Cooking

I am learning how to cook the food here. On Sunday I went to Mama Neema's house and her daughters taught me how to cook fried fish with curry paste, coconut tomato cream sauce with potatoes and cooked spinach. It was amazing. I am writing down all the ingredients. They told me whenever I want to come over and learn to cook they will teach me.

I am also cooking with the students. They have been preparing new kinds of food for me so I don't get bored with ugali and beans. The first new meal was eggplant with tomatoes and okra. Today we had potatoes with tomatoes and peppers. Everything is very simple to cook, but the flavors are amazing.

I'm a teacher!

I am a mwalimu (teacher in Swahili). This work I am working with the senior 1-senior 3 (oor freshman, sophomore, and juniors in American high schools). I am teaching remedial english and I love it. I get to assign homework, grade for a few hours every day and plan my lessons before class. My students are already getting more comfortable with me. I was able to get a student, who another English teacher has never heard speak in English, to talk in class and now he is teaching me Swahili while I help him improve his English.

I have been spending a lot of time with the kids while they cook. When I am around they try to speak English and there are always at least 10 students around the cooking pot when I am there. I am also picking up a little cooking this way. Fadhil is teaching me how to cook for the students. He is a wonderful boy who came from a farming town very far away. His mother sold her land to pay for him to take the bus to school. He lives on campus, like me.

I am having the students write lots of essays. Although I think I am being mean that other teachers tell me that the kids really like me and they like the way that I teach. Teacher Hassan keeps telling me that I should change my major and be a teacher because I am a natural. Today, while I was helping cook, Hassan asked the students if they loved teacher Ema and they all yelled yes! It was a really great feeling. Being here is amazing and the kids I get to spend time with are some of the most amazing, hard working, loving kids I have ever met.

Bugs, critters and creepy crawlers

There are many interesting bugs here. There are bees the size of a big, big toe that are bright yellow, orange and buzz around everywhere. There are lots of mosquitoes at night in particular, but I have a net and its makes me feel safe and secure. It also sort of makes me feel like a princess with a canopy bed. Geckos crawl all over the walls. I was cleaning the library and they kept scurrying out from behind the books.

There are these pretty black birds, the size of crows, that resemble tucans with smaller beaks and have a white patch on their breast. The smaller birds peck around the coconut trees. We also have many chickens at the center and roosters that wake me up every morning around 5 or 6 a.m. crowing.

There are stray dogs that lie in the streets and do not bark or move when you pass. I see goats and cows every day. One family keeps a cow tethered in their yard.

Week 1

I have been at the Tumaini Secondary School, they changed from the One Stop Center, for a whole week now. The kids are amazing and never cease smiling. Today I came back from looking at the Dar es Salaam University and the boys were all playing soccer, laughing and falling over.

I have been taken around Dar lately by my new friend Abdi who I met on the plane. The first night we went to Sea Cliff, a rich neighborhood in Dar and went to eat at a beautiful hotel. Our seat over looked a cliff onto the beach. Last night we went out and played pool. It is nice to get to see the night life and activities around the city as well as work with the kids. This weekend everyone wants to take me to the beach. I am also probably going to go to the history museum, which has lots of cultural art as well as displays about ancient tribes and their practices.

I am trying to learn Swahili. The word I hear the most is mzungu. Mzungu means white person. The young children in the village yell it when I walk past. The teens whisper it and laugh. I am really interesting to people. The truck drivers slow down to stare when they pass me and honk their horns. There are more white people in the city, but very few, maybe none, where I live.

Please excuse all spelling errors. I only have a short time using the computers and the keyboards make it difficult to type.

Tanzanian Food

I have had many wonderful things to eat here. The first day that I got here I had potatoe wedges and lemon chicken with a big class of mango juice. For breakfast I had potatoe wedges in an omlette. There a potatoe wedges in everything. I had a wonderful dinner at parlaiment with fried fish, chunks of beef and tomatoes, plantains, and grilled chicken. When we rode the bus to Dar es Salaam in the morning the vendors come and bring all sorts of different food. They had over-cooked corn cobs, a few kernals pop into popcorn, it is smoky and wonderful. They sell somosas in big buckets and all kinds of drinks. I also got to eat peeled oranges cut in half that you suck the juice out of and the best apple I have eaten in my life.

