I was very nervous heading into today's work. Nervous enough that I had contemplated taking some of my leftover valium to calm the jitters. One moment I feel so calm, happy, and in control of what I am doing here, then I realize that I have to get in front of people and ask hard questions, and I wonder what draws me to do this. By the end of the day this usually resolves itself.
After placement Living came to our hotel with a taxi to take us back to Jiendelze. We pulled up to see 5 children in the classroom, Furaha, and a few mamas. My instinct was right, the word was out that there was a group of wazungu in town with some money to share. We were seated and first told by Furaha that this mother was here because she could not afford school fees for her child. The child was only five years old. We were definitely put in an awkward position right off the bat. We mentioned the fact that the child was not yet old enough for primary school and that our mission was to focus on primary school students at this point. Next year we would consider sponsoring her child. Unfortunately, that did not make the situation any lighter, nor did it alleviate the burning stares. She said she could not afford even the nursery school fees this year, and wanted help now. It broke my heart and I felt terrible, but we had to tell her no. Where do you draw the line? How many people do you hand out money to before it spirals out of control and you are left with nothing? We had asked to be alone in the room with Living and the three children: Saumu, Abedi, and Mussa. The mother and her child lingered making things uncomfortable, but eventually left. I think I may have felt even worse had she not been dressed in really nice clothing.
The interviews started with Living telling the children that they could answer the questions and know that what they said to us would be kept a secret. It didn't seem to relax them much at all, and I got the impression that they felt interrogated. Even my offerings of cookies did not seem to help.
While interviewing Mussa we noticed some things that caught us off guard. Ramadani had told us Mussa was an orphan. I suppose by the Tanzanian sense, yes, he is an orphan. His mother is not in the picture, but is father and step mother both live at home. They have running water and electricity. He eats meals of rice and ugali. We began to doubt that there was a pressing need with this child. Abedi and Saumu were another story. These two were definitely the kids I remember from last year. They grew up in Dodoma, and recently came to Majengo after their parents died. They now live behind Jiendeleze with their grandmother. The grandmother does not work. They have no running water or electricity, and often only eat ugali after school.
We had decided to hold off on the home visit with Mussa until we could speak to Ramadani about why he suggested that he needed help, and stepped behind Jiendeleze to meet Saumu and Abedi's grandmother. She is a woman I remember from last year, not too tall, old, and very painfully thin. She welcomed us into her home warmly and sat us down on the one couch. Her home was nothing more than a mud building about 8 by 8 feet with one bed, a dresser, and a couch. A small window did nothing to light the room, and did not provided a breeze that I so strongly hoped would come. We were all in the room, Chelsea, Jennifer, Living, and I as well as the two children, Furaha, Ramadani, and the grandmother. We started asking questions about how she came to take care of the children. She brought Abedi and Saumu from Dodoma a couple of years ago, and more recently brought their older sister to live with her because of trouble where she was at. She lives on basically nothing, and is supported by Ramadani bringing her soap and flour when they really need it.
The older daughter was not there, as she was in school. We questioned the ability to send one child to primary school but not the others. It turns out that Ngoro Primary has been asking for the school fees to be paid*, and if they are not paid by Monday the girl will be turned away and sent home. After some light conversation we told her then that we would like to help her send these children to school. For Abedi and Saumu we will be paying (not all at once) for their primary education from Form 1 to 7 and for the oldest daughter from Form 5 to 7. We would provide all supplies, books and uniforms, however this was not a free ride. We let them know that they needed to study and to go to school every day, and that we would be checking up on their progress. Ramadani said that he would make sure they went every day and would check up on them. I'm really beginning to like the guy. We set a meeting for Monday afternoon to meet with the grandmother and to head over to Ngoro to pay the school fees. We left with many of the most sincere thanks I have heard in a long time. Ramadani took measurements of the children (yes, he's a jack of all trades) to send to the seamstress to that the children's uniforms would be ready by the time we came back on Monday, and they would be able to attend school right away.
Then we talked about Mussa. It turns out it is not in the culture to pay for a child that is not yours...in some instances but not others. Apparently, his father brought him to live in the house that already belonged to the step mother. We were told that the electricity and water were there when he moved in, and was not his fault. His father runs a small business, it is the step-mother that has the money, but refuses to pay the school fees for Mussa. We said that all of this seemed a little off, and we felt that our money would be better spent on families in situations similar to Abedi and Saumu. Ramadani said he would make some house visits this afternoon and he will have two children waiting for us to interview on Tuesday afternoon!
*The school system in Tanzania is definitely a complicated thing. By law, families are required to send their children to school or risk a fine and possibly jail time. Also, primary schools here are technically supposed to be free. Unfortunately, the government made those laws without providing the schools with any significant amount of funding to allow the school to take on children. Therefore, each year the schools hold meetings to determine how much they need to charge per child to make up for the money they don't get from the government. So, while the law says the families should not have to pay, the reality is that they do. It's just the way things are.
I'll post some photos to the blog soon, and have managed to upload just a few to my picasa site: picasaweb.google.com/meghanmeghanbobeggan look for the "Moshi-2009" album. I'll add captions when I get home, as I can't seem to get the page to load here anymore.
I hope most of this is clear. By the end of the day I am exhausted and end up typing as fast as humanly possible to get the blogs posted before the internet goes out. If you have any questions send me an email or post a comment. I'll get back to you.
Now it's off to Deyo's for some chips-mayai (sp?) Until next time...
Abedi and Saumu's measurements being taken by Ramadani at Jiendeleze
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