Greetings from Karatu! about an hour up the Rift Valley into the Ngorangora Mountains, through red earth and brilliant green, fields of wheat, cut into squares like a puzzle on each side of this good road of asphalt.....just came off the Crater, two days of Safari with Lindsey, so much fun being with her, sharing with her, amazing....
Emails out for two weeks up there somewhere floating around the Universe...but some came through today, welcoming....am thinking a lot of coming home, what that means...met a great couple from BC last night at the campsite, they are travelling for 8 months through East Africa, by local bus, staying in local hotels, amazing journey...he said to me: back home "we have everything and yet we have so little, and here, they have so little, but yet they have everything"...I know what he is saying. Here, people are joyful to say hello each time in greeting, and with the little Swahili i have learned i can keep the good mornings going for a good minute or so,...the local people stopping for ages, five or ten minutes just to say hello and catch up....People care about what each other are doing here, really care....the interest and joy is in each exchange. Despite despair, there is always a sense of happiness just to be with each other here, just to be alive..death is around every corner.....the little four year old i wrote about positive, staying with her grandmother in Handeni last month died a few weeks ago, I just learned.
This in not unusual, and is received with a sense of honest sadness, the information reported, and then an almost 'oh well' and moving on.....I was disheartened, but as they say, what can you do?
Age...those of a certain age are respected, enjoyed, consulted and totally integrated into this society..it is unthinkable to them when we relate how our aging feel invisible in our youth oriented society, how we put elderly into homes where sometimes no one visits except on Christmas, birthday, holidays...they simply can't imagine....the society is at ease with everyone, from babies and children up through elders and ancients.....not just Masai, but as far as I can see the African people everywhere i have travelled..It is not unusual to see a child raised by a sister and her family, its mother unable to keep it herself.....it just moves on...I have been asked to take home several chidren, and one masai woman handed me her baby as I admired it, saying here, if you want her, please, take her with you...
So my Elia at the orphanage....it would be a matter of a week or so for formal adoption that's it..but I am told the situation is very different upon arriving at the Toronto airport...Canadian visas are difficult to obtain, and not done hastily, which is probably a good thing in the long run. Adopting a seven year old would be wonderous in many ways, and also challenging in others, needless to say, but being here the problems and issues of this seem small in comparison with the greatness of it. That is what i am thinking now..today!
Lindsey leaves Saturday...then i head out to a new district Kerogue, s of Moshi snuggled deep into the mountains...we have a project with four villages there, dealing with the Allanblackia plant which produces oil for margerine which is colestrol free..ICA is hoping to encourage a lot of growing of these plants for sustainable incomes down the road...
After that, up to Kenya for the last week or so where four Canadian/US ICA people have been working all winter, Il Ngwesi, near Nairobi....doing HIV Aids education and voluntary testing..the first such project from start to finish in Africa so far....
And then....leaving on the 12th for Amsterdam, a few days, there is a big new Van Gogh Expressionist exhibition there, and then...home....the babies and Johnny and Shauna are still in my house, of which i am thankful...can't wait to see everyone...
and figure out what in earth this journey has meant to me in perspective.....
Hugs to you all..thanks for keeping this thing going with me!
I intend to sprinkle it with photographs when i get home..
xL

Two days later..
Exhausted after those workshops, treking across the length of Mto Wa Mbu out of town as much as we can to the Blessed Comfort Orphanage, with huge bunches of freshly cut bananas (mangos, pineapples, oranges, everything sold on the side of the road out of big buckets and plastic bowlsa thriving business for local women sitting on crates, boxes,enjoying each other, breast feeding babies, admidst the thrive of everyday life, tourist safari land rovers and cruisers filled with white people from around the world some dressed in full safari garb moving swiftly through town en route to Ngorangora Crater a few hours up the road..)- art supplies, exercise books with lines, boxes of coloured pencils, crayons, Lindsey and I took the Masai chief along with us today to meet the children. They have no toys, their clothes are torn, dirty andthread barren, there is no table for them to eat, no soap to clean their clothes. As we come into range of the Orphanage the little souls are outside sitting on the curb in front of the crumbling building, catching sight of us, they stand up ,waving and cheering. Of course most except one speak Swahili, so we spend a few hours drawing elephants, giraffes, simbas and monkeys , singing Do a Deer, alphabets and numbers, these childrens soaking up any attention, learning, inspiration. The older ones don't go to school.
LIke I said the other day, I am enchanted by Elia..he is seven, and has captured my heart. Adoption. Of course it crosses the mind.
I will leave you with this, with seconds to go before this email crashes..
we go on safari tomorrow..
more later, have a great day! xxL

Ok hi! well, i have had the pleasure of receiving nary an email from not even a single soul but for two junk messages from persons of whom I know not for over two weeks now.. is Sympatico down? Ah..well I shall still soldier on with this blog, writing stories and ideas to whomever again of whom I know not.
Life gallops along...we are hugely busy everyday, last week two full two day workshops for me, two half day ones for Lindsey....my second was the actualization of a dream for me, to work in a Masai village with Masai warriors, women and youth, Friday and Saturday...we were combining with ICA running Hiv aids education sessions, headed out over intrepid terrain, scruffy dirt tundra, high grasses, stunning mountains, rivers, huge vistas... to the right front tire giving out, causing our arrival to be three hours late - participants waiting, anxious for lunch, no, lunch money, unbeknownced to me, so we set up our materials in a classroom in the public school and rounded up two chipatis each per student plus a coke, eaten on the dusty ground under a ring of trees..and started the workshop over three hours late, hurling into exercise after exercise, spirit cards, graduated skies and big land little sky. By three thirty they were exhausted and becoming relatively hostile having been told only that morning about the workshop, having shut down whatever means they had to make dinner money that day, and now realizing that they were not being paid to attend this workshop....we let them go early and dragged ourselves back across dusty holey tundra to Mto Waa Mbu...Barrie who is the financial man for ICA here filling in as my interpreter declaring all the way home that "they are hopeless", that he wanted to kill himself!!It was a challenge, and not one I cared to repeat day two, but Saturday morning bright and early we set out only to realize we had forgotten some things, turned back and again arrived three hours late....
We paid them lunch money this time.
Funny how sometimes you expect something to be fabulous, you imagine the ultimate, when in fact events leading up to it far surpass the ultimate expectation. How life is.
But on our way back we paid a visit to the local Masai chief's doma....perched high into glorious rolling hills with vista of mountains, valleys, open meadows, clusters of cows with young Masai in red and purple here and there, goats running in little herds, we drove off the main road across tundra....He with his brothers, their Masai sheets blowing in a soft wind, their spears and staffs silouetted against the sunsetting sky standing against a backdrop of mud huts and thorn stick corals, ...his father a ninety two year old ancient elder sitting on his special wooden stool a metal cylinder of tobacco snuff at his lap, we were told how to greet him. I have been learning Masai lately, this Chief becoming a friend, the practice of greeting done in accordance with age and gender, confusing at best - sometimes not being able to guess age, whether a young boy has been circumcized and therefore has graduated into the MORAN or warrior bracket, or whether the elder I am meeting and greeting as a woman is in fact a gentleman...
Hello to the father, the matriarch of this huge family, having had twelve wives and over 60 children, our chief with only two wives, five kids, but brothers, sisters, wives and husbands, many children, goats, chickens and flies all living together in some kind of peaceful arrangement atop this mountain of God's indescrible paradise.
I attempted to milk a goat with his first wife with a child holding its head still while we crouched down at its behind and tried to hang onto a long teet, yanking and pulling it, with it leaping out of the clutch of my fingers each time.
.....to be continued...

