Week Three--Again filled with Friendships, Fun, and Work (surrounding rehab for my knee)

Patricia & "The Cane"

Week three began with a flurry.  While the angst of the US General Elections continues to build, Moshi remains in relative peace.  Thank goodness.  Some of the issues that we have concerning President Magafuli edicts remain and we talked about them with many friends.  Yet, we continue to hope for the best.

Kilimanjaro with new snow and amazing birds flying all around me!

This photo was taken October 23rd just as sun was beginning to set and I suppose the birds were thinking about where they were going to go....Lots of possibilities in the KCMC Compound.

My week really began on Tuesday, which was Dada's night.  We went to a new Restaurant "Kili Home", which was lovely with a big outdoors area and comparatively quiet except for our Dada's group.  One amazing thing was that they apparently have only a few wine glasses and if it had not been so humiliating for the waiter, I would have taken a picture of the fruit cups that he brought to us to use as wine glasses.  It was hysterical!  One drink and we would have been under the table. We laughed and took pictures and accused each other of many of things, but mostly shared our love for one another and remembrances of our departed Dada Lydia.

The empty Chair for Lydia

 I had worn my Hillary for President T-shirt and everyone else seemed dressed in new fancy dresses like they were going to a ball but I was the "Rella" staying home to ruminate on the election situation.  It was a joyful time (BTW, all Dada's are united for Hillary, ready to break the glass ceiling.)

All Dadas + Lui's sister-in-law

Dada's cheering on Hillary

Very cute early arrivals of Dadas

Definitely wacky Dadas  altogether + Lui's sister-in-law (honorary Dada)

Wednesday arrived with the Moshi Book Club.  The name alone is interesting since only two members actually live in Moshi.  One lives in Kibosho, our fearless organizer Jackie in Marangu, one in Usa River, one in Machame, the two of us who live in Moshi, and two who live elsewhere but I cannot remember where.  Sadly I have no picture of the group as we were so caught up in talking about some books but also politics.  We were talking about "The Orchardist" which is long, good and very very dark.  Some parts are simply unbelievable (mean that literally not for emphasis) But, it kept us going for a while.  I'm excited because our next book club will be a discussion of Lee Smith's Memoir "Dimestore", a book I dearly love, and "The Little Locksmith" which is said to be the perfect memoir.  So Book club from wherever we are, "On On".

I had a huge surprise visit right after book club when my Dada Agnes arrived to bring me a beautiful Masaii shawl, made by a friend of hers.  She knows how I am cold all the time, but also she is just the kindest most giving friend I have in Moshi.  We are social workers together and somehow that bond has held for more than 11 years!

Agnes and Patricia

Agnes and Patricia by Pauli's favorite palm tree

 On Thursday, Pauli and his partner climbed the mango tree and panga in hand, chopped down all the branches that faced the house.  It is in the back yard so it does not show very much, but the small unripe mangoes that fall are those that make holes in our roof (finally fixed after nearly a year!)  So the tree and branches look weird but there you go.  Our house is a little safer!

Mango Tree branches grow fast!

Mango branches-Let the record show, we did this just 4 years ago as well.

As if these days were not filled enough, on Saturday, we drove to Machame to visit our dear Emmanuel friends, Sylvie and Nic.  I cannot for the life of me figure out why we did not take pictures together but I think Sylvie was so busy getting food set out and I couldn't walk, and the beauty of the mountain, very sad with the passing of the snow, distracted us.

Lovely shot, so little snow!

So, I have passed my days, playing recorder, this past Sunday at Church for All Saints Day (early) practicing ukelele, getting up early enough to be at the pool at 7 am (freezing) to have swim instructions from our teacher Sabini, to exercise two to three times a days to help my knee, and feeling a bit sorry for myself that I cannot walk even to the small gate without pain.

stuff minus sweatshirt and towel

The most moving moment I had this week was at Sylvie and Nic's house.  Not only did we have a delicious dinner, but Sylvie presented us with a prized bottle of olive oil grown and processed by their daughter Sophia who lives in Nacos, Greece and wins prizes each year for her delicious olive oil.  And then, Nic went inside the house and, as we were leaving, handed me a beautiful cane that had been his mother's, and he had saved.  She had bought it in either Egypt or Ethiopia, it is made from bamboo and carved with delicate birds and special signs.  I could not believe it, but will cherish it for all of my days.  How in the world can John and I experienced such amazing moments, to be etched in our memories for the rest of our lives.

