Letter from Mwanza - No 9

11th March, 2008

“A good day”

Today has been a good day. I had a pleasant brisk walk up to Samaritans (about 30 minutes) and in fact walked back as well. During this walk I managed to keep up with, and in fact, overtake, a youngish Masai chap. So either I’m walking faster or I managed to take on a particularly slow Masai in the heat of the day. (Having written this on Monday, on Thursday I was walking back at a fairly steady pace and a different Masai fellow cruised past me without any effort. Perhaps my initial thought concerning my speed/fitness are somewhat premature!!)

Also seemed to have made progress at Samaritans by putting together a course of action for Moshye to go for this year, and possibly next. We so desperately need to get in extra funds that some of the community fund money ($600) which Joey wanted to go towards a project which leads to sustainability, has gone to buy food for the orphans. It is hard not just to say “here have a bit more money”, but it really isn’t the answer to any long term situation. The ‘aid/donor’ culture is now deeply embedded, and I really do feel that somehow a real break has to be made from this dependency. Perhaps I will be able to comment on this in a later blog. So now the 30 or so orphans will have some food, but then a chap from the security company came in today demanding his 3 months back payments. His English was fluent, and he was not a happy man. I think there are also some issues with the rent; but now we must crack on and get something going.

So, tomorrow, we start on establishing a computer education centre where some of the donated computers stacked up in their boxes can be used to earn some income. Moshye and I are off to Vodcom (I think a subsidiary of Vodaphone) to see if they can provide help with wiring some four computers in, giving us another printer, providing a fan and putting up a lovely sign outside proclaiming that MSA is now also a computer education centre. I shall also go off with Joey to sort out some tables and chairs, and then clean up and paint a room. Hopefully we can be up and running by the beginning of May.

English language newspapers, business reports and general correspondence seem to be in such a ‘flowery’ English that it is difficult to understand its meaning. For example, the front page in the Market & Economy section of the Business Times (a weekly business paper published here) had a headline “Chine, India growth see surge in demand for African goods”. So far so good. A few paragraphs down we get, “ Impartial research on the impacts of trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) postulates that methodology must take into account both finds and data availability” OK, but then “In this framework, policies emerge out of a process initiating from policy preferences to methods of aggregation of those preferences and hence to policy as mediated by the structure of political competition” …….. Ian Duckels, you really do need to help me with this!!

Moshye, in his Annual Report 2007, at the end of his introduction about what they have done, goes on to explain that “after that we will meet celebrations. This is an exploration of what is a big achievement that the organisation has achieved, so in other words we may call it success over successes. Then you will know if there are any challenges” …..mmm. He lists his challenges as lack of reliable workers and funds, unreliable sources of income, inability to pay house rent and cover running costs, lack of enough staff, low staff morale, unreliable electricity and lack of office equipment – I think I know what he means, but bless him, he concludes, “The year 2007 has been a good year for Mwanza Samaritans, since it is within this year that MSA has changed face from low key to somehow high implementation of its plans and activities….”

I’m not sure whether it’s the words or just plain good hearted optimism; but it reminds me of the Morecambe and Wise sketch when Eric was showing Andre Previn how to play the piano. He got all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order!!

Kwa heri for now
Donald