Extra Motivation

Again, it’s been quite long while between updates,  I apologize.  It’s seems I’ve embraced the rate of work here in Tanzania J

So, “extra motivation”….

I have to say, although I’m not trying to brag, that Tabitha and I our pretty motivated.  In the grand spectrum of motivation, I would say we’re definitely near the top.  We’re pretty self-driven and committed to what we’re trying to do here in Tanzania.  So, I would probably say, we don’t need much more motivation.  We’re pretty motivated already. 

However, the Tanzanian government has decided to give us EXTRA MOTIVATION!! And for that, I guess.. we’re… thankful??? I’m not really sure.  I mean I guess you can’t be mad at someone for motivating more.  You have to thank them and appreciate what they’ve done for you.  It’s a like the teacher that pushes you to work harder or the coach that pushes you to do more reps when you’re ready to collapse in a ball on the floor.  So, I guess the Tanzanian government is like a good coach or something because whether they intend it or not, they are motivating us to work harder than we’re already working. 

So how did they motivate us, you ask? (you did ask, right???) Even if you didn’t, you and I both know there is a lengthy email coming to explain J

So, when I last left off, we were dealing with the Tanzania government.  I explained that the land had been measured, a letter drafted, and all we needed was for the letter to be signed by the government officials. And now,  after more meetings, a few more trips to the district office, we’re still basically in the exact same place…. Well, I guess not exactly the same place.. we do have a SHED! A beautiful temporary corrugated tin shed that we built after we were told we had the land (but before we had the signed letter).  We were ready to move forward with building our house, we drafted up the floor plan and everything but then that was put on hold as the final letter is still in processing.

Basically, according to people at the district office, we have the land.  All 30 glorious acres!!! Apparently, the first measurement was off quite a bit but this measurement is exact and it’s AMAZING! 30 acres HUGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But despite having the land, we don’t yet have all the documents we need to build on the land.  It’s still on the way.  And it’s been on the way for over a month…. And it’s been frustrating to say the least.  Extremely frustrating. 

The way we see it, we’re doing something that will help the entire community.  And after meeting with the entire community, they agree that what we’re doing will help all of them and they are on board with the project.   The problem lies not with the people in the village, but with those with the big tummies, sitting in the fancy offices who appear to be thinking only of themselves.

So basically, the government is corrupt.  There is no question about it.  Instead of doing things to help the people, they are only doing things to help themselves.  And if that were the extent of it, then that would one thing.  BUT it appears that there are people in the government who are actively attempting to prevent the project from happening, which means not only is the government NOT doing things to help the kids, they are doing things to prevent others from helping kids.

So, that means we have two options.

We can give up, let them win, pack our bags and blow this popsicle stand OR as they say in Swahili, we can KAZA MOYO (grip our heart) and not give up.  We can remind ourselves that what we’re doing this for the kids.  The kids who are being forgotten by the government and who are paying the price.  We can complain about the government and about how they aren’t helping the people but complaining doesn’t get you anywhere.  I’m sure there is some wise quote somewhere about complaining.. I won’t be pretentious a second time and quote myself again J.

So, after many stressful days and more than a tear or two, we have decided to use the government’s actions as EXTRA MOTIVATION.  We’ve decided to not give up because what we’re doing is for the kids and if everyone waits for the government to do it, the only ones who suffer are the kids.  So, we’re going to KAZA MOYO and we’re not going to “KATA TAMAA” (cut hope) and we’ll see what happens.  Good things don’t come easy, so what we’re doing must be an extremely GOOD thing!! J

The positive side is that there is a new District Commissioner (top dog) in the district office.  It’s a woman.  She seems pretty awesome. We’re hopeful that she’s going to be able to bring a bit of shake up to the office.  Unfortunately they have been busy with the national census so things have been a bit backed up.  Hopefully in the next week or so we’ll see where things will go.   We’ll keep crossing our fingers and our toes and we’ll keep believing that what we want to do will happen!!!!   

And I guess we’re hoping that you’ll keep believing with us!!  Our journey is a long one that can’t be rushed.  We we are making sure we follow all procedures and jump through all the right hoops so that at the end of it all, we have the most amazing HERO HOME possible!

We’re going to keep following up with the government procedures and we believe that things will work out and in no time our tears of frustration will become tears of joy and we see buildings going up around us on the Hero Home property!! Wouldn’t that be sweet!!!

With the down time I’ve had, I’ve started a new project (I’m not totally convinced I don’t have ADHD, the idea of sitting idle is a scary thought!!).  So, I’ve found an amazing tailor in Kisesa.  He’s 19 years old kid and he’s an amazing sewer!!  His nickname is Bonge (which means Tubby or Fatso, in Swahili, a name I am familiar with, but it’s one of those ironic nicknames as he probably weighs all of 100lbs (when wet).  He’s extremely talented and we’ve been working full steam on making awesome shoulder bags, purses, and wallets using colourful Tanzania fabric!!  I’m biased of course, but I think they are GORGEOUS!!! We’re also in the process of creating a reversible strap for yoga mats for all the yoga lovers out there!  Everything looks really good, excellent quality, super strong and all of the bags are double stitched!!!  I’ll be selling the bags at craft sales in Winnipeg once again get back, which is shockingly in less than 1 month.  I’m back in Winnipeg on October 10^th and will be attending my first craft sale out in Otterburne, Manitoba on October 20^th. If you’re in the area, definitely come check us out!  I’ll be at a few craft sales in Winnipeg as well and will not only be selling bags, but the  beloved Zanzibar scarves will be available and this time I’m bringing back gorgeous hand-woven Rwandan baskets, Tanzanian batiks and handmade earrings and bracelets from Kenya.  Like always, all the proceeds from the sales go to support the construction of Hero Home.  I’ll be posting my sale dates on our facebook page once they are confirmed and of course, you’re always more than welcome to call me up and come check out the stuff yourself!  They make excellent Christmas presents!!!

The last little bit of news is that I was back in Rwanda last week.  I went to check on the nursery school.  I got to deliver tooth brushes courtesy of the Charleswood Dental Clinic and pencil crayons and pencils for all the students courtesy of Claire Cassidy Kojima’s mom out in London, England.  The kids were super excited and really thankful! Please check out the uber cute pictures on our facebook page!  The nursery school door has been repaired since I was there in May and it looks great!! Marceline is doing really well and in exciting news, some of the parents have started paying school fees! I mentioned in the last bulk email that the goal is to have the parents start paying 500Frw (approx. 75cents) per term for school.  The small amount of money will allow Marceline to buy chalk and some supplies for the school and have a tiny bit of income for herself.  Eventually we are working to have the parents pay enough so that we can afford to pay another teacher.  It will take a while to convince the parents, but like we’ve seen with Hero Home, good things take time!  So we’re being patient with the parents!  We’re also working on a proposal with a university in Edinburgh that we’re hoping will result in a library, a play structure and a rain water catchment system! Fingers crossed we get accepted!!!

Okay, that’s all for now!!! 

I hope everyone enjoyed the summer! I hear it was a beautiful one in Winnipeg!

I look forward to catching up with everyone when I get back.

Take care! Tupo pamoja (we are together- in Swahili)

Amanda

At long last...

At long last…

It’s been a while.. a long while since the last update.  But finally, you’re wait is over!

I apologize for the delay!  Things have been…chaotic, discouraging, inspiring, and basically just one big roller coaster ride.  When I read back over the last update and think of the “wall” I was referring to back then, I realize that that “wall” was really just a door and not even a big or strong door… just a plain, simple door but when we finally got it open.. there it was…

the REAL WALL ….

The massive nearly impenetrable WALL…

Let me explain…

I’ll start back where I left off in the last bulk.  We were told to stop working on the land by the village government. 

We stopped. 

