When we arrived at the airport Toby and a volunteer, Amanda Boyle, met us. Amanda is an environment volunteer from the Michigan Upper Peninsula, teaching about sustainable forests by helping plant various species such as pine for wood and teak plants to sell for reforestation elsewhere as a cash crop. She had been just a few months in country when she met Joe out in the southwest of Tanzania. The day before he died, he spent 10 hours on a hike with Amanda from Mbuji over the mountains to Lake Malawi. They talked the whole time and it was very comforting to me to know that Joseph was with people he was happy with. He was comfortable with Amanda, and told her so many things about himself, his plans and our family. He was happy. He was studying for the MCATs. They went to a graduation dance at St. Luises’ the two days before he died.
They took us to a restaurant, the Black Tomato and shopping area, then we went to the Slipway and bought some Kitengas or colorful cloth wraps. Typical tourist trip.
We then went to the Peace Corps office and saw Andrea, Country Director, who had come back with Joe’s body. In Tanzania you cannot keep a body by itself at night so Mary Sunny, and Salome and Saria had taken turns staying watch over Joe’s body for the days it took to get to Dar. We were able to meet and thank all the staff that knew Joe and helped after his death. It was quite emotional, realizing how many people were affected by Joe’s death and how many had helped. I realized that one VERY difficult thing for us as parents, was not to be there and be able to help your son. All of these people stepped up and stood in for us when we couldn’t be there for our son. We thanked them and told them so. It would be a theme throughout our visit. Everyone had pitched in.
We then went to Andrea’s home for the night. We met her husband, Mustafa who is from Senegal and is Muslim. Coincidentally, Andrea is from Southern Long Island, near Robert Moses Park, the daughter of two teachers. Her sister in law actually is Head of Geriatrics at Montefiore Hospital and lives in Tarrytown. Small world.
We got up early the next day and were picked up by a new driver, Saria in a PC Nissan Pathfinder. With him was Amanda, who would be with us for the southwest trip and then go to her site in the southwest, and head of PC Tanzania Safety and Security, Salome. Salome and Andrea are like the Good Cop, Bad Cop Mothers of the PCV’s. They have to watch over all 137 volunteers. She has tons of stories about the kids getting into trouble. Andrea has to be the firm one. She will talk to the offender and send them home, or punish them with PIP. Personal improvement Plans. There were lots of stories about kids getting caught and “Pipped”. Salome is nearing retirement, and I think had been PC for 25 years. It turns out that it was she and Saria who drove in that same car for two days, for what is easily a three-day trip to get out west to deal with the police, autopsy and funeral home. Saria actually had to go and buy formaldehyde to preserve Joe for the long trip back to Dar; it also turns out that it was Salome and Saria that drove Joe’s body in the back of the Nissan in two days (and stayed up at night with him) back to Dar. This was another instance of people stepping up when Donna and I couldn’t be there.
We drove to Morogoro, which is a turnoff point to Arusha and Kilimanjaro to the north. We stopped for lunch in Iringa. We stopped that night in Njombe at the Agreement Hotel. We were on the road about 11 hrs. The next morning we got into the jeep and drove around 4 hours to Songea and had lunch and met PCV Veronica. She is an Educational Volunteer, an Engineer from Chicago, teaching at Songea girl’s school. During the long car ride, we had lots of time to talk to both Amanda and Salome. It gave us a better view of the PC volunteers and the PC administration. We were very impressed.
That afternoon we got in the car and drove 6 hours to Mbuji on a very, very bad road that is the major road between Malawi to the St. Luise Secondary school run by Sister Janeth Hyera, for the St. Vincent order.
Two years ago, Joe had been staying there with his friend, and Amanda had tagged along. This was the region where Joseph had spent his last days. He had gone to the nearby Hagati school to see graduation, then to some native dancing, and also went to the graduation for the St Luise Girls, and danced and played the piano. The school has been there for about 10 years, and is just starting to fill out A level classes. It is a beautiful school, with all the girls dressed in green and white. They all help out in the large gardens and grounds, as they grow food for themselves and to sell to support the school. Sister Janet was wonderful. We had dinner and she told us how Joe came on their campus and immediately fit in and both the school and he were comfortable with each other. She really remembered the Joseph that we knew.
We also met Greg who is a former PC in the nearby town of Mikilani. He taught there and extended a year. His second project was Life Skills around which he set up debates between the 5 local secondary schools. The debates would be about all sorts of issues, such as the pro vs. con of western vs. traditional medicines. He is involved with a group of returned PCV, RPCVs that founded an organization, TETEA. Greg is from Illinois and is going around looking at regional health clinics. He starts Harvard Medical School this fall. I lobbied for him to think about Infectious Diseases as a specialty. He actually had a delivering villager die during childbirth from bleeding while he was at one clinic. It is quite common in Tanzania.
Before dinner we took a quick trip to the library in the town which was named Maguu that we help sponsor with TETEA, and the reading room is named after Joseph. We met Simon Mahai, who is a retired Peace Corps Staffer and Education Ministry Official. He was great. He will watch over the library. It was getting dark, so we promised to go back to see the inside of the library in the morning. We slept at St. Luise and rose for breakfast for a very difficult day.
The next morning we went to see the library. We met two young librarians, and found out that in less than 250 days, over 3000 people had visited the library. It is situated in town, not at a school, so there is no possessiveness about the usage.
There are 5 secondary schools around the town and a number of primary schools. It already has more books than the district library. Because it is not a lending library, we will focus more effort on magazines such as National Geographic, Boys life, Zoo books, Highlights, Ranger Rick etc.
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