Say Cheese

After reading about Zach and his grassroots organization Friends of Paraplegia, (see previous post “Friends of Paraplegia”) a family in Seattle wanted to help. Since our friends Brian and Jenny were coming, they sent their generous gift with them. Yesterday, on his way to meet a client with a Norwegian volunteer in the backseat of the taxi, Zach stopped by to pick up his donation.

The new camera will enable him to document clients’ needs, report to donors, and chronicle the overall interventions of the organization. 

Watching Zach receive such a generous gift from someone he’s never met was beyond words. I think his smile maybe describes it best.

Friends, and Provisions, Have Arrived

I think I know how the castaways on Gilligan’s Island felt. 

Our dear friends Brian and Jenny arrived this weekend to spend Thanksgiving and their very first wedding anniversary together with us. Sitting outside on the back porch yesterday, I commented how it feels so natural to have them here, and yet wait a minute, we’re in Africa…! Pinch me.

In addition to themselves, they brought a suitcase of long awaited provisions which left us in a post-Christmas morning sort of stupor. Marshmallow Fluff! Soft towels! Mad Men Season 2! Sturdy dishes! (see previous post “To Market”) Books! Four issues of the New Yorker! Kraft Mac n’ Cheese!

The company of good friends and  canned pumpkin in Moshi? I can already tell it’s going to be a memorable Thanksgiving.

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Faces-Outreach Edition

To Market

When I shop in Seattle, it’s simple: I make a list, I get the stuff, I come home. Despite the fact I don’t necessarily enjoy the process, I have access to anything I need or want within a mile radius of my house. I can walk to get fresh seafood, delectable baked goods, gourmet chocolate, a birthday present, or the latest book; a shopper’s nirvana.

 Collectively, we have it really good at home. Thank (or blame) whomever you want for the free trade laws but ultimately, the American marketplace provides its citizens access to inexpensive, quality goods, on a consistent basis.

 Shopping in Moshi, or more specifically, finding access to quality goods and any semblance of value, is an exercise in futility. Our car mechanic, who grew up in Tanzania, calls Africa the “dumping ground” for Chinese goods that wouldn’t meet anyone else’s import standards. From what I’ve seen, I think he’s right. If you can find what you’re looking for, the price usually makes you stop and think twice. Now imagine if you’re one of the majority who earn about $1 per day; an $18 cracked, plastic wastebasket is out of reach. Someone pragmatically told us early on, “It’s expensive to be white.”

 A two-tiered market exists, one for mzungus (whites) and one for locals. The four grocery stores in town that cater to mzungus stock imported items like cereal, wine, (from South Africa priced more than Trader Joe’s charges for the same bottle!) batteries, cleaning products, pasta, condiments, cookies, peanut butter, Nutella, (now a staple in our diet) bad cheese, potato chips, and chocolate. The owners knowingly take full advantage of the captive audience who wants familiar things from home, and charge whatever they feel like because they know they’ll get the asking price. Hence, the $9 cereal, and my personal favorite, $15 frozen fish sticks. Economics 101. Supply and demand, baby.

 Provided you have the money to purchase these “luxury” items, access is also dependent on stock at hand. I’ve learned the hard way, if there’s a product you like, buy as much as you can because there’s no guarantee it will be available the next time you shop. (but not so much that when the power goes out, your stock of refrigerated cream cheese is ruined) Or, sometimes what you want/need isn’t available at all. Recently, shelves were empty of milk and cereal for a period of three weeks, while vacant containers from South Africa sat in Dar es Saalam, unable to return for more goods due to politics, or as one angry storeowner told me, corruption.

 There are no chain stores only street vendors, or small, independent storefronts. On a recent, highly anticipated trip to Arusha (an hour drive away) I hoped to find replacement items for the stuff we bought when we arrived that’s since broken. I went to the much talked about Shop Rite (think Dollar Store), only to leave disappointed. Same junk, different location. 

 What about the people who earn on average $1 per day; where do they shop, what do they buy?

