Project Kesho Blog

Winter 2010 Update

2010-04-26T20:05:00.000-07:00

Kibati Primary School

Our plans for the new primary school in the Kibati part of Lundamatwe Village are right on schedule. This project has been almost completely done by our on the ground worker Abbas Sanga. He and I (Elliot) planned and budgeted for the classroom, office, and bathroom and he has facilitated the project in my absence. To refresh your memory we are partnering with the local community to start a new primary school in Lundamatwe Village, approximately 4.5 miles from the main Lundamatwe Primary School. The new school is being built to deal with the growing influx of students and overcrowding at Lundamatwe Primary School and to allieviate the problem of some students haveing to walk almost two hours (8 miles) each way to school.

Little Angels Primary School

Ian paid a visit to Little Angels Orphanage and Primary School in Mityana, Uganda three weeks ago. Currently at the school there are 400 kids enrolled, 200 are orphans and 68 are living at the school. Sarah, the headmaster, ran out of space to house all the kids so she is renting a nearby room for $75/month for 40 girls to sleep. All 200 orphans all get porridge at breakfast and lunch and the 68 orphans who live there receive breakfast, lunch and dinner. During Ian's visit he helped to facilitate and donate money for several projects, including the foundation of a new classroom building, cleaning of the overfull bathroom hole, building a hand-washing station, and purchasing two small goats to be sold at a later date.

Secondary School Sponsorship

Project Kesho has continued to sponsor boys in Lundamatwe Village to attend Secondary School. We started our sponsorship program for boys because there is already a group called CAMFED (Campaign for Female Education) from the United Kingdom which exclusively supports girls. We started supporting boys at the beginning of 2007 and currently support three different grade groups of about 75 students. This year we also started supporting 16 students from Little Angels Primary School to go to secordary School.

Relay Races at Little Angels

More Races

A crowded classroom at Little Angels

Little Angels is so overcrowded they have to hold some classes outside

A view outside the lower classrooms at Little Angels

Children waiting for lunch at Little Angels, the Kitchen is right around the corner

Another crowded classroom at Little Angels

Some of the new Secondary Students at Little Angels sponsored by Project Kesho

The foundation of the new classroom building at Little Angels

Digging the new bathroom hole at the Kibati Primary School in Tanzania

Villagers transporting brick for the Kibati School

More work on the Bathroom in Kibati

The empty land for the new Primary School in Kibati

Working on the foundation for the Kibati School

The finished classroom and office that is the start of Kibati Primary School

Some of the newest group of Secondary School students sponsored by Project Kesho

The finished kitchen at Ulonge Primary School

The Doctor (right) and the nurse at the Village Dispensary with the delivery kit donated by Project Kesho

Fall 2009 Update

2009-12-17T16:03:00.000-08:00

Since the summer staff left in September, Elliot and Abbas have been very busy with projects, interviews, village meetings, and budget writing.

Primary School Update:

Since the summer the Standard 7 classroom at the Ulonge Primary School has been completed, and desks have been built to accommodate the new class of students that will start in January. Project Kesho is very excited about the completion of this classroom. When we first started working with the Ulonge community in 2007, there were only four completed classrooms at the primary school. Over the last two years, by partnering with the local community and other nonprofit groups, we were able to facilitate the construction of three classrooms and additional office space. Now, all the children in the Ulonge community are able to go to school in their own community as opposed to walking the four mile round trip to the Lundamatwe Primary School. Next spring, we will facilitate the construction of an additional classroom to house a Pre-Primary class. The Pre-Primary class is similar to kindergarten in America. It helps to get students ready for Primary school and also provides the students with a feeding program. Currently, the teachers of the Ulonge Primary School are conducting a Pre-Primary class during the school’s lunch hour and we are currently constructing a kitchen area. The kitchen area will make the feeding program possible and Project Kesho will be working to facilitate the proper classroom space in the spring of 2010 for the Pre-Primary classroom. Project Kesho has been working with the Kibati community over plans for a new Primary School. The Kibati community is located in a remote part of the Lundamatwe Village. Parts of the community are 5 miles one way from the Lundamatwe Primary School (the closest school). During this past summer, Kibati Community leaders approached us about their desire to have a Primary School in their community because of the great distance. Project Kesho was very excited about this development and were eager to partner with the community. Because of the community’s intense desire to have a school and assurances from the necessary government officials that a school here will be certified, we have decided to move ahead with the construction of a new school. During the fall and winter, we will be facilitating the construction of one classroom, an office space, and bathroom facilities for the school. We anticipate that these construction projects will be completed by the spring of 2010, and after that we will begin the task of getting the school certified by the Tanzanian government so that they will assign a head master and the proper number of teachers.

Clean Water:

Working with representatives of local communities, Elliot and Abbas have identified two new sites for borehole construction. In the past, we were concerned about the quality of the water that the boreholes we constructed were pumping up. While we are still concerned about this, further investigation into the issues surrounding clean water have lead us to question the cleanliness of how people are storing the water once the water is brought home. It is great if the water that is pumped to the surface is clean and safe to drink, but if that water is stored in an unsanitary container it negates the advantage of using a pump and borehole. Through our continued presence in these communities, we have learned that many people do not have a sanitary storage container for storing household water. Building off this newly acquired understanding of the water situation we have adjusted our approach towards clean water. We are now more concerned about treating drinking water and storing it in a clean container. To address this, we have partnered with a local Anglican priest who has been working to address these very same issues through an approach called Solar Disinfectant (SODIS). SODIS works by using sunlight to disinfect water in plastic bottles. It is recommended by the World Health Organization for the safe treatment of drinking water and the safe storage of water. It is remarkably easy to do as well—one simply has to fill up a bottle of water and let it sit in direct sunlight for 6 hours. The water is then cleaner than if you had boiled it ten times. We are implementing this at the schools, starting with the Ulonge School and then moving to the Lundamatwe School. We plan to provide every student with two bottles, one to use for drinking during the day while the other is in the sun purifying the water for the next day. This local priest has been conducting the training sessions at the schools. Once this takes off at the schools, we will be expanding training sessions to community groups throughout the Lundamatwe Village. We will also post illustrated instructions and demonstration areas near the previously constructed boreholes.

The following two pictures are of the completed Standard 7 classroom at the Ulonge Primary School.

This is a picture of the construction of the new kitchen facility at the Ulonge Primary School:

This is the new borehole in the Viwengi community of the Lundamatwe Village. This provides a year round access point to water for this community that saves the people a 2 mile round trip to collect water:

The following are two pictures of the SODIS training at the Ulonge Primary School:

Elliot helping to deliver water bottles of the students at the Ulonge Primary School to use to sanitize their drinking water with SODIS:

A picture of the Matungulu community of the Lundamatwe Village where the new borehole will be located:

Summer 2009

2009-07-26T05:18:00.000-07:00

Summer 2009 Work Team:

Besides myself, our work team for this summer includes five people: Jessica Cagley is interning with Project Kesho this summer. Jessica is a grad student at the Evans School of Public Affairs. She is working on an evaluation of our previous work . She has been and will continue to spend a lot of time in the schools with the teachers and students. She has been organizing meetings with village leaders and community groups. She plans on conducting numerous teacher and student interviews as well as household interviews and focus-group type discussions this summer. The information she will gather will allow us to more accurately plan our future programs. Jessica's husband, Casey, was in Tanzania for about three weeks and just left. Casey works in the music industry and brought about 60 recorders (the flute-like instrument) with him. Casey taught the 5th grades at the Ulonge Primary School for a week and then the students were able to take them home with instructional books. Abbas Sanga has been working for Project Kesho all year and he will be working again this summer. His work has been invaluable for us and continues to be so. For this summer we hired a female translator, Deborah, to work with us. She will mainly be working with Jessica so that Jessica can conduct female only discussion groups. Having two translators also allows us to split up into groups and accomplish more in a day! Elliot will be joining us later as he is in Ethiopia on his honeymoon.

Summer Projects:

School Support:

The classroom for grade 7 at the Ulonge Primary School was started by the village government in May of this year. They only had a limited amount of money, so the classroom is about two-thirds complete. Project Kesho will facilitate the completion of this classroom over the next month or so.

There is a new school in a remote part of the village that is scheduled to start construction this fall. Students in this community and others nearby walk 3-5 miles each way to the Lundamatwe Primary School. So a school in this community will allow them to stay closer to home for their schooling, and help relieve the over-crowding problem at the Lundamatwe Primary School. We will be meeting with local community leaders over the summer and fall to see how we can help.

Clean Water:

The boreholes and pumps we installed last year are doing well, but the demand for the water often means there are long lines. So this fall we plan on installing several more in other parts of the village. This will relieve demand on the current pumps and create access to clean water in other communities of the village.

Evaluation and Needs Assessment:

Jessica's work picks up where our Community Needs Assessment (CNA) left off. In the summer and fall of 2007 we conducted a CNA to determine how best we could assist the village of Lundamatwe. Our findings from the CNA has guided our programs and projects for the past two years. Now Jessica will step in spend time this summer evaluating the progress of our work and see what impact it has had. The results from her work will help us plan future programs and determine how best we should spend our limited resources.

The above picture shows Jessica on the right standing next to Deborah. The other two women live in the Ulonge community of the village. Jessica and Deborah held a discussion group with these two women and three others who are part of a women's group that pooled their money to buy pigs as an income generating scheme. They are pictured in front of the p>ig pen for their pigs.

In this picture is myself in the middle with Casey and Deborah. We are sitting on the front step of Abba's parents house in the Lundamatwe Village.

Here is Abbas practicing driving the motorcycle. Where is your helmet?!

These two pictures show Casey and the 5th graders at Ulonge learning to play the recorder.

The above picture shows the unfinished grade 7 classroom at the Ulonge Primary School. Below are students at the same school.

The above picture is a view down one of the side streets in Iringa.

This is a picture of the stores in the Lundamatwe village by the side of the hard road. In the background is the Lundamatwe Primary School.

This is a picture of the market in Iringa. Because of the high altitude of Iringa (5,000 ft.) and nearby different altitudes (a two hour drive can take you to either 8,000 ft. or 2,000 ft.) the market has a wide variety of goods.

A road side stand on the way from Dar to Iringa.

This is Happy. She is the daughter of a neighbor of Abbas.

This is Ansley. The son of Abbas.