Back up the mountains, through stunning hills,valleys, a sunset of pink, peach, purples to never forget...after aday with Lindsey facillitating two half day acting improv workshops, this mornings at the office under hot African sunny skies with 8 local drama people,3 Rasta artists, the second at the secondary school just outside of Mto Wa Mbu with kids from 13 to 20, twenty maybe....both great! Monday and Tuesday my turn with art workshop..takes a fewdays to get supplies together,paper, paint, mixing colours, 28 of them in plastic containers with airtight tops - I'm reducing supplies to a minimum, the paper very rudimentary, the colours: red, yellow and blue, with black and white..everything costs so much more here,maybe twice..sponge brushes, Sharpies, felt markers andcrayons...trucked around in a red suitcase like a travelling fuller brush salesman.25 participants, three women with Hiv aids who are home care workers, the above Rastas who are good artists selling their paintings out of a wooden shed with corregated roof along the road coming into town to tourists from around the world en route to Safari up Ngora Ngora crater or around Manyara National Park. The tourists stick to campsites or pass through to expensive Safari lodges seldom seen venturing into town,so Lindsey and I are basically the only whites around...I'm called Mama Canada, affectionately careened by venders selling Masai blankets and necklaces made from bone and beads along the road - each one determined to lure us into their huts to buy and buy and buy..we insist we are NOT tourists, we are working here...and move along..I had maybe 12students at the workshop, secondary school kids,dressed in white shirts and grey pants or skirts, so keen to learn. Primary school is free here in Tanzania, tho books and uniforms are not...tough for parents desperately trying to put food on the table,pay rent...if kids complete primary with a very high average, they MAY get accepted into government SEcondary..likely not as the numbers are terribly low despite great grades, and still have to pay school fees of about $75.US a year,plus uniform, books..maybe room and board as well, it is prohibitive to most families... a woman positive with hiv aids collapsed andwas hospitalized upon learning her son was accepted,with no possible way of affording his future; luckier kids head off to private secondary schools costing over five hundred a year....
Well where was I? with the flick of my finger I lost a good half hour of writing, but retrieved this bit so far...
I'll get to the point. I am smitten by one sweet seven year old boy called Eliah... the oldest of ten kids at the Blessed Comfort orphanage just outside of town..I want to bring him home...we rented a big van, with Charles our director, the driver and conductor, two teachers and headed Sundayinto Manyara National park...for a day of animal watching...great....except a massive elephant broke from his herd of over one hundred beasts and headed down the road straight for us, his huge wide ears stretched out like a big bird, a nasty look in his eye, steadfast, he trod closer and closer. Charles in the front was unperturbed....the bus driver terrified, slammed the gears into reverse and headed backwards into a muddy trough. We made it through, racing as fast as he could backwards, Lindsey in the back remarking: "then tradgedy struck"..on and on...
I have three minutes time left, having lost so much..
Quickly, Eliah...oh my heart...
What can i say...?
More after the Masai workshop tomorrow and next in the village...
xL

I give up on pictures...800 or more stocked safely in my digital, wrenching them out like pulling a hunk of chicken away from a starving goat.. Am covered in mosquito welts..a ten hour wait at the airport for Lindsey..

Thursday night: arrived early, two hours to wait..to be told the plane was delayed, coming in at 2am...not 8:45 pm ...we head upstairs to the big bar for a Safari..then down and out to another to watch CNN for the first time since Zimbabwe..Whaaaaa??? What the heck is the US doing in Somalia?? Way too close for comfort, the Somalians fleeing into Kenya and Tanzania, the papers alude to possible strikes here...yikes!

I'm with Ben (the son of an ICA project worker - aged 20, my interpreter, my body guard...) we settle in and wait,around 10:30 or so, we're told, her flight further delayed, TILL 6 AM...maybe...maybe 4:30, maybe 5:30. We head back to the big bar, closed and darkened now, pull some cusions off the chairs, line them up and lie down, Ben on watch...then the bugs...hundreds of them, windows wide open, interior courtyard doors - it's a hive of swarming bugs. I pull Masai table clothes out from under spoons, forks...wrap my feet and head in them, lie back down, more mosquitos, more searing whining....give up..around midnight, Ben is gone, back to the bar to get cognac.. I am alone, dancing around the huge bars, in and out around the tables, a universe to myself...running away from the bugs..
An hour later he comes back, locked out of the airport he has searched for the guard all this time...who doesn't believe i am up there...we are relegated to the downstairs waiting area, just the two of us, a big bottle of cogniac, water, my sketch book with six hours to go....

a night to remember, this guy tells me of his brother's murder three years before, how he was arrested wrongly and spent two years in jail before they acquitted him...never found the murderer...I am drawing all night, his face, sketching, writing the words i am hearing, the story, sipping cognac, writing, drawing.....
the plane comes in finally, people flooding back into the airport to meet it, I am delerious with the tales i am hearing, the description of a boy whose father left when he was one, growing up, tough hard, on the streets, a mom single handedly raising five kids alone...witnessing of the murder, helping his brother home, the blood on his shirt, the arrest, jail, fights, drugs, attempted suicide, poison...I start to cry and can't stop...
Lindsey arrives....after a 27 hour journey...laughing, crying...taxi back into
Arusha, drag ourselves into a local bus and back to Mto Wa Mbu, surreal....
Sleep, oh heavenly sleep....
4pm: head out with Charles in the pickup, along with a huge wonderful smiling health care worker Esther, through miles and potholes of banana trees, up up up, into her family home... the father in his late 80s, gregarious, strong, proud, I love him, his wife, a daughter, her two kids and a small grandson...this huge loving family, we squeeze into their darkened living area, Christ and crosses hang with family photos, pages of calendar, newspaper clippings on the walls.
We talk; They've had 12 kids, 30 grandchildren and 3 great grandchildren...the family expands, one daughter so sick with HIV bedridden, all down on their knees waiting for God to take her away, the magic of ARVs, the love of the Lord "she crawls up from the grave" and gets stronger, healthier, no stigma, no shame here, this huge loving family pulling together, pooling resources, everyone helping, caring for her and she's going to make it...
Thistime it's not the grandparents doing it, it is the GREAT GRANDPARENTS.. lodging and caring for the tribe icredible story of love and strength...we are treated to a plate of jackfruit cut straight off the tree, the chickens clucking amongst the children, the little boy asleep in the arms of his great granddad....

a great day one for Lindsey, and for me, another unforgettable experience in this land i so love.

tomorrow, to the Manyara Park with ten little kids, from the Blessed Comfort Orphanage here in Mto Wa Mbu..one on his knees running his fingers across my dark red toenails, another in my arms stroking white skin maybe for the first time, Lindsey today swinging another around and around, she wouldn't let go...thank you Uncle David for your hugely generous donation, this is where it will go....!

