Last Week's Lost Post

Since my proposed chicken project for people with HIV was shot down by the grant committee, I have had very little work to do at my site. My girls program petered out months ago and my environment club has just wound down for the end of the school year and winter holidays. My counterpart has some big ideas for things he wants to do, but he can't really explain it to me.

One thing I did with the environment club was to hold a planning meeting to decide what activities the club wanted to do over the next year. Unfortunately, the Form II students were in exams, and Form IVs left long ago. So I only had 5 students at the meeting out of 13 Form I-III members. Not a great turnout, but I've learned that if I wait to get them all together at once, I will be waiting a very long time. So we did the planning with just the 6 of us. I had everyone brainstorm ideas for club priorities, everyone contributed at least one idea. Then I handed out 3 colored beads each (left over from the menstrual cycle bracelets) with colors for 1st priority, 2nd priority, and 3rd priority and they placed the beads on the cards they thoughts were best. Then we scored the cards by the number of beads they received to decide what the club goals would be. Two goals tied for first: getting a teacher to be a club advisor, and planting trees. Easy enough since we only had to ask the headmaster to appoint a club advisor and we already have the nursery planted. The second priority was to increase club membership. They decided to make announcements when the school year starts that they are accepting new members and to encourage their friends to join. The last goal was to start a school vegetable garden. I think they placed this last because it would be the most difficult. In this case, the timing was good, thy talked to the headmaster about it. This week the school closes, and right before that there is a school board meeting and parents meeting, and it would have to be taken up there to figure out whether its doable, what to plant, who buys the seeds, who waters it, etc. If it works out it will give them a little vegetables to go with their ugali and beans at lunchtime. By the time I get back, the school will be closed, primary will close soon, and then I will be very very bored. perhaps time for vacation?

I ave also been trying too track down whoever implemented a large tree planting project in my village in 1987. My counterpart was reminiscing about it since it was how he got started when he first started working in the village, right after college. All I got from him was that it was sponsored by the Swedish International Development Agency and it was from '87-'92. My APCD didn't manage to get a contact for me, but I found a phone number for SIDA in Dar es Salaam. I called today, but they said I couldn't talk to anyone because they are all at a conference in Dodoma. Well... I'm in Dodoma, and there's only one place to hold a nice conference in this town. So I dropped by the hotel around noon and sure enough, at 12:30, who comes downstairs from the conference room, but a bunch of Swedes. I got the attention of one of them, who could not believe that I was asking him about a project from 1987. He even called someone else over to talk to me, not because he would be more able to help. I think it was so someone could back him up when he told people about the crazy foreign girl asking about a project from 25 years ago. I did find out that the documents from that long ago would be in the archives in Stockholm. So I will go back to village and see if I can get any more information about the project, like who was in charge on the Swedish side, what the name of the project was, and if was actually a SIDA project, or was a Swedish NGO with SIDA backing. Then I can send the guy I met at the hotel an email with everything I know, which he will forward to Sweden. I'm curious to see how this will turn out.