A Drop in the Bucket, Part 2

Children look on with amazement as Amizade volunteers and a neighbor help clear a site for a tank designed to catch rainwater to provide safe drinking water for a family. Some of you have written and asked penetrating questions about this project. Catching rainwater is being practiced in many places in underdeveloped countries. It is inexpensive, environmentally sound, and takes away the stress of transporting water from unreliable streams or from tapping groundwater. For a number of reasons the tanks are made of concrete rather than plastic and are put underground except for the top. First an underground tank is supported by the earth so it is more durable and doesn't require reinforcement bar. It is less likely to be stolen or damaged and the water has to be ladled out rather than tapped. Taps leak or get left open. Amizade has donated funds and labor for larger tanks for larger families as well, and received grant money for a huge tank for a grain storage facility and school. Other organizations, a friend wrote, such as Rotary, are actively involved in supporting similar projects throughout the world.

The middle picture shows a student from West Virginia University and some bald headed guy, referred to in Swahili as babu (grandfather), moving some dirt. The family this weekend completed the hole which is over six feet deep and are in the process of amassing rock and stone to help begin the next stage of mixing concrete. I hope to show the finished work in a future post.

In the meantime I think of all the good fortune we have at home and our tough daily decisions such as, "Should I wash the dishes by hand or use the dishwasher!"

A Drop in the Bucket, Part 1

After my amazing travel through Uganda, I finally arrived in Karagwe, Tanzania, and began immediately to participate in activities of the Amizade water project. In conjunction with several local organizations, especially the Mavuno Improvement for Community Relief and Services, Amizade students and volunteers are helping to install partially underground concrete water tanks for families. Rainwater is gathered from the roof by a gutter and is directed by downspout to the top of the tank. Like a well, water is then fetched with a rope and bucket. The local agencies select the household to get the tank, a daunting task since everyone here needs clean water.

Today we began installing a 500 liter tank for the above home for a family of at least five and, I think, a goat. The middle picture is of the site director Stephanie discussing the tank's location with a neighbor who will help with the construction and whose family will also be able to use the water from the tank. Tomorrow I will show you further work in progress.

The top picture gives you an idea of how tropical this area is. Every day I eat several fresh bananas, sweeter than I've ever tasted, but I have to tell you, the rainy season has begun and it has been pouring practically non-stop. As a veteran of the Pacific Northwest Coast, I know rain, but this climate produces some seriously heavy drops. Children cut off banana fronds and carry them over their heads to keep from getting soaked. Groves of these lovely plants adorn this highland and transform it into a magical landscape, but be not fooled by this idyllic description, it is as poor and problematic as any place I have been on my adventure.

Day 2 in Africa

I have uploaded what appears to be three random shots I took from my bumpy bus ride across Uganda on my way to Karagwe. Tanzania. My objective is to show you the world I see and understand my struggle with its amazing contradictions.

The first photo is a typical village scene. There are some fellows sitting around chatting. You can't hear their laughter or feel their gentle gestures, but a tenderness is there. What could they be talking about and in what dialect I do not know? The trash behind them? Why don't they pick it up? It spoils the picture or is there a message here?

The second photo shows a lady wearing a lovely shawl. She is looking across a mud puddle at some folks on a patio. People care here very much about looking clean and presentable. The big mud puddle will serve her and her friends as drinking water for several days.

The last photo of a lone tree at dusk on the savannah instilled in me a feeling of Africa which I have imagined since childhood. You might hear the lyric "... the lion sleeps tonight", when you look at this picture. The problem is there are no lions near here. They are long gone due to encroachment of people, degradation of the land for farming, and hunting and poaching for food.

My Amizade Adventure is a maize. I turn many directions in spirit and in purpose. I end in Bend, Oregon at home, or is that just one more remote outpost?

Day 1 Africa

It has been several days since I posted and my world has changed dramatically. I arrived in Kampala, Uganda, late in the evening and met Stephanie, the young, energetic and capable site director. She prepared me for the exhausting journey to the border and on to the isolated Karagwe site in Tanzania.

The above picture, taken from my bus window, is a vivid reminder of the sea of chaos I found in my first day in Africa. Intensified by torrential rain and sloppy, trash-filled mud and wearing a heavy backpack, I slogged my way clutching my carry-on luggage through throngs of impoverished people. It was a scene out of a movie I was in, a tourist out of place and caught in a morass of strange world.

