We’re in the short rainy season right now, and a little while ago it didn’t rain for nearly two weeks, and we ran into a little snafu with our water situation. Our dry-season water source – the irrigation ditch – has been shut down for repairs until June, and our backup supply, the roofwater collection tank at the clinic, was quickly drained by villagers who were in the same thirsty, dirty predicament as us. Our backup-backup option is to get water from the river, whose water at this time of year is the color of coffee (with cream) and was recently declared by the district government as unsafe for human consumption. The river’s cold, muddy river water worked better than expected for purposes of laundry-doing and bucket-bathing, and even though it has since rained and our water supply has been replenished, we learned our lesson and are taking water conservation a bit more seriously.


Last week I led a seminar on basic agroforestry principles – the benefits of planting various types of trees on your farm, that sort of thing – to a rather small audience near the village center. Despite the villagers’ expressed interest in environmental and agricultural education, I’ve yet to find the thing that gets them really excited, that gets them coming out in droves to my sessions. Romano, who has been helping me with a lot of this stuff, is excited about my upcoming seminar on wildfire prevention. I have some snazzy posters and some CDs with a Bongo Flava (i.e., Tanzanian Hip Hop/Reggae) song about fire prevention to give away, which might lure more people than did the tree seedlings I gave out at the last session. If only I had a Smokey the Bear costume…

On other fronts, I’m also working as a kind of advisor to a group of about 15 fledgling beekeepers, working to find them supplies and coordinating education for their honey production project. And plans for botanically-related work with the Wildlife Conservation Society/Southern Highlands Conservation Porgramme continue to progress, albeit slowly, and fieldwork in the forested mountains near our village is expected to begin within a month or so.

Michelle continues to be busy with work at the health clinic. Last week, two youthful guys rode up on bikes and stopped at the clinic – surprising, certainly, because most men, especially the young, hip ones, are repulsed by the idea of stepping foot in the clinic, seeing it as a place only for women – and asked Michelle for condoms, an even more shocking proposition given the stigma around here associated with condom procurement. Michelle happily dispensed to each a box of 100, along with instructions for their use. Another time an old man came up to the clinic, pulled out a notebook and pen, and copied Michelle’s poster on eating a balanced diet, word for word. It’s difficult to say whether the condoms will prevent someone from getting HIV or an unwanted pregnancy, or if the old man’s nutritional status will improve, but here, small acts like these are sometimes the only visible signs of progress, and is certainly encouragement for the work Michelle is doing.

We also started teaching Life Skills at the primary school once a week – decision making, self-esteem, communication skills, alcohol and sex education – that sort of thing. Not exactly my cup of tea, to be sure, but it’s forced us to learn a lot more abstract Swahili than was necessary before, like words to discuss the hopes and dreams and feelings of pre-pubescent Tanzanian villagers whose lives are markedly different than our own. Probably the most entertaining part for me is the time in each class when we do Question Of The Week. Each student writes down a question, a question about anything at all, and then we choose two or three of them to answer in front of the class the following week. The questions we get range from endearingly excellent (What will happen if we don’t take care of the environment?), to vaguely misinformed (Do people in America learn Swahili in primary or secondary school?), to confused (Who are you?), to just bizarre (Are there wizards in America?) Although never in my life did I think I’d be in front of a classroom of 70 13-year-olds talking about sex, it’s fun to get and answer these sorts of questions.

After a bit of travel to see friends in Iringa and Njombe, besides having a couple friends staying with us for Easter weekend and the occasional trip into town, April and May look to be quieter months of life in the village. For everyone back home, we hope early Spring is progressing well. Our thoughts and prayers are especially with the Kalamazoo crowd as you navigate these difficult days.