Little Angels Update

2009-06-22T13:29:00.000-07:00

June 2009 Little Angels Trip:

Part of Project Kesho’s work involves supporting a privately run primary school and orphanage near Kampala, Uganda called Little Angels. There are 350 students in kindergarten through 7th grade that attend the school. Of the 350 students, 150 are orphans, and 70 of the orphans live at the school. On the first of June, Elliot, Abbas our Tanzanian friend and Project Kesho staff member, and I boarded a bus from Dar es Salaam bound for Kampala. The bus ride took us about 30 hours of nonstop riding. For the most part the roads have been improved, and we actually managed to get some sleep during the overnight part, unlike the last time we rode the bus.

Since so many of the students at Little Angels are orphans, only about half of the students are required to pay the modest school fee of $10 per three month term. However, most everyone in the village is quite poor and many of the students have trouble paying the modest school fee (there is no public school within walking distance). As a result, Little Angels has trouble meeting their monthly budget, let alone spending money to improve the physical structure of school buildings or to adequately feed and house the orphans who board. Our goals for the trip were to address both their immediate needs as well as their long-term needs.

Rainwater Collection System:

There are two types of water available at Little Angels. There is a slow moving stream located near by and there is also piped water available. Water from the stream has to be boiled, which requires the use of firewood or charcoal that has to be purchased. The water that is piped has to be purchased from the government. Often times when there is not enough money the orphans who are boarding are forced to either drink the dirty water from the stream or go without. Since this part of Uganda has abundant rainfall the leaders of the school asked for a system that would collect rainwater. This simply involves gutters on all the roofs with the runoff collected in large tanks. This way the water can be used immediately or stored for a later date. We also shared with the school leaders our knowledge of using solar radiation to treat water. This is done by putting unsanitary water into clear plastic water bottle and then leaving the bottles in direct sunlight for 6-8 hours. This will allow the school to have clean water even in the dry season.

Beds and Bedding:

The orphanage part of the school lacks enough beds and bedding. Currently the younger children sleep five to a bed and the older children sleep three to a bed. The school leaders requested the purchase of additional beds and bedding. We were able to purchase two additional bunk beds as well as four new mattresses and blankets and bed nets. This will reduce the number of children sleeping per bed as well as providing better mattresses and bedding.

Other Projects:

We purchased food to last a couple months. We hired a local carpenter to repair the roofs and walls of many of the classroom to prevent water from coming in during the rainy season. We purchased general medical supplies for the school to have on hand and we also took several sick children to the hospital and paid for their care. We also purchased a cow and a goat for the school. These animals can be sold at a later date and the money can be used to purchase several additional animals. In the future we hope the school can have many animals that can be used as a sustainable income generating system.

This picture shows the Little Angels School and the surrounding area.

In the above picture are some of the orphans who board at the school. Little Angels provides a safe and loving environment for these children to live in.

This picture shows the water tanks being unloaded from the truck. These tanks will be able to store a combined total of about 400 gallons.

The pictures above and below show children enjoying clean water that was sanitized by solar radiation.

Little Angels Update

2009-06-09T08:40:00.000-07:00

Elliot, Abbas, and I rode the bus up to Uganda on the 1st of June. We arrived at the Little Angels Orphanage on the 3rd. For the past week or so we have been pricing out options for different projects and talking with the school staff about the best way to spend our money. We have come up with the following budget:

Rain Water Catchment System: We will install gutters and large tanks to collect and store rainwater. This will increase the amount of water the orphanage will have to use, and cut down on their water bill. Along with this project, we passed on our knowledge of how to use solar energy to sanitize water. $400

Beds and Bedding: The children who sleep at the orphanage are currently crammed 5 to a bed. We will be purchasing 2-4 more sets of bunk beds, mattresses, bednets and blankets for the children. $200-$400

Food: We will be purchasing food for the orphanage and school. The tuition fees that are charged are just enough to cover the cost of the teachers each month. Of the 350 students, 150 are orphans (65 sleep at the orphanage). Of the rest of the students, many come from poor families that are often not able to pay the full amount. As a result, most months the teachers only receive part of there salary and the orphans go hungry for days at a time. So we will be leaving behind enough to cover them for a month or so. $200

Animals: The orphanage currently has a cow, a goat and 20 or so chickens. The cow is pregnant and provides a little milk, the goat will be sold soon for money and the chickens provide maybe 5-8 eggs a day. We are going to buy another female cow and possibly some more goats and chickens. Both can be bought cheap when they are young and then sold for double the original price. One goal for the future is for the orphanage to have a steady revenue stream from raising animals to support their own food needs. $200-$300

Health Needs: There are ten orphans who are HIV positive. Uganda just started a free testing program, so soon the rest of the orphans will be getting tested soon. Elliot and I are trying to wade through the Health Care bureaucracy to see if there is an ARV program near the orphanage, as one student is quite sick and several more are on their way to being quite sick. We will also be resupplying their first aid kit. $100

We are about $300-$500 short. Since we are here now and the exchange rate in very favorable (it is 30% better than a year ago) Elliot and I would like to spend as much as we can now. If you feel so inclined a check can be sent to Project Kesho, PO Box 677, Bellevue, WA 98009-0677, or you can donate online. Thanks! Pictures and video will follow when I'm back in Dar next week.

2009-05-14T12:48:00.000-07:00

Spring 2009 Project Update:

During the second half of 2008 Project Kesho focused work in several main areas: facilitating the installation of clean water sources in highly populated areas of the village, continuing our support for the village clinic and working with the primary schools and community members to increase classroom space at both the Lundamatwe and Ulonge schools.

Classrooms:

During the fall of 2008, Project Kesho completed its goal to complete one classroom at each primary school before the new school year started in January 2009. At the Ulonge Primary School we constructed both a classroom and office space for the teachers. This is the third and final teacher's office needed at Ulonge. One classroom at the Lundamatwe Primary School was also constructed. It is a very large classroom so it can be used as a classroom as well as for community meetings and events. Both classrooms have been painted with age-appropriate educational material.

This picture shows the newly completed classroom at the Lundamatwe Primary School. The addition of this classroom has reduced class sizes and provides an additional community meeting space for villagers.

Lundamatwe Primary School students sit in their newly built classroom at desks also furnished by Project Kesho project funds. After this picture was taken, the classroom was also painted with educational murals to enhance student learning.

Clinic:

During the fall and winter of 2008 several changes took place at the village clinic. The doctor for the previous year and a half left the area and went back to medical school. A new doctor replaced him in September but was not paid by the District for his first two months of work. The Kilolo District discontinued its regular medical supply updates that were common during the previous summer. This resulted in the clinic having little more than basic medical supplies during the fall and winter of 2008, and as result the care the village residents received diminished. An under-trained village nurse completed the day-to-day operations due to the doctor’s absence. In November the village endured a large storm that caused part of one side of the clinic roof to collapse. No one was hurt, but the gas-powered refrigerator was ruined, along with the vaccinations inside. The District has not replaced the refrigerator as of March 2009. So the regular vaccinations of children in the Lundamatwe village and the surrounding villages have been discontinued.

Project Kesho has continued to help the clinic through these tough times by giving doctor requested medical supplies on several occasions and by holding village meetings to promote the services offered by the dispensary and the importance of health care in promoting a healthy society. Previously, the residents of the village underutilized the health services of the clinic. During these village meetings, several myths surrounding the clinic were addressed. Villagers were concerned that there were only a few medicines at the clinic and that the doctor was not present on a regular basis. Both of these items were untrue and the villagers left the meetings with a greater understanding of the services available and the doctors availability at the clinic.

This picture depicts the medical clinic near the Lundamatwe Primary School after extensive storms caused major roof and supplies damage. The roof has been repaired, but damage to supplies included a loss of vaccines and operable refrigerator.

Water:

This year Project Kesho facilitated the construction of 5 water projects located in highly populated areas of the village. All five of these projects are short depth wells, three of them have pumps and two are simply bucket drawn wells. All three boreholes with pumps are located near the primary schools, which are the most densely populated areas of the community. One of the other boreholes has been placed near the village dispensary to provide it with a clean and accessible source of water while the other borehole is situated near two roads in a densely populated part of the village, called Lusaula, which is about 2 miles from the center of the village.

The above borehole and attached pump is located near the Lundamatwe Primary School. It provides a second source of clean water for the highly populated region of the village.

The above borehole and pump is located near the Ulonge Primary School. Villagers used to walk over a mile each way to get needed water.

Planned Projects Summer/Fall 2009:

Ulonge Classroom: $6,000 This will be the seventh classroom at the Ulonge Primary School. Constructing this classroom will allow students in the Ulonge community to remain in their home school for education rather than walking the four mile round trip to the Lundamatwe Primary School.

Lundamatwe Classroom: $6,000 The current enrollment at the Lundamatwe Primary School is over a thousand students. This large number of students requires that some grades share a classroom (each receiving instruction for only half a day), while other classrooms have seventy or eighty students in them. The classroom that was built last fall has helped relieved some of the overcrowding and another one built this fall will go even further.

Clean Water Projects: $2,500 The five boreholes that were built last year are currently providing clean water in three populated areas of the Lundamatwe Village. These boreholes are still the only sources of clean water in these communities. Project Kesho has identified five more potential sites that have a surrounding community that is without clean water. Besides installing more boreholes, Project Kesho will be working with community leaders to establish a village-wide Water User Association (WUA). The WUA will provide community members with a voice in how their water is managed and will work within the existing Tanzanian Government’s Rufiji River Basin Management Association.

Clinic Support: $1,000 Project Kesho’s support of the village clinic will continue to be multi-faceted. One method of providing support will be continued provisions for medical supplies. The majority of the money spent last year was on medicine that was used to treat students at the schools who were suffering from various skin and eye infections that are prevalent in the village. This year Project Kesho will be expanding our health outreach to address the needs of those not attending the schools. Project Kesho will also continue advocating for the health needs of these communities through our contacts in the Kilolo District Government.

Community Organization: $3,000 Project Kesho is currently working with residents of the Lundamatwe Village as they organize themselves around several projects. The residents of the village are organizing to address the needs of orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) in their village. OVC's facing many additional hardships, including limited educational success, and are vulnerable to becoming malnourished and sick. A network of residents will help to first identify the OVC's in their communities and then work to address their needs. Secondly, the residents are forming a Water User Association (WUA) to manage the water resource in their communities--this includes the newly dug boreholes. This WUA will work under a national Tanzanian Government framework for managing water.