Tabitha met with the Minister of Sport at the District Government office (a little Tanzanian political lesson- Village Government is ruled by District Government who is ruled by Provincial Government and so on).  So, the Minister of Sport is this amazing lady who was super supportive of our project.  She agreed to come out to the land and have a meeting with the Village Government.  The meeting happened on May 5^th.  It was great.  30 village council members showed up.  They asked a lot of questions.  The Minister of Sport did an awesome job of running the meeting, making sure everyone was on the same page.  We cleared up some rumours that were floating around… mainly that we paid 50 MILLION SHILLINGS for our land (roughly 30,000$).  Obviously, we didn’t money since we don’t even have that kind of money to fork out for land.  The meeting ended really well.  We typed out the Title Deeds document.  Seven of the right people that needed to sign it, signed it.   The eighth person was out of town so all we needed was for him to get back.  However, we once again had permission to work on the land.  HORRAYYY!!  We started working on the land the next day.

That’s where things were at when I went then left for Rwanda.

RWANDA

So, I left for Rwanda on May 15^th.  I was going to help with a Tag Rugby Tour organized by Friends of Rwandan Rugby (FORR), a rugby charity based in the UK started by two friends of mine I met in Rwanda back in 2007.  I had helped the tour in 2009 and was excited by the chance to help out again this year.  I met up with the 13 English rugby coaches who came over to teach tag rugby to the primary school students.  The tour was awesome!!!   Once again, a complete success!!!! Hundreds of kids got to learn how to play rugby and participate in a big tournament on the last day! It was great!!!  The coaches were a blast and I learn tons of about “British humour.”

While in Rwanda, I also got to spend time with Marceline at the St. Laurent Nursery School.  It was amazing to see her again.  It had been 3 years since I had been to the school which was way too long!! Marceline is doing incredibly well! The school saw a few changes this year and there are a few more in store.  For starters, in March, the second teacher, Francoise, got a paying job which unfortunately meant she was unable to continue volunteering at the nursery school.  Obviously, we were disappointed for us, but happy for that she was able to find a job.  Marceline is continuing on herself and still manages to teach 84 students every day.

At the start of this year, the Rwandan government implemented a new rule that made attending nursery school mandatory (not that it means that every kid magically ends up in a nursery school, but it does mean that the government is supporting and encouraging the idea of nursery school and that’s an important step).  As a result, there have been two new nursery schools going up in neighbouring villages and we are thrilled!  With the government encouraging nursery school, more families are seeing the value of an early education.  We definitely believe early education is the key to success so the more kids that get to attend nursery school, the better!!!!

The next change that’s happening at the school is an important one.  After 10 years of providing free education, Marceline has decided that, to really keep the school going, she needs to collect some small school fees from the parents.  This is something Marceline and I have talked about in great depth and I definitely agree with Marceline and have to admit, I am very excited to see it implemented.  Although the fact that Marceline has been able to provide free education for the last 10 years is wonderful, she simply cannot keep going without some small financial support from the parents.  The school fees Marceline is imposing is the equivalent of 50cents/month.  All the families can afford the cost, the problem is convincing them to pay for something that they are accustomed to getting for free.  The fees would allow Marceline to pay a second teacher a small salary and have some money left over for chalk and hopefully a little for herself as well, although paying herself is the last priority on Marceline’s list.  She’s had a few meeting with parents already and many are on board.  Starting in September, which is the start of third term, Marceline will be collecting school fees.  As a result, we’re prepared that some families may not continue and we’ll lose some students, but in the long run, having small school fees is what will allow the school to be fully sustainable.  I’ll keep you posted on how things go.  We believe over time, the rest of the families will come around and the little bit of income will allow the school to be that much better! We also have an exciting proposal in the works to get support from a group of university students from Edinburgh University in Scotland.  If they accept our proposal, they will fund and build a third classroom/library, design and build play equipment for the school (swings, see-saws, monkey bars, etc), and install a rain water catchment system.  We won’t know for a while if our proposal will be accepted, but here’s hoping!!!

So, also in Rwanda, I got to reunite with a bunch of my students! It was pretty exciting! It was so neat to see how much they’ve changed in three years.  Lots of them have graduated high school! Lots have moved on to universities around Rwanda and are doing incredibly well!!! Some have started working, and some of the younger ones are now in their final year of secondary school.  It was great to see them again! I also visited APAGIE, the highschool I used to teach at. It’s had some amazing renovations and looks incredible! Two new classrooms, 9 rain water catchment tanks installed, a bio lab, a chem lab, a new computer room.  It looks amazing and is great for the students!! A package my parents sent me in March of 2007 even arrived! It was full of biology and chemistry posters and those are all up in the lab! Only 4 years late! :)

And I the last thing I have to say about Rwanda, is about the most inspiring 24 hours I have spent in a long time (and a little reminder just how destiny works!!)  It’s not really about GO!, so I decided to make it a separate email.. which you are free to read if you so choose.. but no pressure!! :) It’s a little bit of a warm fuzzy! :) click here for the link to the second update!

So, after a month in Rwanda, I returned to Kisesa.  While I was away, Tabitha and our GO! staff were CRAZY busy working on the fields!!! I can’t even believe how much they got done in a short time!!!

First they finished making bricks.  I forgot to mention, we started making bricks before I left.  We found 2 awesome brick makers from the village and they went to work on our cement bricks.  When I left, we have about 250 bricks.  By the end of May, they completed 4720 bricks!!!!! AMAZING!!! Plus, Tabitha got 20 people from the village to clear the land.  By the end of May, the entire land was cleared of brush and scrub!! And Tabitha finally got the Title Deeds document!!!  We got the last signature and we thought, that everything was done!!!!  Hahahahahaha :) “thought!!!” being the key word.

So, I got back on June 11^th and on June 12^th, we finally hit our WALL..

Our REAL WALL. 

Our enormous, nearly impenetrable WALL!!

And this is reason I haven’t been writing… I apologize but I just didn’t know what to say or how to explain everything that we’ve been through in the last month…

On June 12^th, Tabitha went to the District Gov office to deliver our Title Deeds to the Minister of Land and get him to come out and officially measure our piece of land.  Some people in the village had been complaining that we were on their land, so to clear everything up, we went to the District Gov to get an official measurement done.  The documents had already been passed through all levels of village government and the Minister of Sport had approved it all.  All that was left was for the Minister of Land at the District Office to send someone out to mark the land and then we carry on with our project.  Well, the Minister of Land turned out to be a horrible man who berated Tabitha and basically said, “You have no land.  Your title deeds mean nothing because the land you were given doesn’t belong to the Village Government, it belongs to the District Government and we’ve given it to someone else.”

Like I said,

THE WALL…..

THE MASSIVE WALL…

Basically it meant, the last two and a half years of meetings and talks with village officials was for nothing because apparently the land wasn’t even theirs to give out.  Tabitha has started this process back in 2010 and had done all the necessary meetings with the village government.  Years ago, the federal government gave all the land to the village government since they would be the ones overseeing it.  However, apparently the piece of land we were given was exempt and for some UNKNOWN reason, still belonged to the district.  We started the process with the Village Government because as far as we knew and as far as they told us, the land belonged to them and was entirely theirs to give out as they saw fit.  Apparently, this was not the case.  It meant that all our meetings, including our meeting in February of this year and our last meeting in May and our Title Deeds, and all the money we had spent until now on the well, the bricks, the land.. was for NOTHING… 

Obviously, this information hit us hard…

Liking run smack on into a wall.

A massive wall..

Tabitha told me all this information at like 8pm, while sitting on the floor in our little kitchen …and it definitely felt like a train plowed through our kitchen and just knocked the wind right out of me…

But luckily, we discovered that we both have these amazing powers of denial!! 

We didn’t scream… too much…

I only cried a little bit…

and basically, we just made the decision to refuse to accept it.

 

We believe in what we’re doing.  We know there are thousands of people in the village who support our project.  If adults and their politics want to try to stop development from coming to the village, then it just means we need to work even harder, because in the end, we’re not doing this for adults, we’re doing this for kids.  For kids who are living on the street and have no one to care for them and love them.. and if these adults are actively preventing this project from happening, it means they are not at all concerned about what’s in the best interest for the kids, and therefore it means the kids need us even more than we thought!! 

So, that was our decision. 

We decided, while lying on our cement floor, that we were going to do everything in our power to make Hero Home happen. 

When Tabitha initially met with the Minister of Land, he did give her one tiny ray of hope. He rudely explained that District Gov had already given the land to some organization that wants to put in a wildlife college or something, but IF there is land left over, then we can apply for it and we’ll go from there.  But basically, it meant we would have to restart the ENTIRE process of asking for land and having the necessary meetings.. AND every meeting is just one more expense that we cannot afford.   

