After
a busy few weeks full of moving house, visitors and holidays, life is slowly returning
to normal for us in Shinyanga. Paul has been busy in work and Alice has been
back in Buhangija – and caught a bit of the ‘Buhangija cold’ that strikes when
your immune system is hijacked by 400 sick children who want to be as close to
you as possible! Alice also managed to fit in a trip to Geita with Whitney, who
also happens to be the real reason Ian extended his stay in Tanzania!
Whitney
works for Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and is a programme officer based in
Mwanza. Part of her work has involved monitoring and evaluating CRS’s ‘Thrive’
– A Positive Parenting Project. Last week Ian, Whitney and Alice set off to a
village between Mwanza and Geita (the place we moved to for a week and a half
in May!) to visit a community that has been participating in Thrive. The
project is centred on teaching parents how to care for their children’s safety,
nutrition and developmental needs by CRS trained volunteers.
This
particular village has had some struggles mobilising themselves in the past.
Lack of community leader support meant they were behind in construction of a
centre to meet together. Undeterred, the women in the village met under a tree.
Further inspired by the project’s nutritional teaching, they contribute a small
amount of food each and cook communally so their children can eat while they
gather to learn. Since then, a simple centre has been built for the local community
to meet together.
We
arrived to help with one of the final aspects of the project – the murals. In a
country with low literacy rates, a picture is often the best way to convey a
message. So an enjoyable day was spent in the sun promoting healthy childhood
development, early stimulation, proper nutrition and health monitoring...pretty
heavy topics considering the giant giraffe and caterpillar we ended up with! Click here for more photos.
Swahili
word of the Day: Afya ya Mtoto ni Pamojana… (A healthy child needs…)
As we've said before, we're very lucky to have had so many visitors. Anna will be here for 3 months which is great. We tried to ease her into life here slowly with swimming pools, nice food and a boat trip in Mwanza but since coming to Shinyanga she has visited Buhangija, decided Ugali isn't nice, sat in the dark waiting for electricity to come back and had days with no water!