Hi !! from ArushaTown...about 3 hours north of Mto Wa Mbu..en route to Kilamanjaro airport to meet Lindsey! I must remember to curtail my excitement pointing out this and that and this again..allowing her a chance to embrace and drink in the marvels of this country in her own way... of course I can't believe she is finally almost here....!! We're taking the orphaned kids Sunday to Manyara National park, have rented a big van, along with two teachers, Charles, Lindsey and I....lunch....a great beginning....
Arusha is huge compared to anywhere i have travelled, bursting and booming with safari vans vying road space with buses spewing black diezel, cars, trucks, vans, people sitting on wooden crates, boxes of fruits along the sidewalk selling vegetables, barrels of bananas, avocados, mangos - anything and everything, a blend of white tourists from all over the world wandering around waiting for the start of their safari adventure. I found an excellent bookstore, and this internet shop in a Patisserie...unimaginable here in this often technically challenged land of electrical shortages and ancient communication apparatus.
INterviewed three home care workers, from the Hiv aids community group in their homes this week...tiny rooms, wall to wall beds hanging with mosquito netting, with a few chairs, maybe a couch in the corner, cement floor, walls, corregated wavy tin ceilings, with two little kids rolling around on the floor as we talked - a lone window, the light coming in from the open doorway...
Distressed: the local govt has bequeathed each of the 30 members of their group a goat to milk which they each keep tied up neartheir own homes...along with the goats arrived three cows,a bull and two lady cows...young, not yet milking..a generous gift except that there was no shed for the cows, nor anyone to look after them properly...they spent two weeks roaming around outside until the groupn was able to borrow materials to erect a makeshift shed for them in the garden of the Chairwoman who lives in the middle of abanana plantation, with chickens, goats and now three cows, her children and grandchildren....on ARVs now, almost at death's door a short while ago...weak still and unable to look after these cows herself she hired someone for $40 Can a month to bring fresh grass to them, and to mop the shed everyday.....
Three months later and they haven't been able to pay this man yet....one of the lady cows had a miscarriage and now lies motionless most of the time. The other female is pregnant, due in March...when they hope she will begin to produce milk, until now these cows are heavy burdens on the chairwoman with no support from the group, causing great despair.
Trying here to create sustainable opportunities for people to earn their own money, allowing them soon to be self sufficient, with esteem for themselves. Giving sick people three cows without further resources for maintenance until they produce themselves seems a futile venture.....but maybe i don't get it!
Okay more later...am determined to get pics on this one ....
Have a good day!!

MTO WA MBU!! greetings...it took me weeks to pronounce this properly..each vowel in SWalhili is spoken...so in this case, there are four syllibles to remember..M Two Wa
MmmmmB U...try it! Lindsey arrives Thursday night after a 16 hour flight, leaping eight hours ahead. Can't wait..! Visited an orphanage today,with Charles my Project Coordinator,driving up, ten little kids sitting on the front stoop of the place...age 3 to 6..preschool, each one having lost both mom and dad to hiv aids..it is so so sad...as i got out of the truck one raced up with arms outstretched, i picked him up as the others flooded around me, all wanting to be held, loved.
ON Sunday with LIndsey....we are renting a van and collecting all of them to visit the Manyara National Park just three miles from town....for the first time all ten of them will see all the animals: giraffe,elephant, imapal, gizelle, monkeys, baboons, lions...what else! I can't wait...then in the next weeks when we arenot doing workshops Lindsey andI can volunteer to do art and play with them...I know they are barely surviving on 2,200 aday (around $2.50 US) per child....when comfortably they need 4,000 per child...adding vegetables and fruit to their meagre diet of porriage (ugali: corn meal), morning and night..more later after this remarkable day Sunday....
WE don't have internet access in Mto Wa Mbu...an hour local bus ride with goats and bunches of bananas away up onto the rim through stunning mountains and ridges gets us here, just hoping the electricity hasn't been shut off....!
Arrived last WEd, Thursday to Saturday night late...headed out with Charles, two water experts on irrigation, watersheds, etc from India, and the local Agricultural director for the region, non stop driving across awesome country, huge expanses of mountain, hills, valleys..visiting four Masai villages usually under such drought at this time with precious cows dying, devestated without water, food..but this year lots of rain, lush, green, gorgeous....looking for appropriate watershed projects for ICA to begin working with...At eachstop...after meeting the Masai and local government leaders, signing guest books, a custom observed religiously in every African village i have visited, sitting, talking a bit, discussing what we are doing, why we are there..how long we will be....bringing the community into the project, it is never imposed upon them..working together, all parties taking ownership of the project right from the start....
then allof us..the Masai warriors draped in purple and red sheets with spears and long hardwood poles nimblyleading running easily along like goats up hills and down rocky rough dales...the government guys, the INdians, Charles and me..
picking ourway through stones and deep sucking blackmud dimpled here and there with big deep elephant tracks, dung, on up through raging riverbeds, follow the leader like ants one by one.. leaping across a wide chasmof rushing fiord,scary,but i had
no choice.in my new green gum boots...up up up we all climbed to the top, thick forest, exotic trees winding vines, massive root systems pulled out of the narrow trail through fallen rotting branches, hot,moist,green, wet....finally to the
water source...fascinating so new to me...
This is deep into Masai country...ICA here works predominantly in Masai villages: hiv aids education, testing....micro economics, womens and children's rights...now Water Irrigation Watershed projects....
My fascination for Masai is endless...I have read BOOKS and books on these exotic, ever interesting people, their customs...marriage, their love of cattle..goats...women in charge of children, building mud huts, food, early morning milking...small children with hundreds of animals and a long stick proding them onto new pastures..often alone out there across miles and miles of green meadow, it is all about the cows.... the more you have the richer you are...and because of this, you need more wives..each one bought for 15 or more cows...to raise more children to look after more cows...these people, tall, thin, lanky, high cheekboned, stunning...wearing beads, small round metal disks linked together, white necklaces,long drooping earings hanging heavily off huge holes in their ear lobes the size of an old silver dollar...red, purple, checked, striped, shiny, plain sheets knotted at the shoulder...each one, wrapped with grace around the next...the warriors, glamorous, arrogant, haughty in their prime,red ochre smeared across face, through hair, adorned...old wrinkled ancient elders, most esteemed, most revered....

As I said,my fascination is endless...
....and on..and on....
be wel....is it snowing yet??

Moshi...last night's dinner, with Doris my Tanzanian ICA director and her husband Joseph...a full moon, a large plate of chicken, bananas, potatoes to share, lots of wine...we move into Africa, ICA and what can we do? What can we really do?...Plaguing me always, it is never enough, never ever enough...i know, each little bit counts, helps somewhere, but i am troubed these days, coming home soon, what next? what best can i do, what can anyone do? Joseph who is magnificent, said to pray tonight, ask those questions, what can i do he said, to be remembered here...Well it is not to be remembered for me, it is that it is never enough..leaving Handeni a few weeks ago, with just so much money in my purse, dividing it up and giving it away in little bundles...to the woman for her son's education, to the pole thin and frail woman with the Masai (I hope that picture goes through to you), to the wonderful and crippled Benson who hasn't seen his family in two years - no funds for his travel...to the babies i am trying to supply with milk, (from Zimbabwe, and how to get money there, the bank won't let them open a foreign account, and even if it did the govt would take most of US money as taxes, duty, whatever)..it goes on and on, and there are hundreds, thousands more...millions.. Dividing what little i have in bundles, the feeling of playing God and feeling horrible about it, cause whatever it is is never enough...ever...
I'm leaving for Mto Wa Mbo this afternoon..another town, another journey....i'm glad to be finishing these days of 'holiday'...I dont like being a tourist...I said to someone i want to be treated equally, and when you are not working you aren't..he was surprised....
So on to Arusha, and Mto Wa Mbo...(try saying that in four syllables!)....in a few hours...
The lights just flicked, a generator was turned on...time to head out...
hugs!