So, the first step was to attend a meeting with over 60 district gov officials.  Tabitha went with the Mayor of the Village where our land is.  He’s been an absolute gem in this whole process and actually appears to WANT development to come to his village! Strange concept, eh?  I, of course, couldn’t go to the meeting because my skin colour was not going to make the process any easier or any cheaper.  Tabitha explained our project and answered questions.  She then met with the District Commissioner (the top dog of the District Government) and he said the project sounded fine.  He ordered his guys to go measure the land and see if there was enough land for us and the college.  However, because all of this has come out of nowhere, they had no budget for anything.  It meant that if we wanted this to happen in a timely manner, we had to cover the cost of getting the people and a car out to the land.  So we began forking over the cash.  The guys went out two days later to measure the land.  They discovered that there were over 250 acres.  More than enough for the college, which wanted 100, and us who wanted 30.  One tiny crack in our WALL!!!! :)

Despite there being enough land, it didn’t guarantee on any level that we would get the land that we had already cleared.  It only meant that the potential was there. From there, we drafted a letter to official ask for land.  We also mentioned in the letter that we had already started on the land and had invested time and money in the process.  Tabitha delivered the letter and some more chaos ensued, but again.. another crack in our WALL!! 

In delivering the letter, we learned that the only way to get our projected accepted was to present it at a meeting with half of all the people in the 7 villages of the division of Ihushi (where our project is taking place).  That meant funding a meeting with approximately 3500 people!!!!!!! It meant a HUGE expense that of course we had not budgeted for.  We tried getting around it and finding any other path, but in the end, it is the official procedure for any project and that left us with two choices.

*One, we do the meeting, fork out the money (approximately 7000$) and we hopefully get our land and carrying out our vision of Hero Home.

OR

*Two, we don’t do the meeting and that’s the end.  We cut our losses and run. 

Although the money was HUGE and neither of us could even fathom the idea of spending that much money, we knew that cutting our losses wasn’t an option.  There are so many people invested in this project and we have worked so hard for it and the kids need it…. so in the end, we knew that there was only one option.

We had a preliminary meeting with the District Gov officials and the Village Gov officials and then planned the main meeting.  The HUGE meeting took place on Friday, July 13, one long and stressful month after we were first told we didn’t have land.  The meeting took place at 3 different locations so that everyone could attend.  According to Tabitha, there was tons of chaos.  Basically, the villagers are fed up with the government, and rightfully so.  However, they chose our meeting as a venue to express their frustrations.   Basically, none of the problems related to US personally or our project or our vision.  The issues all surrounded the government… It was hugely frustrating that we had to get swept up in the politics, but it was encouraging to know that people didn’t have issues with our project.. just issues with the government.  After hours and hours of dialogue, every one at all three meetings voted in support of our project and over 3500 signatures later, our project was passed through!!

Take that impenetrable WALL!!!

So, it took over a month.. and more money than we could ever have imagined.. but we now have 30 acres of land in Bujashi, Tanzania.  I feel a little like a broken record.  It’s like I’ve said that a few imes before! :) An official letter has been drafted.  We’re waiting for it to be signed by the District Commissioner but as of today, we are back to work on the land.  I’ll hold off on the full celebration until I have a signed copy of the letter in my hand.. but as sure as you can be in Africa, we are sure that the land is now officially and hopefully, undeniably ours. 

Our next steps are building a storage shed for our supplies, clearly the rest of the land, making cement fence posts, making more bricks, designing our house and starting construction of our house, planting trees, and much more!! Hopefully we can move full steam ahead and hopefully all the government issues are well behind us.  On the upside, we’ve become extremely well known in the village and people are definitely supporting our cause.  It’s been quite a learning experience and one that I don’t want to live through again anytime soon!!!

Otherwise, we’re doing alright.  Tabitha is doing much much better! Thanks for the all the prayers, vibes, thoughts, and wishes! She’s amazing!! And was absolutely phenomenal in dealing with the government officials!! Here’s hoping I can be amazing in fundraising the rest of the money :)

 

And last update, we had our first volunteers!!! Tom Clarke and Claire Kassidy Kojima from England graced us with their presence!!!!! They’ve been amazing! Tom is spending a month with us (has 1 week left) and as a professional accountant, he’s been amazing at helping with the budgets and project plans! Claire spent 12 days with us and has just graduated from Med. School.  I’m working on convincing her to become Hero Home’s official doctor!! J Tabitha’s son Victor is also with us so the house has definitely been full of life!! It’s been fantastic!!!

I hope everyone is enjoying the summer!!! Take in the warm weather while it lasts!! I’m sure snow is right around the corner! :)

Thanks for reading and thanks for all the support!!

Amanda

3 May 12

Well, i take it all back!! Maybe having a scorpion run over your toes while you're squatting to take a peaceful number 2 over the hole in the cement floor of your outhouse is actually a sign of GOOD LUCK.. because I have had more good luck in the last 24 hours than I deserve... not that I'm complaining!!!

So, since the last update 6 days ago, so much goodness has happened, I don't know where to begin!!! I think it's thanks to the scorpion and everyone's warm thoughts, positive vibes, well wishes, and prayers!!! I think all that positivity melded together and made its way across the oceans to our doorstep out in the boonies of Kisesa.  THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!! All your postive powers paid off!!!! You guys rock!!!

So, first off, we had our town council meeting yesterday (May 2nd).  The day leading up to the meeting was a barrage of phone calls and was frustrating to say the least!!  The morning started off with the mayor not answering our phone calls.  Then we got the confirmation from the Minister of Sport at the district office. She confirmed she was good to go for tomorrow and requested 8 council members attend the meeting.  We tried the mayor 3 more times.  No luck!  We sent a message to let him know the meeting was on and we needed council members to attend.  We tried contacting a few council members but all said they couldn't attend without instruction from the mayor.  Isn't that a pretty pickle! A little catch-22 for ya!

By 700pm, we had talked to a bunch of different people in the village and spent thousands of shillings on the phone (which really equated to less than $16...).  In the end, we did talk to the mayor.  He said he didn't know about the meeting.  We decided not to point out that if he answered our phone calls, he would have already known.  He tried to convince us a different minister was coming on the 4th and that nothing was scheduled for the 2nd.. but we we're having none of it.  Tabitha did a great job of buttering him up on the phone and we sent him thousands of shillings (which really worked out to $6) so that he could call the other council members to inform them about the meeting.  It's amazing what 6$ can accomplish! :)

By 930pm, we had 16 people coming to the meeting.  Twice as many as we needed but who are we to complain! We went to bed with our fingers crossed.

Yesterday, we had our meeting... and it went better than anything I could have ever imagined!!! I still can't believe how amazing it was!! The Minister of Sport was an absolutely PHENOMENAL woman!!! It really makes me wonder what  whatAfrica would be like if it were run by women and not greedy men!!!  She led the meeting and was not only amazingly professional, but calm, attentive, and all things fantastic!!!!  :)  She made sure that everyone understood what the meeting was about and that everyone was on the same page.  She wanted to make sure that when the council members returned to their neighbourhoods, they all reported the same information.  It was awesome!!!  The council members talked about what was being said about us in the village.  The biggest issue is that people are saying we paid the government 50,000,000 Tanzanian shillings for the land.  It's a hilarious statement on so many levels!  First, 50,000,000 Tsh is like 35,000USD.  Trust me, if we had 35,000USD to spend on land, we would have bought it from and individual and avoided the government altogether! If we had that kind of money, this meeting wouldn't be happening!! :) The person who started the rumour said he saw us pay the money with his own eyes!  It's extra funny because the largesth bill in Tanzania is 10,000Tsh.  Did he really see us count out 5000 bills??? REALLY??? 5000 bills??? how big was that bag??

Anyways, we cleared up that rumour as best we could.  We assured them all that the land was donated and we haven't paid a cent.  Hopefully they report that back to their neighbours.  We discussed again the purpose of Hero Home and I think for the most part, everyone got it.

