Fade to Black

Today I have some good news to drop, but as a warning the last paragraph gets a little heavy.

Let’s start with the crowd-pleaser: the push-reel mower project. For those of you not in the know, Ihungo Secondary and I worked in concert to raise funds to purchase a number of these manually-powered mowers. The raison d’etre was to assist Ihungo students, who currently use blunted hand sickles and bent scythes to mangle the grass to death. The benefits of upgrading are too many to mention, but let me just say that after nearly two years here, I feel the mowers are a necessity for these boys. Ihungo had set the goal of obtaining ten of these push-reel mowers, and together with the school’s minor contribution, we just reached that goal. Two days ago, I went to the mercantile which carries them, and placed our official order for ten of the machines. Here at school, we’ve arranged a meeting time for all the teachers concerned to learn how and where to use them, and how to maintain them properly. When they arrive, I’ll take some pictures to share with you all. Needless to say, my sincere thanks once again to everyone who donated. For real, thanks.

Second and almost as enthusing, yesterday I got a call from the head of our grants committee. She told me that another grant proposal I’d been working on was approved to receive the full funding requested. This proposal basically was the brainchild of an elderly man who lives in a village near me. He’s one of the local leaders, and founded a small organization to try helping those in need around his community. Pretty admirable, yeah? One day I was walking into town down this rural path I really enjoy, and met and impressed this elder with my Swahili. We ended up talking for over an hour, and briefly touched on the idea that we might be able to combine forces. A few weeks later, I invited him over and we discussed different projects his organization was trying to implement around the village. In particular, a plan of chicken rearing intrigued me. Basically, the hope was to build a coop capable of holding some 500 chickens which would be under the care of the organization members. The fantastic part of this plan? Every week, most of the eggs from these chickens will go to the households in the direst need of nutrition and protein- specifically those with orphans, widows, and HIV/AIDS victims. Believe it or not, unless one’s family owns chickens, eggs are almost a luxury in the villages around here. There is more the project than what I’ve detailed here, but you get the point- eggs to help people. I’m particularly proud of this grant for the fact that I did almost nothing in getting off the ground; the organization in general, and the elder in particular, they drove the planning almost entirely, and now their efforts at philanthropy have been rewarded. Again, when the coop gets built, I’ll take some photos (imagine the maelstrom that is 500 chickens in one massive enclosure).

Personally, the chicken project helps to assuage an odd feeling of guilt I’ve been faced with from time to time during my stay here. This guilt is specifically derived from the plight of the numerous orphans around Bukoba, and from my feeling powerless to help them. Just the other day, I had my heart broken again by people’s struggles of life. A few weeks ago, I invited a local man who is HIV-positive to speak to my students about living with the virus, taking anti-retroviral medications, and about the stigmatism. It was a great lesson, and the man stressed the importance of being tested, mentioning that it might be possible to get a mobile testing unit to come to the school (I’m looking into it). The students were so supportive of this idea they gave a round of applause. Flash forward to several days ago, when one of my students approached me after class, asking if he could come to my house to “discuss some issues.” I’ve tried to be more than a teacher to my students, also hoping to fill the nonexistent role of counselor as best as I can. Later that day, he came over and we sat down to talk. He told me that he was an orphan, having lost both his parents by the age of eight. During his ordinary-level secondary school studies, the government had subsidized his school fees, but now that he is an advanced-level student, they have referred him to pursue other sources of funding. That was his first question- if there are any Western organizations which might help him pay for school. Sadly, I went down this road with other students of mine last year, and its all dead ends. For several months, I played the game of being juggled back and forth between various non-profits, all of which claimed to have no jurisdiction over certain areas of the region that my students came from. I was given too many excuses for too real a problem, and I left feeling weak and unable to help these kids. (I know that the organizations don’t have the resources to support every orphan that knocks on their door, and that sometimes con artists come along, but I couldn’t help thinking that everything they told me was bullshit. If I had aspirations towards investigative journalism, here would be where I expose the corruption or bureaucracy clouding up this system; for now, I’ll have to settle with voicing the futility.) This boy came with the same questions, and I had to give him the lame answers I’d been given. I felt like a chump, but what could I do or say? If I support these kids directly, what will they do when I go? No, that reliance isn’t something that should be engendered. But telling this boy that I couldn’t help him or even advise him wasn’t what really hit me. On top of being an orphan, he told me he suspects that he’s HIV-positive, but doesn’t know what to do. Apparently, he thinks that his mother passed away from AIDS, and that he might’ve inherited it. He asked me if I’d arranged for the mobile testing unit to come to the school so that he could get tested. I told him that we are waiting on the headmaster’s approval (I’m pretty sure this sort of this needs a green light from the government), but that there are testing facilities in around town if he doesn’t want to wait. I asked him if he’d like me to escort him to a reputable clinic I know of, one which offers free counseling and support groups. He said yes, so we are going sometime soon. I don’t think I’ll write any updates about this boy here, but just think about his position for a minute. No family members who can support him, the fear of having HIV, I wonder how lonely and hard life must be for him. That’s what hit me hard enough that I sat in a chair for an hour, staring at nothing. What a world, where a bright young boy like this can be in such an impossible situation through no fault of his own. Crap.