Unexpected Positive Outcomes

Hornbill sitting in the tree outsid our house.

Another week, another trip. Actually that sounds like I am complaining. The field visits in the past month have been very interesting and the most recent had several 'unexpected positive outcomes' as we call them in development work that made the trip all the more worthwhile. But I need to back up to last week to report all of the things that have happened since the last installment.

I had last written while I was in Dodoma visiting our school for the deaf partner. Sharon, our country rep. and I stayed through Wednesday and were able to watch Chrispin, our Ag. Coordinator do a training of lead farmers on how to manage conflict and advocate for conservation (low tillage) agriculture in their communities. We headed back Thursday morning. Unfortunately we took a wrong turn out of town and instead of heading straight back to Arusha we took a road that went due north to the town of Singida. (The roads look similar and the landscape is all dry savanah and small towns.) Long story short, we added an additional 3.5 hours to our 6 hour trip, but did get home by Thursday evening. It was good to be back, but I was quite sore after spending a long day driving the landrover.

I spent part of Friday, upon my return writing a sermon for Sunday as I was invited to preach.

Friday nights continue to be a highlight for our family. The kids are dropped off by the 'school bus' (actually a yellow dala-dala) at our office about the time we are done and we head over together to Gymkhana, our colonial era country club. (which looks like it has not had any serious renovations since Independence in 1960.) We don't really play golf, or snooker, or darts, or tennis, but we do play some squash and enjoy the swimming pool daily. In my opinion, their nearly unused 25meter pool is one of the best kept secrets in Arusha.

We swim together in the pool, play 'monkey in the middle', then usually have dinner catered from the Chinese restaurant next door (since Gymkhana has no working kitchen). After dinner we head home and watch a movie. We are going through the entire Marvel Avengers series and watch one each week. Last Friday was not exception and we watched Captain America Civil War. The one difference, however, is that last weekend preceded the kids' school midterm break, so they were looking forward to a full week off from school the next week. One sign of maturity I saw in Oren was his near compulsion to do all his homework while we were at Gymkhana Friday afternoon so he would not have to do it during the week. That is not the Oren I remember from many years of putting all homework off to the last possible minute.

Saturday's big project was painting a large acacia tree over a full moon in our kitchen. It is part of our 'home ownership' project. That is, making Tanzania our home since we have been here for more than a year and have at least 2 more. This personalization of the house is largely symbolic, but many things are feeling right at the moment, work, and looking at the kids' midterm grades, school is going well also. After practice on 2 trees in the living room, the acacia tree in the kitchen eating area was the most ambitious and successful effort to date. We are looking forward to having guests visit.

Sunday was a full day beginning with me preaching on Sunday morning. I did a teaching on the prodigal son with emphasis on the sacrifice the elder brother must make to fully restore his brother to the family. Elder brothers who slink about for years, harboring resentment become a bitter root that can ultimately destroy unity. I felt the message was understood and well received.

After church we had lunch with our friends Vance and Beth Marie 2 school teachers. We shared lunch then went over and visited their school--Christ Church International. It was good to get together with them as they are fellow folk (and swing) dancers and we are thinking of doing another folk dance at the church.

When we left Vance and Beth Marie we were near the compound where the weekly volleyball game meets and we went over and played. It was a lot of fun and both Oren and David joined in. Both did quite well. There are a large number of Scandanavians who play and the last game was a match of Finland vs. North America (US and Canada). We did squeek out a narrow victory thanks to a 6'5" Canadian on our team.

This past week the kids have been out of school because of midterm break. It is honestly not ideal for Rebecca and I as it means one of us must remain at home during the days. Since Rebecca is 1/2 time and I had a trip this week, she was the one who stayed home. I think they used the time well with Oren swimming laps and running on the treadmill several times during the week and David doing tennis lessons. They also visited our friends the Taylors on several occasions. (they have 4 kids around our kids' age and are becomming really stable family friends in our time here.)

Oren playing with Harry and Sammy.

I had a 2 day field visit to Ngorongoro conservation area where we have our maternal child health project. We are at the end of the first year and I wanted to collect data from the clinics in the ward to see the effect the project was having on increasing ante-natal care visits and facility deliveries.

A second hope I had was to talk to our partner about finding a person who could be a local PI (principal investigator) on a study we are proposing to do connected to the project. I did not hold out much hope, I had been told the day before that our 10 month ethical clearance process was at an end, but was then surprised (after all this time) that they said they would not issue it unless we had a local PI in addition to me as part of the study. It was frustrating but not entirely surprising that this request would come after I had been waiting nearly a year for their approval and it was never mentioned.

All that to say, I had a dim hope that the director of our partnership would know someone who might be qualified and interested. Given that he lives out in a village in a remote highland savanah, I was not optimistic.

I drove up on Tuesday, and arrived in the afternoon in the town of Karatu outside the conservation area. I usally stay the night here as there is a daily cost to enter for noncitizens so it is cheaper to stay on the outside and go in on a day trip. I met Laangakwa our local partner and we had a good meeting about evaluating the project at the end of year one. Near the end of the meeting I talked about the unexpected need to find a local PI. to my shock he said that one of his school mates from the village had gone on to become a professor of sociology at the University of Dar Es Salaam. He told me he was in the village now as they were on a term break and I could meet him. I could not believe the good fortune! I would call it miraculous.

The next day we went into the crater region together to the ward where the project is being implemented. We visited all the health facilities which are quite far apart on very bumpy roads. The season is so dry now that instead of mud puddles there are dust puddles up to 2 feet deep. I saw a landrover get stuck in one while we drove. The data from the clinics with regard to antenatal care visits was encouraging, showing mosest improvement, deliveries less so. The big surprise though was that one doctor reported that since the implementation of our project, use of the clinic had increased 3 fold for all services! He attributed this to the fact that when women came for ANC visits and received dawa (medicine) that worked--such as deworming for anemia, and iron and folic acid, they reported back to the community and through word of mouth clinical services in general had increased as more villagers began practicing 'health seeking behavior'. The doctor felt this was directly attributable to our program. (An unexpected good outcome.)

At one point along the way, we stopped at a field where a traditionally dressed maasai rancher/university professor met us. He was Laangakwa's friend and was very happy and committed to join the project as a PI. It is a blessing for me because he is right from the community but also has the qualitative analysis skills we need to do the study. The fact that he has the backing of the University of Dar Es Salaam was also essential to get our ethical clearance completed.

I returned to Arusha from the crater region that afternoon very pleased by the unexpected positive outcomes we had experienced in our project. Despite getting a speeding ticket on the way home, it was a very good trip!