death left the imprint of small knees and boney elbows through the blanket. After about 20 minutes of averting eye contact with everything with a pulse, it was time for all of the 7th grade students to say goodybe. The blanket was lifted and his face was exposed. WHOA, was not expecting that. I wasn't scared and not too uncomfortable. It was sorta nice seeing a very real face to a very real dead body. What came next was heartbreaking. The students came in one by one to wave goodbye. This being Africa with a village funeral nearly every day, I was sure the children were hardened pros. I think I overestimated that sometimes, children are children no matter where you are. Some cried, some were stoic, but to my complete surprise, some were scared senseless. They scampered in and out like a deer in the headlights, absolutely horrified at the site of their dead friend. Try that ritual in America and you'd have a lot of kids in counseling! Finally, one girl said a few words to the deceased boy which for some reason was so touching. In the midst of confusion and fear, a 13 year old girl said goodbye in a manner so moving yet simple, I couldn't help but sniffle and and shed a few tears. Finally, it was time to get up, put our shoes on and sit outside with the grieving men for a few moments. I was served chai and then I left. I didn't attend the funeral because I had to teach. Death is so strange.
