Ray's report to family III

Our first morning in Africa we went back to the airport for the Precision air flight to the southern port town of Mtwara. It was eerie flying into the airport in the dusty and hot south were we had first met Joe in Africa. Nothing had changed about the tiny hot airport. I still remember bypassing the police to hug Joe. The police were irritated with us, but Joe spoke to them and they settled down. This time we were to be met by the staff of the Old Boma. The only other good hotel was the Southern Cross, but that was where we had had several meals with Joe, it was near the guesthouse were we had stayed two years ago.

The Old Boma is an old German Fort, which was made into a government offices by the British. It fell into disrepair hen the British left. 10 years ago a British NGO, Trade Fair restored it with the aim of using it as a training ground for hospitality jobs. As with most German installations in Tanzania, the building and town is well founded on a hill overlooking the Mikindani Bay with a commanding path up to the fort. Its location captures a nice breeze and has a beautiful view. We stayed in the Governor Daquart room.

On our last visit I had wanted to seed Tanzania's newest Marine sanctuary, Mnazi Bay on the Misimbati peninsula just north of the Mozambique border. This trip, I finally got my wish. The cab was barely up to the trip on the bad roads. It took over an hour to go the 30 miles to the Ruvulu Sea Lodge, which was basically deserted and not very welcoming. The beach is beautiful, but we did not swim far from shore out of concern for the current. There had been dynamite fishing in the region in the recent past. There are patches of beautiful coral, and many small fish, but it will be many years for this area to recover.

On the way off the peninsula were were stopped by what appeared to be a villager at a gate. He spoke to our cab driver, who basically stared straight ahead and pretended that he did not see or hear him. He then turned to us and asked us to get out of the car - Donna screamed that we were were American, and we were not getting out of the car; the screaming worked and he let us go. It turns out that the driver had probably stiffed the park on the Marine Fees, but since there was no sign, no official uniform no nothing, we had no way of knowing.

That night we had dinner at the Old Boma with Jen from Jiamini. She had been a PCV for three years and is now working as a project manager for a US university, raising five kids and running the non profit Jiamini. We give the scholarships through Jen's help. To be honest, it would be impossible to give money in Tanzania without personal connections. We had sponsored six students from Joe's school in Ndanda in 2010.

This year we were planning on sponsoring up to 4 Form 5 students and the two students still in school from last year. We reviewed the applications with her, and we were more impressed this year with the quality of the applications. We decided to commit to all 8 students fro 2 years. We have been very successful at raising money and with the Generoso Pope Foundation covering the 301c IRS fees, we can use all the money for good works.

The next morning Jen and her driver, Chouro picked us up. As we drove the familiar road to Ndanda, we could see the poor dusty south and some of the landmarks of our previous strip. We saw the food stands where Joe's headmaster has bought groceries, and the spot where the jeep we were driving had had a flat, and we had to take a bus to a local restaurant to wait for it to be fixed. It was very emotional to enter Ndanda and to pass Joe's house and to go to the Headmaster's office. The 2nd Headmaster greeted us, and two student government students. Also, the PCV Dillion who replaced Joe. It is Dillion's dad who plays tennis with Jay in California. Things have changed in Ndanda, there is now reliable power in the school, and there are many more teachers at the school. He no longer has to teach all the Chem, Physics and Math courses at the school. His tour is up in November, and he is applying to medical school. We also met one student we sponsored who had graduated, Davis and the students we currently were helping.

Then we went to a ceremony of the full school in the courtyard, with over 600 boys in attendance. Ndanda Secondary school is an A level, or top level school that you are chosen by test score and sent from all over the country. It is quite hard to get into.We gave small speeches and told them we were sponsoring all 8 students this year. Jen called out the names and they all came up. We don’t think they understood exactly what was happening.

There was a very touching speech by the head of the student government and the Vice-Principal that brought tears to my eyes, as they said wonderful things about Joseph. We then walked around with Dylan and saw his house, which wasn’t much cleaner than Joe’s. We also went to see the FEMA club that Joe founded.