The downtown Moshi open-air market is like an African version of Pike Place Market. A huge tin roof covers a large open space with row after row of vendors selling commodities like rice, fruits and vegetables, fabric, spices, plastic products, hanging fresh meat, dried fish, garden tools, rope and small household items. It’s loud and busy. The smell of raw meat, old fish, and musty grains permeates the air.

Even though there are no price tags in the outdoor market and bargaining is an option, a two-tiered pricing system exists as well. If I give House Mama Mary ten thousand shillings to buy vegetables, she comes out with three times the amount I can purchase for the same price. 

 For household goods and clothing, locals flock to the huge, dusty, stadium sized flea market held every weekend. Nothing is wasted in Tanzania. A maze of stands as far as the eye can see sells nothing but castoffs from the developed world (mostly the U.S.): college sweatshirts, Little League t-shirts, little girl taffeta party dresses, very used shoes, Arby’s polo shirts, knit stocking caps. Even mzungus find bargains here.  It does beg the question: how do these items that appear to be donations end up for sale?

So yes, I have a new-found appreciation for  one-stop shopping at Target. I do miss things like good cheese and fresh seafood.  How about the access and ease of Internet shopping? From where I sit, mind-blowing. After this year, I know I won’t look at shopping the same way again.

How to Save a Life

500,000 women worldwide die in childbirth every year. Many of those due to lack of blood.

The Moshi blood bank is only one of four in Tanzania. Supplies are regularly low or entirely depleted.

The rate of HIV infection in Tanzania is 7 %. Many people fear donating blood because of HIV.

If you knew you could save a life, would you do it?

 DSC_2940Sixty donors representing Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center (KCMC), International School Moshi (ISM), and the local community at large, contributed to the effort of saving lives by donating blood at the first annual Moshi Blood Drive. Stanford medical student and Fogarty scholar,  Malavika (click here for information on the Fogarty program)  and Duke OB/GYN Jeff (click here to read a New York Times article about Jeff’s work in Tanzania with fistula surgery)  joined forces with the local blood bank and ISM to organize the event. Both Jeff and Malavika have witnessed first hand the loss of lives due to lack of blood in Tanzania and thus felt compelled to make a difference.

 Some realities about blood banks in Tanzania… according to Malavika, each of the four national blood banks with their limited resources, sends a referring hospital a certain allotment of blood each week. That’s it. In addition, for remote places of which there are many, blood is sent via public bus unaccompanied, in a cooler, to be picked up on the receiving end. The concept of a public blood drive is unusual here. Blood in Tanzania is usually donated by a captive audience, mostly secondary students who are over eighteen years old and who rarely become ongoing donors.  

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donating outdoors

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post-donation snack table

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phlebotomists are standing by

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doing my part to save a life

Held at ISM and staffed by student volunteers, the event exceeded all expectations. Despite the high temperatures,humidity,and myths surrounding blood donation, donors appeared throughout the day eager to help.  In the end, the amount of blood collected was double what was anticipated.

Will it happen again? “The goal of the blood drive is to prove it’s sustainable both to the ex-pat community who are often skeptical of the ‘one and done’ endeavors, and also to locals,” says Malavika. Sounds like this may just be the beginning.

Golden Delicious

DSC_3036Funny story. Sort of.

The other day, David frantically reported to me someone chopped down our  banana tree. Upon inspection, we indeed saw the remaining trunk of the tree, freshly cut. Gone was the beautiful bunch of green bananas we’d watch ripen for the past several months.  Seems we had a real, live, mystery on our hands. 

Immediately, I’m ashamed to admit, we assumed worst case scenario: Theft. Then I thought, if someone was bold enough to come into our yard and chop down a banana tree, what would they do next?

After a short period of unadulterated cynicism, we asked the workmen who were doing some repairs on the property if they’d noticed anything. They looked at us like we were crazy. Even in my feeble Swahili, I could decipher the explanation: Yes, Boni the gardener, chopped down the tree and placed the huge bunch of almost-ripe bananas indoors, as is always done when perfect ripeness is imminent. I think they thought we were from Mars.

 Sure enough, there in a corner of the garage sat the most perfect bunch of bananas. Mystery solved.

Banana creme, er, humble pie anyone?