Stay tuned for a funding update and ways you can help!

Project Update

2008-12-07T12:35:00.000-08:00

The following is an Update from Elliot:

Since my return to Tanzania in October many changes have been happening in the villages and many projects are being completed. The classroom and office at Ulonge Primary School are finished, painted, and ready for windows. The Ulonge borehole near the school is also finished and will provide this part of the village with a clean water source throughout the year. In fact, there is so much water in the Ulonge borehole that when we were pumping out the water to line bricks on the inside of the hole we pumped for two hours straight and still there was over 2 feet of water left in the bottom. We are currently building a borehole in a part of the village called Lusaula, although this project will be a little different because we will not be putting in a pump, only a well to be used with buckets. There is not enough water in Lusaula to support a pump because it is very hilly there. If we were to put a borehole in the lower elevations of Lusaula there would be a lot of water but it would not be clean as this is were many cattle are taken throughout the year to graze and drink. Near the Lundamatwe Primary School, where there are many shops and houses, we are going to construct another borehole as the first one near the school is overused. The classroom construction project at the Lundamatwe Primary School is also coming along well and is ready for a roof. The timeline for the completion of this project is before Christmas so it will be ready for the new school term in January. Work at the farm, which we have named Chogi Farm after a nearby hill, is also proceeding well. Some friends of mine from America came to volunteer and did some work both at the Ulonge borehole and at the farm. At the farm, they helped to complete the fencing and they helped to strengthen and support the roof with longer nails. They also started building the walls around the bathroom. We are hoping to have animals soon at the farm but still need to complete a few things. We did start trying to grow a small amount of broccoli plants, about 150 plants, and they were growing well until mice came and ate all of them. So, we will devise a new way of growing, probably bringing the plants inside every night (they plants are grown in buckets). One sad note in the village is the clinic. Currently the doctor is not coming because the District is not paying him. There is one village worker at the clinic who has minimal training to give shots and dispense some medicine but her skills of diagnosing problems is very limited. Now that it is the rainy season malaria cases are on the rise in the village. The clinic says they get between 20 and 30 cases a week now and medical supplies are dwindling. The District has not re-supplied the clinic for several months. When Project Kesho donated a few supplies last week, the clinic said they have not been re-supplied from the District since before Project Kesho donated supplies at the end of October. The clinic also experienced some structural damage during a recent storm that blew off part of the roof and left a gaping hole, which allowed a lot of water to get inside. The rain not only ruined the drop ceiling but also partially damaged the propane-powered refrigerator. While it still works, the dials have broken and some of the medicine and vaccinations were ruined. It has been several weeks now and the rains are still coming and the District has not yet fixed the problem, but hopefully they will soon. More news to come, Elliot Below is a picture of the new classroom and teacher office space at the Ulonge Primary School. The classroom is painted and ready for the new Standard 6 students in January! This is a picture of the new borehole in the Ulonge Community. The Ulonge School is in the background of the picture. This borehole is the only clean water in this part of the community: This is a picture of the new Lundamatwe classroom. A roof will be put on this coming week, and then it will be painted and completed before the opening of the new school year in January. A second classroom will be built in the Spring of 2009. Once completed, these two new classrooms will go a long way towards alleviating the overcrowding at the Lundamatwe School. This picture shows additional work done to the borehole near the Lundamatwe School. Bricks were added around the top of the borehole to keep water from washing into the top of the borehole. Water collects in this area during the rainy season and we don't want it to wash into the borehole and contaminate the water that is already down in the hole.

Updates

2008-10-14T11:53:00.000-07:00

Elliot left for Tanzania on Monday. He should be back in the village the following week or so. While he was home, work on our projects continued. Project Updates: Classroom: The classroom at the Ulonge Primary School is almost complete. The walls are up and the roof is on. All that remains is to plaster and paint the walls. Farm: The floor was cemented in preparation for becoming a chicken coop: The farm infrastructure is now complete and Elliot will facilitate the purchase of the animals in early November.

Orphan Support Program

2008-09-25T13:51:00.000-07:00

Project Kesho has been working to support the Orphan and Vulnerable Children (OVC) population at the Ulonge and Lundamatwe Primary Schools since the fall of 2007. The need in both these communities (as well as the rest of East and Southern Africa) is great. *Currently 12 million children in Sub-Saharan Africa are orphaned as a result of HIV/AIDS, and this number is expected to rise in the near future. *The percent of children in Tanzania under the age of 18 who have lost at least one parent to HIV/AIDS is 11%, while in the Iringa Region, where Project Kesho works, the percentage is 16.2%. *More than a quarter of the students attending primary school at either the Ulonge or Lundamatwe Primary Schools are orphans. Last fall we sponsored 35 students to attend secondary school who were unable to pay either because they are orphaned or vulnerable. This year we have been expanding our work to focus on the entire OVC population of the Lundamatwe village (which includes the Ulonge community). This program will consist of three distinct facets. The first will be the identification and training of local village volunteers to conduct home visits. Volunteers will be self-selected and suggested by key community leadership, including church ministers, school officials and council members. Project Kesho’s program associate and program staff member will use their contacts with the school and local churches to recruit willing volunteers, with the Tanzanian staff member serving as the program coordinator. The program coordinator will be responsible for managing the network of volunteers and providing administrative support to the network. Training will be provided to the volunteers. The second facet of this program is the creation of a sustainable animal farm to provide a source of food, education and income for this population of orphans. The goals of this farm will be to supply a sustainable and self-replicating way of providing nutritional support to both the orphans and their foster families and to provide a means for income generation for the orphans and their foster families. The third facet of this program will be to provide for the educational, health, and psychosocial needs of the orphans. The needs will be identified by the network of volunteers. Once the needs of the OVC's are identified they can be brought to the attention of the Program Coordinator and Project Kesho. We will then work to address these needs. The construction of the farm started in early July. The farm consists of building to house chickens and supplies, a fenced area for goats, and another fenced area for growing premium vegetables, which will be sold to local expats. The building to house chickens and supplies is now finished: The following picture shows the farm building under construction: We all pitched in to dig the hole for the bathroom at the farm (yes, this is becoming repetitive, but I think it highlights the lack of sanitary facilities all across Africa). This pictures shows summer volunteer (and all around cool guy) Sam Ziegler doing his share: The following are two pictures of some "helpers" that showed up: To begin to recruit volunteers for the home visiting network, we invited Furaha Dimitry, who is the Chairman of the Executive Committee of African Communities, a network of community-based organizations (CBO's) in Dar es Salaam to conduct a community meeting in Lundamatwe. Over 80 people showed up! Of the 80, 10 people expressed interest in joining a volunteer network to address the needs of the OVC's in their communities. Over the next couple of months we will be holding more meetings in other communities so that the network can be up and running by early 2009. Abbas is currently in Dar, training with Furaha and his CBO so that he can conduct future community meetings. Over 80 people in one classroom! This is Furaha leading the meeting:

Classroom Construction

2008-09-25T13:20:00.000-07:00

This fall Project Kesho is facilitating the construction of two new classrooms. We are working with the local communities to construct these classrooms. A deal was struck between the respective communities and Project Kesho detailing how the classrooms would be funded. The respective communities were (and will be for future classrooms) responsible for securing bricks for building (either by making them or purchasing them), gathering large stones that are used for the foundation, and responsible for digging the foundation. Project Kesho is responsible for the rest of the supplies and paying labor for the construction. The local communities are responsible for roughly 15-20% of the construction costs and Project Kesho is responsible for the rest. Community support, either in terms of money or volunteered labor is important because it creates community ownership over the project. The community is able to take pride in its accomplishments and will be more likely in the future to support repairs or upgrades to existing projects. Also, by providing money or volunteering time, the community shows Project Kesho and our donors that they think the project is important to them and they do not view the project as just a handout, but rather a partnership. One classroom is at the Ulonge Primary School, and one is at the Lundamatwe Primary School. The classroom at the Ulonge Primary School also incorporates an attached office for teachers. This gives teachers space to plan lessons and grade papers. This classroom will house the students who are currently in Standard 5 and who will be moving up to Standard 6 in January at the start of the new school year. The construction of the classroom at Ulonge is almost complete. Currently at the Lundamatwe Primary School, students in Standards 1 and 2 share a classroom with one grade coming for a morning session and the other coming in the afternoon. Once this new classroom is completed they can both attend school for a full day. The residents of the Lundamatwe community are currently collecting money and gathering supplies to support their end of the bargain. We anticipate that this classroom will also be completed before the beginning of the new school year in January. The bags of cement needed at the Ulonge Primary School are pictured below. The price of cement has risen almost 25% since this time last year. As the global price of oil has increased it has had a trickle down effect on many parts of the local economy. Transportation costs to bring supplies from Iringa to the construction sites have more than doubled, and the price of lumber has increased because it costs more to bring the lumber to the mills. This pictures shows the trenches that the local community dug for the foundation of the school. The classroom after just a week of construction work. In this picture the office for the teachers is on the left and the classroom is on the right. The rest of the school is on the opposite side of the rooms.

Abbas Doing Manual Labor!

2008-09-17T15:38:00.002-07:00

Our work in Africa would be nothing without Abbas. He does so much more than just translating. He is actively involved in every step of every project. However, Abbas definitely prefers to not do manual labor and get his clothes or (especially) his shoes dirty. So when he picked up a hoe I couldn't resist filming, and Elliot also egged him on for the benefit of the video. We love you Abbas!!!

