Bisarwi Community was hot & dry with the same story of no water again. It is so confronting seeing all those people with no water, and no means of changing the situation. The women and children walking 16 kms daily with their 20 L empty cans on their heads is a constant commitment to daily life. I asked to see the main water supply from the school, but I didn't have the time to walk the 16 kms needed to view the water supply. The health clinic was challenging because we see so many people with water related diseases, or mainly lack of water. At least we are working towards alleviating their current situation with the wells, pending on the Aus Aid grant.
We have been worming all the kids at the community schools. Our health clinics run along side the worming clinics. It is so good being able to take a doctor with us. Dr Selena Sayako (Billie) and Jane James have been doing the community runs with RN Alisha Butterworth, Lucy Allwright, Monique Artis and myself. Dr Billie operated at the Surubu Community the other day to remove a huge imbedded thorn with my eye brow tweezers. Lucy & Monique have slipped into the job of worming the children. We have been really productive with the clinics.
Kiterere was a bit of a nightmare for the crew that went out!! Abdullah & myself were unfortunately tied up with other business with CfA, so man power was limited and the community need was overwhelming. The crew left after a hugely exhausting day & not completing their mission. We plan to head back for another whole day. These people are too poor to be able to afford access to health care, as well as associated costs, so the demand, both physically & emotionally is often overwhelming for our volunteers.
It is an absolute delight to work in the Surubu community, where we have installed the well. The people are so well and the children attend school. Their beautiful brown eyes sparkle, their skin glistens in the warm African sun & they are all eternally grateful for the safe clean water we have given them. The sounds the hand pump going up & down with the women pumping the well & a steady stream of crystal clear water is the greatest gift I can receive whilst working here.

Teachers, Monique & Lucy have spent 3 full days teaching at Surubu, this has been so invaluable to us, as well as the children. David Morrell, with interpreter Dickson Barasele,has been teaching in the Surubu class rooms when he has free time from developing his bee keeping industry.

David is nearing completion of the bee keeping enterprise, which means he will now focus on environmental education program, per Allison Bassano's guidelines at 4 secondary schools.

Dr Winani's hospital is a palace, compared with the government hosp. The other evening we had a laboring mum in TGWF hospital, the bub stuck & only limited time to get the bub out to sustain life. Dr Winani was 4 hrs away, so we had no choice but to take the mum to the government hospital. Only to be informed that the hospital had no surgical blade to perform the procedure. Luckily, I had one in our medical kit, so a female doctor from the hospital was called in to perform a C-section. It took several hours for her to arrive!!!! Dr Jane & myself spent hours caring the laboring mum, waiting for theatre in the hot, dirty, mosquito infested hospital with no resources, not even a wet cloth to wipe the mum's brow. No pain relief was available; the trolley was smeared with fecal matter, no nurse or medical personnel to be with the mum, people remained oblivious to the situation. Unfortunately, time slipped away for the struggling bub & the bub ended up dying, because everything moved so slowly. Post operatively to keep the mum alive; free from infection she needed IV antibiotics. The hospital only had benzyl penicillin; this would not be enough from preventing a fatal abdominal infection. I was able to purchase the necessary IV antibiotics from a pharmacy, give instructions to the nurses to administer them. It is a miracle the mum is still alive; we visit her daily and organize her medical treatment. It is so difficult because we must respect their home, and not invade our principals on them and leave to only return every now & then.

On a lighter note, I saw the land yesterday, it is awesome, everyone loves the plot, and it is perfect. Rohan is doing an amazing job with early developments of the centre. Yesterday a crew of 10 locals worked with Rohan & Abdullah digging the foundations out with shovels. I dug 3 wheel barrows loads of dirt, whilst Dr Billie carted them away!!

Orphans from Angel House Orphanage with volunteers Paul Stathum & Kara Bell

 

 

 

Treasures for Tarime

My husband is travelling to TARIME, TANZANIA in a few weeks with Care for Africa. I have organised a small fund raising drive called “TREASURES FOR TARIME”.
There are 46 Children that live in an orphanage in Tarime, Tanzania – My challenge is to make enough dresses and shorts to ensure that each children has a new outfit!!