In the end, the meeting took well over 2 hours, but it was 2 hours extremely well spent!  The council members signed the title deeds document.  There is only one signature missing and he should have signed it already and we should have the title deeds tomorrow!  The Minister of Sport also assured us that we would have the district letter by Monday and most importantly, every person at the meeting agreed that we could move forward with our work and they are ready to help out!! Ain't that the best warm fuzzy you can have!! :) 

In means.... we found THE DOOR.. and it didn't take a sledge hammer but rather patience and understanding.  What a concept!!! :) I'm trying not to quote myself again, but the whole idea of doubting only so that you can be proven wrong and be way more grateful in the end, makes a lot of senses!!!

So, that was the first bit of good luck.  The second bit is that we won the YWCA Young Women of Distinction Award.... CRAZY!!!! The award is in my name, but it's a team award.. because without Tabitha and Marceline.. GO! doesn't exist.. and I couldn't get to do what I get to do!!  Unfortunately, being that we're all over here in Africa, none of us made it to.the event but I heard it was a great night and it was a sold out room of over 950 people!!! My parents stood in for me and it was probably for the best.  Last night, while they were collecting my award, I was out in a rainstorm collecting water running off our roof!! I collected over 150L which was awesome because we were running out of water and free rain water always excites me!! I even showered!!!  I think I was more in my element!!!  But nonetheless, we are super honoured to have won the award and are grateful to the YWCA for the publicity the award will bring for GO!.  Huge congrats to all the nominees and all the recipients!! There are some truly amazing women in winnipeg!!!!!

That's all for now! I just wanted to share some of our good luck with you guys!! Thank you so much to everyone for the warm thoughts, the positive vibes, the prayers, the well wishes, and everything else!! We can't do this without your amazing support!!! Thank you so much!!!

I hope everyone has some good luck this week!! I'll send some scorpions over! :)

Take care!

Amanda

The Wall (not referencing Pink Floyd's Album)

26 APRIL 12

I don’t know much about luck.. have to say, I’ve never really been a “lucky” person… some might go so far as to say I have bad luck.. I don’t know, but when you go out at midnight to have a peaceful number 2 while squatting over the hole in the cement floor of your outhouse and a scorpion decides to run right in front of you... I don’t think that’s a good luck sign… although, I did manage to kill it with a bucket so maybe I’m not as unlucky as I think... either way.. I haven't been having much luck lately...

So, it’s been another long haul since the last update.  There are definitely updates to share but not quite as warm and fuzzy as the ones that I got to share when we were digging the well (if those were considered warm and fuzzy…).  Things have been rough.  I’m not trying to exaggerate or be a downer… but like I said before, you guys are along for the whole ride, in joy and in sorrow, in sickness and in health (unless you want me to stop sending you emails.. in which case just let me know and I’ll be sure to take you off the list! No worries!! :).

So, we finished the well on March 20th.  Tabitha had gone to Sirari (a town near the Kenyan border) a couple of days before we finished the well to complete some of her unfinished business.  However, while she was there, she blacked out and was taken to the hospital.  I’m not exactly sure what happened. The doctor discovered the left side of her heart is enlarged (possibly due to all her years as a marathon runner) and it’s causing severe high blood pressure.. like 180/140 high blood pressure…  She spent 5 days in the hospital and another 5 in bed out in Sirari.  It was a scary time, especially since I didn’t get all the details until she came back.  It’s been a month since the incident and although I would love to report that she is back to full super-trooper strength, that’s unfortunately not the case.  She had a few really bad weeks when she first got back.. and spent a lot of time in bed…but things are  getting a little better now.  She has some good days and some bad days.  She’s still a trooper and fighting through it.  Hopefully she’ll feel better soon.  For those that pray, we’re happy to have you pray for her.  For those that don’t, cyber hugs, and warm thoughts are most welcome!!!

As for Hero Home- well, that too is less than warm and fuzzy right now.  We’ve hit a bit of a wall… but when you can’t climb over it.. and you can’t find a window to sneak in.. then you take out a sledge hammer and start making your own door! And I think that’s what we’re going to do… not literally.. no sledge hammers will be used.. but you get the idea.  Apparently the Mayor of Bujashi (Bujashi is where our land is and I think he's considered like the Mayor though I don't really know) wants something.  We’re not sure what he wants.  We unfortunately haven’t honed our mind reading skills.  But apparently until he gets what he wants, he’s decided to make things challenging for us (because building a home for 50 street kids and orphans in the middle of nowhere is not enough of a challenge on its own). 

So, at the start of April, after finishing the well, we asked the mayor to have a town meeting so we could ask the locals to come out for one day to help us clear land.  We want the local people to help out since the centre is for the good of the whole community.  Our sports fields will be for all the children, not just the kids that live at Hero Home, and we will also run programs for parents and youth in the community…  So, we believe that if the locals put some of their sweat in to the project at the start, they’ll have more respect and appreciation for it in the end.  Last year, they all attended a meeting with Tabitha to learn about Hero Home and they all accepted it… so there really shouldn’t have been any problem to have them help out one day… and probably they wouldn’t have had a problem but the mayor didn’t call the meeting.  The day of the meeting, we went to the village to meet with him and he explained that the district government (one step up from the village government) has asked us to report to them and show them our registration papers.. “if we even have them...”  Well, of course we have them.  Tabitha registered with the national government two years ago.  And the district government has already seen all the documents and the mayor has seen the documents… but I guess they forgot.  So, OK.. that’s fine. We’ll go back and show them again. 

So, Tabitha went to the district government to deliver our registration documents (we both decided my skin wouldn’t help this process so I stayed back and waited).  After being tossed around from minister of something to minister of something else (with a lot of verbal abuse in the process), she finally ended up at the minister of youth, sport, and culture.  Makes sense since our goal is to use sports to help youth to live well within in the community.  The minister was a mama that Tabitha knew from her running days.  They worked things out and made an appointment for the minister to come see the land on May 5th.  She gave us the green light to go ahead and work on Hero Home until then.  However, I guess the mayor didn’t like that and is still trying to be the best darn wall he can be.  We tried multiple times to call him but he’s decided not to answer our phone calls.. unless we call him from a different phone number in which case he answers but they usually finds a way to hang up once he realizes it’s us. At least we get a little chuckle out of it. :) Tabitha did finally run in to him a couple of days ago.  We were coming back from the land and he was in Kisesa (our town) and to his misfortune, his friend saw Tabitha and called to her.  I guess the friend wasn’t in on the secret that he isn’t talking to us.  Tabitha chatted with both of them.  The mayor said he had been to the district office and that we need to stop working until the minister comes out to check the land.  Tabitha explained that the minister has approved the project and there is no reason to hold up work.  The visit is just to see the land, but the project itself has already been approved.  I don’t think the Mayor was happy.  

So, that was Tuesday.  I forgot to mention, on Saturday, we met with our general contractor and two of the awesome well diggers.  We’ve officially hired them on as full time workers! So, the GO! Team just got a little bigger.  They are happy for the full time work and we’re happy to have them! They started clearing the land on Monday.  They continued on Tuesday.  On Wednesday and Thursday,  there was a funeral in the village so they couldn’t work.  Today is Friday.  They went to work.  However, our friend the mayor went out to the land to tell them they couldn’t work until the district office comes out on May 5th.  Harrrouumpphhhfffff!!!!!!!! The Mayor has yet to call us or tell us directly that we can’t work, but I think we get the point.  Where’s that sledge hammer ???? :)

So, needless to say, things have been a little slow.. but we haven’t given up… I mean, some days we want to.. and there is a lot of lying on the cement floor contemplating our future… but we’re still going on!!!  You see, last year, Tabitha met with over 200 townspeople and they accepted the project and the local government not only accepted the project but agreed to give us 30 acres of land, the national government as registered us as a NGO and in February of this year, we had another meeting with 30 local leaders and they accepted the project again and measured out the land and now the district government has given us the go ahead to work.. so really… there is no reason not to move forward.  One apple cannot ruin the bunch, one man cannot stop a thousand people who believe… so.. we will make that door!!!  We will get through this wall!!!  it’s maybe just taking more time than we’d like.

Since writing this email, we've talked to the district minister.  She was surprised to hear that the work wasn't going on.  She told us she'll come out on May 2nd to see the land and get us a signed document allowing our work to proceed.  She said she's never even talked to the Mayor.  go figure!