Borehole and Pump Update

2008-09-17T15:38:00.001-07:00

Update: Here is a picture of the final pump setup. The borehole is on the left in the picture, a child is pumping in the middle and on the right in the picture is the output hose where a lady is filling her bucket. As discussed earlier, we have been working to bring clean water to the communities of Lundamatwe and Ulonge. We are please to say that the borehole and pump have been completed at the Lundamatwe Primary School, and is being heavily used. The setup consists of a hand-dug well about 18 feet deep, which was then bricked up on the inside to keep the walls from caving in, and then the top of the well was capped to prevent foreign objects from getting inside. A platform was then built next to the borehole for the pump to sit on, with one hose going down inside the borehole and one hose that brings the water to a filling station. The video below shows several steps along the way. The end of the video shows our opening ceremony, were the borehole and pump were officially handed over to the school and the community. So far the water appears to be clean and safe to drink. Elliot and I drank it on several occasions with no side effects. When the rainy season is over, and the water table is at its lowest (late November), we will get the water officially tested. Plans are in the works to facilitate two more boreholes before the end of the year. One will be at the Ulonge Primary School. The water table in Ulonge is lower than Lundamatwe, so we are waiting to dig until the end of the dry season so that we know for sure how deep we have to go. We are also planning on facilitating a borehole in a different part of the village. However, this will be more of challenge. Since the pumps we are using are designed for Africa, they are lightweight and portable, which makes them easy to steal. Having the pumps near schools means that a teacher can be responsible for bringing the pump out every morning and taking it away at night. So before a pump can be put in a more remote part of the village an organization will need to be created that will be responsible for managing the pump. The following pictures show the various stages of construction:

Apologies!

2008-09-17T15:38:00.000-07:00

I apologize for not posting to the blog while I was in Africa! The computers in the internet cafes that we have used in the past for uploading pictures and videos all seem to now have viruses on them. Elliot got several virus on his computer as a result. So we just decided to wait until I got home to post to the blog. The next several days will see many posts go up!

Update from Elliot

2008-06-19T14:25:00.001-07:00

For the past couple of weeks Abbas and I have been working to bring clean water to the two communities of Lundamatwe and Ulonge. First we are getting a pump for the borehole by the Ulonge Primary School. Unfortunately the borehole near the Lundamatwe Primary School and the clinic is contaminated, so we have hired local workers to dig a new borehole. The hole needs to be dug down about five or six meters, to the water level, and then lined with bricks and cement. The top of the whole will then be covered and the area readied for the pump. The pictures below show the progress of the two sites: At the Ulonge Primary School the workers are constructing a base where the pump will sit. The pump does not sit right over the hole, but rather sits off to the side (where the bricks are) with a hose from the pump going down into the hole. See here for one in action. Near the Lundamatwe School and the health clinic a worker is digging the new borehole: The health clinic in the village has just received a new refrigerator. The refrigerator can run on either propane or electricity. The doctor told me he should be getting vaccines for tetanus, tuberculosis, measles, polio (not yet eradicated but last reported in the area two years ago), diphtheria, proteases, and hepatitis B. The World Health Organization helps to pay for these vaccines. The pictures below are of me working at Abbas’ parent’s home in the village taking sunflower seeds out of the flower. This is simply done by hitting the flower with a stick until all the seeds our out. Sunflower seeds are used to make oil, but, like America, children love to snack on them:

Update from Elliot 2

2008-06-06T10:56:00.000-07:00

Work in Tanzania is progressing very well. The rains have stopped and the weather has cooled considerably. Abbas and I have been meeting with a lot of people to discuss ideas and programs. We have met with the headmasters of the community schools, school boards, and government officials to discuss both their ideas and ours about the concerns surrounding the AIDS orphans in the villages. We have also been discussing the problem of overcrowded classrooms and what to do. Both schools are overcrowded, especially the Lundamatwe Primary School where some classes have close to 90 students per class. The Ulonge Primary School needs a standard 6 classroom for next year (if it does not get one these students will have to go to the Lundamatwe Primary School further exacerbating the problem there). With regional and district governments concentrating their efforts on secondary schools, it is hard for primary schools to receive money to build classrooms. What the government is funding in the village is the clinic, which recently received a refrigerator, which will run off of propane tanks. I was unable to obtain a picture, as the doctor is in the next town over taking classes, but the nurse explained to us that obtaining the refrigerator is a further step for the maternity ward area of the clinic. The dispensary also needs a refrigerator to store needed medicines to store vaccinations. Abbas and I have also done more research on a water pump and we think we have found a solution that will work for the village, although one is not enough for a village of this size. The pump (in the picture) is cheap (under $100), durable, readily available in town (including spares), and can work in borehole less than 7 meters. We photographed this pump in a village on the road to Ruaha National Park, located near tobacco plantations. I also attached some pictures of orphans from here in Iringa town. Abbas and I distributed pens, toothbrushes and toothpaste, clothes, and a few pairs of shoes. All the clothes were from my bedroom at my parent’s house from when I cleaned out my dresser in December. It was nice to see other people able to re-use some of my old clothes. Abbas and I have several plans and projects for the next few months. We will be focusing our efforts in three main interrelated areas. We will be working to address the needs of the orphan and vulnerable children population, supporting primary schools to increase the access and quality of their education, and supporting initiatives to increase the health and wellbeing of these communities. This is Abbas’s child Ansli with Elliot's glasses:

Elliot is back in Tanzania

2008-05-15T10:46:00.000-07:00

The following is from Elliot who recently arrived back in Tanzania. Elliot will be working hard for the next couple of months checking in on our past projects, analyzing the current situation, and preparing for our summer group.

The first two weeks working here for Project Kesho have been very interesting. I arrived in Tanzania on April 20th to spend time with my girlfriend before starting work on the first of May. In December I left my motorcycle at her house so that someone could watch it. However, I did not cover it from the rain, so it needed some exterior work done as well as some engine tuning. Abbas met me in Dar es Salaam to help me discuss the repairs with the mechanic, and he helped me transport several of my bags to Iringa. After the repairs were completed, I drove the motorcycle 500 kilometers (a little over 300 miles) to Iringa in one long day. Since being in Iringa Abbas and I have completed several tasks. The first several days were spent seeing and greeting teachers, headmasters, village leaders, and other people in the village. One of the schools has a new headmaster so we meet with him to explain who are and what we do. We also visited the health clinic, which has received some new maternity equipment. We also had a chance to visit with two of the orphans from primary school we were working with last year. The two orphan boys, Jusef and Nolasco, whom we were working with last year, are still facing many difficulties. They eat once a day (after getting home from school in the evening) and this is after walking 5 miles each way to and from school. One boy had a fungus growing on his scalp (we got him medicine from the dispensary) and he only talks to the other orphan boy who lives with him. Both orphans weighed less than 27 kilos (less than 60 pounds). Abbas and I have been thinking of ways to help, but our extra budget money for orphans is very small. These children need a lot of attention and nutrition to help them lead successful, healthy lives. We are going to visit their home soon, but the road is very bad and it has rained recently, so there will be a small stream to cross. On a lighter note, the rains have, for the most part, stopped and the weather is very nice (a little cool). More news soon…

Here are some pictures that Elliot took upon returning to Lundamatwe: This first picture is of some of the students Project Kesho sponsored to go to Secondary School. Stay tuned for an update on their status! This is the new Standard Five classroom at the Ulonge Primary School, which Project Kesho facilitated the construction. Paint and windows are coming soon! This is an inside shot on the new classroom showing the students hard at work: Here is the inside of the maternity ward at the Lundamatwe village clinic. This picture shows one of four new beds and the village doctor: This is Jusef and Nolasco. Jusef is on the left and Nolasco is on the right:

Little Angels Completed Bathroom

2008-01-17T10:30:00.000-08:00

I forgot to upload this picture in the last post. It was sent to us about a week after Elliot left Uganda.

Fall 2007 Recap

2008-01-13T12:51:00.000-08:00

Elliot was no slouch, to say the least, during the Fall of 2007. Some of what he did has been highlighted here and here already, and some has not. The following was written by Elliot (with my commenting in italics): Uganda: Following our adventurous trips in getting supplies to finish the Ulonge classroom in Tanzania (again, see here), Abbas and I headed to Uganda to complete another project that would become a much more interesting adventure than we ever hoped or wanted it to be. Our goal, to be completed in just ten days (including 4 and ½ days of travel), was to start building a bathroom at the Little Angels Primary School and have the construction far enough along so it could be completed after we left. We faced several barriers in this project, most notably the main language used in the town we were working in was Luganda, along with with some English proficiency, and the people not being upfront with all information. But, we managed to work through these barriers, and dig the hole for the bathroom. This was a different experience than digging the hole in Tanzania, the ground was quite wet but we had to first cut down a tree, remove the stump, and then remove the roots as dug down (don't worry there is plenty of pictures!!), so each project presents its own unique difficulties. We also had to arrange for all the supplies despite the language barrier. Somehow we had spare time (we were waiting for sand and bricks to be delivered), so we arranged for much needed repairs to desks and classrooms to be completed by the carpenter, with a little help from Abbas and I and the people at the school. This school is much smaller than the Tanzanian schools we work with and also needs a lot of work. Some students do not even have desks, they merely sit on benches or stumps and when it comes time to write they get down on their knees and write on the ground. For less than $100 we were able to replace or resurface 75% or more of their desks. We simply used the existing desks, some were 2x4s and some were 2x6s, and we purchased 2x12s to be used as the new desk tops. Also included in the $100 were two roofing sheets to cover holes in the roof and sides of the classrooms that were leaking. Many students were getting wet during class as it was (and still is) the rainy season and it rains almost every day. We also purchased food for the school-- two bags of rice and beans. The picture below will help illustrate transport in Uganda, showing that the motorcycle taxis are not only for people, but for lots of supplies as well. We were made to feel very welcome by the whole school, they had many songs and dances to perform for us, as well as a great play and I hope to be returning here someday. Although, I am not sure Abbas is as enthusiastic as I am about returning. While he had fun, and was the first person from his family to ever leave Tanzania, he seemed to prefer to speak Swahili and be in Tanzania. He found it hard because since he is black, Ugandans would start speaking Lugandan to him and he would have to explain he was from Tanzania and didn’t speak Lugandan. People would just stare at him and it made him very uncomfortable. I am sure the experience broadened both of us. Although neither of us enjoyed the bus trip back from Kampala to Dar es Salaam. Going to Kampala took a mere 27 hours (it actually wasn’t bad and there were no flat tires and we didn’t run out of gas, like when Elliot and I went in September), but on the return trip our alternator stopped working and we had to spend an extra night at a rest stop. That trip took 42 hours. Neither of us was very happy, but at least we made it safely. Part of the Welcoming Ceremony: Even the kids in preschool got into it: And some really got into it: Desk Repair: Removing the old desks: Abbas helping out: The finished product: Bathroom Construction: The site for the new bathroom with the tree that needed to be removed: The digging begins!: The digging continues and apparently Elliot lost his shoes: Abbas helping out again (what a sport!): The tree stumps meets it match!: Even though the stump is gone there is still a lot of digging to do!: Elliot in the finished hole (which only took 2 days to dig), and yes, he made it out: Lundamatwe and Ulonge: Following my return from Uganda, after two days of recuperation, a friend of mine came from the States to see what my job entailed in Tanzania and help out where he could, and of course go on safari. He also brought with him supplies for the Lundamatwe/Ulonge communities including: supplies to give to the dispensary, shoes and clothes to give away, and two soccer balls, one for each of the primary schools. He also helped as we distributed left over supplies from the summer (that we could not carry over in June) to needy orphans in Iringa (pens, pencils, toothbrushes, toothpaste, and candy). We had a wonderful time together, we visited Zanzibar for a night, we stayed in a wonderful tented camp (we saw hyenas and lions extremely close and a mother cheetah with two cubs). The roof is now completed on the Ulonge classroom and the carpenters were working on the walls and floor. This week the chalkboard will be installed to have the classroom ready for students, just in time for the new school to start (at the beginning of the calendar year). Enjoy the pictures! What the finished desks look like: The new classroom at Ulonge: The old Ulonge Primary School Sign: The new Ulonge School Sign (partially funded by Project Kesho): Village Clinic: The bare cupboards of the clinic: Supplies that were donated to Project Kesho for the clinic: Supplies purchased by Project Kesho for the clinic: The Village Doctor:

