from east africa:

in tanzania the children refer to their elders with the greeting "shikamoo." It means "I will hold your feet while you are shackled" or "may you not be beaten too severely" The kids say it lightly and with lots of energy. Most of the folks don't remember the literal meaning. Alot of Tanzania is like that, intensity and struggle which is so woven into everything that folks deal and smile and are so warm and keep going.

We were in a little town near Lake Victoria called Sota. A village. One red mud dirt road. Huts and Huts and people that make their lives outside and migrate inside only to sleep or fetch something. There is this doctor trained in the US that has lived there for 25 years- married a Tanzanian. She just opened a little clinic and our job was to try to survey the community. Try to hit up a thousand hut households, walking from house to house. We had a swahili translator nurse come with us. The kids in each house would set up little chairs for us to sit in and when we went to the next house they would pick up the wooden chairs and follow us. So many children curiously peering at us. We would get a list from the head of the household of everyone that lived in the house. Some men had up to 8 wives. And 16 kids with some of the wives. Most had 2 or 3 wives. And once you started getting the list of kids and 6 of 10 have died of malaria or 4 of 11 you realize this is where your medical school textbook is talking about when it says flippantly 1.5 million folks die of malaria each year.

The survey punched a bunch of holes into so many taken for granted kind of things. The water had schistosomiasis and families didn't boil their water. then you figured out that two days wage is the cost to boil water.

We organized a day for vaccines since so many of the kids don't have their vaccines up to date. All the mothers lined up, but the maternal-fetal health folks did not.

You realize that poor health is the outcome of poverty. They needed roads and jobs and clean water and then maybe we wouldn't see all the end results of the lack there of.

between a clinic and a well, you gotta choose a well. but of course there should not be that choice.

after working i went to climb kilimanjaro(which was amazing!!!) and headed to the world social forum in Nairobi and river rafting in uganda. it is amazing how the world is carved up by race as you go to the tourist things. Kili only had australians and white south africans and canadians and europeans and americans. the brown folks were immigrants from these rich countries and maybe some koreans and folks from japan.

Slowly, slowly i am trying to write to remember for myself and keep myself committed.



Sri
Sri

Sri