Finally....hoping these pics will come through...safari, markets, Digna's two boys-my yoga mates, lions, elephants, the aids positive woman we took to the Masai healer (still haven't heard back) art workshops, remembering walls......

Well...happy new year! 2007....blessings to you, my wonderful family, friends, the people i have been lucky to meet here in Africa - in meditation, imagining a white light around each and every one of us, at first, in the room, then surrounding the village, then Africa and then on into the whole world...a white light filled with love, joy, good health and peace....i wish you all....
Africa...New Years...a time for me of reading, writing, remembering...a bit of swimming, walking, thinking...white sands on the INdian Ocean, without electricity, no water, no light, no functioning toilet, and yet, what can you do? Reflecting on what this country has given me...maybe patience i am hoping, the need to never know where i am going, and if i do, certainly understanding that whatever i think might happen, never does...much like the process of painting a painting...you begin with an idea and through the journey of working on it, it never turns out the way you plan...like life!!
Patience, and not judging..determined to look upon everyone i meet with new life, new adventure...i am on the local bus from TingaTinga, Pengane out on the sea heading toward Tanga, three hours away. I think i have chosen the best seat, up around the door, with lots of space around it...settling in quite pleased with myself...
The doors open and people pour in...filling each seat from the back to the front, and then more, and more and more..each time we stop, the squeezing bodies pushing further and further toward the back of the bus, i have five hands belonging to five standing and careening people crossing my head and shoulders, each one desperately grasping onto the pole in front of me...the flapping flimsy fabric of a woman's brown and black shawl swinging down and sticking into my face, her elbow juts into my cheekbone..
I want to bite it!
Ah...patience, white light... a matter of altering consciousness...
here's to the new year....

\merry Merry Christmas and the very best to everyone in 07....thank you for sending me such wonderful messages, missing family and friends at this time..even on a Safari..which is 'journey' in Swahili..five days lurching, jerking, bumping, and cruising through the most beautiful country imaginable down dirt mud roads weaving between fields of a sea of green grass, lions lying by the side of the road swishing their tales in leisure, slowly turning their heads when we appear...they don't go after Land Rovers or Cruisers..but if anyone as much as clicks their door to get out, they stand immediately, for the kill.....giraffe's my favourite, i had no idea how graceful, elegant they are, tall moving slowly through the forest, usually with four of five, chewing on upper trees, their markings blending in with the bark of some trees. and on to the cheetahs, most interesting, small, the size of a bulky lab dog, alert, erect, on guard, always watching, stalking an antelope, a gizelle, something through the tall grasses, they often work in teams, fascinating to watch...Zebras running or grazing in herds of hundreds...some alongside the stampede of Wildebeests, millions of them migrating south at this time, racing, running, bolting from our car as we weave our way through them, the zebra alongside to alert for danger..always the predators, always the lions to watch out for....elephants lumbering in families of four to ten across plains deep down the 2000 foot descent from the rim of NgoraNgora lurching and picking our way through onto the floor of the crater itself where these animals live wildly and peacefully, flamingos, a wide strip of pink seen from a distance looking like a long sandy beach...the one rhino, very rare, there are only 12 left here, after poachers massacred with guns before Tanzania and Kenya realized the merit in conservation of parks and their inhabitants. tho interestingly there are still hunters lead by the Bush family from Texas who come regularily to parts of these parks donating large sums of money to keep their hobbies intact, shooting with a guide close at hand the buffalos who fall when first hit to the ground, playing possum until the hunter comes close to celebrate his kill..then jump up and retaliate terribly I am told....Christmas eve for me was in a small blue puptent my sleeping head inches from a huge downfall of rain and cold, very cold....on the top of the NGORANgora Crater...and on to the Serengeti, which means wide neverending plane..hours and hours of beasts, running in herds,ambling by themselves..our first elephant dashed out the forest as if being chased by something only a short distance from our car, its ears wide and fierce - i was shocked, so stunned i didn't jump up and take a picture, wondering if we were to be stampeded over....he stood there motionless for a good fifteen seconds then dashed back into the bushes, huge and magestic, remaining always this way in the picures of my mind....

Talked to my kids last night from a house without electricity a faulting flashlight shining dimly onto a handful of phone cards scratched with the code of blessed converstion with these who i miss so much at this time....being on safari, and being so far away, remembering the places and people i have known here..heartbreaking messages from one of babiesout there with nothing to eat, no milk left - messages of despair....messages of hope too, of love, of peace, of joy..lots of time to remember, remember xmas' past...loved ones...out here so far away from everyone so familiar to my life, another world...wondering what can be done...someone heard Steven Lewis on tv the other night, imagining him up for a Nobel Peace prize...here people have remarked\; "he knows more about us than we know ourselves!!" and these people working in the field...

I prefer being a worker here..than a tourist...will be glad to see the new year in, with another village to work in....to greet Lindsey on the 11th, who will give workshops herself in acting, improv, translated in Swahili..so looking forward to her visit...and then on to into the middle of Kenya for a few weeks before coming home...again, i am blessed to have this opportunity, cannot thank ICA Canada for giving me this experience, this journey....

be well everyone..i wish you the very best for 07..and look forward to seeing you at home...one minute to go on this machine..\happy new year!!

continued...from post below...the lights just flickered and i thought i'd lost that whole piece! whew! so this woman talked of collapsing onto the floor and going to the hospital when she was told of her son's successful exam results...no money, she with positive testing...desperately in need for her son, for school fees, uniform and exercise books..all of which will cost $65. US..where can she get this kind of money? it never ends..never..I help out, and also to Mwajabu a few days before, I pushed $10,000 shillings into her hand, so hopelessly did i feel her situation....only to have her return the next day for more money....Digna asked "where did you put the money yesterday, it is a lot, what did you do with it!"...well, it was explained, that when a young girl gets her first menstral period, she stays in her house until it finishes, and then in new clothing and shoes she reenters the world as a woman..it is a very important passage here...Well, Mwajabu's daughter had gotten her period, and had stayed inside the house for the last three months! She couldn't come out, couldn't go to school, couldn't be with her friends, because they had no money for new clothing and shoes....so, the $10,000 I had given her yesterday, went towards the girl and her ritual coming out...not for nutricious food desperately needed for Mwajabu and the rest of her family...it is never enough.whatever we give, it is never enough, ever...if we give for food, there is soap needed, rent, school fees, everything...so money may not be the answer to improvingthelives of so many..we discussed sustainable donations..
WE thought of organizing a family or a group of people with a few chickens, (raising eggs and more chickens)...or goats for the milk and more goats....this way a project could be started which with their working at it, would grow..much better than a few dollars here and there, spent today and gone tomorrow...