UPDATE: Kenyan Election

2008-01-13T12:19:00.000-08:00

The violence that started with the release of the Kenyan Election Results on December 30th has not stopped. The violence is a mix of those frustrated with the dubious results of the election (for instance, in one precinct, voter turnout was 115%), long simmering tribal tensions between a couple of the larger tribes in Kenya, as well as those joining in the fray just to loot. So far over 600 people have died and 250,000 have fled their homes. The Kenyan Government has responded by banning public rallies and banning media broadcasts. There has also been numerous reports of Kenyan police and security forces open firing, with live ammunition, on people demonstrating against the election results. The danger is that this can quickly spiral out of control and scar a generation, as has happened in Rwanda and the Balkans.

Kenyan Election

2007-12-31T11:29:00.000-08:00

Kenya held a general election on the 27th of December. For background on the election go here. The election results were released on the 30th that named the incumbent, Mwai Kibaki, as the winner. There has been widespread rioting against the result and the BBC has reported that over 100 people have been killed so far. For pictures of the elections go here and for a report on a government issued media ban go here. Reaction from around Africa here. First Hand News Accounts: So far I've found one first hand blog account (here), but I'm having a hard time finding more, hopefully they should be coming out over the next week. You Tube:

The Situation in Zimbabwe

2007-11-17T12:25:00.000-08:00

Mugabe's crackdown on our people leaves a trail of broken limbs, rape victims, torture victims, and dead bodies. Such is the reality of Zimbabwe today.

The quote is from Morgan Tsvangirai, pictured above after being beaten by Mugabe's forces, and who is the leader of the Movement for Democratic Change in Zimbabwe. This video shows the reality of Zimbabwe today.

Project Update

2007-11-16T12:59:00.000-08:00

From Elliot: The past several weeks have gone by very quickly, with many things being undertaken here in the village. Abbas and I have been very busy starting several projects before I leave in mid-December. The projects include finishing the Standard 5 classroom at the Ulonge Primary School, facilitating the construction of 90 desks being built in the village (40 for the Ulonge Primary School and 50 for the Lundamatwe Primary School), fixing the other tire swing at the Ulonge Primary School, and continuing to make check-ups on orphans and other children in the village. All the supplies to complete the Standard 5 classroom and the desks were brought from town into the village to be built by local carpenters. It took a total of four trips and many hours of waiting and loading to get everything to the village. All the boards for the desks had to be planed and cut at a machine in town to be smooth. Also, the bags of cement you see me loading are 50kg (110 pounds), so it makes for a long day, even with help, when they have to be both loaded and unloaded. I hope the pictures will significantly supplement this update. Here is the Standard 5 classroom that is now being completed: Elliot loading bags of cement in town: Unloading the supplies at the Ulonge Primary School: The next two pictures are of desk construction in the village. Notice the OSHA approved footwear: The next two pictures are of the construction of rafters for the Standard 5 classroom at the Ulonge Primary School: Here is Abbas replacing the other tire at the Ulonge Primary School. To see photos of the other swing being replaced go here: Eliot attempting to fix a flat tire on his bike: Abbas and child:

Update from Elliot

2007-11-04T14:37:00.000-08:00

Elliot has spent long hours working to accomplish several goals for Project Kesho. Elliot is continuing to gather information about our target communities so that Project Kesho can understand the complex nature of these communities' needs and struggles, and the strengths present in these communities. He is also working hard to improve both the Lundamatwe and Ulonge Primary Schools before the start of the new school year in January. The improvements include more desks, more textbooks, improved uniforms, a new classroom at Ulonge and working to improve the village heath clinic to better meet the needs of the school children and the other villagers. Not only does this work require Elliot to arranage the purchase, transport and construction of materials, but it also requires Elliot to act as the liaison between the various stakeholders. To secure the funding for the new classroom, Elliot road his motorcycle (with Abbas valiantly riding along) all over the district to meet with various district and village level officials to make sure the new classroom would be ready in January. Here is a write up from Elliot with some pictures:

Information Gathering: Since my return from Dar es Salaam in the second week of September, after Ian departed, my job has been to collect data on several different aspects of the community. I initially didn’t expect this to take as long as it did, but everything seems to take longer here in Tanzania. Abbas and I have been completing interviews in the village: Abbas has been doing the interviewing and I have been driving us to some of the far away areas in the village, some up of which are up very bad and sandy roads as much as 8km (5miles) from the school. There are even children who have to walk the 8km each way to school. We have also had two meetings in the town of Kilolo, where the district headquarters are located. We met to talk with leaders of the education department about our work and funding issues between one of the schools and the district. We collected different data on resources the schools had, such as books, and collected data on the different water sources in the village. Projects at the Schools and in the Community: We have started several different projects at the school and in the community. We purchased some basic supplies for the village dispensary (cotton, gauze, syringes/needles, pain medicine, heart medicine, and anti-fungal medicine), as you can see from the picture. We were not able to buy all of the supplies the doctor requested. He requested penicillin and a couple of other antibiotics that the village badly needs, which cost several hundred dollars. Although the dispensary was only opened in July, it is running out of supplies because the district dispensary has not funded it with supplies. Not to fault the district dispensary, but it has not been supplied by the main dispensary in Dar es Salaam. We also are working to improve the quality of the uniforms at the schools. All students are supposed to have an emblem painted on their shirt, although some could not afford it. So, we arranged to have someone stamp an emblem on every student’s shirt at both Ulonge Primary School and Lundamatwe School. We are also working to have student’s uniforms sewn, but it is taking more time because almost every student’s uniforms needs repairs. The final thing we are completing in the schools is the construction of desks by a village carpenter for the schools. Lundamatwe Primary School will receive fifty desks and Ulonge Primary School will receive forty desks.

The partially completed grade 5 classroom at Ulonge Primary School: Abbas exhausted after a long day of conducting interviews. Hard to know if it was all the walking that made him tired or Elliot's driving. Or he could be depressed because he is sitting on top of clean drinking water that is out of reach because there is no pump. Because there is no access to clean water the villagers are forced to gather water from sources such as this: Donated medical supplies to meet the basic needs of the health clinic: The following are two pictures Elliot took from near his apartment in Iringa:

East African News

2007-11-04T12:51:00.000-08:00

Here are some links to current events in East Africa: Kenya will hold national elections this December. Peace may be coming to Northern Uganda. Fighting has raged between a rebel group, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and the Ugandan Government for nearly two decades, with civilians caught in the middle. The documentary Invisible Children shows the plight of thousands of children in Northern Uganda as the attempt to avoid being kidnapped and forced to become child soldiers or sex slaves. An article from the Seattle Times reports on the benefits of technology for the rural poor. The situation in the Eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) continues to deteriorate. The region has been unstable since the mid 1990's after many of the Hutu perpetrators of the Rwandan Genocide fled to the region to hide. Fighting between various Hutu and Tutsi groups have in turn destabilized the region. Fighting has intensified since the end of August and has caused about 200,000 internally displaced refugees with an additional 13,000 refugees fleeing to Uganda. For an in depth look go here. The US has recently stated that it will begin to train the DRC army. An article from the BBC about the non-governmental response to the violence and an overview of the issues.

Project Kesho Video Player

2007-10-30T20:04:00.001-07:00

Little Angels

2007-10-15T19:22:00.000-07:00

Elliot and I had a good time going to Uganda. We met with the leaders of two private schools there. The schools could not be any different, while at the same time both attempting to improve their communities. Mityana Secondary School is run by a competent local government official who used to be a school teacher. The school has quite a bit of building infrastructure and has about 400 students who all pay a decent amount to attend his school. He hopes to one day run his school for a profit while at the same time providing a top quality education for a low fee. Unfortunately the school lacks textbooks and books for their library. I have been, and will continue to, work with another individual to secure outside grant funding for the books. The second school that we visited was a private primary school called Little Angels Primary School. The school is run by a local woman, who also used to be a school teacher. She stopped teaching school several years ago because she, correctly, identified her local community as not being able to deal with the growing number of AIDS orphans and others children who are not able to afford the cost of school. She runs the school out of her home and several adjacent buildings. There are about 20 orphans who board at her house, and there are about 200 students who attend the school on a daily basis. The school lacks pretty much everything, including school supplies, adequate infrastructure, a clean water source, their latrine is about to overflow, and the orphans that board with her have to eat millet porridge twice a day with some sugar cane for lunch. Uganda was on a school break when Elliot and I were there so the only kids that were at Little Angels were the orphans that were staying there. They were quite shocked to see us, but warmed up to us fast! They put on a little show to welcome us to their school: The classrooms at the school, which has about 200 kids that are enrolled, are small and are constructed of a hodge-podge of reeds, wood and aluminum, which is I was told is better than the large tree that were using, especially in the rainy season. The classrooms, however, are not water proof and many days during the rainy are cut short due to heavy rain. This is a shot of the room where the girls sleep: Both the boys and the girls that board at the school sleep 2-3 per bed. A couple of beds did not have mattresses, but rather old clothes that were laid out like mattresses, and none of the beds had bed nets, so malaria was a problem. Elliot and I were able to address those problems for the kids. Elliot and I also got a couple soccer balls for the students to use. Here are some pictures of the game Elliot played with the students from the school: A shot looking from the school back towards the town of Mityana, with their 'water source'(really just a stagnant pool of water) at the bottom of the ravine.

