Week One- Chawamaki

My first week here was overwhelming, moving, and inspirational. We had orientation the first two days here. We got a tour of town and were introduced to my fellow volunteers. I am living in a room with five beds, but I just have two roomies- Fiona from Australia and Beth who is from Nevada. They have both been here for 6 weeks. They were super helpful in my adjustment to living here, letting me know where things were and what the house norms were.

We have volunteer placement from 8:30-12:30 each day. My placement partner is Brittany, from Madison, WI. We are getting along really well. Our first placement was working with a group of HIV positive women called Chawamaki and a group of HIV positive teachers called Tapoti. On monday, we were introduced to Mama Helen who single handedly runs both of the groups. Just meeting her was inspirational. Mama Helen is a petite, soft spoken lady who is HIV positive, earns money for her family, runs these organizations, cares for her family and is a widow. She makes almost every other woman I have ever met look lazy. We learned about both of the groups and on Tuesday we went to Chawamaki. Chawamaki has four on-going projects, each started by past volunteers. They have chickens, and sell the chicks and eat the eggs, they rent cell phones that were donated to them, they have a garden to grow fruit and veg, and they have pigs. They sell the piglets. The money goes to keep the projects up and running and also to help sustain the women who are often working to support their families and are running on low energy due to their HIV meds.

Going to Chawamaki on the first day was a life changing adventure. We met Mama Helen and Mama Judith (the chairwoman of the group) at a government building that they use as their office. This was a small, one room concrete building in the middle of a field. We chatted with the Mamas and met the government official who ran the building. The mamas decided that we were much to far from Mama Judiths house, so we walked to Mama Judiths house. We walked for about a half an hour through genuine jungle. We saw mud houses and people working in fields. The most exciting though was that we saw two different types of monkeys, one large one and several small jumpy ones. This was crazy. When we got to Mama Judiths house, we saw the chickens and the pigs that belong to the group. There is one pig that was going to give birth any moment, three other full grown pigs, and about 6 piglets. We helped to feed the pigs, something I had never done before. Then we sat in Mama Judiths house to talk about the group.

Mama Judith told us that they only had two more days of pig food. They just sat their staring at Brittany and I with the expectation of emerging check books. We were told strictly that we were not to give the groups money but it was so difficult after meeting the pigs and after talking with the Mamas who want nothing more than to help this group flourish. We tried to come up with immediate fund raising activities but there was nothing else we could do. The pigs were going to starve. The other projects that Chawamaki has going are, for lack of a better word, equally dead. The garden can not be used because they are waiting on a water pipe from the government (never going to happen), the cell phones are all dead or stolen from the group, and the chickens have mysteriously stopped laying eggs.

That we were helpless was a difficult but important realization for us to make. Each of these projects were started by past volunteers that had good intentions and well thought out plans, on paper. In reality, however, each project was simply not sustainable. It would not be fair for us to support this group with a bandaid. I had brought with me to Africa an abundance of book knowledge on this topic but seeing it on the ground affirmed my belief that many of these groups, good intentions aside fail quickly without sustainable funding and proper education about running a business. After much reflection and support from our peers, Brittany and I decided that there was nothing we could do for the group. This was a very difficult thing because I have always wanted to work with a grass roots organization and I felt a twinge of failure and guilt as I stepped down from my placement. I still think about Mama Helen and the pigs frequently.