The Peace Corps gets a third of its funds from PEPVAR, which is the HIV education fund. As such there are Health Volunteers that teach health, particularly HIV education. Education Volunteers are encouraged for their second projects to do HIV projects. Joe started a FEMA or HIV club run by the students. He at one point had organized a running competition between 5 secondary schools with speeches by the students and testing.

It turns out that the Ndanda FEMA club was selected as the best FEMA club in all Tanzania in its first year. They proudly showed us the award plaque and posters to remember Joe in their club’s room.

We then met with the students who got scholarships and the student government kids for lunch it the beer garden run by the Benedictine Nuns. I had the egg and potato pancake that we liked when we first visited. By then Jen had told them that not only had we paid for their school fees and committed for 2 years, but we had also given them extra money for books and expenses. They all came up again to thank us. They also said their Mothers, Fathers and families thanked us. Apparently some still have money owed to their prior schools. Until that is paid off they cannot get a certificate and without a certificate they cannot graduate from A level. Also, many had showed up without the fees, hoping that they wouldn’t get kicked out.

We then drove back to the Old Boma. Jen Harding is living in Mtwara. She has adopted 1 orphan girl, 3 orphan boys and the son of her housekeeper and is sending them to private school and tutoring. We invited all of them and Chouro to dinner at the Old Boma. It was a fun meal seeing the kids ordering sodas and getting ice cream.

I also got to speak to a volunteer from Britain, Ken, who was 65 and in construction management in London, but downsized out and came down to help out for three months. Trade Fair has not been very successful getting the locals to take over. Plus, there were lots of plumbing problems related to the renovation 10 years ago. It was nice to have diverting conversations, and he was thoughtful about our loss.

I have gotten much more free about telling strangers about Joe’s death. One of my patients who lost a son said he felt that if he didn’t mention his son, in a way he felt he was denying his son existed.

Ken drove us to the Mtwara airport the next morning and we flew back to Dar.

Ray's report to family II

Six days before I was to fly to London to meet Donna, I fell off my bike and broke my left 6th rib. I made sure that I didn't puncture a lung, but still it made travel difficult, particularly when I sneezed or coughed.

With all these negative omens, I boarded a Virgin Atlantic overnight flight to London. I had a tough time sleeping on the flight because of the broken rib. I met Donna in the British Airways terminal in London. We could not help reminiscing about our trip two years ago, where Kyle, Daniel, and the two of us had spent a day waiting in the same terminal for our flight to Dar es Salaam. That was literally, a lifetime ago.

When we arrived in Dar some things had changed. There was a new electronic passport reader and an automatic fingerprint reader at the entrance = but the fingerprints did not all register. We went to the Colosseum hotel, a relatively nice hotel, and it has a great gym associated with it! After a nap, Andrea and her daughter met us at the hotel and gave us a phone and explained the details of our trip. A familiar face was appreciated at this point! We went to dinner that night with Myra's friend, Maggie, who lives in Dar. She had heard about Joe from multiple sources. She was in the second co-ed class at Amherst, she had been in Myra's class at Yale, and she was active in the NGO community of Dar. It turns out that she had grown up in Larchmont! We talked about many things, but in particular she let us talk extensively about Joseph, which was very, very helpful for us.

Ray's report to family

Our African Safari 5/2011

After Joseph's death, Donna was resolved to go back to see where he died. For me it was very painful to think about a place where so much pain emanoted. I saw the "rock" in Mbugi as an evil totem. However, I wanted to support Donna and my friend said that she had to go to see where her son had deid. So we set out. We depended on the the help of so many people, that I thought it would be a miracle if it came off at all. As I began to set up the trip, more and more I noticed how many people Joe had affected and who wanted to help and see us. I knew how difficult travel in Africa could be, particularly because we did not speak Kiswahili.

We planned for just the two of us to go because it was a long trip and it would take over two weeks to do. Because of their own lives both Daniel an kyle would find it hard or impossible to do. Plus it had to be the dates we went as the new volunteers would be starting soon. Also the 50th anniversary of the Peace Corp is being celebrate this year, and there are many celebrations around that.

Then right before we left Osama Bin Laden was killed. Since we were going to a country that has a large Muslim population, it was a little worrisome. However, Tanzanians tend to be very non-judgemental and sectarian - tribal and religious problems tend to be minimal.