Update: Uganda Bus Riding

2007-10-15T19:02:00.000-07:00

Here is some video of our bus ride to Uganda. Keep in mind that you drive on the left side of the road in Uganda. Also pay attention to the guy on the bike who somehow makes it out alive. This is how our driver drove after our first flat tire, but before our second, not that that slowed him down or anything. All the shaking is from the road, the camera was braced on the seat in front of me.

Update: Traveling to Uganda

2007-09-26T14:21:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures of when Elliot and I took his bike to Dar to catch the bus to Kampala: It started sleeting on us shortly after these pictures were taken.

Ulonge Swing Set

2007-09-17T20:24:00.000-07:00

One of the last things that Elliot and I did before heading North was to fix the swing set at the Ulonge school. The problem was that the U-bolt that the chain was attached to had worn out. So after purchasing a new U-bolt in town we figured the rest would be pretty easy. However, the first problem was getting up to the top of the swing set. After scrounging around we managed to find this ladder: It was mostly rotted but it did the trick, as I managed to claw my way to the top of the swing set. First I removed the old U-bolt... ...and then Elliot brought the tire... ...and after some grunting and groaning the new swing was in place. Then Elliot tried out the swing to make sure that everything worked out ok and that we wouldn't injure any kids. And finally my graceful dismount... Here are the kids playing on both swings:

Bike Trip to Ibofwe

2007-09-17T14:26:00.000-07:00

Here are the videos from when Elliot, Abbas and I attempted to ride Elliot's bike up the steep ridge to the village of Ibofwe. The video doesn't show how steep the road really is, but it is quite steep. So steep that the bike was stalling out. After the bike continued to stall out, Elliot convinced Abbas to help him push it through the sandy part. The transcript is Elliot asking (in an exasperated tone) "Are you pushing?" Which is followed by my laughter. They eventually did manage to push the bike through the sandy part while I watched.

Neighborhood Kids

2007-09-17T13:49:00.001-07:00

Here are some pictures of some of the kids that Elliot and I lived near once the rest of the group left and we moved into Iringa. We moved into a small apartment complex that had 5 apartments, plus a latrine and a cooking area with a courtyard in the middle surrounded by an exterior wall. Abbas lived in the apartment next to ours in the compound. These kids greeted us with great enthusiasm everyday as we returned home from being in the village. The little girl in the yellow is named Rosa and she also lived in our compound. The girl in the middle has on the goggles that we wear when we ride on the motorcycle, and that is her little brother in the picture as well(They live down the road from the apartment). It is a sign of respect for children to carry the belongings of an adult, which is why the children below are carrying our helmets into our apartment. It is of such importance that children do this that they would insist on carrying whatever we had, no matter how heavy, all the way to our door. As a result we needed to be careful how many bottles of water we purchased at the store so as to prevent the little children from developing hernias.

Rwanda

2007-08-28T07:02:00.000-07:00

Elliot and are taking a break from out Project Kesho responsibilities and heading to Rwanda for five nights before returning to Kampala and then Dar. We'll take lots of pictures and video for everyone to see!

Mityana Uganda

2007-08-28T06:31:00.000-07:00

Elliot and I went to Mityana to visit two schools. One is a primary school and one is a secondary school. The primary school is a private school called Little Angles Primary School. It is part orphanage and part school. About 20 orphans (mostly from AIDS) sleep on seven beads in two rooms and a hallway. The school can only afford to feed the kids some maize porridge twice a day with some sugar cane for lunch. School is conducted in 8 tiny classrooms made out of a hodgepodge of wood, metal and reeds, which is an improvement over the tree they used to sit under for class (especially during the rainy season). As you can imagine the school is quite poor. Project Kesho was able to buy some much needed items such as bed nets, school supplies, soccer balls, and food. In the future, Project Kesho will be working to build a new bathroom, as the one they are using now is almost full, as well as try and upgrade the water source for the whole community. The water source now is open stream at the bottom of the hill and it is susceptible to diseases like cholera, as well as being a breeding ground for mosquitoes. For more on this school look here. The secondary school is also a private school and is called the Mityana College, Kikumbi. It was started by Emmanuel Ssenoga in the early 1990’s to improve the available local education choices as well as prepare students for university and for life after that. Uganda has the highest percentage of university degree holders in East Africa, which has unfortunately lead to the market being saturated with degree holders. Many people, degree holders, secondary school students, university students, have all told us that they know many people who have a degree but are struggling to find a job. Mr. Ssenoga is very concerned about this problem and is working to set up a counseling center in his school so that his graduates can avoid this problem. The school started with one student, but today it has 400 students, with a vision for many more. Mr. Ssenoga works fulltime in the local government as well as puts in many hours for the school. The school has built 4 large classrooms and is adding more. It is also attempting to upgrade the dorms for those students that board so that they can attract more students and raise their revenue. One main roadblock to the success of the school is that it is lacking text books and other reading books that are required for a secondary education. Project Kesho has secured some books in the States and will be facilitating their arrival in Uganda, as well looking to other organizations that specialize in library creation. Both of these schools are prime examples of African solutions to African problems. Project Kesho is very excited about partnering with these schools to improve their capicity to provide an education to their students.

Traveling to Uganda

2007-08-28T06:10:00.000-07:00

Elliot and I made it safely to Kampala after a 32 hour bus ride from Dar. The bus ride started out good but deteriorated rather quickly. We had to switch buses about 8 hours into the ride to a bus that had seatbelts, since they are required in Kenya but not in Tanzania. We also switched drivers from a good one to a mad man. The roads got worse once we crossed into Kenya. They became very narrow and full of pot holes. Passing oncoming trucks was quite tricky as there was barely enough room for both vehicles, and apparently slowing down to reasonable speed was not an option. We got to Nairobi, in Kenya, around midnight and after switching drivers and a sort break we left. Outside of Nairobi the roads got worse and our new driver drove even faster. Around 6 the next morning after abusing the tires one to many times on the pot holes we got a flat tire. After fixing that we resumed our trip and made it to the border with Uganda. After crossing into Uganda we breathed a sigh of relief as the roads were paved (with no pot holes) and there were even lines painted on them! But our relief was short lived as soon the pavement disappeared almost completely and the crazy driving on partially paved mostly dirt roads continued. So no one was surprised (except maybe the driver) when we got another flat tire. With our only spare being used we were forced to continue on with only the five good tires instead of six. Fortunately Kampala was close and we made it to the city without further incident. However, being driven all the way to the bus terminal was too much to ask as we ran out fuel before reaching the bus stand. Elliot and I took the opportunity to leave the bus for good and hopped into a taxi. We stayed in Kampala for two bights before heading to the town of Mityana about 50 kilometers west of Kampala. Pictures and video will be posted once I return to the States in a couple weeks.

Orphans

2007-08-19T05:40:00.000-07:00

One of the many effects HIV/AIDS is having on communities in Africa is the increased number of orphans due to the death of one or both parents. Traditionally orphans were absorbed into their extended families, and while it was unfortunate that one or both of their parents had died, they experienced about the same quality of life than they would have had with their own parents. However, by 2005, there were approximately 12 million orphans as a result of HIV/AIDS living in Sub-Saharan Africa. This high number put too much strain on the ability of extended families to take care of all these orphans. Now many of those who are orphans are forced to fend for themselves. Lundamatwe Village, along with six other villages, is located within the Kilolo District. Kilolo District has about 3,000 orphans as a result of HIV/AIDS. Project Kesho has been working with the Lundamatwe School to identify and develop a plan of action for making sure that the orphans in the village are able to maintain a decent standard of living and also keep attending school. We meet some orphans during our first week here. When we were passing out shoes to the kids at the Lundamatwe School we noticed two young boys whose feed were literally being eaten by chiggers. Chiggers are a small worm-like animal that lives in the dirt but needs to bury its eggs in a host, generally in the feet of humans. The egg sacks are easy to spot and remove before they hatch. However, if the eggs do hatch they can infest your body. One little boy, Usepho, had chiggers so bad on the heels of this feet that whole chunks of skin were just hanging off the back of his feet and they were so bad around his toe nails that the nails were ready to fall off. During the past month or so Project Kesho has been making sure that he and his brother Narasco, have been receiving the medical care that they need as well purchasing supplies for them such as socks, soap, eggs, new school uniforms, and Elliot also donated his sleeping bag so that they would be warmer at night. We were told that they were orphans living far from the school with their aunt. We decided to visit their house to see what their living situation was. On Saturday the three of us piled on Elliot’s motorcycle again to ride out there. They live in a part of Lundamatwe called Ruaha, in the far southwest part of the village. We decided to clock the distance to see how far they were walking everyday. It turns out that they live almost five miles from the school! The community of Ruaha is located in the upper right hand corner of the following picture where the ridge in the background angles down and ends. The picture is taken about 1 mile or so south of the Lundamatwe School. After asking numerous people for directions, parked the motorcycle and walked the last half mile are so on foot to find their house. They were busy playing with friends from a neighboring house. We got them all to pose together for some pictures. Usepho and Narasco are on the left in the pictures. Usepho is taller. The three girls that are in the picture also walk the ten miles each day to attend school in Lundamatwe. Not only are their feet almost completely heeled, but their skin in general is much healthier and their hair, which was patching and falling out, is healthy and growing like it should be, and their eyes are no longer hollow.

