On My Way!

I am leaving in about an hour for Tanzania. I am in a bit of a dream state about the whole thing. It doesn't seem real! I am so thrilled and so nervous. It will be great to see the people and the places that I connected with last year. Last year it was a feeling of homecoming when I arrived, we will see what happens this year!

I am excited about getting started with our work. I feel unprepared because we don't have set up meeting with the individuals that we need to work with. It could take us two weeks to track down somebody. Tanzania Flexible Time (TFT) will be our first challenge. We have a few people in Moshi that know we are coming and will help us in the right direction but a lot of our time there will be trial and error. I am putting my 'learning cap' on and know it will be an exciting, and trying, time.

I will keep updating the blog as time and power allows, there are frequent power outages this time of the year due to drought. I can't wait!!

First Trip Back!

I am going back to Tanzania on the 29th of this month! We (Meghan, Jennifer, and I) managed to find time to go back at the same time and we took it! I can't wait.

On this trip, we will be meeting with the sisters at Upendo to set up the flow of money and to establish ourselves in their eyes as a sustainable source of income. Many mzungus tell them they will help but most do not follow through. We are doing our best to make sure that we will not leave them behind. From there, we will be talking with people from the local primary and secondary schools. We will also be talking to a couple other orphanages and street kid homes to get as much information as we can for our future ventures.

You have probably noticed that I use the word 'sustainable' quite frequently. To make our organization sustainable will be a huge task. The transition from an influx of donations to a sustained income over a period of time is difficult, and I can't do it without your help.

To make ourselves as sustainable as possible, we will tell each institution that we work with exactly what we will fund and what we won't. At this point, we are funding tuition, uniforms, and a few necessary school supplies like workbooks and writing utensils. Upendo has about 20 students that need to be funded for the 2009 school year (Jan-Dec).

They will need:
Pencils
Erasers (these cost a fraction of a cent)
Workbooks (about 10 cents)
Uniforms (10 dollars)
Shoes
Tuition (from 40 to 100 USD for one year. At primary school, this includes one meal a day).

I am accepting donations which will be pooled with those gathered by Jennifer and Meghan that will be used on our trip to Moshi. Every penny of the money will be used to support these kids and their education. We are funding our efforts and our trip out of our own pocket.

At this point in time, because we are a new organization, we are unable to offer a tax write-off. To achieve this status, we need to be in existence for 15 months -- something to look forward to! We are currently looking for donations from 1 to 50 dollars.

Thank you for reading and for having patience with us as we grow and learn in our effort to bring education to the at-risk children of Moshi, Tanzania.

THANK YOU!

A New Foundation: The Drawing Board

Even today, I have mixed emotions about leaving Tanzania. The hardest adjustment for sure was not being able to be as useful as I know that I can be. The coolest thing about volunteering in a country like Tanzania is that you are able to give of yourself completely and have a great influence. I missed that feeling when I came home the most.

I thought frequently of the teens and the women that I worked with and was haunted by a sense of abandonment. I knew that more volunteers came after me to continue where I had left off. For example, Jipe Moyo (the woman's group I worked with) now has a building that they meet in rather than a yard. They have regular classes and meetings and are now doing outreach themselves.

The best way to handle the emotion of being home and helpless was to talk with other volunteers who were there with me. Through this communication, Meghan, from Portland, Ore., and Jennifer, from New York, and I came together in agreement that we could pour our energies together to create an organization. We decided we were all passionate about creating a sustained effort and have spent the last few months working to make that happen.

We decided to focus on education for at-risk children, primarily orphans. The term 'orphan' is different from what you expect. An orphan in Tanzania, and most African countries, refers to a child who doesn't have a support system. Orphanages are a Western idea brought in in recent years. For the most part, kids with no support system, meaning a parent or two have passed or are unwilling/unable to support them, go to live with relatives or neighbors. They are, in a matter of speaking, absorbed into the community.

That said, they are an at risk population and are unsupported by the non-existent state. There are many non-profits and grassroots organizations, like churches for example, that have made a point to support orphans, but as usual these function in such tiny microcosms that each and every orphanage is funded differently.

One place that we grew to know in Moshi is an orphanage called Upendo (meaning love in Swahili). Upendo is run by a group of Catholic nuns. There are 60 kids from newborn to 6 years old at Upendo. These are children who are unsupported by their families. In some cases, this is because the kids have a debilitating disease themselves. The younger kids are kept in a nursery and those age 4 to 6 are in a school setting. Once the kids are 6 years of age, they are either sent back to their family if one exists or they are sent to live on their own. At six years old. Some end up in street kids homes and some survive (or not) on their own in Moshi.

Because we are a very new organization and need to start in a functional place, we are going to start by funding the school program at Upendo and then fund each graduating class to go to primary school. We will meet with the primary schools to set up scholarships and to brainstorm ways for these children to have housing. There are some homes for kids going to primary school and children who are attending school are more likely to be accepted back by a family or a neighbor. In primary school, they are given one meal a day which takes a lot of burden of a family hosting an orphan. Remember, though, that the sense of community is very different than here. The family unit is only one part of the community. The community takes care of each other regardless of blood ties.

Supporting Upendo with school fees for the older kids and supporting the graduates is an achievable task. There is a graduating class of about 20 kids each year, a reasonable number for a brand new organization like ourselves. After we are able to sustain this support, we will move on to other at risk children, including those at other orphanages, and those at street kids homes. In many cases, the youth at the homes for street kids are male. The younger females either get taken into other families or are married.

Every day at the beginning of the school day, the kids in every school in Tanzania repeat after their teacher "Education is the Key to Life". We understand this and see it as the path for the opportunity to have a fulfilling life.

The Inevitable Return: A Year Later

As most of you know by now, I am returning to Tanzania on the 29th of January for a brief two week stint. This is to get you up to date on where I am now and to invite you to follow my journey as two other past CCS volunteers and myself attempt to create our own non-profit to support those that we met there.

Returning from Tanzania was not easy, to say the least. I was immediately overwhelmed by the rushing pace of life and the continual demands on my time and energy, in a completely different way. Immediately after my trip, I traveled in England with Marty (my now fiance) and then to Hawaii with my family. Neither the bustle of London nor the craze of mzungu tourists in Maui allowed for a smooth transition, but perhaps it was better to not ease into it.

To say that I thought (think) of Tanzania frequently would be a drastic understatement. It was continually on my mind. I tried not to overwhelm those with questions with too much information or too long of a story, although those who know my eagerness to talk know that this was difficult. The most frequent question I got from those brave enough to ask a question other than the requisite "how was it?" and "what did you do" was "weren't you scared?" I guess that it never occurred to me while I was there to be scared. Yes, I felt uncomfortable at times and I was aware of certain dangers. But are you scared when you step into your home at the end of the day? To me, going to Tanzania was like going home. I immediately felt comfortable and at ease. Part of this, admittedly, were the plush conditions provided by CCS, but the other part was an internal recognition of where I was meant to be.

My mother, among many wise people I have encountered, have always told me to 'follow my bliss'. I am sure that none of them meant for me to follow it to a third world country.

I am so thankful for my experience, for the people who made it possible, for those who inspired and encouraged me along the way, and for those who I met while I was there. You are an inspiration, and I hope to see you all in a couple weeks!