The CANE

Explanations for yesterday's Blog-- MEPI, Hats, Visitors , Hash Lots of "splaining" to do

Re-reading yesterday's blog--some explanation necessary

As I read the blog I posted over again, I realized that most of the readership would have no idea what I was talking about, thus I hope I can provide a brief explanation of the previous blog. 

The first part of the blog was referring to the MEPI close-out.  MEPI stands for Medical Education Partnership Initiative.  This was a five year grant awarded to several medical schools, most of which are located in Sub Saharan Africa.  KCMC college was one of the lucky medical schools, the only one in Tanzania to receive the award. Careful planning had gone into the grant, and our grant was the only one looking at shoring up the curriculum and maximizing faculty by building infrastructure, improving internet technology so that every student would have access to fast, reliable internet, bringing in Macbook desktops, the top of the line, and for the first three years giving each student a tablet.

A well recorded success story in Singapore involved maximizing  a small faculty by introducing Team Based Learning or TBL as it came to be known.  Two senior faculty at KCMC were sent to Singapore to watch TBL and to have tutorials in TBL. They were sold on this method of teaching.  Thus, when they returned and Singapore Faculty came with them to have intense instructions with other faculty, these two faculty were the cheerleaders.  The success of TBL was based not just on faculty take up of the system, but of a new Learning Management System, or LMS, which involved faculty loading their lecture plan, reading materials, and back up information on the tablets so that students would be able to easily prepare for classes before hand, and even to move ahead so that they were ready for classes in the future.  The beauty of this system, is that the faculty really only had to be present once/week if that is what they chose.  Most were present much more frequently.  The discussions regarding the particular class were led by a so called expert who helped to divide the students into teams to discuss the on-line questions.  There was lots of discussion and then each group presented their answer.  Opposing answer groups challenged them, they defended their answer and the expert would somehow manage to steer them to the right answer.  Usually this was the faculty teacher, as they were so enthralled with the process.  Students moved from sleeping, texting on their phones, coming in late leaving early, to coming early and being actively engaged.

All exams were “on-line” exams and this gave faculty the ability to grade and get the grades back to students 3x earlier that other schools.  The students had a new first line “wet lab” to work in and a trainer who could see every student from some kind of video camera to see that they were comfortable with the equipment with which they worked.

The results of this five year grant were astounding.  KCMCco went from the 4^th Medical School in the country in ranking (that is how many medical schools they were at the time) to the 1^st.  Students are engaged, take on responsibilities, beg to get in, and often their parents try to persuade friends who work at the college to help them be accepted.  The changes are astounding.  The faculty pictured in the previous blog were those granted awards for teaching and mentoring and are only a few of the outstanding faculty who walked through this whole new way of college/medical school learning.  It was definitely rough at first, but the pay off has been amazing.

Another positive about MEPI is that it brought the other awardees together once a year to discuss what they were doing and how it was working.  No one was doing the same thing, each had their own approach to the funding.  Possibly KCMC had been the least developed college so their approach meant using the most creative strategies to raise up the entire school.  It has been fun.  And it has been especially rewarding to see young graduates being retained at KCMC to work on the wards and to be on the pathway to be specialists.

So that is MEPI. After five years there was not an opportunity to renew the grant and thus we closed it out with a big party.  It is important to note that our Provost Kessy believes so strongly in this concept turned into real concrete successes, that he has taken over nearly all of the programs and is paying for them out of the College budget.