Isole

2007-08-19T04:19:00.000-07:00

Since Elliot had arrived on Wednesday with his new ride, we decided to put it use to visit other parts of Lundamatwe that were impractical for us to walk to (and back) in a day. So in the morning the three of us (Elliot, Abbas and I) piled onto Elliot’s motorcycle. I’m told that I need to get a picture of this and post it which I will do soon. I’ll admit that it looks pretty funny, especially to people in the village as they do a double take when they realize that not only are two white people on one bike but that there is an African sandwiched in between them. On Wednesday we road out past Lusaula to the community of Isole, which is at the base of the ridge you can see in previous pictures posted below (its right below the road that leads to Ibofwe). We spent a few hours talking to villagers there and then we attempted to ride up to Ibofwe. We got a ways up before the road got to steep and Abbas and I were forced to walk up a particularly steep section. I have some good video of Elliot trying to ride up it that will be posted soon. While he was trying to do that I snapped the following picture looking north over Lundamatwe. You can see the road snake back to the center of Lundamatwe. The village extednds to the low mountains in the back of the picture (about 10-12 miles away).

Lusaula

2007-08-19T03:55:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday, Abbas and I visited the community of Lusaula, which is about two miles southwest of the Lundamatwe School, but still within the village of Lundamatwe. Abbas and I spent a few hours in this part of Lundamatwe talking to residents. We found that many of the residents of this part of Lundamatwe had similar views about education and similar desires for their kids. Many of the people, especially those older than 40, had only gone to four years of school, as that was the norm then. However, they all felt that getting an education was much more important now and that they wanted their kids to attend at the seven years of primary school and at least four years of secondary school, despite the costs of secondary school being about ten times more per year. It was not only a good chance for us to make Project Kesho’s presence known in a different part of the village, but it was also a good chance for us to learn about the needs and desires of the people there as well. The following pictures were taken just north of Lusaula looking south. The village of Lundamatwe extends all the way to the base of the ridge. On top of the ridge is the village of Ibofwe. Ibofwe is where I had a homestay with some villagers in 2000 during my study abroad in Tanzania. The following two pictures are zoomed in on Lusaula with Ibofwe in the background. In this last pictures you can just make out the road that snakes its way up the ridge to Ibofwe. We would find out in a couple days just how steep and narrow the road is.

A Long Walk

2007-08-19T03:25:00.000-07:00

While Elliot was in Dar waiting for his license plate, Abbas, our translator, and I took the opportunity to spend some time in other parts of Lundamatwe that we had not visited. The village of Lundamatwe is roughly shaped like a square about ten miles long and ten miles wide. The paved road that goes from Dar to Iringa cuts right through the middle of the village. The Lundamatwe Primary School is located on the paved road almost dead center in the village. The Ulonge Primary School is located on the paved road about 3 miles west of the Lundamatwe School. Abbas and spent a few hours on Monday (the 13th) near the Ulonge School in the northeast part of the village. As we talked to people there, we found out that many had kids who had attended the Ulonge School, but since that school only had room for Standards 1-4 their kids had to walk to the Lundamatwe School for Standards 5-7. Many of the kids had to walk close to 4 miles each way to school! Later that day we asked the headmaster of the Lundamatwe School if he had any idea how many kids were coming from the Ulonge area. He said that he was not sure but that he would find out for us. On Tuesday the headmaster told us that there are 159 kids (about 50 in each Standard) from the Ulonge area (these kids had all attended the Ulonge School when they were in the younger Standards). The headmaster told us that the long walk from Ulonge means the kids cannot return home at lunch time for food and so they are more tired at the end of the day and as a result their performance in the classroom falls below that of their peers. The extra kids from Ulonge also cause overcrowding in the Lundamatwe School. Standard Six, at Lundamatwe, has two classrooms with almost 90 kids in each. If the kids Ulonge were able to attend the school in Ulonge, then there would only be 60 kids in each classroom, which is still a high number, but much more manageable for the teacher. A fifth classroom is under construction at Lundamatwe, but the village funds have dried up. Project Kesho is committed to working with the Ulonge School to finish the classroom before the new school year starts in January, and funds permitting, to build two additional classrooms so that no child from the Ulonge area has to walk to Lundamatwe for school.

More Pictures of Classroom Paintings

2007-08-19T03:00:00.000-07:00

I've been requested by a certain someone (with whom I happen to be married to) that I need to post some more pictures of classroom paintings. The following pictures are all from the Ulonge Primary School because the lighting inside the classrooms is much better. All those pictures were taken without a flash, as was this one from Lundamatwe: Comparing the pictures one can really see the difference that having glass windows makes. While they have windows (without glass) at Lundamatwe they often need to be closed because the wind is so strong that it makes it too loud to hear and blows in dust from outside.

Elliot and his Bike

2007-08-19T01:45:00.000-07:00

After a couple of weeks of waiting Elliot was finally able to get his license plate for his new motorcycle. He got the plate on Tuesday in Dar and then drove the 7 hours to Iringa on Wednesday. Below is a picture of Elliot with his new bike!

July 31-August 7

2007-08-07T02:20:00.000-07:00

After seeing the group off at the airport, Elliot and I stayed in Dar to renew our quest to find the perfect motorcycle (at least the perfect one within our budget). We had started out our search the week before when we were in Dar to drop Cathi off at the airport and had found one that we liked. We hired a mechanic to check the bike out before purchasing it, which turned out to be a wise choice as the bike had numerous problems that we had not noticed before. In fact all the bikes at this shop had problems, but fortunately the mechanic new of another shop. So we took a taxi across town, through traffic much like below, to the shop. After checking out numerous bikes we found one that we liked that looks similar to the following picture. I also added some character to the bike by dropping it...twice--once on each side just to be fair. With the registration for the bike going to take at least a week we headed back to Iringa to see how things were going. We were pleasantly surprised to see that both the bathrooms and the classroom painting were completed! Thanks again to the Project Kesho donors for making this a reality for the students at the school! Completed girls bathroom. This building has 8 new bathrooms for girls, bringing the total to 16 for the girls and 16 for the boys. Elliot with Abbas, our translator, and the Headmaster of the Lundamatwe Primary School. Students in the science classroom with the new paintings on the back wall. The back wall was previously bare cement, but it is now a useful teaching medium.

Lazy Lagoon

2007-08-07T01:57:00.000-07:00

After about four weeks of working in the village, but before heading back to the States, we decided to spend a few days relaxing in the sun. We headed to the Lazy Lagoon resort, located on a small and uninhabited island in the Indian Ocean. We spent three days swimming, snorkeling, and lying in the sun. We also took a ride in a traditional East African sailboat called a dhow. It was a great chance for the group to relax after working so hard the previous month. A dhow returning from a day of fishing. Sunset after another perfect day. We stayed in bandas that were situated along the beach. The beach a low tide as viewed from our bandas.

"Never doubt that a small group of committed people can change the world...indeed it is the only thing that ever has." M. Mead

2007-07-22T11:04:00.001-07:00

Well, a lot has happened in the last week or so with our work in Tanzania. It was a week and a half of busy, filled days and evenings. Here is a recap... Our bathroom project quickly took on an amazing amount of energy as the village leadership and school headmaster for Lundamatwe shared our desire to assist the school with the village. We scheduled Monday for the "big dig" to get the bathroom project started, but even before Monday the digging began with the students putting in their time and work to the project. Each day before school, the students gathered for an hour to dig our hole for the bathroom and spent an hour after school each day digging. While some of the group taught at the Ulonge Primary School, Ian, Elliot and I worked on the digging and getting the building supplies for the project. By Monday morning, after three days of digging, about three and a half feet of the hole was accomplished. Keep in mind that the hole needed to be about six feet wide, ten feet long and ten ot twelve feet deep. To be honest, I had my doubts about accomplishing the digging in one day, even if many people came to help...Rather than say anymore, I will just share the pictures of our "bathroom project". The bathroom hole after a day of digging Students, Matt and Cathi digging at the end of the first day Elliot digging on the second day The first group of men digging on Monday morning Matt standing in the completed hole at 2pm on Monday! Women preparing meat for our community meal Big vats of rice and beef for the celebration Work is done! Ready to eat! Needless to say, it is quite amazing to think that amount of work could get done so quickly with every chipping in. There will be more pictures to follow of the other work we are doing too, but I wanted to get an update on here quickly. The bathroom building has been going on for two days now, as supplies took a day or so to get purchased and delivered. The fundis (builders) have been hard at work and will complete the project in three weeks...picture updates will be coming. Thank you to everyone who helped fund this project. The students really appreciate it and so does the community. Asante sana (Thank you very much) ~Cathi

Matt's Project Kesho Thoughts

2007-07-10T03:32:00.000-07:00

Hey “Yall.” My name is Matt and I wanted to share my current thoughts on our time here in Iringa, Tanzania. I never realized how much preparation time we would actually need here as we are not just helping the schools of Lundamatwe and Ulonge but each of the communities of amazing people surrounding these schools. We have met with teachers, Headmasters, local government as well as talked with countless number of kids and families about our purpose here and the help that we wish to be. As Cathi mentioned earlier, we started our teaching experiences with some Standard 4 students by teaching English Time. As a College student, I now have even more appreciation for teachers dealing with teaching new topics to young students (and I feel sorry for my Elementary School teachers that had to teach a 7 yr. old me…) But the next few days we are assigned to help at different primary schools (me at Ulonge Primary School) to see what is being taught, how it is currently taught and how we can add to the teaching of English or improve the quality of English spoken with the teachers and the students. I am so excited. I will get to know personally a group of students over the next few weeks in attempts to make some friends, help with English and learn more about their lives as well. After spending this past February to May in Kenya, it is great to be back here amidst smiling faces and Kiswahili language to be apart of another welcoming community. Our Project is going well and we plan to break ground on a bathroom at one of the schools this coming weekend. Thank you for your time and be sure to stay updated with all that we are accomplishing here in the Southern Hemisphere. I also felt like I should add a little Kiswahili lesson to acclimate you to Tanzanian Culture: Hujambo … Hello Sijambo … Hello (response to ‘Hujambo’) Habari yako? … How are you? Nzuri sana … Very good. Ahsante sana … Thank you very much! Kwaheri … Goodbye Jina lako ni nani? … What is your name? Jina langu ni (insert name here)… My name is ________ Ninatoka America. … I come from America. Niko hapa kusaidia elimu ya watoto wa Iringa. … I am here to help the education of the Iringa children. Ningekupenda kuwa na elimu na kesho bora. … I would like you to have an education and a better tomorrow. Thank you for your support and interest and tutazungumza tena hivi karibuni (we will talk again soon!)

It is the little things...