At school we eat rice and beans and ugali (corn meal) and beans. They girls brought me cooked corned today and everyone is trying to take me into town to feed me more exciting things. The boys bought me bananas from the market today. The fruit here is amazing, I have never had anything better. I could eat fruit all day. I am going to have fried fish later this evening and I will tell you how that is soon.

I'm Here

I arrived in Dar es Salaam on Thursday, one day later than expected due to a plane delay. I spent the evening in a hotel in Ethiopia. It was amazing. I spent the time there with a group of wonderful people my own age: Lionel, Josh, Abdi, Omar and Enoch. We were served buffet style Ethiopian food, which is spicy and delicious. Then we went around the corner to an authentic Ethiopian bar, where I learned how to dance Ethiopian style from a prostitute. I safely got on the plane the next morning and arrive in Dar four hours later, after only sleeping 4 hours in 3 days.

I got off the plane and straight onto a bus to Morogoro. Mama Neema and I were staying the night in Morogoro before catching a bus to Dodoma (Capital City). We were going to Dodoma for a conference on early childhood education, I was representing the Ark Foundation. The first lady of Tanzania was at the conference as well as many UN representatives. I have meetings with them while I am staying here. On Saturday morning we left, taking a cramped bus, back to Dar and then caught a taxi to Boko Village.

I am now in an internet cafe a little away from Boko Village (Boko means hippo). I have my own room with a lock on the door. They painted it blue, installed a light and I have a pretty white mosquitoe net. Since I arrived on Saturday evening there only children that are here are the ones who live on campus. There are two dormitories, two school buildings and an office. The buildings have large windows with wire mesh to keep a breeze running through. I have spent most of my time with Teacher Hassan, a 25 year old Ugandan who volunteers to teach at the school. Everyone is sweet, although there English is lacking. I have spent some time speaking with the students who run PEP, their peer education group, and they are hoping to meet with me so I can teach them all that I know about HIV/AIDS.

The food is wonderful. The children cook meals for everyone, so far I have eaten rice and beans, sweet potatoes and Ugali (which is cooked maize flour). I ate well during my travels with Mama Neema. Vendors run up to the sides of the bus and sell you different kinds of food. My favorite was over-cooked corn on the cob, chewy, smoky and delicious.

I love being here and I want to thank everyone who helped make this possible. I am going to try to write more than once a week, it is easier than I thought to get to use a computer and much faster than I expected.

Brief Information on the Problem and My Program

A serious issue facing sub-Saharan Africa is how to adequately care for children orphaned by AIDS. Neglecting the rights and needs of orphaned children is heartless, and ignoring the grandparents who are taxed with the burden of raising children again is callous. The Ark Foundation of Africa is committed to providing support for orphans and impoverished youth as well as the grandparents who support them. The Ark Foundation focuses on providing education for children and involving the community in sustainability projects that enable programs started by the Ark to remain in villages without outside support. In order to address the problem of orphans, more support needs to be given to promoting and funding youth education and creating sustainable projects within villages that enable them to become self-sufficient and economically stable.