I don’t think that there is any reason to explain our house.  It most certainly has been the same for 12 years, with little additions here and there.

The fabulous baby hats refer to several women who knit and knit and knit.  If you have ever visited southern Africa anywhere, you will always see young babies with warm hats on, even when it is boiling hot outside.  It is just something that mothers do…put hats on their babies and wrap them tight.  Our studies involve mothers and mostly infants.  As HIV medicines have largely ended mother to child transmission, we continue to look at other infections for those mothers and babies, how to prevent that, low birth weight, how to prevent it, medication interactions, what is the best medication to prevent transmission, and of course adherence adherence adherence. There are obviously other studies.  Our nurses are dedicated and have been with our study site for years, some since I first started coming to Moshi 12 years ago.  It is illegal to give big compensation for the mothers and babies, but we do provide travel money and for undernourished moms (which are many) a meal.  I thought some time ago that a little gift like a little knit cap would just give a lift to these HIV-infected mothers who are trying to make the best out of a difficult life.  I had seen it work at my old NGO in town, and how happy these mothers are to receive a pretty knit warm hat.  So knitters, THANK YOU!

We have lots of visitors to KCMC, mostly because we are always cogitating on new grants.  We have garnered several that have been successful as team efforts with other schools and even other countries in East Africa.  So, it is important that everyone understand each other’s programs.  Welcome visitors.  A-5 is waiting to greet you.

Finally, the 350th Hash.  The Hash House Harriers are a world wide group that has traditionally gotten together because they love to drink and to run.  Our fearless leader Greg Emmanuel had gone to a number of these, in particular ones in the US when he was living in Maryland.  When he returned, he decided that it would be great to start this group in Moshi.  But ours is different, it is a family Hash, and that means walking and running and it means that the fellowship is as important as the walk/run and definitely the bites and drinks figure in after a long usually hot hike or run.  They are set in different parts of Kilimanjaro, and most in beautiful sites that we have rarely seen before.  There are many stories of daring in these hashes, some really hard ones as we do after all live on the side of a mountain, and others that are just beautiful and relatively gentle.  The hash trail is set with flour and there are always checks to throw you off.  The "hare" sets the trail (a different person each Hash) and provides the drinks.  It has become a huge tradition here in Moshi and all of us are grateful to Greg for his leadership.

I hope this explanation is helpful and supports in some way the pictures I tossed up last night as I really should have been in bed.

As always the mountain stands tall and though with less snow, still magnificent.

Explanations for yesterday's Blog-- MEPI, Hats, Visitors , Hash Lots of "splaining to do

-->

Re-reading yesterday's blog--some explanation necessary

As I read the blog I posted over again, I realized that most of the readership would have no idea what I was talking about, thus I hope I can provide a brief explanation of the previous blog. 

The first part of the blog was referring to the MEPI close-out.  MEPI stands for Medical Education Partnership Initiative.  This was a five year grant awarded to several medical schools, most of which are located in Sub Saharan Africa.  KCMC college was one of the lucky medical schools, the only one in Tanzania to receive the award. Careful planning had gone into the grant, and our grant was the only one looking at shoring up the curriculum and maximizing faculty by building infrastructure, improving internet technology so that every student would have access to fast, reliable internet, bringing in Macbook desktops, the top of the line, and for the first three years giving each student a tablet.

A well recorded success story in Singapore involved maximizing  a small faculty by introducing Team Based Learning or TBL as it came to be known.  Two senior faculty at KCMC were sent to Singapore to watch TBL and to have tutorials in TBL. They were sold on this method of teaching.  Thus, when they returned and Singapore Faculty came with them to have intense instructions with other faculty, these two faculty were the cheerleaders.  The success of TBL was based not just on faculty take up of the system, but of a new Learning Management System, or LMS, which involved faculty loading their lecture plan, reading materials, and back up information on the tablets so that students would be able to easily prepare for classes before hand, and even to move ahead so that they were ready for classes in the future.  The beauty of this system, is that the faculty really only had to be present once/week if that is what they chose.  Most were present much more frequently.  The discussions regarding the particular class were led by a so called expert who helped to divide the students into teams to discuss the on-line questions.  There was lots of discussion and then each group presented their answer.  Opposing answer groups challenged them, they defended their answer and the expert would somehow manage to steer them to the right answer.  Usually this was the faculty teacher, as they were so enthralled with the process.  Students moved from sleeping, texting on their phones, coming in late leaving early, to coming early and being actively engaged.