Also, there are no candle makers up in Handeni....does anyone out there know how to make candles? there are bees here, therefore honey and wax, but candles have to be brought in from Dar es Salaam...six hours away..what a great thought to have people make their own and sell them as a small business..these are the kinds of things which are more important, for the to become self sufficient....

It is raining hard out there....wish me luck tomorrow in a tent with raging wind and rain, celebrating xmas with a glass of wine or two and thinking so much of all of you...hugs, the best to you..will be back on this machine on the 27th..have a great day....xxme..

PS...the Bible i was bringing for the Masai...Moses and Isaic wanted very badly a Masai bible, not the one published in Nairobi .which they didn't trust.Theywanted one published in Canada...well anything coming out of Canada wouldn't be in Swahili...for sure..so we settled with something published anywhere BUT Nairobi, Digna and I toRC church in Handeni and bought one published in Italy, I was so excited to present it to them Monday...but alas they were no where to be found....I'll be working in Mtwambu all January near Arusha, where Isaic comes from, so the hunt continues....
again...be well...

Yes!Yes!yes! it works...thrilled! so much to say, and want to wish you all the best of the season; there is no resemblance of Christmas here, but for a few billboards advertising beer with green and red bows slung around the neck of the bottle, Santa loitering mistly in the background, that's it..heard Silver Bells in the market this morning admidst huge piles of gnarled bananas and pineapples tumbling off the back of a truck but that's all..i'm leaving tomorrow on safari, camping in tents with lions and giraffes and people i don't know, a different way to spend xmas if you can't be with family and friends....

MOnday..with high expectations,heading out of Handeni for the Masai circumcision celebration, me with a new red Bible in my bag, foralmost two hours, in the front seat, MWAJABU SAIDI the terribly sick woman, positive with HIV i mentioned meeting the other day, gaunt, arms thin as pipes, weak, with 6 kids at home, her husband running off and marrying another, picking our way through cattle path scrubby meadows, pit holes, to the small cluster of Masai mud and thatched huts, admidst goats and cows and thousands of flies only to discover that the ceremony I was so excited about, with 150,000 magnificent Masai, wouldbe happening not today, but on Wednesday as we were told..spirits down, slugged silently all the way back to World Vision. The important thing now was to find a medicine person and get help for Mwajabu, despondent and hungry by now. WV provided eggs and pancakes with tea, and by 'luck' we ran into the husband of the main Masai medicine woman in the district, who was in the next village visiting....hopped back into the World Vision landrover, our taxi driver lying in the back of his car his feet hanging out the window, refusing another wild goose chase...found his wife Rehema - huge, warm smiling welcoming, and jerked our way back another half hour to her mud hut enclave in the middle of nowhere - our group sitting on animal skins while Rehema took Mwajabu aroundtheback of the cow coral for an examination....the Masai don't think HIV/AIDS..they look at symptoms: in this case, Rehema declared liver, lungs and stomach...and sure in ever way she could treat her...it would take two full days and nights with her staying in the mud hut with Rehema, her husband and 7 childrentwo of whom were nursing all the while we were there..Mwajabu agreed....I must say i would have had second thoughts, but she was determined I guess.
We paid the Masai equivalent of $30 Canadian (a lot of money here) for medicine, treatment, food and bus rides to and from Handeni for Mwajabu, the husband and Rehema, who assured me that she would be up and running in ten days, and that was that!
So Imdying to hear what comes from this..imagine, if she gets healed and becomes better...then what!
I left for Moshi the next day on a busride i won't forget, the seat i am sharing to hold three people, held two hugely wide girthed women with two standing kids when i arrived, wedging my own self into the aisle seat - every seat taken with standing room only, people standing jammed in all the way to the back, and on my other side a man holding a live chicken flapping in my face, fortunately not for the whole ride, six hours later we pulled into Moshi town, where Doris, the Tanzania director for ICA met me, my three big bags wrapped in plastic to discourage dust and the goat wedged into the baggage area under the truck, from peeing...and over to Doris' lovely home to rest for a few hours. She is wonderful, heading up the many ICA projects in Tanzania: HV AIDS education and voluntary testing, home care, water projects, orphan care, children's rights workshops....we talked into the night.
I'd been depressed the night before i leaving Handeni...so many incredible people and experiences, my time with Digna, her two sons....everyone i met and those i was trying to help, some dropping by our house, asking, pleading for help: one whose son had just passed his entrance examinations from primary to secondary school, a very bright boy, whose mother collapsed

Sunday morning - ecstatically ensconced in the private computer quarters of the Handeni secondary school..five beautiful machines humming along without virus..the only malfunction might be that before I get a chance to publish this post the electricity might be turned off by whomever..boy would i love to meet whomever sometime!
Yesterday Ben my translator and I were driven to a Traditional Healing Ceremony in a forest about 10 k away on top of a high hill overlooking Handeni..with about 150 people all ages, dancing, drums, singing..the chairman of the group which has 508 members throughout Tanzania is the spirit medium...in the middle of a wide circle he tore off his shirt and went into a trance like state, girating and throwing his arms in the air..he beckoned us to follow him down into a glade where we watched him rush into a circle of trees, fall down onto his knees and tear out a rather large tree (about 6 inches in diametre) from its roots, grunting and growling like a lion all the time...after deforesting several more made his way back into the circle, dragging behind him these trees, more dancing and singing and welcoming of the spirits...finishing with thank you speeches all around...it was magical and unforgettable....This group would like to eventually connect with healers and traditional doctors in Canada who create herbs and powders from nature. They showed us bottles of substances which cure stomach, teeth, malaria, hiv - everything..i actually took two doses of a brown/green powder last week with tea while I was in the throws of a fever and head cold...overnight, with great uncomfortable sweating, my symptoms passed....the next day feeling all better...
If anyone out there has any connections with traditionalhealers in Canada,pleaselet me know..it will be awhile to set up, as they need translation from SWahili and email service...

Tomorrow. Monday, we travel back to Sindeni, as guests of the Masai we spent time with last week during the art workshop with batik artists in the area..(and four small babies being nursed by their mothers while holding a paint brush and working with their other hand)..there will be a ceremony of circumcision to honour young men who will become warriors after their healing...i am told many Masai will travel from near and far for this event, nationally, it is very important and happens only every 15 years or so with the tribes...we will be taking a woman with us who was tested positive with HIV AIDS just last week. she is a mother of 6, has no friends she says,no support system. her children are looking after her..we have been trying to help her with food, sugar, cooking oil, vegetables, soap....but as I have always said, there is never enough...in our conversations laST WEEK...Masai talked of cures...I know they have one for Malaria..it is very powerful, and taken after the circumcision ceremony, when the warriors spend time in the bush healing...so powerful that they cannot see or hear for hours, they are filled with huge energy, anger toward the disease...when it is finished - this medicine..they are immune from malaria...
They talk of having the same,which works with HIV AIDS....so my thinking is to bring this woman to their ceremony, work with their traditional healers, spiritual men, and hopefully be offered the same medicines for her....it is just a hope...you never know...but in this magical world of miracles and strange happenings..why not?
We are trying to arrange transportation today..
We will travel back to the World Vision centre I worked in last week...if it all works out, the Masai will meet us there at 10 am and take us to the gathering...there will be drumming..a cow being roasted..the blood from its jugular being mixed with its milk - a treat for Masai warriors, not me.
Tuesday am early around 5:30 i leave for Moshi....with my three huge bags filled with diminishing art supplies and my basket of bottles with paint. It is always a procedure i look forward to with trepidation. A few days in Moshi..then to a safari over xmas and new years...will try to get onto this blog but could be out of touch in a tent somewhere.....reminding me of a new years with LIndsey in the the dunes of southern Morocco deserts with camel lowing....sounding like old men and women at a cocktail party....
The best to you...again..in this season and into next year...
xxL