So again, those who pray, by all means, keep us in your prayers! Let's hope things go smoothly, we make the door happen and we walk through to greener pastures!! Those who don’t pray… all positive vibes are accepted with open arms!

But enough of that.  On the warm fuzzy side, we had our first real soccer game with some of our street kids!!! It was awesome!!!  We brought some of the street kids we play soccer with in Mwanza to Kisesa to play against the local Kisesa team.  If there was ever a David and Goliath match, this was it!!! This was the type of match movies are made of!  Our kids were all under 12 and we told the kisesa coach to bring his under 12 kids.  He showed up with a group of giants! :) The youngest might have been 12 but the oldest was at least 15 or 16.  And they had shoes.. each and everyone one of them.  And we didn’t.  It was definitely mismatched.. but our kids were awesome! They put on their jerseys, tied up their shorts and took to the field! Although it was a gong show getting started, once the game got underway, it was awesome! The kids played their hearts out!! We had the local drumming troupe play at the start and at half time and there was a good group of kids out to support!  The last 10 minutes of the game, a huge rain storm came! We played on for a bit and then gave up and everyone ran from the field to the shelter down the street! It was a great ending to the day!! We were soaked to the bone and happy to the core! :) the kids had a lot of fun, even if we lost 4-0 (it could have been 40-0 with the size difference.. but our kids played hard right til the end!).  We sat with all the players after the game.. gave out some notebooks and candy.. congratulated all of them for an excellent first match and amazing sportsmanship and then called it a day.  I had supper with the mwanza kids and then we headed back to town so that they could sleep… on the street… the taking them back to the street part was definitely hard.  There were only 6 street kids that came to the match.. but it was still hard to know that they weren’t going home to parents or adults to care for them… and they are awesome kids!!! Super awesome who deserve a great home! We had a great ride back on bus. They had the whole bus laughing.  No one would have ever guessed that they were a bunch of “no-good street kids” (as people refer to them..).  they were normal kids who were happy after getting a chance to play soccer!  It was definitely a good reminder as to why Hero Home needs to happen.. despite any wall that tries to be put in our way!!

Last thing, I’ll shamelessly plug our new and super awesome facebook page again! Check it out! LIKE us and tell your friends to LIKE us! We're very likeable!! :) There are tons of pictures and all our videos as well! and you can stay up to date on everything that's happening with GO!.

Also, just thought I’d share with everyone that St. Pauls High School had a super successful Mission Week back in March during which they raised 2517$ in support of GO!.  We’re super thankful to the staff, students and families who supported the cause!!!

And Westwood Collegiate just finished up their amazing Hero Month! They had tons of events including selling hand prints, t-shirts, a bake sale, and a soccer tournament!! It was hugely successful and helped us spread the word about GO! and Hero Home!!!!  So successful that Sharon Blady- the MLA for Kirkfield Park actually talked about it at the Manitoba Legislative Assembly! Check out the link to read what she has to say about Westwood and GO!.  YEAH!!!

I think there are some more fundraisers coming up in the next few months as well, so stayed tuned to our website and facebook page!!

Thanks again for all the support! :) I hope everyone is doing well! As always, I love to hear what people are up to!

Tupo pamoja (“we are together” in Swahili)

Amanda

   

Never doubt...

Never doubt… or if you must, doubt only so that your doubt may be proven wrong

and your gratitude amplified – me.

Yup! I just quoted myself! :) Only slightly pretentious, right? :) But it’s a lesson I’ve learned repeatedly in the last month of working on Hero Home and just thought it was worthwhile sharing with everyone.

I know this update comes a little late, but I wanted to get all my ducks in a row before emailing… and having played with the neighbours ducklings a few times, I can assure you getting ducks in a row is not an easy task! However, my ducks are finally in place and I have lots of exciting updates to share with you.

First off, if you haven’t been following the updates on facebook, let me bring you up to speed on the well progress! Last email, the amazing digging crew was still going strong digging! Since then… we hit water!!! It happened on Friday, March 2^nd almost 2 weeks after the digging began. We saw a few glints of water on the Wednesday and then the guys kept digging Thursday and FRIDAY morning, there it was… all shiny and beautiful!!! It was quite an impressive site!!!! The water is super clear and not very salty (I know because I had a celebratory sip.. and it must be pretty clean because I didn’t experience any adverse effects!!) There are plenty of pictures up on our facebook page so definitely check them out!

After hitting water, the guys emptied all the water out and kept digging a bit more to ensure we had a solid water source. In the end, they reached approximately 40’8”. Pretty impressive work! On the Sunday, as planned, we had a huge celebratory feast! We killed a chicken, had spiced rice, pasta, fresh salsa, and soda. It was DELICIOUS!! Turns out one of the well diggers has also worked in a restaurant! Our lucky day!!He was a fantastic cook and it was a great way to end 2 weeks of hard work!

After reaching water, the next step was to find someone to make the cement rings to go in the well. This is was fun. Jonathan, our amazing friend and “general contractor” (our go-to guy who lives near our land and has been amazing at helping us with all the work) tried a few different contacts but all of them wanted way more money than we could afford or fathom paying for the work that needed to be done. However, we were in a bind because with the well already dug and we needed to get the rings in fast before the rains started and ruined all the hard work. After being told ridiculous prices for renting the metal frames needed to make the cement rings, we decided that we would get our own rings made and then at least, we could use them and rent them afterwards. Tabitha and I went on a mission to find some frames so that we could get some pictures and have it made. It was two long days with lots of dead ends, but in the end, we found someone with rings. He wanted over 1 million shillings to make the cement rings (over 600$). Instead, we smiled pretty and convinced him to let us take some pictures of the frames. We found a highly recommended metal “fundi” (expert) to make the metal frames. He had never done it before but was confident that he could do it. We went to town and spent a few hours finding all the supplies and then I told him all the measurements. Then I wrote out all the measurements. Then I drew a sketch with all the measurements…

Can you see where this is going? :)

So, that was Wednesday. He said he’d be done Friday. I went there on Friday with Uncle Moshi (oh yeah, uncle moshi came to visit!!) We got there and the fundi wasn’t there but the frames were.. but… the measurements were wrong!!!!!! Shocking, eh??? :) I bet you didn’t see that coming. We waited for him for a couple of hours and when he finally showed up, he regrettably informed us that he had forgotten the paper at home and called his wife to read him the measurements. She read 3’ 8” as 38” and she read 3’ 2” as 32”. Awesome. So, our frame was 6 inches shorter in diameter.. which when multiplied by pi, makes quite a difference. Frustrating! Right? We all stood around staring at it for a while. They all seemed to think they could just add on 6 inches... but they didn’t quite understand the math involved in circles and I think I was too disappointed to really be able to explain it well. I think I just shook my head a lot. In the end, we just had to accept it. In Swahili they say, “sinajinsi”… which basically translates into “I don’t have any means…” and it was true. We couldn’t afford to buy all the supplies again because they cost over 100$ and that’s a lot of money here… and even if we did buy all the stuff, it would take another 3 days at best and the rains could start any day and even after getting the frames, it still takes close to 2 weeks to make all the rings.. so time was of the essence. So, we gave up staring at it, thanked the fundi for his efforts, gave him a slight lecture on what to do in the future when he forgets measurements, and hopped into the back of pick-up tryke (motorcycle front end, pick up truck back end) and headed back to Kisesa.