All exams were “on-line” exams and this gave faculty the ability to grade and get the grades back to students 3x earlier that other schools.  The students had a new first line “wet lab” to work in and a trainer who could see every student from some kind of video camera to see that they were comfortable with the equipment with which they worked.

The results of this five year grant were astounding.  KCMCco went from the 4^th Medical School in the country in ranking (that is how many medical schools they were at the time) to the 1^st.  Students are engaged, take on responsibilities, beg to get in, and often their parents try to persuade friends who work at the college to help them be accepted.  The changes are astounding.  The faculty pictured in the previous blog were those granted awards for teaching and mentoring and are only a few of the outstanding faculty who walked through this whole new way of college/medical school learning.  It was definitely rough at first, but the pay off has been amazing.

Another positive about MEPI is that it brought the other awardees together once a year to discuss what they were doing and how it was working.  No one was doing the same thing, each had their own approach to the funding.  Possibly KCMC had been the least developed college so their approach meant using the most creative strategies to raise up the entire school.  It has been fun.  And it has been especially rewarding to see young graduates being retained at KCMC to work on the wards and to be on the pathway to be specialists.

So that is MEPI.

I don’t think that there is any reason to explain our house.  It most certainly has been the same for 12 years, with little additions here and there.

The fabulous baby hats refer to several women who knit and knit and knit.  If you have ever visited southern Africa anywhere, you will always see young babies with warm hats on, even when it is boiling hot outside.  It is just something that mothers do…put hats on their babies and wrap them tight.  Our studies involve mothers and mostly infants.  As HIV medicines have largely ended mother to child transmission, we continue to look at other infections for those mothers and babies, how to prevent that, low birth weight, how to prevent it, medication interactions, what is the best medication to prevent transmission, and of course adherence adherence adherence. There are obviously other studies.  Our nurses are dedicated and have been with our study site for years, some since I first started coming to Moshi 12 years ago.  It is illegal to give big compensation for the mothers and babies, but we do provide travel money and for undernourished moms (which are many) a meal.  I thought some time ago that a little gift like a little knit cap would just give a lift to these HIV-infected mothers who are trying to make the best out of a difficult life.  I had seen it work at my old NGO in town, and how happy these mothers are to receive a pretty & warm hat.  So knitters, THANK YOU!

We have lots of visitors to KCMC, mostly because we are always cogitating on new grants.  We have garnered several that have been successful as team efforts with other schools and even other countries in East Africa.  So, it is important that everyone understand each other’s programs.  Welcome visitors.  A-5 is waiting to greet you.

Finally, the 350th Hash.  The Hash House Harriers are a world wide group that has traditionally gotten together because they love to drink and to run.  Our fearless leader Greg Emmanuel had gone to a number of these, in particular ones in the US when he was living in Maryland.  When he returned, he decided that it would be great to start this group in Moshi.  But ours is different, it is a family Hash, and that means walking and running and it means that the fellowship is as important as the walk/run.  They are set in different parts of Kilimanjaro, and most in beautiful sites that we have rarely seen before.  There are many stories of daring in these hashes, some really hard ones as we do after all live on the side of a mountain, and others that are just beautiful and relatively gentle.  The hash trail is set with flour and there are always checks to through you off.  The "hare" sets the trail (a different person each Hash) and provides the drinks.  It has become a huge tradition here in Moshi and all of us are grateful to Greg for his leadership.

I hope this explanation is helpful and supports in some way the pictures I tossed up last night as I really should have been in bed.