OK...continued..from the first post! boy i am sorry for complaining...you just can't believe how fortunate we are with our communication system at home....just had a message that the blogger connection had failed..may not post that first message..but amazingly it did 0 so \i am lucky this time...!
Back to Sindeni...the bar...a Masai man comes in..we greet him joyfully and he sits down...talking for an hour before we have to get back to the World Vision centre for dinner....he is as fascinated to talk to me about Canada too, with questions, thoughts, ideas as i am with him....he agrees to visit us tomorrow after the workshop...and does, with a friend..there they sat, resplendent in their red and blue checked robes, drapped over them, the Masai stick they carry with them always, tall, slim.. waiting under a tree..we join them and talk, for another three hours, walk down to another drinking spot, dark, long passageway of concrete, old, chickens walking around, people in doorways, old pots, pans....till we are led to a small private room..two chairs, coffee table and a couch, plaster peeling, dim lighting, Safari beers around, deep conversation....they ask about Canada..the snow, how the cows are living there. Masai culture is centred around cows, the more they have the richer they are...these men had 400 and 350 respectively...they paid 15 cows to their future father in law to marry their wife...each had only one wife...six and five children.. they dont consider themselves wealthy, there is another \masai with over 2000 cows...so everytime they asked me how much things cost, \i could answer by the number of cows it would take, each cow costing about 300 US.
We talked of birthing, death...religion, they asked me to find them a 'Masai\ Bible...which turned out to be one written in Swahili...but not published in Nairobi, as they don't trust the authenticity of that one. Of course i will find them one...next week in Moisi if not here in Handeni...we talked about the after life, Christian, they believe in Heaven...i spoke of Buddism, of reincarnation, their eyes grew wide, the idea of coming back as another person, or as an animal, oh that was a new concept! We talked about marriage, divorce...they could not for the life of them imagine divorcing...they have paid 15 cows for her, why would they leave her!...they could marry another. and have two wives, or more..many wives are needed to bear many children as well, if you have many cows..I did hold court for an hour or so talking of Canada and our ways....they were fascinated...would love to visit, but not with the snow and cold...how elegant and resplendant they are in their own land, \i talked of our First Nation people....their history, what the white man has done to them, how they are now, most having lost their culture, how good it is to see how they so deeply keep theirs...on and on....medicines, spirts...
\On Monday they invited us to join them at a huge Masai gathering, a circumcision ceremony where the young men will move into being Warriors responsible for looking after their community...drums, roasting of cows, dancing, etc...of course we will come back...
Have spent a lot of time with the HIV Aids people here, have done a number of interviews and met a lot of people..talking..one woman came in, who is terribly thin, her arms like pipes, the bones of her chest sticking out..she had just been tested and is positive, six children, two still at home, no means to survive, no place to stay, no food....no friends...we hooked her up with the organization here and have been trying to help...but no matter what you give it is never enough..ever, and once you begin it is heart wrenching, so much is needed, where to begin and what to do..i have no answers...it is endless, so you start in a little area and try to make something a bit better there...and go on...but it is endless here. endless....at both workshops we talked alot about prevention, about condoms, education is so needed here....most people in the rural areas where i have been have bits of information but some of which is just wrong....the numbers are so high, many are hidden due to the stigma and discrimination...people believing in witchcraft, the sick being bewitched.....so in need of the basic facts...
ICA and World Vision are working full out here - it is great to see first hand where donations go....up in Sindeni i saw people taking the weight and height of kids who were being sponsored by people in Switzerland, those pictures and letters giving information about families and kids here actually is true...also working on orphans..it cost $60 US to keep one child in secondary school for a year, that includes school fees, uniforms, pencils, etc....if we could just collect enough money for 200 kids it would make such a huge difference..and it is so little for us...let me know if anyone is interested in that project!

Miss you all, coming back bumping along yesterday they were playing Christmas carols on the radio...it was hard to hear them....there is nothing here that reminds me that it is Christmas...except watching the calendar every few days and knowing it is coming soon...
MERRY XMAS...and Best season wishes to you....!!
This is my first xmas ever away....from my wonderful family..and friends....oh how i will miss you so...and dear Sierra, and the babies...there were four women with babies the same age as Finn and Pyper at the workshop, painting and nursing all at the same time..so cute, sitting up, on the concrete floor, with 27 participants painting and drawing around them, a plastic water bottle rolling around as their only toy...
I am leaving \Handeni Tuesday at 5:30 am on a bus to Moishi....to stay with Doris our Tanzania director for a few days, and then taking a safari into the jungles of Tanzania over xmas and new years..then...LINDSEY!! is coming to Arusha in January for a few weeks!!...i am so thrilled she is able to make the journey....there will be theatre people, actors, writers who she can connect with and work with if she likes..planning to go up to the crater at NgoraNgora for a few days at the end of her stay....imagine!
So many more things to say...but anxious to post this one before it disappears!
Again, best holiday wishes to you all...
HUGS....L

People in Africa never complain, it is true!
Me, I am learning patience, but man...it has taken me nine days to get onto a computer which I pray today, works!! Either virus..where you write a good long story, answer emails, etc..and you get PAGE ERROR...or, worse still you walk over an hour to get up to this Internet Cafe..and the electricity is off..this happens a lot...Today, and excuse me for complaining.....it takes me 3-4 hour to get here, soaking with persperation, hot, humid, but hey, i made it..we've been away over the last three days with no access..more about that in a minute..i sit down, turn the machine on. and for five minutes i am deleriously happy....it is humming along...and then the electricity goes.,...i should be wishing you all a very wonderful season, merry Christmas....and i do..but in a minute...it disbelief i force my woes upon the gentleman sitting next to me who is a pastor, he is very sorry...he arranges for me to buy two litres of fuel and they will turn on the generator next door and run a cable through to this machine..oh my gawd..but what an idea..!
So it takes another hour and a half, without bothering you as to why, but here i am..the first machine i tried had a virus over the last hour, so i am switching to this and we are ready to go..
So this is why i haven't written, anyone..sorry..and thank you for your emails..and concern.....
Where to begin..Christmas...it is hard to believe, so hot here 32 last week..and humid...Have given two two day workshops, art workshops...one in Handeni last week, the other up in Sindeni..which is about 36 kil of rocking and rolling roadways, cows, goats, the usual huge gutted holes, rambling and jerking along, that workhshop sponsored by World Vision...it was fabulous..of course, everyday here is wonderful, different, interesting, deep, memorable....I travelled with Benson who works in the ICA office, a dear man who was maimed by a motorcycle 7 years ago, whose heart is huge, who missed the Handeni workshop...and Ben age 20 who is the son of Eunice who works in the office as well...he is hugely funny, interesting and speaks English wonderfully, which is a godsend for me..everything here must be translated for me...so wish i could speak Swahili...!! and in Zimbabwe it was Shona...but English was spoken there fluently by everyone so that was easier..where was i!
After day one of the workshop, Ben, Benson and \i walked a few kil to town for a refreshing Tanzanian beer...settled into a dark drinking place, many people gathered outside in the dark, fires burning, roasting pieces of goat, beef...