Now that we had the frames, we needed to find someone to make the rings. And that was still a challenge. We talked to a couple people, all who had ridiculous prices. Finally Jonathan got in contact with a cement ring fundi (expert) that lives in the same village as our land. He said he could make the rings. (did you notice my wording… I’m sure you did). He had a good price (see where this is going?). So we negotiated a bit with him and agreed on a price. The work was to begin on Wednesday, March 14^th (12 days after we finished digging). Wednesday morning he showed up. So did his friend. We were surprised, but whatever. We had already negotiated the price with him so if he wanted to bring 1 or 100 people, it was the same price as far as we were concerned. You follow, right? Well, here’s the where the story gets awesome. Within the first hour it was apparent our “fundi” had no clue what to do. Serious doubt set in. His friend did all the work and all the directing. Unfortunately, the frames were sticking and they only got 4 rings made. At 430pm, we got another pick-up tryke to come out to the land and take us and the frames back to our metal fundi. He made some repairs and we headed back out to the land to drop off the frames. I got home at 930pm. Definitely another long day…

The next day, our “fundi” came with his friend and his friend got to work. A couple hours in, our fundi said he had a funeral to go to. He needed a deposit. We paid half the money, which is standard protocol here. However, was isn’t standard protocol is saying you’re going to a funeral and then going to get sloshed on local beer, which is what he ended up doing. Awesome. Luckily for us, the friend was amazing. We were so grateful to have him!! He stayed and made 11 rings the second day, 10 rings the third day, 7 the fourth day, and even came back on the Sunday to finish up the last remaining 3. Our original fundi appeared on the last day to collect his money. He ended up keeping it and not giving it to the guy who did all the work. It sucked big time. I felt awful. Our fundi was a complete scam and the guy who did all the work got screwed over big time. Not fair. We ended up paying the real guy some money, but we have so little money to go around that we couldn’t afford to pay for the job twice… it sucked. Again, “sinajinsi”…

The awesome fundi agreed to drop the rings in the well. He came out on Wednesday of this week with his amazing crew of 5 young guys and in one day, they dropped 31 cement rings into our well!!!! It was impressive! Each ring is 38” across and 16” high and weighs over 200lbs.. but the 6 of them and our 2 diggers dropped them in to our 40’ well using homemade ropes. There are videos to come.. but basically they tied 4 ropes around the ring. The 8 of them lowered the ring into the well and then one guy would climb into the well, shimmy down the rope to the bottom and set the ring. He would then climb out and the process would start again! They were pros! It definitely wasn’t their first rodeo! Me and my bike were on site before 700am that day and I left the land at 700pm. So, it was a long day but very exciting!

Our diggers filled in the sides with sand today and yesterday and tomorrow, we should be putting the lid on. And that will be the end of the story of the well. It’s been slightly over 1 month since it began and we’re excited to be nearing the end. There were definitely days and days of doubt and frustration, but in the end, we are super grateful for all the wonderful people that have helped us make to make the well happen, both here in Tanzania and around the world!!! THANKS!!!!

So, that’s the well update. On to the next excitement that I’ve been dealing with. So, as I mentioned in last email, we started Saturday Soccer with the street kids. The first two weeks were awesome! 25-30 kids came out. We had a great time and we’re starting to get to know the kids. Week 3 there had been a ceremony at the field so we couldn’t play. Week 4 (last Saturday), Tabitha stayed out on the land to help with making the cement rings and I went to town by myself for soccer. Our numbers were lower, likely because the week before had been cancelled. However, we still had 12 little guys (10-12 yeard old) come out and we played on the full field. It was excellent… until the end. Three older boys (14-16 years old) showed up at the end while I was sitting around with the younger dudes having tea and donuts. They wanted donuts but I said our rules say that tea and donuts are for people that play. We finished up, the little kids left and the three older ones hung around. They continued to pester me until I finally gave them some donuts. Then they took off…. Any guesses of what’s coming next? While they were pestering me, 3 little guys came back to the field because I was holding one the kid’s money. Luckily, they filled me in on what happened. While one of the older kids was pestering me about donuts, the other one stole my camera. Oldest trick in the book and I feel for it. Luckily the kids came to get their money and said “teacher, they just took your camera.” So, off we went. We tried to find them.. no luck. Talked to some older street kids to start spreading the word… sat around for a bit. I shook my head some more… I think I would have had a stronger reaction but I was in a complete state of exhaustion. I had been at the site all morning helping with the rings, had biked the 10km back to the house, hoped on a bus with my tea thermos, 2 soccer balls, 25 cups, donuts, etc.. and had just spent over an hour running around in the sun playing soccer.. without having eaten anything… my brain had given up. Me and the three awesome little guys went to where all the other street kids were waiting for food. Apparently someone brings food on Saturdays. I met up with the little guys that had been playing soccer and they of course were not surprised. They all told me they older dudes were planning it. Bummer! I said they needed to tell me these things. They said they were afraid of being beaten…. Long story short (unless its too long already to be considered short), the three thieves showed up. Older street kids grabbed them and tried to make them give back the camera (a show put on for my sake, because really, they were probably more proud of them then mad at them…) and the thieves denied it. While all the commotion was going on, I got robbed again. They stole all my money, which fortunately wasn’t much more than 20$. They were nice enough to throw my licence on the ground, so when a kid picked it up and said “teacher your face is on the floor” I knew right away the money was gone. In the end, two older kids said they would get my camera back. I said great. They said how much. I said 50000Tsh (33$). They said 70000$ (47$). I said fine. I waited with a group of kids and 10 minutes later, they came back with my camera. However, I didn’t have a single shilling on me since I had just been robbed. I borrowed 33cents to make a phone call to a friend in Kisesa. He sent me money over the phone (a new fancy technology that’s all over Tanzania). I got the money, I paid for my camera and the guys took off running. Then I broke down. I think the exhaustion got up with me. I was able beg a ride on the bus after I told the driver I had been robbed, twice. Everyone on the bus knew in no time.

And when you doubt humanity, humanity gives you a reason to be grateful…. 5 different people offered me money, included an elderly grandma. No one looked at me with disdain and said I deserved or said I had lots of money so I shouldn’t care… Everyone was disappointed in “their” children since all kids are “their” kids. It was an amazing scene to balance the drama of the thefts.

But, that’s just the background info. Here’s what I really want to say. When it first happened, I was super angry. Here I was trying to help and they go and steal from me. But, the thing is, I was helping the little kids and they didn’t steal. They were super stars and told me it had happened and helped me track down the kids, even though it was potentially putting them at risk. While I was on the bus going home, and had more time to think about it all, here’s what hit me. I can be mad at the kids that stole.. but they’ve been taught to steal. It’s not even that they should know better, or have been taught better.. they’ve been taught to steal. Their education is not in a classroom or in a home, it’s on the street and that’s what the older guys on the street are teaching them. So, do I get mad at them, or do I get mad at the circumstance. At the situation? Why are they on the street in the first place? Some of them have lost their parents to AIDS and that makes it easier to understand… but the truth is a good deal of them have left their homes because they are constantly beaten by their parents and couldn’t take the abuse. So, how can I be mad at a kid who has left home because he is tired of being beaten? I have to be mad at the parents because how can you choose to bring a child into the world and then abuse him or her. It’s not right. It shouldn’t happen. But, the thing is, the parents are poorly educated. They have more kids then they can handle and contraception (thanks in part to the church) is frowned upon and people constantly quote the bible saying “god told them to make babies” (I think God would have a different message today if she saw how many people were already on the earth.. but that’s just my thoughts…). The parents themselves were raised with beatings and therefore they pass it on to their kids. And why are the parents not educated, because the entire country is living in a state of poverty… So, I can have this anger but I can’t direct it anywhere and in the end, being angry isn’t going to change the world. So, I have to let it go and used it as motivation. Motivation to work even harder to make Hero Home happen. The scary thought is that our window of opportunity is shrinking. The little guys we play soccer with are going to be big guys in no time… and if they continue to live on the street, they are going to be just like the big guys. And that’s a scary but all too possible reality. We need to make Hero Home happen as soon as possible so that we don’t lose more kids to street life…. And that’s my motivation.

So, I’m going to soccer again on Saturday. I won’t be by myself and I won’t have a camera. Hopefully the little guys will keep coming and hopefully I can get them into Hero Home before I lose them to street life. I have huge doubts. I have to doubt. But hopefully, like with the well, all my doubts will be proven wrong and I’ll be eternally grateful.

Sorry for the heavy email.

I hope everyone is doing well. I heard spring has sprung in Winnipeg! Crazy! Enjoy the warm weather!

If you’re on facebook, please LIKE our new facebook page and then you can follow along with all the updates and pictures as they get posted!

We also have some excellent videos on our youtube channel (growingopportunities) to check out:
*GO! talks to Street Kids in Mwanza
*GO! Be a Hero with your Hands (might be blocked... I have Ben Harper's "With your own two hands" song in the background. It's a perfect fit but apparently EMI music disagrees.
*GO! digs the Hero Home Well
*GO!- Westwood Collegiate Hero Month Kick Off

and of course, our website!