As always the mountain stands tall and though with less snow, still magnificent.

Water Into Wine

The first Miracle of Jesus Christ is said to be the turning water into wine.  I have no intention of making fun of that first miracle, or of anything said about it; however I do want to offer a particularly full week that seemed to incorporate that very  first miracle.  And it has to do with the following:

A. The MEPI "closeout" in which Charles M. determined that this was the miracle.  (not just the water to wine but the miracle of MEPI
B. Our fabulous yard and the care taken by Pauli, as well as new chickens and suddenly a turtle!
C. Our clinic and the new hats donated to the babies and their moms!  Thanks donors.
D. The 350th hash, which I think may go down in history as a great way for us all to see each other, the dustiest hash, and the least attractive, but with good food (and this is not the assessment of my own dear and near husband but everyone I have talked to).  But it was the 350 so it should go down for something.

Lots of pictures!

Proof positive..water to wine (MEPI and all that it has stood for and continues to stand.)

The boys played "football" but maybe the girls were just as good.  Chrispina shows her ability without any fancy sport clothes on.

WeruWeru Lodge has chosen to have camels for money making.  I have been told by a good source that they have the "good life" lots of good grasses and whatever they eat and are well behaved.  Dativa and Chrispina have ridden them!

Sia Msuya, well known for mentoring students, particularly with unusual and unique research projects.

Sabina Mtweve being crowned the queen of TBL (Team Based Learning)  She loves students.

Fabulous beautiful girls. Dr. Mtweve, Dativa, Glory and Chrispina....wow

Our own MEPI Alumni Chair, Rose, who is giving the keynote and acknowledging everyone involved.  Let's go MEPI 3!

I think everyone has seen our front yard, but we had not for 6 months and here it is, still beautiful!

I have no idea what kind of succulent the "brain Tree:", but it looks a little less like a brain as it grows bigger and bigger

Two gardenia bushes send their scents almost to the house.  It is intoxicating and I just wish they were closer.  

won't look like anything but this is my Mawenzi mt. and the Duke basket ball flag (faded) and the Opposition Party (Chedema Party) fly high (held on by giant cactus)  At this point we are big fans of the opposition.

Biggest surprise is Kenny (Kobe-Turtle)  He lives with the Kukus & they steal all his food so I worry about him, but bring him melon and mince and greens and shut the chickens up.  Wish I could give him to my brother Jim!  He is actually huge.

Actually, this is the most beautiful Rooster I have had.  I have not warmed to him, but named him Charlie Jr. so he would have the same opportunity as his name sake who will go down in history as my fav.

My really favorite bush is "Yesterday Today & Tomorrow.  I love the gentle sweet smell and the sad (to me) knowledge that the flower lasts exactly 3 days. Amost gone now and hope it comes back soon!

We are happy to always host visitors, and Diana and Charles from UCSF and Dar Es Salaam were no exceptions.  We had great talks about the future of our projects and wow, young people are terrific.  Thanks for coming.!

Remember Sarah?  She was a 3rd year resident in 2009!  And now working in Uganda.  Great weekend with Sarah, thinking about the "old days"  (2009??????)  Great to see her!

Winnie looking great wit the hats donated.  Wow thanks donors.

It is important to notate that the new rules about confidentiality for patients (particularly minors) and their parents or guardians are particularly strict.  So the Nurses (sisters) and I decided to show off the hats in the best way we could, with the fabulous sisters who actually see the patients and care for them would show off the hats.  They are sosooo excited for their patients to have the opportunity for a new hat.  You never outgrow this need.  THANKS TO ALL THE DONORS!

Our fabulous study nurses looking through all these hats.  Such a bountiful gift.  Thank you all so much!

Next just one or two pictures from the 350th hash: FYI, it was located at the TPC, the Sugar Plantation which is often beautiful.  For some reason, it struck me as dusty, barren and well, ummmmmm.  But my new knee dilemna (IT band disaster) has leveled me and I can neither run nor walk.

