A letter to friend

**Below is what I just sent to a friend of mine in Brooklyn, NYC. I haven't updated here in too long and I thought it might due. Emily's parents are in town for this weekend and the next (with a safari in-between) so we'll be spending most of the time with them. Right now though I've had a little time to myself while they get settled so I put this down.

...so, the work I'm doing: It feels so often like I'm doing so much and hardly a thing at all. What I'm doing, for the most part, doesn't present immediate results. However, so much out here takes s-o- l-o-n-g to get underway and even then things can be rescheduled so even when I do a lot of work I end up spending a lot of time feeling bad and sorry for myself for doing such a poor job.

...and then, out of the blue, we'll suddenly have a lot of donations come in and terrific new contacts will blossom. Suddenly we'll be on track for receiving school chairs (over 200) and desks (over 100) for students and staff at out Secondary School. Suddenly we've got a firm commitment on free malaria test kits for there to better evaluate our sick students and staff. Suddenly we'll have a visiting team of optometrists and ophthalmologists there examining all our students and even people from the surrounding villages, handing out free eyeglasses to those who need them and scheduling free operations where necessary. Suddenly these good things will happen and I'll feel a little bit better about being here and being supported.

About who I'm serving: I'm not going to say that these kids are terribly unique or especially deserving over any others. Of course, you could find a group of poor kids in NYC and spend time with them and try and help them and be doing just as wonderful a favor to the world making it a better place. The work of giving these children a school, of course, is remarkable and there are places in the world where that is more important than others. Making a good school, on top of that, is wonderful indeed. Work that I do to do help serve these children and is part of that effort is something I'll proud of...

However, I imagine anyone gets just as much joy out of spending time with and helping a group of kids no matter their background or challenges. It is wonderful to be really getting to know them. What they really think of us though, I'll confess, I'm not sure. I mean, do they truly believe we're doing it for them or that it's just something we've decided to do at this point in our individual lives. For some, sure, it's one or other.

I wish my Swahili was coming along faster so I could speak more openly to the youngest kids but we get by... most of them are really keen on studying and are just happy having someone to show their homework to - even what isn't math or English - just for the acknowledgement of their work.

I get involved in some ways I didn't think I would. There just isn't enough local involvement here. People will drop by now and again, sometimes with donations, and visit just long enough to pray and chat with Mama for a while but then they're gone. Though HOCET is feeding and housing these kids, caring for their medical needs - and though this is a lot of work in itself - what it needs and desires is more quality time of locals talking and playing with the kids. I fear that I'll leave here having failed at helping to establish and real regular commitment from local persons. Of course, that wasn't one of my goals - and, frankly, they'll need to have another staff person hired to coordinate this - but I feel it's so important. HOCET and Kujali say they are building future leaders but there are, so far, no real mentors, no professionals sharing their stories, no young adults sharing strategies for higher level education strategy or success. They see the founder always busy and teachers and that's about all. They see wazungu (white foreigners) come through and want very much to visit where they are from or just have things they have... I believe many are impressed by the way we conduct ourselves but, also, that they see it as a special privilege afforded our skin color or assumed financial status.

I've spent time with our young adults who are out of our Secondary School system and not really within any plans of the organization. There is no one to lead them and I'm trying to help them understand that they are at that point in their lives - or at that point in their lives again - when they must do for themselves. They once, each of them, had to work as children to support themselves (or, for her, earn her place in the home) and then they were offered another place to be and provided an education. Now they must continue their studies but can't expect (because they aren't receiving and can't receive) the same kind of direction. Now, I say, they have to decide for themselves What Are They Going To Do with the help offered to them. What is the goal? How must they act to reach the goal? Mostly they wait. They bring up the need for help and they wait. And wait. They'll hear one suggestion from someone and subscribe to it 100%. I tell them they can't afford to wait, soon the help will end and the choices they make must be based on deliberation as well as a willingness, again, to risk something. Basically, it's time to become an adult. That doesn't mean being taking on all their own burden but, rather, to be fully invested in their development - so much so that being told to wait indefinitely isn't acceptable anymore. Some of this comes from their own experience and I believe some of it is cultural. ...but if they're going to help others later on, they've got to become the best at helping themselves. Happily, there is another volunteer coming next who will be working on just this thing. (Well, lots of things, but also this thing.)

A volunteer is returning to focus on volunteers at the City Center as well as educational programming there for the youngest children. Because HOCET is focused on older teens their challenges can be greater: there is already so much ingrained it can be, combined with how much is missing in them, difficult to mold them as one might hope. But there are some children who are taken in at the Primary School level and HOCET is finally going to be able to put more attention on them so they're brought up with what I guess will eventually become The HOCET Way. It's exciting to consider. I just hope there's more progressive local, regular, support.

HOCET is really growing and in a truly dynamic way. From the inside it's all jungle and precarious cliffs but observed from the outside it really is a beautiful thing, young yet but maturing into something more solid, more stable. I guess it's maybe just like the teens they serve in that regard. ha.

~aB

Food

We need food.

HOCET has grown like, well, like a bubble and many, many, many more children than was originally imagined are being served and this is wonderful.

However, for all the growth, for the all the buildings, for all the "programming" and for every campaign to meet some unique need respective to growth there is one thing we have neither a targeted campaign for or any real commitment: Food.