The Problem
As the AIDS epidemic ravages Africa, affecting primarily the working force between the ages of 15 and 49, orphans and grandparents are left with little support. In 2001 there were 28.5 million people infected with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa, 2.3 million of which died that same year, often leaving behind their children and parents. In 1999 there were an estimated 13.2 million orphans worldwide, 12.1 million of which were located in sub-Saharan Africa (Ghosh: 2004, 304). Orphans are defined as children under the age of 15 who have lost one or both parents. Orphans are vulnerable to malnutrition, lack of education and adult guidance and often are forced to enter into the informal sector for work. Grandparents are frequently left with the burden of caring for the young of their children with few resources and little energy to take care of their new family. While much attention is paid to those infected with HIV, orphans and grandparents receive little attention or care when they both so desperately need it.
As the number of orphans rises in sub-Saharan Africa there are few support nets to help them safely to adulthood. The effect of being orphaned on the household is a lowered access to basic necessities, which can drive children to contribute income, often by begging, stealing or engaging in sexual acts for food. Older children frequently take on the role of parent caring for the other children or their ill parents (Guest: 2004, 322). Many orphans are unable to attend school due to cost and miss out on socialization. Emotionally, orphans face the grief caused by the loss of their parent as well as the pain of social exclusion and stigmatization because there is no one there to care for them. A paternal orphan loses the financial security provided by his father and often loses his mother because she becomes infected with HIV by her husband. The best way to provide support for orphans is to give support to caretakers, keep children in school, meet their emotional needs and provide them with legal and human rights protection. Orphaned children deserve love, attention, and support, and it is essential that community, programs and organizations assist them with living to their full potential.
As parents pass away as a result of AIDS, valuable skills passed from generation to generation are lost. In Africa, women are responsible for caring for the household, maintaining crops and producing food on distant plots, collecting firewood and water and preparing meals for the family. Women produce 80% of the subsistence food in Africa using the labor-intensive agricultural method of horticulture, which involves planting on small plots of land, with little to no irrigation, low productivity and no draft animals (Goody: 1989, 121). Women are responsible for passing these skills on to their children. AIDS is having a devastating effect on households by “undermining rural household production, contributing to declining agricultural output and affecting the very integrity of families and their sustainability as viable units” (Baylies: 2002, 612). Without parents around to teach their children agricultural practices, youth are without the means to provide for themselves.
Grandparents invest heavily in their young so when they grow old their children will be able to care for them. The intergenerational burden is a human contract that enables African societies to survive without social welfare because adults become caretakers of their elderly parents (Lecture Notes: 18 April 2007). The HIV/AIDS crisis has eroded these social security nets and has left grandparents who have already provided for their own children caring for their grandchildren. Grandmothers are most affected because they provide almost sole care for the grandchildren. Grandmothers are often unable to give adequate care to their grandchildren because they do not have the funds to do so. Studies show that grandmothers who receive Old Age Pension in South Africa are able to give better care, shown by improvement of nutrition and health, to their grandchildren (Duflo: 2000, 398). Providing aid to grandmothers to assist with school fees and food, as well as money generating donations (like a cow), gives grandmothers the chance to sufficiently care for their family. Support for grandparents is vital to providing orphaned children with a bright future.