Doesn't look like I feel sorry 4 self, but I do.

John in misery with Nelson who missed a turn somehow and ran 12K instead of 6, in the worst dust imaginable.  Kali (Foul Tempered) John

On the right, great friends Liselotte and Martin back for two weeks to Moshi.  L is one of the best choir soprano voices I know and a flute player on top.  Loved singing with her in the early days of 2005-2009.  Sigh.

So, with the 350 over with and new weeks coming.  I say goodbye to this blog for the week with just a few more pictures.  I have to say that the hardest thing is that I cannot walk, and I'm totally discouraged about it, and confused.  I look at places that I used to walk every day, and now if I try to get there, I am in tears.  I'm told that this IT band will  or can be fixed, but the pain is almost too much to bear.  But I am the soldier of my dad and mom and I will try and soldier on.

Here are the last pics.  The Rangon Creeper (apparently like honeysuckle and just as sweet,) the Traveler's fern...amazing, and the mountain.  Losing its snow really fast now, but so regal regardless.

Rangoon Creeper taking over the house (fine with me...and the yard).

Love this Traveler's Fern

Snows disappearing but oh so beautiful.

Most weeks are much quieter, but gracious this one was packed.  My take away message is that we have young energetic people to take over from us, and soon, and we are only here to give support and guidance.  There is lots brewing just like in the states, and who knows what will happen, but the time has been the best I could have ever imagined!

My Sweet Lydia

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Wow…Return to Moshi. 

John and I arrived in Kilimanjaro on Sunday night, and magically all our bags arrived.  I had found that my right knee is bummed in ways that I don’t understand…I just do the exercises and hope for the best and got these great support hose to keep my ankles from swelling (thanks Charlie Register).  (oh they are really cute, too).   

So I unpacked in a fog, and the next day tried to find everything.  Not bad for the state we were in.  We had to get our e-mail new sticks and TIGO is amazing.  I’m not sure why we went to the top, but they were so helpful and a new modem stick has meant much faster e-mail service so much that we talked to our sweet granddaughter Corinne today (got to try Lyriella next week!)

Time moves quickly here but your ability to move through life is slow, so to get the things we needed took all day, and even then lots of things were left or not present.  We understand that the new government, in its zeal to get rid of corruption has left many problems…such as taxes (VATs) that have been put on religious organizations and safari groups that were never on before, and they have not been able to quickly adjust.  Our own sweet grocery store Aleem’s is finding it harder and harder to import items that people beg for because of the new Nationalization orders.  In addition, many government jobs have been for some reason cancelled, and the worse is that doctors on scholarship who have joined the faculty have been laid off from medical institutions because the government has not paid the institutions for their scholarship or their pay. Now we, at KCMC are so short of very good doctors that apparently they are being imported from other countries.  How crazy is that ?  I don’t mind getting rid of corruption, but our hospital is precious to me.

A great deal of my time has been spent trying to improve my apparently unhappy right side.  I have no idea what the area around my knee is really doing but the utter sadness about not being able to either run or walk distances without enormous pain is just ruining my quality of life.  I have been happy to return to the freezing International School (the Norwegians love the temperature, my hands freeze) to swim just breast stroke and walking (though freezing) and doing these crazy exercises that are supposed to help…PLEASE HELP!)  We have the 350^th hash next week and I already know I can neither run nor walk.  Pisses the hell out of me.

And then the end of the week was my dada Lydia’s funeral.  This was tough for a number of reasons.  First of all, in early years, women had very little opportunity to be together without their husbands, and God forbid if they were single.  We started our group in maybe 2005 because we liked each other and thought that it could be fun to have a friendship with the whole group of “aging women” without our husbands at some different places and that while we were very strong, we could talk about stuff other than work.  That is hard to do in an environment in which many of us care for dying or very sick people every day, but we managed to do it.  We have had a wonderful time sharing our stories,she sure that she could and my daughter Chrissy being perfect mother daughter's, and refusing to offer me Lillian because I had been such a failure at finding Chrissy a husband (Lillian has refused many offers as well.)