MASAI land....Sunday,we set off,Elke and I early..in her huge four wheeled Toyota truck venturing along the usual pilled holed gutted red/orange dirt road pathways 18 kil. east of Handeni...our landmark was a big hole on the left side of the road and a change of colour from red to off white,beige...we turned left onto a grass path for a few minutes and stopped the truck. Masai children poured out of mud huts and forests, as iffromeverytwhere followed by their mothers beautiful resplendent in white beaded necklaces with silver circles dangling off metal chains...as the humidity of Tanzania hit me like a wall when i first arrived,here the FLIES, swung and swirled around us,humming and buzzing incessantly landing on mouths, eyes, cheeks, into hair, arms legs..clothing, everywhere..there is no relief. Flies that follow the cattle, and the Masai have hundreds of cows and goats,hence dung and flies..millions of them...think flies. We brough a large container of sweets, Elke has been here once before...and promised. three elder Masai men appeared dressed in the colours of the tribe, wrapped in royal blue cloth, magenta,maroon, resplendant,tall, slim,lanky, highcheekboned, each carrying a longstick, never without it...used in ancient times to fend off lions and tigers...nowadays used to move goats and cows from one hill to the next...
The Warriors were away....these being boys and men from age 13 onto about 35, away in the hills with said cows thankfully, I shuddered to imagine the fly fest if they had been here....
WE were honoured guests...following our hosts with children alongside,to nearby hills being made ready by hand and sweat for the planting of maise..to mud huts made from sticks and twigs, with cow dung dried with mud mixed with leaves. metal corregated roofs atop..windowless....mud floors..bedroom areas, for men, and for women and children....They were excited by my picture taking..children and adults alike each one laughing and joyful to see the result of each snap...it occured to me that many of whom had never seen themselves before as they don't use mirrors....
We are taken into their newly built Catholic church....again made of mud, dung, wood sticks...white washedinside....a lineof windows opening along the top, the church about 10 feet high...an alter of cement at the front, awooden cross with Christ, pewsmade of logs at either end a plank of ancient wood slung across six inches from the ground for sitting...an aise down the middle,rows for maybe 80 people...
the three men at the front, the women and children in the pews. babies wrapped around their backs..toddlers naked wandering and weaving amongst their mothers and children...
Hymns sung gloriously and enthusiastically, by women and children...the Bible being read by the chief elder...a sermon, songs,hymns....stunning...a Harry Potter notebook on the alter along with a metal dish for offerings...i will never forget this moment of my life..but again,for also the flies now imprisoned in the beautiful sparce little hurch,humming and buzzing and landing....i know now how little use i would be in a torture chamber...flies crawling into my watchband, under the leather straps of my shoes,my mouth when trying to sing...my eyes......i began to try to think of each landing as sweet little kisses brushing my skin....changing the meaning and thrilled to be a part of such a ceremony with such beautiful people...
After church we were led by the men into the dark mud hut for tea and a meal....much to our amazement the flies did not follow...cool,clean, we were treated to a chai of herbs, cardimum bark...with fresh goatmilk...and a rice pudding...
elke has learned Swahili forher job..immensely interestingconversatin..questionsanswers, great feelingamongst the three Masaimen...and two white women from beyond...
Of course,they need assistance,
I promised to help as much as I could...
ICA is getting a bank account for the Masai...so once again next week i will be sending out information in case anyone out there might be interested in taking this on....
we bid fairwell after lunch....promptly got our right hand front tire mired into a gully and had to run back for assistance....fortunately a big bright busload of guys came along with the Masai men..and in a minute we were out and running again...

So being here, it is a mixture...of meeting many people ...working, assisting as much as I can,learning, absorbing..reading...trying to understand... an experience i will never ever forget....everyone from ICA CANADA...I thank you for this magical opportunity....Iam honoured and blessed to be part of such a wonderful group.... thank you....

Wednesday am...second posting..
I described yesterday some of the life stories i have beenhearing over the last two days in our office..meetings one on two, with Eunice translating - with positive members of the Handeni HIV/AIDS Positive Organization...
Imet them first last week in their office...recording the following in my notes:
"From 4 to 75, in a circle, all but two women, with babies wrapped onto backs, oldand young, a tiny sick girl, aged four in pink organiza,nestled in the arms of her grandmother, warm,open, worn faces, each one beseaching with their eyes,pleading for some one out there to help them...skin and bones, weak long limbs the children crying softly, they are hungry i am told...
WE do a meditation - it is the first time it is greeted with gails of laughter. Eunice is translating...i amconfused...there has been conversation during our eyes closed, feet planted strongly on the floor, hands on knees ,palms upward...breathing in through the nose I tell them, hold it..all the while imagining and thinking of good health, joy, lush green lands, and happy things....hen breathing out through the mouth....the bad things,the sickness, the misery, the thingswhich make us un happy in our lives....the laughter continues....
the grandmother, an open engaging humourous woman, has declared with the good stuff, how can weimaginegoodthings when we arepositive? when we havenothinggood in our lives..it is a sort of joking with each other...
but wry....ajoking, but true...
but i always amtrying tofind the positivethings..i talk about their group, howintheir illnessthey have found the support andloveof each other, andalso obviously the comeradery..i amseeingnow...they doagree...this group of declared Positive people....forging like pioneers defying the stigma of the disease, rampant through out this community and all over Africa....
WE agree to meet at the ICA offices in a few days...

So Monday and Tuesday....we have met andspoken onen one with 8 people...each one braving to telltheir livfe stories...their marriages with businessmenoftenwith up to five wives...watching the others becomeillanddiemysteriously backk then with such dehabilitating circumstances,the husband nolonger working,sinking quickly into poverty, scrounging, forcing themselves to make jewellery, continue their baking business...sell wares to neighbours until their own health spirals downward, weakness, coughing, chest palpitations, fever,aching body, loss of weight..the sinking feeling of despair, of a slow dying themselves..of fear, terror,the family taking them to traditional healers....and of course nothing working to combat this vicious desease..not even after giving chickens,goats, cows,money and clean white sheets....no money,food left,no hope....a visit to the hospital, councelling with ICA - who dole out ample portions of maise meal and cooking oil along with goodadvice towards hospital visits,ARV treatment,support and often joining this Open Positive group...

REwarding and totally unexpected to me...the leader of this group, Maranga.. spoke of the effects of these interviews on the people we interviewed in his group, how they were lining up to have a chance to talk of their lives, for the first time anyone had ever taken the time to ask the stories..then they go home and tell their family and friends,with pride, of their conversations,of how someone from outside wanted to talk to them,BECAUSE they were openly positive with thecommunity....how much confidence and self esteem they felt...It was astonishing for me and very gratifying...what these meetings have meant to them....the hope it has given them...the will to believe in themselves,to go on..it was astounding.