Peace and love,

Amanda

GO! hits the streets...

Feb 27, 2012

Hello!

Normally, I like to wait at least 2 weeks between updates, but there is so many exciting things going on with Hero Home, that I just couldn’t wait to share it with you. If you’re still trying to get through reading the last update, no worries, this update will be there waiting for you, whenever you get the desire!

I also had to send this update because I foolishly forgot to send my PO Box in the last email. How am I ever going to get candy without an address!!

So, just in case you get the urge, my new address is:

Amanda Furst

c/o Tabitha Martin

PO Box 11676

Mwanza

Tanzania

No pressure! Just thought I’d let you know! Also, the third reason for the early update is that I’ve created a video of some of the awesome street kids we’ve started working with. Please check out the video on youtube- GO! talks with the Street Kids of Mwanza, Tanzania and spread it around! It’s available on our website and on facebook. Please post it and help us spread the word and let everyone know why we’re doing what we’re doing!!!

So, when we left off on Feb 18^th, the ground was being broken on Hero Home! Seven days later, the ground has not just been broken, our amazing well diggers (Safari, Emmanuel, and Patrick) have reached almost 30 FEET!!! It’s amazing!! I have pictures of the process up on facebook, but even the pictures don’t do justice to just how deep down they are! They are absolutely incredibly guys who work every day with such awesome energy! They are officially part of the GO! Team and we couldn’t be more thrilled! On Friday, they reached rock bottom. They had a huge rock to get through but in a day and a half of constant pounding, they were able to break it up. They’ve said the ground below the rock is moist, so we know that in no time, we’ll have WATER! It’s pretty exciting for all of us! Water really is the key to life and essential for all our future activities!

On Thursday of last week, we held a second town council meeting. Well, Tabitha and Jonathon (our general contractor) held a town council meeting. We all agreed that bringing a white girl into the meeting wouldn’t help our cause of asking for help so I went to work with the well guys and help pull up dirt and rock from the well. Although Tabitha and Jonathon already had a town council meeting last year, we needed to reconfirm our intentions and convince them to help us out with the building process. Tabitha and Jonathon did an amazing job with the 30 town council members and despite some tough questions at the start, they were able to get them all fully on board with our project! It was amazing! Tabitha is such a trooper!!! Let me tell you JUST how much of a trooper she is! On Thursday, we got up at 600am. By 715am we were out the door to bike to the land for the town council meeting. The meeting was scheduled to start at 800am but since members were coming from all different towns, the realistic start time was planned for 10am. Tabitha waited at the office and I headed out to the well. The meeting finally started at NOON, which as Tabitha says, is just BMT- Black Man Time. Tabitha did an amazing job in the meeting introducing Hero Home and explaining that the centre is not just for us but for the whole community. The sports fields are for all the kids in the community, not just our kids. We are also planning on running weekly workshops for Mamas in the community to teach health, hygiene, and even first aid. We asked that we all work together on this project as it truly is there to serve the needs of everyone. Although there was some initial resistance and a few silly questions, Tabitha pushed on and was able to get them all on board and committed to helping us make Hero Home a reality. After the meeting, all 30 people walked the 15 minutes to our land to check it out and get a general idea of where our 30 acres will be. The walk around finished at 6pm!! The meeting was supposed to start at 10, be done by 11 and then the walk around was supposed to be done by noon. BMT indeed. By this time, I had already biked back to Kisesa and was in Mwanza trying unsuccessfully to upload videos on to the internet. Tabitha left the land at 630 and not more than 5 minutes into her ride back, she got a flat tire. So, the amazing person that she is, she RAN all the way back to Kisesa with the BIKE!!!! Like I’ve mentioned, our land is about 10km from our house and the way back has 2 large hills! But, she ran all the way while pushing the bike!! Once she got home, she dropped off the bike and made her way to the main road to hop on a local bus and make her way to Mwanza to meet me. We had decided to go meet some of our future Hero Home kids who are currently living on the streets of Mwanza. We finally met up around 900pm and in less than 15 minutes, we were surrounded by 25 streets kids. It’s an incredibly hard sight. There were about 20 boys and 5 girls. Not a single kid was more than 15 years old. The youngest was 8 years old, unless you count the 10 month old baby that was being carried on the back of his 13 year old mother. The baby, sadly though not surprisingly, was the result of rape. The kids were incredible. A handful of them know Tabitha already and the ones who didn’t instantly respected her. We all sat on a street corner and chatted. We were approached by a couple of local men who wanted the kids to leave. The men were drunk and apparently they frequently beat the kids or burn them with cigarettes. It’s a horrible situation. We talked to the men and told them we would only be a while. We chatted with the kids and they were amazing. Most of them sat quietly on the sidewalk and listened to Tabitha. We wanted to organize a soccer game on Saturday and of course, all the kids were on board. Please check out the video of our first meeting and the soccer game!!! Our plan is to play soccer every Saturday in Mwanza and get to know the kids and see how we can help out, even before the centre is fully built. We left the kids around 1100pm and they went off in search of corners and doorways to sleep in. Some girls walked us to the bus stop as they were going to meet up with other girls. They told us that some of the street kids were picked up and put in a centre in town, but they were beaten in the centre so over half of them have already gone back to the streets. The girls explained that they were all beaten repeatedly at home which is why they decided to leave. No a single kid on the street is there because they would rather sleep on the street than sleep in a home with loving parents, they are there because either they don’t have parents or the parent they do have beats them so much that they sleeping on the street is a more appealing option. It’s a sad situation. In the end, Tabitha and I lucked out and got a local bus back to a town near ours and then got a ride with motorcycle taxis back to our town. We got to our town, Kisesa, at midnight and grabbed some food on the street. Neither of us had eaten since 700am when we left the house to bike out to the land. It was a ridiculously long day, and even longer for Tabitha but she’s such a trooper!!!!

It was a long, hard day but meeting up with the street kids definitely gave me the motivation I needed to keep going. It reminded me why all of this is necessary. No one should be living on the street… but I believe our world has failed if we let 8 year olds sleep on the street, especially when it is within our power to change the situation.

So, that was Thursday. Friday and Saturday we biked out to the land again and on Saturday, some of the town council men came out to mark off our land. I think they measurement skills were a little sketch, but in the end, we got a decent piece of land and on Tuesday, we will finally get the official documents for our land. Very exciting indeed! Saturday afternoon, we headed into Mwanza for our soccer game with the street kids. It was a BLAST!!! My body was exhausted from all the biking and the 12-16 hours a day we had been working, but it felt great to play! The kids were awesome!! Only a couple older boys had a bit of a temper, but the rest were just excited to play! We had a good meeting at the end and set some ground rules and mutual understanding. It went really well and we’re exciting for next week’s game to see how things progress! Yesterday, we rested! It was much needed! I washed clothes, since I hadn’t washed my clothes in well over a week and was definitely in need of some fresh t-shirts.

This week, our plan is to keep working on the well. Once we hit water, we need to make up cement rings to insert in the well and then build a cement cover for the well. We’ve decided against putting a manual pump on the well for now, as we’re hopefully electricity will reach our village by the end of the year and then we can go ahead with a motor to pump water up to a tank. We’ll see what happens!

I hope everyone is well! (no pun intended!) Thanks for the all “get better” wishes. I’m mostly better. The cough is hanging around but I’m getting used to its company! J

Take care! Peace and love!!!

Amazingamandaintanzania

Your first glance at the future Hero Home!

Check out the first few pictures of the land on which HERO HOME is going to be built!
and a Video of the Digging of the Well-DAY 1

All is WELL...

Feb 18, 2012

Hello!!!

How are you all doing? I thought, since another two weeks have passed us by, I’d bring you up to speed on all the latest developments of Hero Home!

So, where to start…. Well, first off, just to get it out of the way,… I’m sick. SHOCKING!! I KNOW! :) However, so far it’s just been a 3-day cold so nothing that a good Winnipegger can’t handle. Although, instead of calling it a cold, they should really call it a hot because I feel way more hot than cold… I think I like having a cold in Winnipeg a lot more than in the African heat. The last couple days, even my sweat has been sweating! On the upside, my voice has sounded like an 82 year old grandpa for the last 3 days. Tabitha likes it… she says it feels like there’s a man in the house. I would laugh at her, but my laugh also sounds like an 82 year old man... and then it just ends in a coughing fit.. very unattractive.