2007-07-06T04:34:00.000-07:00

Since I last posted, our team has taken a short weekend safari to Ruaha Game Park, where we saw many animals and even got chased by elephants! While in Ruaha, we received word that my backpack had made its way to Dar finally, but Lynn's has yet to be found. I feel pretty fortunate to have gotten my bag because I only had one outfit with me, and there is only so much borrowing you can do in the group when we all only have about three outfits tops! After returning from the weekend trip, we began to work on our planning for teaching in the schools. I also had a chance to meet with the local village leader to discuss a need the village was experiencing. Basically, for nearly two years, a dispensary (clinic) has been in the works and being built. The village did not have enough money to complete this project, with the bathrooms still needing doors. The doctor from Dar would not be sent until doors were ordered for the bathrooms, because the clinic would not be opened. Project Kesho was asked if there was any room in our bathroom budget to allot money for four doors which would allow the dispensary to open. Their financial need amounted to eighty-five USD. We were able to facilitate this, and within two days doors were being built and a doctor was on his way. This dispensary will serve the local community, in particular providing children with free immunizations and mother's with pregnancy care. Our organization believes that healthy children are more likely to attend school and not miss important lessons due to illness and that children must be healthy to learn at an optimal level. Here are pictures of the bathrooms before the doors and the bathroom doors now hanging in the newly opened dispensary... Thank you bathroom donors!! A little wood goes a long way... In addition to these bathrooms and doors, we will be having our formal meeting with the whole village council to confirm the girl's bathroom budget for the school next week and then officially break ground for these bathrooms. We may have a roast and celebration during that time too. Some projects we will be working on following this summer trip and could begin if there are people interested in helping to support our work: As you have probably noticed from our pictures, the classrooms are devoid of wallhangings or environmental print instructional aides. We have determined that for a mere cost of around six hundred dollars, Project Kesho can supply one of the local school teachers (who is an artist) with paint supplies to paint the walls in each classrom with instructional aides. These wall paintings will include bilingual labels in Kiswahili and English for the lphabet, the numbers, the days of the week and the months of the year. Other subject matter related paintings will be done too. By painting these things directly to the walls, we can avoid posters ripping or getting damaged. A little paint lasts a long time... Finally, I want to share a little about the students and our teaching experiences. We have been teaching these last two days as a team, as we get to know the teaching guidelines, the methodology and the students. We have been working on telling time in English with the students because the Swahili time system is very different than ours. In Swahili time, the day begins with sunrise so one o'clock in the morning is actually OUR 7 a.m. This difference in time system makes it very hard for the children to understand the English system, a system used throughout the world including in business. We have been humbled by the patience, persistence and eagerness to learn that the students have displayed. We are slowly seeing them become more comfortable to talk to us, although they are still very shy. The pictures to follow are being posted in hopes of giving you faces to connect with our work...so you may know the people and so you may see the potential in each child the way we do. You may recognize some of these children from pictures in other years, from pictures I have in my classroom in Washington or from our website. It is wonderful to see some of these children getting older and remaining in school. They are tomorrow for Africa... Please feel free to comment on this blog and to let us know if you think you can help our organization! projectkesho@yahoo.com -Cathi

Photos from the Shule...

2007-06-29T05:14:00.000-07:00

The Lundamatwe Primary School Classrooms need glass for the windows because they are very dark! The current bathrooms are in bad shape and do not accomodate all the girls... The Ulonge Primary School... The unfinished classroom...they have the bricks but cannot afford the labor cost or the roof and windows. This is a house nearby, and is typical of the village houses. The school needs another 47 desks, but the glass windows here make a big difference!

29.06.07 Friday in Iringa

2007-06-29T04:53:00.000-07:00

We hope you liked the pictures in the last post. We will be putting up some pictures of the two schools next. Today our group met with the Ulonge Primary School, the other primary school located in the Lundamatwe village area. This school is a newer school, just recently built in the last four years. The school ran out of money during building and only has classrooms for Standard One through Four. There is one unfinished classroom for Standard Five, which needs walls completed and a roof added if the fundi (carpenter) can be paid. The Ulonge school has 225 students, with one class of each grade. There are classes with nearly seventy students, and some smaller classes of about 45. We found out that the school only has fifteen textbooks per class. That means the english class for the Standard One has 68 students sharing fifteen textbooks. We are looking into ordering the needed books in town, which cost about $3.50 per book. Today I was able to provide the teachers with two teacher manuals that they did not have for teaching their classes. They were very appreciative. We will be sending teachers to their school to help teach classes in the mornings during the next few weeks. After our morning meeting, half the group went to hike back to the campsite, which is about a mile or so from the road. Elliot, Abbas and I spent about an hour walking toward town in hopes of finding a dala dala to drive us in. We were not very lucky, but eventually did get picked up by a large group headed for prayer services. We got to ride in the back of the pickup hearing the women and children sing a beautiful spiritual song... We made it to town FINALLY to be able to get some more textbooks and other supplies. We are pricing the supplies we need to see what Project Kesho can afford now and what we will need to fundraise for later. Please contact us if you are interested in helping us fund the classrooms' desks and shelving. We have a lot of timber to purchase and will pay local village carpenters to build the furniture. Email to: projectkesho@yahoo.com Please also let us know if you are enjoying our blog... ~Cathi

Photo Update!

2007-06-29T04:31:00.000-07:00

Here are some photos... First, Matt and Lynn posing in London. Next, our baggage to bring to the village. Then, Cathi, Amie and Ian posing in London. Next, Amie and Matt at Addis in Dar during our first group dinner. Finally, the whole group together in the village (Abbas, Elliot, Cathi, Ian, Amie, Matt and Lynn).

Karibu Iringa!

2007-06-28T03:13:00.000-07:00

For our first day in Iringa, we had an early morning meeting with the headmaster and the English teachers at th school (shule). Cathi gave a brief presentation about Project Kesho and then the headmaster discussed the teaching methods of the schools in Tanzania and the local school's needs. We will be working to facilitate man power, funding and any other resources for the school needs through our organization with the help of the local community members. Here are some of the things we learned during our time with the teachers and headmaster: The school is currently serving nearly 1,100 students. There are 23 teachers. Most teachers of English have classes of approximately ninety students. Students are being rotated into the classrooms. (Think of having two classes of first graders, one waiting outside while another class is taught.) The school currently has bathroom facilities for the boys but less to accomodate the girls. The school has one classroom with a teacher desk, but the other classrooms have no place for teachers to put their lesson books or any supplies. The only instructional posters at the school are those that we purchased last year. The book to student ratio is one to approximately six children. Children can check out the pupil books to study at home and cannot keep them. They are reused again the next year. During the half of the year in Iringa when it is very cold and windy, teachers have to close over the wooden shutters to keep the classrooms warm...but there is no lighting in the classroom and wood shutters block all day light. The school would like to replace the wooden shutters with plexiglass or glass windows to allow the teachers and students to see during instruction. Our group has also learned that in the Lundamatwe village area, there are twenty different bore holes (for accessing clean water for drinking) but none of them work. Many are irrepairable, but some (including the one at the school) could be made operable by purchasing a pump for a little less than one thousand dollars. We will be working with the school and the village leadership to put together a plan for bathroom construction and teacher/student desk construction in the community. These projects will be undertaken as a whole group effort and the carpentry work done by community members. It is important that the community is invested in this work--and they are. After leaving our meeting, we rode the dala dala (imagine thirty people in the back of a volkswagon bus) to town. I actually sat on someone's lap... We will be purchasing textbooks and teacher manuals in town today so our group can begin preparing for classroom teaching next week. We will be leading the classroom in instruction and also working to observe and learn with the local teachers. Our team is FANTASTIC and can accomplish so much I think. It is big and important work...and an honor to be invited to take part in the education process at the local level. baadaye... ~cathi

Departures and Arrivals...

2007-06-28T02:32:00.000-07:00

Greetings to all of Project Kesho's supporters! We have had an eventful and busy four days working our way from different places in the USA all the way to Iringa, Tanzania. Our group departed from three different cities to meet in JFK airport on Sunday afternoon. Three of us (Amie, Cathi and Ian) left Seattle on an early morning flight, clocking in our first six hours of plane travel. Matt left from South Carolina to fly out of Charlotte, NC to JFK the same morning and Lynn made her way to JFK by car. To provide some context, our group was responsible for transporting 15 luggage items to Tanzania, a formidable task in itself!! We managed to get everything checked into the airlines and waited for our flight from JFK to London's Heathrow airport. The flight was of course delayed, so we spent quite a bit of time waiting around in the airport. Matt wins the prize for the longest wait, having arrived at the JFK arport from Charlotte about three in the afternoon and not boarding the next plane until 8:30-9pm that night! We arrived in London and managed to take some time to stretch our legs in a stroll around between flights. It was Seattle weather in London, so at least three of us were right at home. We shard our first meal together and said "Cheers" to the work to come. Luckily, our plane from London left close to "on time" and we managed to make it to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania as scheduled. The plane landed at 7:30 am in Tanzania on Tuesday--which to us seemed like one long Sunday... Upon arrival we were able to secure our visa easily and then headed to baggage claim. In keeping with the tradition of my (Cathi) Africa travel, my bag of course did not arrive, nor did Lynn's. But in all 13 out of 15 bags is pretty succesful. We will maybe be getting our two bags sometime in the next week. This will explain why we seem to be wearing the same outfits in every picture! (In reality though, everyone else probably only has one more outfit than we do anyway...) We spent an overnight in Dar to take some tie for meeting with officials in the city and to wait for our Land Cruiser ride to Iringa. During our stay in Dar, our group shared a meal at ADDIS IN DAR, a fantastic Ethiopian restaurant. The restaurant graciously served us our meal at no cost as friends of Project Kesho. The next morning we loaded up our Cruiser to head out for Iringa. The drive from Dar to Iringa was on Wednesday, taking ten hours. We arrived in time to eat a dinner in the darknes of the Africa sky and head to bed. My next post will share what our first day in Iringa was like... Please share our blog with others...we would love to hear from you too. baadaye (later...) ~Cathi

Welcome!

2006-10-19T10:53:00.000-07:00

Welcome to our new blog! Our organization was just recently formed and is currently in the beginning stages of programming and information sharing. We are excited about the year to come and would love to hear from you with your questions... Within the next week, Project Kesho's website will be up and ready for browsing. Please check back to see when that happens. Our website will be www.projectkesho.org Thanks for visiting.