Off to the UK...

Last minute preparations are underway... if all goes well, Esther, Ben and I will be in England after the weekend... This will be my last blog about our life here in Dodoma for a while, since Tales from Tanzania can hardly be related from the very different environment in England!

However, baby's arrival will be news to post from the UK once Parker III decides to arrive... as will some details of our MAF Home Assignment (mid-April to mid-May) for those of you who will be able to come along in England to one of our meetings, to hear and see more of Andrew's work and our Tanzanian home life.

As I write this, surrounded by suitcases, with the noise of the local mosque blaring through our Tanzanian home, Esther and Andrew have just left on a farewell mission of a different kind- taking our second kitten to its new home with Jane's neighbour, whilst giving Jane a lift home too. The first kitten went yesterday to a local family. Now Moshi's little family is fully depleted... we hope she recovers quickly.Tomorrow we will bid farewell to Dodoma and travel by road to Dar es Salaam, where we will need to stay before embarking on the next leg of travel. Andrew will then turn the car around and head back to Dodoma for a further 5 weeks of flying work with MAF...

So what are we looking forward to, apart from happy reunions with family and friends, on our return to England, after 16 months in Tanzania?

• Firstly, being near to reliable health care. Health concerns are such a worry here in Dodoma, with lack of consistent access to trained medical professionals, particularly during pregnancy.
• Although it might seem strange to those who live in the cold of the UK, extremes of any kind are uncomfortable, so I am looking forward to escaping the relentless heat and scorching sun of this hottest season in Tanzania. Carrying a baby in this climate has been tiring and more energy than usual is drained away by the sapping heat. However, my clothing for colder weather will be a bit of a problem, as we cannot buy maternity clothes here in Dodoma. I will return with few items suitable for the cold, as here I wear my "tents" and some skirts/ T-shirts I have borrowed from the MAF store cupboard, where maternity clothes are kept by for expectant mums. Such clothes will be rather breezy in England! Thankfully, I have 2 pairs of long trousers I found in Dar es Salaam, for the final few weeks of having an enormous tummy and layers of clothes will have to keep me warm on top...
• Apples, English chocolate, brown bread, a choice of cheeses, variety of fruit and vegetables, flavoured yoghurts (and a break from our home-made yoghurt, which isn't quite the same as a Muller Corner!!)
• Choice of breakfast cereals that don't cost the earth!
• Walking on pavements instead of dust
• Not having to wash and sterilise fruit, veg, eggs and meat before being able to use them
• Brushing our teeth with, and drinking, tap water
• Sleeping without mossie nets
• getting milk straight from a carton, instead of having to boil it, then wash up the sieve, the dirty milk bottle to be used the next day again, the pan and the spoons used for skimming off the cream
• Going on a train, especially for Ben, who is very excited about the idea!
• Having places to take the children out for the day. Dodoma has very few places that exist just for "entertainment", in a country where people's income is spent on everyday survival, rather than having surplus to spend on pleasure: nearly 58% of the population exist below the poverty line, on less than $1 USA per day (*WHO statistics).

Sometimes, I wonder if it seems extreme to travel to the UK to give birth, when thousands of Tanzanians have their babies here every year. I wonder what people here think when the foreign staff disappear overseas to have their babies. With 5 of us MAF Tanzania International staff heading to our homelands for new baby deliveries this year, the programme is far quieter than normal! However, since I have the option of being nearer to cleaner and safer medical care, it seems a responsible choice to make. We hear some dreadful stories here: we met 2 orphans at a refuge in September, whose births were assisted by doctors who apparently "forgot" to deliver the placentas, thus causing the needless death of their mothers... of cesearean operations where the doctor cut too far along the stomach, resulting in nasty infections... of unsanitary conditions and lack of awareness about hygiene in hospitals and clinics.

According to the World Health Organisation *(WHO), the number of pregnancy related deaths for mothers and infants is above average for East and Sothern Africa:

• 550 maternal deaths in every 100,000 births (2008)
• infant mortality is still high, with 51 babies dying per every 1000
• Only 46% of Tanzanians have access to the assistance of a skilled attendant during childbirth.