But, so far, this “hot” hasn’t slowed down productivity, so I’ll bring you all up to speed on HERO HOME! It’s exciting!!!!!

So, we moved in 2 weeks ago and spent the first week settling in. Tabitha was sick with lingering Malaria which was very unfortunate!! It was painful seeing her so sick. She’s usually up at 5am like a ball of exploding energy, so it was quite a shock see her in bed til 9 or 10am. However, we got settled in. Bought some buckets and stuff for our house. Filled our pantry with 3 kgs of dry beans, 5kgs of dried corn flour and some rice. Hunted down the closest water source and went to town filling up as many buckets as possible. By the end of the week, we were all stocked! I managed to open a bank account (in case anyone wanted to wire us money :) and rented a post office box (in case anyone wanted to send us candy). So, basically, by the end of the first week, we were set to get down to the real work.

Our first order of business is digging a well, as without water on site, everything else takes a lot more time and money. So, Tabitha and I began seeking out some well diggers. You know how in Canada, there’s like.. the internet and you just type in what kind of service you’re looking for and in seconds, you have 89 460 options. Or for the old schoolers, you go to the yellow pages and look up your desired service and start calling away. WHILE, let me tell, in case you didn’t realize…. Internet advertising has yet to hit rural Africa! Bummer! So, we walked around town, talked to friends, stopped at every random well and tried to track down the owner to find out who dug it and how much they dug it for… (sounds like the start of a hip hop song… “did you dig? Ya I dug!” ok, not a good hip hop song, but I’m sick… what do you expect!).

So, we found a couple of young dudes… they quoted us 7000Tsh/foot. So that you can appreciate how ridiculous of a price that is, let me give you some background info.

*A regular well in these parts is anywhere from 45-65 feet.
*Three well diggers can dig about 5 feet per day
*1$ is roughly 1500Tsh
*So, to bring you back to your elementary school days, here’s a math problem for you to solve:
If three well diggers dig 5 feet of well in one day and charge 7000Tsh/foot, how much does each of them get at the end of the day? I was going to let you figure it out, but it’s so ridiculous that I just had to write it… 11 667 Tsh/day!! (approx 7.38$ PER DAY!!! Nobody in a rural African village gets 11 667Tsh/day! An elementary school teacher that has a college diploma gets roughly 6000Tsh/day and these dudes expect us to pay 11000/day each!!!! It was crazy!!! A highshool teacher with a bachelor degree might make 20000TSh/day but that’s only after 4 years of university. I think you get the point :)

*Also, talking to our friend (and newly appointed general contractor- kaka Jonathon) we learned that the price should be about 2000Tsh/foot.

So, needless to say, we didn’t waste too much time with those blokes and quickly went on our way. We got word of another digger and went to visit him at his mud hut. We met his wife and 5 kids but he was nowhere in sight. He paid us a visit later that evening with an even more ridiculous quote of 8000Tsh/foot. We let him have it a little before we sent him on his way. We did the math for him but he didn’t seem to think that 40000Tsh/day for three people was ridiculous. His defense was that it was hard work. But here’s the thing.. ALL work in rural Africa is hard work! Living is hard work... it doesn’t mean you get to inflate your price 400%! So, we sent him on his way as well.

So, we’ve quickly learned that two women, both under 5’ 6”, one of them being a young white girl and the other looking like a young black women (Tabitha is in her 40s but doesn’t look much over 30) will not get a good price on labour. On some level, we expected that we would have a challenge but we were definitely a little discouraged by the lack of respect we got… thus, leading us to recruit Kaka Johnathon. He’s a good friend of Tabitha’s and was instrumental in helping her secure the land back in 2010. We invited him over, explained our dilemma (us having boobs and not a penis- tho, we didn’t explain it in those terms :). We asked for him to join our team and help us make Hero Home a reality! He accepted and we cheered! So, he’s our new GENERAL CONTRActor! It was a great day!!! So, now our team is one person stronger! Very exciting! Two days later, he had recruited 3 well diggers!!!!! We’re loving it! He’s lives out by our land, so he has great connections and gets things done!

On Wednesday, we headed out to the land to meet our new diggers. I biked (I’ll tell you the bike story in a minute) and Tabitha took a motorcycle so that we could deliver the digging supplies which I had picked up in town. I was going to write about getting the bikes.. but I decided it was not that exciting of a story.. basically, it took us 6 trips in to town (and more than 30 hours of waiting) to find and purchase 3 decent used mountain bikes. Like I said, internet advertising hasn’t hit rural Africa so unfortunately we couldn’t goggle map “used bike shops in mwanza, tz.” It made for a lot of walking and hours upon hours of waiting for bikes to be tuned only to discover they have irreparable damage.. And keep in mind, when I say “decent” it’s all relative! We are the proud owners of a Raleigh, a Solar-made by Raleigh, and a Schwinn… so.. yeah, definitely relative. However, the gears work, the brakes don’t rub too much, and the tires aren’t too warped..so, we’re happy.

So, back to the well. The diggers are good guys in their early twenties! They initially quoted us 4000Tsh/foot but we worked them down to 3000Tsh/foot and we would bring them corn flour and dried sardines so they can cook up lunch while they work. I’m not sure everyone would agree to those conditions, but they did! J So, on Wednesday, Feb 15, 2012, we hired our first workers and today, Feb 18, 2012, the land will officially be broken and work begins! It’s a very exciting day in the story of HERO HOME! Tabitha is heading out there right now to deliver the food and see the start of the work. I would be going, but being that I sound and feel like an 82 year old gramps, I’m opting out of the journey in hopes that I heal up quickly and can head out there on Monday.

That’s the end of the updates for now! I’ll keep you posted on the well advancements.

My last little bit of news is disappointing news… but I thought it was important to share it with you all. So, Tabitha and I created our budget back in 2009. However, as I’ve discovered since returning to Tanzania, inflation has hit… and it’s hit hard. Prices of everything has sky rocketed while salaries remain unchanged. The world has decided that anything less than 1$/day per person is “poverty”. I can say without hesitation that the majority of people living in Kisesa have fallen well below that line. Since the inflation has hit, families of 4 or 5 are living on anywhere from $1- $2 a day. It’s a sad situation. In 2005, sugar was 600Tsh/kg, today, in 2012, sugar is 2400tsh/kg. Unfortunately, salaries have not increased by 400%. Even 1 kg of beans now sells for 1500Tsh whereas in 2009, it was somewhere around 700Tsh. A bottle of Fanta was 350Tsh in 2009 when I left and now it’s 500Tsh. I could go on, but I’m sure you get the picture. Life is much harder. A 50kg bag of cement, which not too long ago sold for 9000Tsh is now up to 20000Tsh or 18500Tsh if you’re lucky. So, what this means for Hero Home is a re-evaluation of our budget. We’ve sadly discovered that because of the price changes, our target of $50 000 is not going to be enough. We’re not discouraged though! It just means we need to be smarter, work harder, and do our best to raise more money. I know that all of you have already been wonderful supporters and we appreciate it a whole bunch!!! None of this would be possible without the support you’ve already shown!!!! And we don’t want to keep asking you to support us as we know everybody has financial responsibilities and times are hard everywhere. All we ask is that you help us spread the word to new people… your friends, family, co-workers, and maybe we can get more supporters on board and we can reach our new goal, which right now, is sitting around $70 000.

Thank you so much for all your help!!!!!! I hope you’re all doing well!!!!

I’ll be sure to keep you posted as construction rolls along! Pictures are on the way. I had some videos but my camera card has picked up a virus so I cant upload them! Don’t worry, I’ll get some soon!!

Lots of love and hugs!
Amazingamandaintanzania

PS. Apparently the google search assignment from last email was harder than I intended. For all of you who searched "side effects for women on antibiotics in hot climat" and didnt find a concrete answer, the answer was YEAST INFECTION. now you know!!! yikes!! it was painful!!!