I’m putting the challenge out to everyone I know to help with donating any of the following items;
• 1 x Brand New T-Shirt – plain is fine – in any child size up to size 14 OR;
• 1 metre each of two matching prints & 2 metres of matching ribbon to make a ‘pillowcase’ dress for one little orphan girl OR;
• 1 metre of Soft Denim or Cotton Drill and 1 metre of pant elastic to make a pair of shorts for one little orphan boy

We are having a ‘sewing bee’ on September 10 to complete this task. My husband will be personally delivering these items to the children of TARIME late September and we would much appreciate you help – one small amount will make a difference.

Contact Michelle East – 0417 117 988 or Jared East – 0419 598 999

Diana Butler receiving a cheque from Glen Dixon and Fiona WilsonCareforAfrica was the nominated International project for Inner Wheel, Tasmania last year. Diana received a much appreciated cheque of $1390.00 from Inner Wheel, 25th June 2011. The money will be well utilised in the development of our much needed Education Resource Centre.

CARE FOR AFRICA NOW HAS TAX DEDUCTABILITY STATUS.

ALL DONATIONS ARE TAX DEDUCTABLE

Safe clean water has been provide to 3600 people in the Surubu Community, Tarime by our team.

The women and children would walk up to 8 kms twice a day to collect water for their families. The water would always be  infected with ecoli causing diarrhoea related diseases and dehydration. Often the water would also be infected with typhoid and choera. Unclean water is the major cause of illness and death in the communities of Taime.

The girls of Surubu no longer have to miss hours from valuable schooling, the mothers can spend more time at home with their children, as well as time developing business to help their families.

SAFE CLEAN WATER WILL ALWAYS FLOW FOR THE PEOPLE OF SURUBU.

WELL DONE, WE HAVE CHANGED THE LIVES OF 3600 PEOPLE IN AFRICA.

Leanne and I (Diana) were so warmly and lovingly greeted on Wednesday, 10th October by the beat of African music under the hot scorching sun in the Surubu community, 20 minutes from Tarime township. The music was played by a vibrant young man blowing into an amazing huge gould which wrapped around his tall slender body, being accompanyied by the exuberant rattle of tiny rocks shaking in brightly hand painted old rusty tins neatly tied to the lower part of another joyous energetic young man’s legs. The entire community comprising 300 people, babes, infants, teenages even the elderly were dancing to the beat of the music, dancing towards us,  as we arrived in the “Tarime Goodwill Foundation” ambulance. This was our welcome. Imagine how Leanne and I felt, exhilerated, humbled, touched, excited. The moment was magical.

Benson, a handsome eager enthusiastic 26 year old primary school teacher greeted us. Raphael, Lucas, Paulo and Simon Wearne were also with us.

Benson was passionate about his community, he cared deeply about the individuals, their needs, hopes as well as their futures. A hand written itinery was given to us by Benson with an accompanying apology that it wasn’t typed up, because there were no means to do so.

Benson spoke so so passionately about the people in the Surubu community.

Benson shared the story of the men’s group.  A proud group of 15 men, dressed in their best ever clothes. They had tried bee keeping, unfortunately to no avail due, to their inability to source the right equipment, skills and knowledge. These men had no way of earning an outside income, what could they do to earn money to release them and their families from poverty? Subsistance farming was their existance, as with the other 80% of Tanzania’s population. The average yearly income is $700.00A of the people living in Tanzania.

The women’s group, slightly larger than the men’s group presented themselves to us, all brightly dressed in their cotton  colourful kangas. Due to illiteracy with the women, Peter John was their secretary. The majority of these women were widows. Not unlike the men’s group, their plight was the same. These women wanted self sustaining incomes and businesses. Their question was, how can they accomplish this? They were eager to work, they longed to release themselves as well as their families from poverty. It is near impossible to achieve this in the world’s 5th poorest, country, (Tanzania)  with no education, let alone skills.

