hi..huge torrential rains and windstorm last night thundering down reaking havoc on hardened red mud cow tracks wandering through Handeni up hills and down dales...this morning rendered undrivable, cancelling our trip into the villages, buses have stopped running, allowing for a free day on the internetwhich is happily up and running so far..pray...yesterday got heavily into an email to my kids and the power went off, that's it...patience...
Got the bank account and address of the Handeni HIV/AIDS Positive Organization...27 members,this is a big deal here for people who are positive to come out...the STIGMA of testing positive is enormous, humiliation, embarrasment with family and neighbours, some are suicidal, so to belong to this organization is huge..those who hide away deprive themselves of support and medical assistance....their lot is much worse, we are trying to assure them, that this happens to millions of people world wide that they re not alone...
They asked me inCanda who looks afterthe sick...i try to explain,various organizations, family...friends...welfare...hospital assistance,insurance, etc...they have so little of this here...so
YOU CAN HELP.... Ihopethis is okay with you to be putting out ways to help these people..it is different here, because i know andhave pictures of the very people your donations will assist....their lives are so desperately sad...the basics, there are none...so if you are interested....any amount of assistance is needed:
Donations sent to; Handeni HIV/AIDS Positive organization....
Bank: NMB Handeni, PO Box 123, Handeni, Tanga, Tanzania.
Account number; 4142300435.
As i said, any bit helps...i asked them about seeds here, and told them about what we were hoping to do to help in Zimbabwe...but many seeds don't grow here, it seems..so financial donations are the best....let's seewhat happens! i intend to take these projects home when i get back in February....andkeep them up...
learning about marriage here; eventoday, not just in traditioal ways...the husband to be must give the girls family 4 cows and 8 goats..two cows right before the marriage and two when the first two children are born....the goats right off..plus blankets et....the youngest son must look after the parents in their old age, i likethis idea..johnny take heed!! In the masai tribles, thewarriors can sleep with whomever they wish....if ahusband comes home to find a spear dug into the ground outside his mud hut, he must leave without complaint...the warrior have their ways....hence the HIV population is high with Masai...
i am walkingat least ten miles a day....up hill and down....to get home, i must wend my way carefully through mud and dung pits and holes amongst cow herds and goats bleating and mooing, down to the water source i spoke of yesterday...andthen back up to home...it is easy to find my way, i follow the women carrying empty pails for water...or the guys on bikes with six two gallon plastic carriers strapped on...headingfor the water..all along the way i am saying, :JAMBO...to everyone and anyone who shouts out the same to me, the only MJUNGU (white person) in handeni that i have seen..the children either shriek in terror as i come along and run swiftly back to their mothers hollering,orrace up to touch me...one or the other...nothing in between.
Whenifinally get my way down to the bottomewhere the sourceis, there are about fifteen bikes there waiting to fill up, lots of women, with huge pails of water balanced on their heads,howdo they do it..i amcarrying my litre of bottleddrinkingwater...they all shout, the guys, HOW ARE YOU?? laughing merrily at the sight of this white woman struggling all the way down these hills and going back up...it is all very merry....at the top yesterday i am met by my two four year old boys: Kenneth and Bryson..i am so happy to see them....
Every night we do about a half hour of exercises....yoga, they copy everything i am doing..plus some singing,they are trying to teach me Swahili..i have got about 8 phrases down pat...but that's it..useless!! but trying....
Dinner is around nine. Either the maize flour porriage like national dish called UGALI..same as SADZA in Zimbabwe...which you ball up in your right hand and dip into various sauces, the vegetable, a combo of tomato, onion, carrot...then with bits of beef, or fish...so far no chicken here tho there are lots of them running around freely everywhere...mornings are alive with screeching roosters, quail, the mooing of the two cows right under my window.....Breakfast is usually tea,with ginger...and crepes...rolled intowraps...delicious...
That's it for now...
Lots to look forward to, tomorrow possibly a traditional wedding ceremony...ontheweekend diner with a German woman i just met yesterday...church, Pentecostal with singing anddancing..the head of ICA Tanzania is comingin this weekend as well, I am hoping to organize a safari over xmas andnewyears...andthen on tosomewhere else, this is after this month here.,.,
Take care everyone...itwill be great to catch up with you when i gethome..take notes!
hugs.L