What Lurks Inside

This is why we have to check our shoes before we put them on:

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Meet the Clients

DSC_2801Even though he is not feeling well, Zach wants to go. “Let’s go. We said we were going to go, we have to go.” His visibly pregnant wife Maryann helps him out of the wheelchair into the high passenger seat of my Land Rover. He leaves his chair at home. “I haven’t been in a big car like this for a long time,” he says with a grin.

 Since Friends of Paraplegia (F of P) is without it’s own camera, I have offered to take photos of clients and document how the organization has assisted them. Zach hopes to create a website and double-sided brochure with color photos representing F of P.  We pick up Lucy, an Irish doctor who is a short-term volunteer with F of P over the next several weeks. Zach directs me north, towards Kilimanjaro on a road I haven’t traveled before, interjecting anecdotes about the area.

 I’m trying to imagine the same journey on these narrow, dirt, back roads climbing upwards through banana fields in a taxi, which is how he normally visits clients. I’m also wondering how expensive the rides must be because taxis aren’t cheap. Even with a 4WD Land Rover, I’m an uneasy and cautious driver in these conditions.

 After forty-five minutes, we arrive at Avalina’s. The dirt driveway leading up to her property is at a forty-five degree incline, difficult for the old Land Rover to summit let alone a wheelchair. Zach stays in the car while Lucy and I tour the premises. A papparazzi of scrappy, vocal, neighbor children greet us and become noticeably more excited when they see my camera. Avalina, who appears to be mildly developmentally delayed, is smiling, dressed in a pure white blouse, pressed pants and new shoes. “She’s looking really good today,” says Zach with pride. “You wouldn’t recognize her from the first time I met her.”

 Avalina moved into her new, two-room cement house last August, after her previous mud hut was deemed dangerous. She lives with her three school-age nieces, who moved in with her after her sister died. In addition to building the house and toilet, F of P also assists with the girls’ school fees. In the bedroom are two beds; one for Avalina, one for the three sisters. To support herself, Avalina operates a small storefront from a window that was purposely built into her home. Out of the wheelchair accessible window, she sells staples like salt, rice, and soap. There’s an outdoor stand closer to the driveway and road where she’s able to operate her business as well.

Avalina loves to have her picture taken and shoos the neighbor children away so I can focus on her individually. “Nzuri!” (Good) she says, looking at herself repeatedly in the viewfinder. When I try to leave, she won’t let go of my hand.

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inside the storefront

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outdoor storefront

  Fifteen minutes away, we visit Peter, who welcomes Lucy and me with big smiles.  His leaning, two-room, windowless, mud hut is crumbling and looks very close to collapse. His two cousins live with him in the dark space which is scattered with clutter. While Peter faithfully awaits the funds for a cement house, he has begun to collect a pile of random wood he hopes to somehow incorporate into the new structure. F of P previously built him an accessible toilet and provided a chicken coop with chickens. He supports himself selling eggs, chickens, and by repairing umbrellas. Barefoot, in his jury-rigged wheelchair, he shows us the accessible toilet, then speeds up the path to see Zach who’s waiting in the car. Left behind in the dust, Lucy tells me he participated in the wheelchair division of the Kilimanjaro Marathon last year and plans to do so again this year. Peter also routinely pushes himself one and a half hours downhill, half on dirt roads,  into Moshi to do errands.  All my excuses for not exercising suddenly become excruciatingly embarrassing. 

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Peter

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Inside Peter's house

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accessible toilet

Friends of Paraplegia

DSC_2885For some people, it’s hard to keep work and home separate. For Zach, it’s impossible.

 On any given day, there is at least one Friends of Paraplegia client living with Zach, his pregnant wife Maryann, and eight year-old son Michael. Currently, not only is a client staying with them, but also a relative who recently had a baby with nowhere to live after her husband left with someone else. He admits sometimes it’s hard to live with so many people in his modest house, but wonders aloud, “Where else would they go?”