These are difficult statistics to consider in Tanzania, making me realise again how very fortunate we are to have access to so much help and assistance in the UK. So when we travel over this weekend, I will be bearing in mind the privileges I have access to as I hand my British passport over for inspection on arrival in England...

Mini Masaai

Andrew recently celebrated his birthday here in Tanzania. Esther + Ben had great fun planning and helping with decorating his cake -and we all had a great surprise when the candle I bought at a local shop lit up wildly and set off our fire alarm with its smoke!! Good to know our smoke detector works effectively...

Shopping for suitable gifts is rather a challenge in Dodoma, so we opted to give Andrew a birthday present with a Masaai flavour- a reminder of the MAF work he enjoys each month up in Northern Tanzania with the Masaai people. At the time of photo-taking, Andrew was unavailable for posing with his red "shuka", his Masaai stick and his "lion-club", so some willing volunteers stepped in as Mini-Masaai for the photo shoot to model Andrew's birthday gifts:

Safina

Yesterday, in the blazing afternoon heat, JulieAnne (our MAF neighbour) and myself paid a visit to a SAFINA.

Safina is a centre for street children, or those children in desperate need of help with problem homes, or living on the city dump. It is a voluntary project, supported by various individuals and run by a German nurse, Andrea, who lives on our MAF compound (the very same lady who stitched up Esther's head for her in the scary accident last year!).

Being on the streets is a tough life anywhere, but here in Tanzania there is no government aid, no official projects, social welfare or any kind of centrally organised system to give a helping hand to disadvantaged children and their parents. Andrea was telling us yesterday that a child caught on the streets by the police can result in them being put into prison- Safina have children on their books as young as 4 years old who already have a prison record, since they were found living on the streets! Some of the children Safina deal with may live alone, in an adult-less household. Some of them have been taken in by Safina staff who head up a couple of homes for the boys in their care.

Safina provides a place where the children are tracked and registered carefully and their situations reviewed by a the staff team. The staff then endeavor to get the children into education and provide the books, shoes, school registration etc to help get the children (mainly boys) off the streets and into school, since education is a vital key to giving them a more promising future. Meticulous hand-written files are kept to record information on the individuals in Safina's care...

Standing with Safina Directors Andrea and Patrick, in front of the wall where the children's school shoes, books and school bags are kept for them in safety, so that they can pick them up each morning without the risk of having them stolen on the streets overnight. The empty pigeon holes means that many of the students were currently at school.

In the mornings, Safina runs a nursery school for the younger children in their care system. In the afternoons, when we visited, the children/ teenagers can come along freely for a short lesson and Bible study. Sitting in on the lesson yesterday, I felt acutely- and uncomfortably- aware of my own privileges in life and of the inequality which we see around us in the world. Being pregnant in such an environment, sitting amongst the boys, also made me so sad that not all children are born into a family willing or able to care for them. It makes the work of Safina all the more significant, that they reach out and work hard to help those who have had such a rough start to life.

The daily lesson:

After the lesson, the children are given a free meal -every day except Sundays. It may be the one meal a day that these young ones can count on -and it is thoroughly enjoyed!

The queue for food, where each young person is registered as they come in:

Laddis, the cook and his team, serve up the food:
Laddis cooks the food in the traditional Tanzanian way- outside, in enormous cooking pots on a fire, with ashes piled on top to keep the food warm:

The expense of running such a project is huge- most days, at least 70 children turn up for lunch, which consists of rice, meat, vegetables and fruit. The bill is over a million Tanzanian shillings a month just for the food (about £500) , but then there are schooling costs, the rent of Safina's building in town etc etc.... while other donations go towards shoes and clothes for the children who literally have nothing. It was a challenging afternoon to hear how Safina gets by- and also an inspiration to see what a difference the dedication of a small team can make to try to improve the lives of some of Dodoma's poorest residents.