7th July 2013

DAY OFF - In Kayanga town

MARKET DAY

DVP in Karagwe is going really well. We've seen so many patients during the healthcare workers’ training; 107 on day 1; 154 on day 2, 163 on day 3!

The training is progressing well – all the healthcare workers are now safely extracting teeth under supervision, and we’re looking forward to improving their skills during the rest of the programme.  The healthcare workers and the team are doing an amazing job, although we’re all very glad today is rest day! We’re looking forward to some well earned relaxing/exploring time:)

Why is it that it takes a foreign continent, country, language and way of life to remind you of how fascinating the simplest things can be? Walking home from the market, I was beaming with pride because I had managed to ask for, in Swahili, and purchase, cashew nuts and a bunch of bananas! How many times a week have I gone into Sainsbury's or Tescos and done the exact same thing without being the slightest bit excited? You may think its a bit sad to admit this but I felt a sense of achievement - definitely a highlight. These were things I always took for granted, knowing that if I went to one supermarket I could get everything I needed, but there is hardly anything even close to resembling a super-market down here. The market is a collection of stalls, small shops and women, men and children sitting along the roadside with maybe a table, a cart or a blanket with their goods displayed. It's mostly bananas, Ndizi and although they are half the size to what we get in the UK and may not look like much here, they are the sweetest, ripest bananas I have ever tasted.  If only I could find some baking goods I'd be baking enough banana bread to last me  a lifetime. There are two metre long branches of sugar cane bending under their own weight as they rest on a table and  chunks are hacked off to order. Pineapples are piled high on carts tempting you to pull one from the bottom just to watch them all tumble.

I realise I have spent a lot of time describing Tanzanias beauty but of course it does have its poverty problems as well.  I want to try to paint an accurate portrait of the area I am in. The media back home and the rest of the world makes Africa out to be this wasteland of starving children and unsafe environments. It's really not. Once you get the hang of swahili, and accepting that kids will stare at you for being a mzungu its really not that different from home.

Sometimes it is difficult tot know  who is 'poor' and who is not. I see many kids without shoes on, but at the same time, I see many kids with shoes on. All the adults I see have shoes on as well. Can families not afford shoes for their kids, or do the kids just not want to wear shoes? I see others in total rags, while others are wearing clothes shipped from charities in the UK. Over the course of these three days I have seen people with terrible teeth; Rotting, missing, falling out, discoloured etc. and then there's the children who have totally gorgeous smiles with perfect teeth?!

When you get into the heart of the villages many buildings are crumbling. They are made from mud bricks and their roofs are either tin or straw. Some however have concrete bricks. The doors in windows are just holes in the structure, sometimes covered with a flimsy curtain. The roads aren't paved, and they are full of potholes bumps and general unevenness. It makes for a VERY bumpy ride pretty much 24/7. Everyone who lives in the villages are farmers, and it seems to me that women and men share the same workload. There are also schools around, but sometimes, during school hours, I see kids running around alone in the village while their parents are out farming that should be in school at the moment, but aren't. do they just not want to go to school, or can their parents not afford it? Hopefully in a couple weeks I will be visiting schools to talk to them about the program, I will update what they are like then.

Despite the images which would be described as 'poverty' to most, everyone seems happy. Adults hang around a talk and always yell HABARI when we come into town (their way of saying how are you) And the kids are always laughing and playing with each other, and get big grins on their face when they see a mzungu :). Except for one kid. He had to be only 2 years old or something, but when he saw me, he started crying!! 

This region I am in still has many misconceptions about the HIV/AIDS epidemic. I have seen some propaganda around telling villagers to be safe and use condoms (I took a picture of one), but I don't think there is enough awareness, despite what the media back home says. I have learned that It is EXTREMELY common to have a wife, and multiple other girlfriends in the villages or other cities a man has to travel in to work or whatever. Girls may have multiple guys too. 

All livestock (cows, chickens, goats, picks) run around the villages and the surrounding fields freely. And most are well fed and seem pretty happy. They just mosey along, sometimes in the middle of the road eating.  Tanzania has definitely grasped the concept of "free range" unlike us.

Time to get back to work!