The Organization: The Ark Foundation of Africa
Rhoi Wangila, a Ugandan refugee, first thought of the Ark Foundation of Africa when she was 16 and saw the suffering caused by the violence in Uganda. She said to her brother that she wished she could harbor all the Ugandan children in an ark and keep them from harm. Rhoi knew that she could not hide the children from harm, but she could help to create safer, more economically thriving communities. Rhoi realized that educating communities to become self-sustaining was the best way to help villages remove their dependence on others. The Ark Foundation of Africa (AFA) operates in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania to promote the rights of children and assist communities affected by high HIV/AIDS prevalence, conflict, poverty, and lack of education (Scher, 2007). The Ark Foundations stresses the importance of self-sufficiency to enable communities to learn a trade/skill and education to teach those skills to others. All programs are run and crated by Africans whose extensive knowledge of the opportunities and challenges within their community enables them to design programs that work. The Ark Foundation believes that Africa’s way to freedom out of debt, poverty, war and disease lies with their people: “rather than continuing aid or charitable projects – the Ark Foundation invests in Africa’s young people, committing resources to a child or community only when it is clear that support can be maintained until such a time as it is no longer needed” (Ark Foundation website). The Ark’s work is committed to educating young people.
The Ark Africa Foundation focuses on strengthening community. Ark operates on five principles: investing in people, not just projects, helping create self-reliant communities, implementing holistic care models that address the range of challenges within a community, fostering ties with other like-minded organizations and providing training to local and international organizations to implement models similar to AFA. The Ark Foundation believes that investing in youth education is the path to stop the cycle of HIV and poverty. AFA education programs focus on getting all children and teenagers into the education system and assisting with school fees and guidance. The Ark Africa Foundation builds and maintains education centers that include income-generating activities to assist with the burden of school fees that enable the centers to become self-sustainable within 5-7 years. AFA also builds and staffs free preschools and secondary school programs, assists with school fees and gives scholarships to enable poor youth to complete secondary school and often college. All education facilities include mentorship programs, guidance, and academic assistance. Programs are also in place to assist with school re-entry for teen mothers, who are often denied education due to cost and social stigma. Education is vital to giving these children a chance at a better life. (Ark Foundation website, Our Work).
The Ark Foundation built and staffs the One Stop Center for Youth in Boko Village, Kinondoni District, Tanzania providing free secondary education for youth ages 13-20. The Center provides education for over 250 teenagers affected by extreme poverty and HIV/AIDS in Dar es Salaam. At the heart of the One Stop Center is a holistic program that gives youth a second chance by providing a safe place where students feel at home, make friends and receive guidance from volunteers and teachers. Some students live at the center while others live at home with their caretakers, parent(s) or grandparents. AIDS has orphaned 67% of youth at the One Stop Center. Moses Victor Mbaga, 13 years old, is a student at the Center who lost his mother at a very young age. He loves studying English and “hopes to be a pilot on day so that he could see more of the world and fly through the clouds” (Student Profiles: 2007, 3). Mary Elisafi, 15 years old, is also a student at the Center who works selling vegetables with her cousin, who cares for her, in order to pay the fare to ride the dalla dalla to school every day (Student Profile, 2007: 2). The Center’s goal is to alleviate poverty, reduce the incidence of HIV among children and young adults and fight the high prevalence of child labor. The Center funds itself through several income generating projects and spends an average of $32 a month of youth to cover education expenses, healthcare, meals, management and staff. The children who benefit from education at the One Stop Center are dedicated to creating a better life for themselves and for their families and are determined to be educated despite the many challenges facing them (Ark Foundation website, Our Work).
The One Stop Center also support a group of five teenagers in their Peer Education Program (PEP) in Tanzania. The PEP 2007 officers include Yassin, Kazito, Mariam, Beatrice and Lusajo who meet weekly and discuss their outreach and peer training responsibilities. Their 2007 goals are to educate youth about the changes and growth in their bodies and minds, maturity and educating others about the importance of education. Yassin got involved with the PEP program “to educate himself and then advise others is a gift. The disease is killing our people so we must learn how to protect our citizens” (Student Profiles: 2007, 5). The PEP youth are typically asked questions about AIDS, prevention, condom use and how to help those around them who are HIV positive. Lusajo became a PEP officer because “PEP works specifically with teens and as a teen himself he was attracted to this work. He feels that is it so important to educate youth and help to challenge and educate them” (Student Profiles: 2007, 5). The teenagers work throughout Tanzania with villagers and students enrolled in primary and secondary education. This program gives teens a voice and enables them to be part of the education process, encouraging other youth to get involved and get educated.
As the AIDS epidemic ravages Africa, the problem of AIDS orphans has come to the forefront and is putting strains on the family structure. The Ark Foundation is committed to strengthening families and communities with programs that support grandparents and train foster parents to care for AIDS orphans. AFA helps HIV positive children and teaches the children’s caregivers to provide adequate care and protect themselves from transmission. Because grandparents often care for young children who have lost their parents to AIDS, the Ark Foundation supports grandparents in a variety of ways. Single grandmothers are given monthly cash transfers to help them care for their new family. The Adopt a Grandparent Program is supported by international individuals or groups to support grandparent headed households and ensure secure and adequate housing for grandparents. By supporting grandparents the Ark Foundation is able to ensure that orphaned children have access to education and proper nutrition (Ark Foundation website, Grandparents as Primary Caretakers of AIDS Orphans).
The Adopt a Grandparent program costs $25 a month and gives donors the option of connecting with their sponsored family by sending and receiving letters from the family. Ms. Grooms is a 94-year-old retired schoolteacher who lives in Washington, DC. She adopted a Kenyan grandmother, Kezia, and her nine grandchildren, ranging in age from preschool to 18, in November of 2004. Kezia uses the $25 a month from Ms. Grooms to buy essentials such as paraffin, medicine, sugar, salt and school supplies for her grandchildren. Ms. Groom and Kezia have become friends although they live miles away from one another by exchanging letters and sharing their ideas and support with each other. During the holidays Ms. Groom send extra money and cards. Kezia writes frequently to Ms. Groom keeping her informed about her grandchildren, sending pictures and letters from her grandchildren. The Ark supports Kezia by paying for her grandchildren’s school fees. Through partnership with donors the Ark Foundation is able to provide complete support to grandparents and their grandchildren (Ark Foundation website, Success Story).