 His house is also his office, including the small garage. It’s filled with corn that’s grown on a nearby plot and harvested by hired help. There is a mini-silo in his front yard, next to the wheelchair accessible toilet, where the corn is stored and distributed throughout the year to needy clients.  “If I go to visit a client, I’ll bring a bag of maize. That way, I know they have something to eat.” Reaching out in informal ways to other spinal cord injured persons has always been a part of who Zach is, long before the creation of his own grassroots organization in 2005. “I’ll talk to anyone in a wheelchair.”

 Such is the general attitude of Friends of Paraplegia’s founder. Counter to the culture at large, he is a self-starter, a motivator, and an advocate for the disabled in the Kilimanjaro region.  Zach credits his older brother, the one who encouraged him during his darkest days, as being his role model for helping others. “If I could only be like my brother in some small way, I would be happy,” he says.

 He is intimately aware of the barriers spinal cord injured persons face in Tanzania. The obstacles are not unlike those in other areas of the world, even the United States. The flagrant difference is the complete lack of infrastructure that physically supports people in wheelchairs. In Tanzania, none exists. Zach explains, “Physical accessibility does not consider us at all. Public places are zero point something percent accessible. There is one ATM machine in Moshi that is wheelchair accessible. I have to literally be carried inside the Kilimanjaro Welfare Office, where the Ministry of Disabilities is located. In general, if I’m lucky, I can enter a front door in my wheelchair, but probably not the toilet. So I have to consider how much to drink before I leave the house in case I need to use a bathroom.”

 “People think you’re inferior because you sit in a wheelchair,” Zach says. “They assume you’re stupid, that you don’t know anything.” The stigma he says, is everywhere in society. “For example, if I’m at the bank with Maryann, they’ll address her even though the account is in my name. When I was very thin in my wheelchair, people would hand me coins and made me believe in my need for charity. We need respect. That’s why I try so hard to help people become independent. I try in peer trainings to show why it’s beneficial to have the disabled in your midst. I tell peers, if you don’t want the coin, throw it away.”

 He goes on, “Relationships are difficult. People are embarrassed to identify with you. Someone may love you but they’re afraid of what people will say. You’re still the same despite the wheelchair; the desires are the same regardless.” Within the family, Zach says there’s inequality as well. “They see you as different than before the accident, they don’t see you as equal. For example, in the case of inheritance, I would be treated differently than my twin.”

 Social stigma exists too. “If I wanted to be a political leader in the community, no one would vote for me because I can’t move. The same goes in the business world. I am not in an advantageous position because of the wheelchair. It says I’m dependent on others for help.”

 Combining his knowledge of the obstacles disabled persons face, with the discontent he felt towards existing organizations that were not, in his opinion, serving in the client’s best interest, he started his own NGO. F of P’s mission statement reads, “To work with spinal cord injured and help them achieve a meaningful life by raising their self esteem and personality.”  For Zach, this translates to providing financial assistance to meet the most basic needs of clients: food, wheelchairs, accessible toilets, beds, accessible homes, income generation for financial self-sufficiency, school fees for dependents, grants for education, medical costs. “I don’t give handouts,” he says. “Handouts make people more disabled. The idea is to help clients ‘walk’, not keep them down. I provide a boat and a net.”

 In 2007, the first official toilet was built for an F of P client; a Dutch student of Zach’s provided the funds. Little by little, money continued to trickle in through the student’s network, which included a group of school children in the Netherlands who donated proceeds they earned through a craft sale. Since then, the student continues to serve with Zach as the NGO’s primary volunteer and fundraiser. At this time, there are no consistent donors. When money arrives, it comes from unexpected sources.

 Zach, through Friends of Paraplegia, has been able to serve many clients on many levels. Sometimes his involvement is short-term, other times he maintains ongoing contact. Regardless, those in need never go away. “The attitudinal barriers here are great. Sometimes, it hurts me knowing about the possibilities that exist for the disabled in other places. In America, you fit into their plan for you, you have resources and tools. I’m not respected here, but in America, if you disrespect me you’ll hear from my lawyer,” he says only half joking.

 Those lucky enough to fall into the NGO’s net, are not ignored despite the unpredictable availability of funds. It may be they have to wait for their toilet, or bed. In the meantime, Zach maintains contact and above all, reminds them they are valued.

 

Part Three-Meet the Clients