 

My daughter Lydia said continually!

 When our Dada Lydia died, and seemingly so suddenly, it devastated us all.  All of us had lost parents and even grandchildren, and even children, but somehow her loss was acute and visceral.  Lydia was our Queen.   

Lydia protecting the mother and chlidren for their new home.

Dadas night choosing our food from Mkulima

Lydia and dadas welcoming visitors to KIWAKKUKI

Lydia with me and our "matching Masai outfits and Dada Very Nice..and ?  ou I was so short Lydia tall.

Bad dinner but fabulous company at Sal Salinaro...Dadas forever!

Lydia is #3 from the left.  We think we are leaving for good, Sept. 2008.  wow.

Ah, Lui and Lydia at I think Lui's birthday.  So beautiful and sweet.

Anyone remember the boat? ABC's she was the queen of that teaching.

Another Dada night.  So proper my Lydia

Study Coordinator Julia in 2006-7 with Eunice and Lydia.  We allowed her to be a Dada even though she was too young.

The most contentious house warming I ever witnessed, but someone approved, &two rabbits the reward.A surprised Lydia.

So many pictures of my Queen and friend.  This is one of the wonderful ones.

Lydia ready for outreach and reports for "Life and Living" "Cives Mundi". Never afraid to go out to the community for a new and good project.  That was Lydia.!

Save the best for last.Lydia was never afraid to teach AIDS education, and here she is in AFREEKA giving a proper condom demonstration, in public.  She was never afraid.  Our Dadas were blown away by this.

One of my favorite captions..Lydia and my sweet Agnes are waiting for John to cross the finish line & we were soon to be in the Majira newspaper for this race. One of my best memories.

She was at least the ex facto wife of the Chief Maralles, and she was wise and smart and could be very sharp (kali) when she needed to be. She was also the most fit of all of us, so the stunning effect of how cancer can take any of us was also difficult.

But once again we rose to the occasion.   

Dadas

We were all there, We all wore the same Kanga which was Dunia Ni Mapito, which the best I can tell means “ the world is our path, or the path”. Our moto has always been “Together we can accomplish everything” Pamoja tunaweza kukamilisha kila kitu! So this was a good kanga for us all to wear. I was unprepared for this service. I am always unprepared for these sorts of things. Sometimes I start crying at regular communion services, and of course I had just met my Dadas for the first time since I returned. It appeared that at least several of the Dadas had been out of town and had not seen one another, but one thing they had done was to visit Lydia. They brought her vegetables (that she couldn’t eat) and broth and soup. They helped her wonderful daughter Lillian who moved essentially from her flat to the house to care for her mother who would not go to the doctor or hospital (I stilll cannot understand this) . and they tried to arrange for someone to go everyday.

My Lydia was not only my Queen, but while I helped her to write her program reports (she refused to learn to type), she taught me about life. Though she was the “wife” of the eventual Chagga King, she never failed to grab her posters, and pencils and head out to the rural areas of Kilimanjaro to teach school cihildren about AIDS and prevention. Nor did she fail at orphan house openings to admonish villages to take care of vulnerable children or women, even sometimes at her own peril. Not once did I see her back down.

She did not understand corruption. This also surprised me because she had become part of a family that has a certain reputation. She was fearless. I have never seen how she faced down men trying to take the house of an orphan child, or people who simply did not believe her AIDS education outreaches. With virtually no training she understood the Adult learning methods, but she also could manage to get Primary 5-6 and Secondary 1-2-3-girls to talk. I always found this amazing but she just found it a way of life. She did a project with TAWREF where she sat and listened to how many words mothers talked to their babies in poor homes. They never saw her as an outsider because that was the way that Lydia was.

Lydia’s funeral and burial were packed with people. I will not say that I wonder where they were when she was alone, but I wil say that I wish we had come back 3 weeks earlier so that I could hold her hand...At the least.


This blog is too long, but it has been an emotional week