He thought that this confidence would probably double the membership of his group over the next year,as word spread from neighbour to neighbour around the community....
We will be facilitating a Home Care workshop on Monday with members of this group and others in the town who have not yet taken the plunge to declare themselves openly...
I was presnt at two such workshops..in Zinmbabwe...given by Munarwo and his wife Orpah,the peole who are askng us to send vegetable and herb seeds from Canada to embellish their big garden, proceeds going to orphaned children in Harare....
SEND SEEDS TO: Munarwo and Orpah Magadzire, 327 Section 2, Tsanga Road, Kambuzuma, Harare, Zimbabwe....if you want to email them directly (English is spoken in Zim) email: indigem36@fastermail.com

So with information from those workshops i have been asked to facilitate one myself on Monday...combined with that, we are going to work inconcensus decision making and group organizing, with the intention of opening up members of this group to being allowed to take ownership and responsibilites of and for their group...leaning away from the one person at the top model....it has been an interesting process working with Masanga, the man who started the group, who has given his life blood to it,who has relinguished all creature comforts for his dream, who sold his bike to raise money to bus to Dares Salaam to buy books for this group, who is praying for a t v monitor and VCR to educate the community..for him to understand the natural evolving nature of successful groups, and how original founding leaders might be encouraged to relinguish a bit of power and control for the good of the growth of the whole..etc.etc...it has been fabulous to work so closely with him and his members....
carefully assessing personal issues and needs...more on that Monday next...

HELPING HIV AIDS PEOPLE IN HANDENI..
iT IS A timeof Christmas in my country and around the world....here in Handeni I am not awareof it in any way, no xmas trees,no tinsel, no cards..just onTV the othernight, in Swahili the news anchor speaking with a decorated tree behind her, oddly out of place in the world i inhabit....but Christmas time it is...
a time of giving..and I am putting out there places and people i know directly who we can help...Please send financial donations, every little bit counts, through your bank to the bank account of:
Handeni HIV Aids Positive Organization,
bank: NMB Handeni, Acct. Number: 4142300435
bank address: PO Box 123,Handeni,Tanga Tanzania.

I think that is all you need...

Tomorrow and Friday, my first two day art workshop here in Tanzania...gallons of waterbased paint arrived sunday from Dar...by bus: red,yellow, blue,white, black...I have so much paint now it will supply me all the way through Tanzania and Nairobi..!!
the rest of the supplies i have been gathering...no paper yet,that is today....
Next week we will travel by bus out 30 kil to do another art workhsop with batik artists and Masai...can't wait!

RE THE MASAI..I did manage i see to get a few pics on this blog..amazing...
I will post and publish this entry as to not lose it..terrified am i to have spent the morning and having it disappear into cyber space..and write a bit about this fascinating nomanic tribe visited by Elke and I Sunday to their village just outside of Handeni....

WEdnesday morning ...hot,sweltering even at nine am...humid,it is that which gets to you, the early morning climb, always, for 20 minutes or so, straight up...past the boys loading water from the ditch pipe into huge plastic yellow containers to strap onto bikes and ride, and walk and drag up these hills and down dales. As i go by they practice their English, "goodmorning,howare you?" repeated from one to the next laughing hilariously as they experiment boldly with the unfamiliar sounds, or perhaps and more likely than that laughing hilariously at the strange white womanmakingher way past them, boldly again if Imustsay, and up the hill..otherthan my German friend Elke i am the only white making my way around these parts.r.Handeni is a land of red dirt, dried into hard mud like stone...its homes weaving up and down the valleys and mounds of pitched paths, tracks pitted with holes caused by torrential rain, four wheeled trucks, bicycles..its women wrapped in bright textiles fabric, carrying usually something, many things, on the top of their heads expertly: like pails of water, plastic pans of bananas, beans, huge bags of maize flower to make the beloved ugali each morning, each evening..often with a child attached by more fabric to their back, its feet sticking out from the front, its head bobbing along with the rythm of her walking...
the men...many engaged in this water carrying endeavour, gruelling...left mostly for the young ones...men working on construction of homes...driving vehicles, walking up and down...along with the women,children of all ages,chickens, goats and cows...the cackling and crawing of crows, chickens, roosters, mooing cows and bleating and braying goats, it is a lively scene..
Almost anything you might want on a frugal existance is sold in shops lined up on a few dirt streets, side by side...busy, people resting under shade trees often sitting on piles of huge bags of used clothing sent over from European countries or america....
Jambo...the universally accepted hello for anyone at any time of the day or night..Mambo used to teenagers and 20 somethings if you want to pretend you are cool, a slang for the former..and a barria a sambui...a more challenging greeting in the morning only followed by nzuri which means you feel great...I havemanaged to get through the latter, and on to the nzuri, andat that point i must seemas tho i know what iam saying..because it is responded usually by a torrent of information and words i am at a total loss for understanding...unfortunately for me...how wonderful it would be to understand languages when travelling,how much closer and more interesting would one's conversations and thoughts be....
I am blessed with working with ICA Tanzania Handeni..Eunice is extremely well educated, from a tribe near the Moishi district, speaking perfect English and able to translate for me almost simultaneously...

I am going to publish this blog and start anew one in case electricity dies out, i have been warned it could happen...

Hi...two days trying to send pictures through....without luck...so please use your imaginations for a time...have been interviewing people who have tested postive with HIV AIDS for the last few days...ranging in ages from KASHOMO, a grandmother -75 years to her dear little very weak grandaughter MUZNA aged four. Everyone in their group have 'come out'...a huge decision to make with much courage, the STIGMA factor here still in Tanzania huge, families ostricating loved ones,husbands who refuse to be tested leaving wives who are positive....but coming out gives strength, openness, support from many workers and friends in the community....their determination to educate others and to lend assistance is overwhelming...Masanja, the founder of the group, age 54, a former businessman with two wives, five children with the first, two with the second, the first died,the second infected along with himself....everyone blaming each other, the family disowning them,they moved from Dar es Salaam finding themselves finally in Handeni after years of working as a farmer in a nearby village, weak, exhausted....he decided to come out and begin a group of likeminded people...the pandemic here affecting 24% of the population in the early 2000s....
each person i spoke with experienced symptoms which were similar, chestpains, freezing cold, shivering, fever, headaches, shortness of breath,feeling like they were dying....some convinced they had been bewitched by evil spirts..most went to traditional healers in the beginning, with their families approval of this....healers tried everything,from herbal medicines, boiling into a foul tasting drink...from drumming, cutting into the skin of the arm with a razor blade, rubbing powder into the wound/blood, concoctions of every kind, asking for goats, cows, white bedsheets and money for compensation,but still,in every case,months,years of this..and still the patient getting weaker and weaker..losing weight....unable to cope..finally, someone suggested the hospital....
ARV medicine just came to this area free of charge in July of this year..many of these people are now experiencing a huge change in their health for the better...now able to help with others, and work toward educating youth, and people in their community,although the stigma is still rampant here....
Astonishingly, AMINA came in with baby JUMA strapped to her back..she is positive,her daughter is positive and the baby she is carrying is her grandson...she is 36 years old, has three children of her own..and is the fifth wife,the youngest..watching with dread the other four as they died..and then, her husband died....no one knowing who brings this disease into the family, it is pointless to point fingers....
It is darkening and i must run up a series of hills to get home before nightfalls..
talk tomorrow...wishthismachinewouldn't skip as it does...it is frustrating, but at least, IT WORKS!!
xme