Looking Towards the Future
The Ark Foundation of Africa is run by Africans for Africans, taking into account the special needs of each country they work in. The Foundation designs its programs based on the needs of the village it is working with and works with the community to create sustainable programs that will last long after Ark volunteers and workers leave. A problem associated with many organizations working in Africa is that they design programs without the input of the African community and make assumptions about the needs of the particular group. In order for the Ark Foundation to become more effective, it needs more funding to enable it to send the many children who desire education to school. In Uganda it costs $1000 to keep a child in school a year and $500 to keep a child in school in Kenya. This means that many children who desire to go to school are unable to pay the school fees. The Ark Foundation has had to turn down over 4000 qualified applicants because there is not enough funding to support them (Scher, 2007). In order to move forward with its goals, AFA needs to collect more funds to help students and also campaign to have school fees absolved in African countries to allow all children to become educated.
The orphan problem continues to grow in Africa. A 1994 study showed that there could be “as many as one orphan for every two healthy economically active women by year 30 of an unchecked epidemic” (Gregson et al.: 1994, 455). It has been projected that by the year 2015 there will be 15 million orphans in sub-Saharan Africa, an increase of almost 3 million in 15 years. As the number of orphans grows there are little social security nets to protect them and enable them to go to school and have a healthy diet. Organizations like the Ark Foundation works in countries burdened with extreme poverty and Structural Adjustments Programs that have dissolved the social sector funding. In order to African countries to begin to thrive both socially and economically the debt and weight of SAPs needs to be removed and spending needs to flow into social programs like free education and greater access to healthcare. Lobbyists, activists and some politicians are working diligently to bring greater focus on Africa and the importance of spending in the social sector. Hope for Africa lies in the removal of foreign debt and increase spending on social welfare and education.

Bibliography
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Duflo, Ester. “Child Health and Household Resources in South Africa: Evidence from the
Old Age Pension Program.” Papers and Proceedings of the One Hundred Twelfth Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association. Vol. 90, No. 2, (May, 2000): pp. 393-398.

Ghosh, Jayati and Ezekial Kalipeni. 2004. “Chap. 22: Rising Tide of AIDS
Orphans in Southern Africa.” In AIDS in Africa: Beyond Epidemiology. pp. 304-315. Blackwell.

Goody, Jack. “Futures of the Family in Rural Africa.” Population and Development
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Guest, Emma. 2004. “Chap. 23: Excerpt from Children of AIDS: Africa’s Orphan Crisis:
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Poku, Nana. “Chapter 3.” In AIDS in Africa: How the Poor Are Dying. Pp. 85-123.

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Just to give you an idea...

Here are some photos taken by Pangea, a group that supports the Ark Foundation of Africa. These are pictures taken at the One Stop Center and in Boko Village. I will be volunteering at the One Stop Center working with youth age 13-20 who are in secondary school and in the preschool and kindergarten.

The One Stop Center for Youth: Kinondoni District-Boko Village, Tanzania
The center provides free secondary level and other youth-focused services to more than 200 younger people from the age of 13 affected by extreme poverty and HIV/AIDS living in the Dar es Salaam area. The focus is an integrated holistic program which gives children a hopeful second chance at life. This demand-driven project provides a safe place where children feel at home, make new friends and receive guidance. The center works to alleviate poverty, fight child labor and reduce the incidence of HIV among young people through the objective of preparing each individual child for a productive meaningful future. Some children live at the center while others live with family members.

The Center operates several income generating activities that augment the cost of program operations. The Ark Foundation spends an average of $32 per child a month. This cost covers meals, basic health care, educational materials, staff salary, management and other support services under one roof. These children aspire to a better future for themselves and their families. They are determined to have an education regardless of their situation. At least 67 percent of the students in this program are AIDS orphans.


Orphans at One Stop Center in Boko Village



Teenagers at the One Stop Center in Boko Village



More Secondary School Students



A Grandmother with all the children she is caring for.



Thanks for your contributions and support of my trip. I leave in 6 days!