Benson stood up and pointed to a group of innocent, beautiful,  hopeful teenage girls. He said,”what are you going to do about these girls, in December they will be circumcised, then bethroathed to be married. Can you turn you back on this, how can the world walk away”!  How powerful were Benson’s words. Tears of anguish and pain for these pretty young girls longing for life’s living freely tumbled down my cheeks. I was so touched and moved by Benson’s words of truth and empathy, as well as his plight for justice. One may question why I do what I do, has not Benson answered the question.

Leanne and I gave out hundreds of back packs donated by Kristy Seymour and 41 Degrees realestate, Launceston, Tasmania to the orphans of the Surubu community. How the orphans loved and treasured them. We were also fortunate to give out exercise books, pens, pencils, clothing, chalk, coal tar soap (thanks to Convict Cutters) and soccer balls to the needy  people and children. The elderly community of Tasmania has embarked on a mammouth knitting project for the African Aids Orphans, knitting singlets for these innocent little tots. Leanne and I just loved giving these magnificently brightly coloured singlets out to these orphans.

Once we had finished, we visited the community water, a muddy pond which supplied water for the whole community. Women and children would collect the water for the household daily in buckets. Children, men and women all washed themseves as well as their megar clothing in this water.

Let me share the day with you all about the container. Leanne, Ange, Simon and I headed off to the Kenyan Tanzanian boarder to see the container. It arrived 2nd Oct, 10 days late due to clearance problems with customs in Mombasa. I was so sad that Harry and Sarah had already left Tarime, because we had planned so much aroung the contaier for them.

The container was designed and painted by the grade 7 students, Katie Woodruffe and Josie of the Launceston Church Grammar School. Alison Bassano worked tirelessly with her students to help fill, wash and sort things for the container. The girls from The Tarime Goodwill Foundation (in Tasmania), ie Penny, Sonia, Carol, Gill, Kate, Fiona and Lisa worked so hard and selflessly to get clothing, books, the ambulance, medical and educational equipment for the container. This would never have come together had it not been for their amazing work. Rob Van Der Elst from the Deloraine Rotary club worked along side all of us to help bring this all together. Rob did a fantastic job with organizing the shipment of the container to Mombasa. Rob and I had numerous texts and phone calls between Tanzania and Tasmania, trying to get the officals to release our container.

The day arrived at the boarder when I saw our brightly decorated container, covered with the smiling faces of the Grammar students. How it stood out in the dusty brown haze of the Sirari boarder. My eyes filled with tears of absolute joy and relief when I first saw the container. Omari was with me.

We had a busy day, because we had to unpack everything from the container onto a grassy patch, then unload the Ambulance, then repack the container. Dr Winani set 10 helpers with us. All I can say thank goodness for them and the hard work delivered by Leanne, Ange and Simon.

I was priveleged to drive the Ambulance out of the container, a magical moment. Without the generous help and support from Grant Lennox, Mark Strickland and Garry O’keefe for Tasmanian Ambulance Service this would never had happened.

Times like this makes me realize what fantastic people we have supporting us, how we all work together to help people with huge needs. It’s so rewarding seeing everything come together.

By the time we got official clearance of the Ambulance from customs, the hot African sun had gone down for the night, and the sky was softly illuminated by the small cresent of the moon. We were absolutey starving as no one had eaten sine 0700 hrs that morning. A eldery dishevelled local came up to us pushing a tin box filled with samosas, being heated by coals. He must have made a fortune out of us, because we only had American money and were so hungry, that we just ate and paid, ate and paid.

Finally, we were ready to leave for Tarime. Weary, but excited. Ange drove Leanne and I back safely to our welcoming hotel, the CMG. Lisa and Michael were anxiously waiting for us with our well earned sodas.

A great day.

Diana

PS: We saw many many elderly people with debilitating cataracts. They would be so easy to fix if we could do a “Fred Hollows”. I think this would be a fantistic worthwhile project for us to do.

Cheers

Diana