One thing I have realized during my time here is that the churches, at least those from abroad, is really where it's at if you want to generate a lot of funds to help some far-flung place. Sure, you can get the secular world to huddle together around a romantic notion or an emergency; you can get half the world to donate $70 if you give them a concert. But if you really want a volunteer team who's supported, who can command a use of funds in a moment's notice, who can get their expenses covered regularly by a single request to their loved ones: seek ye the Evangelicals.

However, from church support here, it seems that, while everyone has a heart for supporting the mission and work of the orphanage, not one, so far, seems able to produce a commitment. That the country is poor, that just about every church is striving for a building of it's own, for a larger building, for another building... that there are unique challenges every church must face to truly serve its congregation - these all stand as very real pressures on overall ability to give. But it seems to me that, for churches in our community, to have a small donation, every month, to meet food needs for HOCETs population, this should not be impossible.

...so what does HOCET do to make this happen? Well, grow more slowly, for one. But that's in the past. Perhaps by making the churches in their community A Part of the HOCET community with something that generates just this thing. A document with HOCET at the heart and churches listed around it with a goal amount, displayed in food amounts and cash figures, might be a truly worthy campaign to conduct. The pastors could present this to their congregations or superiors if they felt it was completely within reason.

What I want them to understand is that their commitment to an annual campaign does not, in fact, endeavor to offer sustainability for the needy. Especially when that campaign is generally targeted around the holidays: an overabundance of perishable food items in November and December, unfortunately, does nothing to feed a child in January. To supplement our pantry our founder - and each of them knows this - spends time every month trying to secure an invitation to a church for a concert by our Youth Choir. Our children are literally singing for their supper. Currently, this is the only sure-fire income-generating venture HOCET can conduct regularly.

If 12 churches committed to meeting food needs for one month of the year, each a set month every year, we could be fine. If 10 churches committed to donating food or money - a much smaller amount of either - every month... well, then our Choir could perform merely out of love rather than from need for what has been given like children performing for their parents.

I'm not the first to think of this here at HOCET; Hezekia has tried in his way and one reason for failure might have been from lack of follow-up and from any real relationship (these churches are close but HOCET has no regular presence in any one of them). Now we're improving email communication and updates, at least, and I figure we should try again.

Every time we talk campaigns, as soon as we've settled on some, I hear, "the children have no food. We have no money", and it's true. Some think finding money for something else will take away a burden but securing yourself a year's supply of socks will never yield you a sack of beans. We get by but, enough, this isn't something for the foreigners to provide: Tanzania, Dar es Salaam, Kinondoni, you must feed your children.

~aB

Still Kicking

I haven't seen the kids much in the past week as I spent most of the time trying to get work done at home and a video uploaded at an internet cafe. I saw them last, last Friday when we held another movie night at the center.

This time we watched The Tuxedo with Jackie Chan. ...however, that's a really dumb movie. So then I loaded an early Jet Li movie, Fist of Legend and jumped around to the fighting parts. They giggled at The Tuxedo but gasped and cheered the big scenes from Fist of Legend. They were totally engrossed, in fact, during the final fight when you're lead to believe that the hero may actually fail, not just once, but twice before the fight is done. They loved it.

I thought we'd watch another movie this weekend but I've been sick since early Friday evening. The doctor at the hospital diagnosed my fever, earlier dizziness, sore and swollen thoat as tonsillitis. When I said my tonsils and adenoids were removed as a child, he simply smiled and said, "They don't normally remove all of the tonsil". What do you say to that? At least I did get him to look into my throat.

We tested me for malaria, just to rule it out, and now I've got some antibiotics and a medication for this tonsillitis. This a recipe for a fine Valentines Day celebration with your lady does not make... but, anyway, we do what we can, yes?

We've gone shopping (as the Shoppers Plaza Supermarket is just down the road from the hospital) and purchased some chicken, onion, veggies and aloo stuff for a dinner and movie in tonight.

More soon on what I've been up to (other than swooning). Siku Njema!

~aB

Favorite Signs from here in Dar:

"If God Wishes" - On the back of a bus (which I complete as "we'll get there")

"This Car Protected By The Blood of Jesus Christ" - on, well, lots of cars, trucks and busses here
(the meek shall inherent the earth but, it seems, the true believers will keep their cars)

"Afro-Station" - A general supplies store (I don't know why this is so funny. If it was a salong I think it'd be less so)

"God Only Knows" - A small chain of butchers. What kind of meat is hanging in the window?"God only knows".

"OPEN" - on any number of stores at 4:35pm with owners who, after having welcomed you in, reply to your request for something with, "Oh, sorry, we're closed". ...but it's not 5:00 yet. "Yes". So, you've closed early? "Yes". But you said Karibu (welcome). "Yes; sorry."

~aB

Sqwoshed Ba-what?

This will be the new home for my personal thoughts on my experience here in Tanzania and will continue so long as my relationship with the organizations and children continues.

I'll try and import the first posts from the other site soon.

Oh, and the title comes from something a couple of boys did for my camera recently: they sang a quote from the Lion King, "Asante Sana, Sqwoshed Banana!" I don't know if Rafiki the baboon says "squashed" but they said "sqwoshed" and I thought it was even better.

So, to you, readers, supporters and you, I say, Asante Sana (thank you very much), Sqwoshed Banana.

~aB