Another funeral

Sarah's mum died on Sunday night. She was 74 and had been suffering from cancer for a while so it wasn't a big shock. I went to see her last week and she looked to me like she didn't have much time left.

The funeral was yesterday. Tanzanian funerals always take place very quickly after the death. The same day, the next day or the day after that at most. There are a lot of funerals and a lot of people attend. It is respectful to go even if you only very vaguely know the deceased or a relative of the deceased. You are also expected to give some money towards covering the cost of the funeral- not a bad idea!

Sarah asked me to film the event, so I got a good view of everything and was able to push through the crowds to the grave side. I stood out enough being one of only 2 white people amidst hundreds of Tanzanians, however I made it worse by dressing in Tanzanian national dress and having a video camera. I felt a bit like a clown, but it is respectful to wear two Kanga's (pieces of material) at a funeral. One round your waist and one wrapped round your head. I went to the mortuary yesterday dressed as such and one of the doctors stopped me and said " madam you are very beautiful" Another lady stopped me later on and said beautiful, beautiful. I obviously should dress up more often.

Anyway the pictures show the transport to the graveside, the open coffin ( not a close up), all the mourners at the cemetery and the covered grave. They covered the grave with flowers and then lit candles all around , it was very beautiful. I realised what it must be like to be a journalist covering a horrible event. The camera helps you detach yourself from the event. You focus on getting the best shots and completely disengage with the reality of the situation. Today it just feels like a documentary I watched.

Sarah now had three days of mourning with people sleeping at her house on the floor. After that the grieving ends and it's time to start again!!

From celebration to sorrow...

I have just returned from my first Tanzanian funeral. We woke up to an e-mail from the Programme Manager telling us that one of the children of Yoram, one of our hangar workers, had died.

He lives about 15km outside Dodoma (up a big hill - he cycles to and from work every day on an old bike). A big contingent of us drove out there for the funeral, which started at 3.00pm. the structure was not dissimilar to an English funeral (not that I have much experience to go on); there was singing, sermonising and praying.

There were many differences though; the separation of the men and the women; the sitting on mats (or the floor); the riot of colourful clothing; the wailing; the dancing and singing; the long hot walk through the bush to the graveside; the fact that almost everyone from the village was there (there must have been between three and four hundred people).

It was Yoram's youngest child (out of 7 or 8), a little girl of 18 months, called Faraja ('Comfort'). She had apparently died of pneumonia. Seeing the tiny coffin (and the sweet-faced child inside it) made me realise that in Europe, children don't die. I know that is a sweeping statement, but here it is a commonplace occurrence, whereas in Europe if you know of any children who have died, it is the exception that proves the rule. It goes to show that where you have generations of malnutrition, it doesn't take much to kill.

It reminded me a bit of a 'parable' from the book I was reading this morning. This was written by an American, about America, but I am not sure any of us in the West can really plead innocence:

"Imagine that you come from a large family in which one brother ended up with a whole lot more than the rest of you. Sometimes it happens that way, the luck falling to one guy who didn't do all that much to deserve it. Imagine his gorgeous house on a huge tract of forests, rolling hills, and fertile fields. Your other relatives have decent places with smaller yards, but yours is mostly dust. Your lucky brother eats well, he has meat every day - in fact, let's face it, he's corpulent, and so are his kids. At your house, meanwhile, things are bad: Your kids cry themselves to sleep on empty stomachs. Your brother must not be able to hear them from the veranda where he dines, because he throws away all the food he can't finish. He will do this favour: He's made a TV program of himself eating. If you want to, you can watch it from your house. But you can't have his food, his house, or the car he drives around in to view his unspoiled forests and majestic purple mountains. The rest of the family has noticed that all his driving is kicking up the dust, wrecking not only the edges of his property but also their less pristine backyards and even yours, which was dust to begin with. He's dammed the river to irrigate his fields, so that only a trickle reaches your place, and it's nasty. You're beginning to see that these problems are deep and deadly, that you'll be the first to starve, and the others will follow. The family takes a vote and agrees to do a handful of obvious things that will keep down the dust and clear water - all except Fat Brother. He walks away from the table. He says God gave him good land and the right to be greedy."

Makes you think, doesn't it?

The author writes elsewhere that "the UN estimates that $13 billion above current levels of aid would provided everyone in the world...with basic health and nutrition. Collectively, Americans and Europeans spend $17 billion a year on pet food."

Maybe the death of one little girl in a small dusty corner of Africa doesn't mean much in the big scheme of things, but just think how easy it would be for this not to have to happen - if the political will was there. I have never been particularly militant about these things, but I don't think it's something we can turn a blind eye to.

Ideas for saving the world on a postcard...

45 Years of MAF in Tanzania

Yesterday we celebrated 45 years of MAF in Tanzania. We had a few flying displays, a pretend medevac, win a free flight, a flight simulator people could have a go with, craft stalls, important people speaking and dancers, traditional and modern. Lots of people came and it was good fun. Here are a few photos of the day.

Fox Farm

The place we stayed was on a farm set amongst tea estates. The views were stunning although it was more like Scotland than Tanzania. It was freezing cold (well for us, about 16 degrees C) but it was a nice change from the heat of Dodoma.The children really enjoyed it, especially the horse riding. Even Caleb rode his own horse (much to my horror) and all the children rode for over an hour around the 2000 acre farm, down valleys up hills and over rivers. In the end I got off my horse and walked with Caleb's horse. Yes I am neurotic, but he is only just 3 and this was a big horse not a little pony and on some of the downward bits even the horses were slipping. Caleb of course kept shouting at me " mummy I'm fine, I'm not scared." I was very proud of Bethany and Joshua who manage to control their horses and weren't scared at all.

Road trip to Mufindi

Because it is the Easter holidays we decided to take a trip to the Southern Highlands of Tanzania. It took us 12 hours to get there and we camped for one night in Iringa.
The children loved their first camping experience, in spite of the safari ants that invaded Joshua's tent. It's not actually that far on the map, but the road is awful, so it took a long time. All the broken down lorries blocking our way didn't help. We were very grateful for our four wheel drive as we drove through mud. Some of the other vehicles weren't so lucky or clearly judged the angle badly. I have never seen so many broken down lorries. On the way back we passed a big crash involving 3 lorries. Two had turned over and the other one had plunged down a ravine.

Forget counting red cars; we had a spot the animal competition and saw elephants, giraffe, zebra, baboons, impala and water buffalo. No lions though!

We camped again on the way back and spent the afternoon in Iringa.

More to follow...