As the bus made its way past the outskirts, the magic of Africa began to reveal itself in a different light. Lush tropical forests and gentle rolling savannah offered scenes of local people dressed in colorful clothing working or relaxing by their homes or visiting in the market. I saw smiling faces, relaxed and living in a simpler world. It wasn't a romantic picture exactly because there was all the trappings of poverty. It was life here, accepted, predictable, and peaceful.

I can only with great luck upload photos so I hope to show a variety of scenes, but it is an incredibly slow process. It is hard to believe that there is connectivity at all.

Deep in Oxford?

These few photos fall short in an attempt to describe the incomprable beauty and intense energy that pervades this famous university community of Oxford. An array of quaint specialty shops housed in 17th century buildings, selling everything from maps or antiquarian books to exotic foods line sidewalks crowded with intelligent people. Interspersed among the finely decorated facades are large wooden doors which serve as entrances to college buildings and lecture halls. A feeling of the great educational tradition remains locked behind Gothic walls of stone.

I fantasized what it would take to move to England, be accepted at Oxford and to challenge myself again now as a more mature student. I sensed the joy of the intellectual stimulation of learning among the best and living in a community which has so much cultural activity, including the Ashmolean Museum and the Bodlean library. I saw myself rowing along the Thames, acquiring a taste for English ale, and taking occasional trips over to the Continent to tour Europe's greatest scenes.

Now I am back in London and my momentary ambition has been tempered by the realities of such an effort. Sometimes it easy to believe that everything is possible and others times even getting dressed is a struggle. I have made much of my life already and maybe some dreams just need to be moderated. Like a character in the Canterbury Tales, I have a journey ahead of me and its story has yet to be told.

An Afternoon at Warwick Castle

After spending a gloomy rainy day at Shakespeare's birthplace, Stratford on Avon, Tapirgal and I were told that it was essential to visit was Warwick Castle not far away.
The castle was originally built by William the Conquerer in 1068 but has gone through many restorations since then and was still in use as a private residence up until 1978 by the Earl of Warwick until purchased by the Madame Tussaud Group. The main quarters are elaborately decorated and filled with realistic life-sized wax figures taken from the Tussaud Museum. This is no run-0f-the mill tourist attraction but is ranked on par with the Tower of London as a Grade 1 Ancient Protected Monument. It had so many elaborate rooms, gardens and outbuildings open for viewing. We didn't have the time to go in the basement to see the dungeon, but we saw the world's largest siege engine hurl a fiery boulder 800 feet.

I've always found it hard to be sympathetic with the wars, intrigues and brutality associated with these castles and their residents and, since I was raised in a working class family, it's been hard to identify with the travails of upper class royalty. I know also that in the town below, countless people lived on the edge of existence and were exploited and enslaved through the feudal system.

Nonetheless the magnificence of such a place is seductive and romantic. It is easy to shut your eyes and hear courtly music, and see men in armor marching in on white steeds or hear the horns of a fox hunt while the ghosts of the past live in vapors on the heath.

Seeing the Past

Yesterday I spent my first full day in the English countryside Northwest of London in the direction of Birmingham, lodging in a 17th century inn of the small town of nursery-rhyme fame, Banbury.

The evening before, I had strolled the narrow streets, looking at statues, Gothic churches and peering into pubs. I could feel the hard solid Puritan historical character of the area floating within the moist frigid evening air. Later on within the warmth of a drinking establishment, an enterprising bartender retold tales of the interregnum of Oliver Cromwell and the subsequent restoration in the reign of Enlightenment of Charles II.

I wanted so much to see backwards. Scenes of modern, wealthy industrialized England had invaded everywhere, even here in the villages; that boring sameness which has destroyed regionalism in so much of the West. Not that I was surprised. Like a treasure hunt, I have grown accustomed to seeking out remnants of the past and romanticizing them as if they had intrinsically more worth than life today.

The second and fourth photos show scenes of the "crown jewel" of my pursuit. Tapirgal and I went to Dudley. Perched on a peak surrounded by a small zoo is one of the oldest remaining castles, dating from the 11th century. I climbed its walls, peered through its windows and growled the roar of dragons.