Problems and frustrations

During the second week, some frustration began to set in. I read that it's a stage of culture shock, so I guess that's where I was. A visit to the post office to mail a few postcards took ages. A visit to make some copies took twice as long. It took me 3 days to try to find a place to print some brochures on good, thick paper and in color (asking a lot). When I finally found a place with the help of Kesuma and another warrior friend named Lekishon, it took hours and I printed only 9. The locals are unphased by any of this, and even that has frustrated me. There were moments when I just wanted to scream "How can you stand all of this?? Why aren't you spending every waking moment fixing it all?" Some of the other volunteers were having some struggles during this week as well. A big issue we've all had to deal with is feeling somewhat useless. We have learned what "Africa time" truly means. We know we have only 3 weeks and that's no amount of time to save the world, but the pace of things makes us feel like we find ourselves wasting valuable time. Someone like me is used to squeezing as much as possible into a workday. It's drastically different.

We've also begun to see the complexity of the problems here slowly unraveling before us. One volunteer found herself in the very difficult situation of having to decide whether the issues at her placement were beyond the normal "cultural differences" and actually making the placement one where her time, or even others' in the future of this program, would be well spent. It was an HIV/AIDS outreach program with little to no organization or management, the people in charge were not showing up or coming extremely late, the leader isn't trusted by the members, and there seemed to be no real work at all for her to do. Morever it became immediately clear that it was her money more than her time that was wanted. Several past volunteers have had similar complaints about the place. We are told that handing out money is not a policy of the program and is not productive. We have really begun to understand why. The adage about teaching a man to fish was never better suited.

Another volunteer, a nurse by profession and placed at St. Lucia, was take to visit a gravely ill woman whose sister had walked a fair distance to St. Lucia to see if they could take her. My friend was haunted by the hollow shell of a person they found and was pained by the feeling that there was so little she could do. The woman, who could barely speak, thanked her repeatedly and my friend thought to herself "For what? I'm just standing here." This was one of those cases where she did feel compelled to reach into her pocket, at least to help with food or medicine, and just to not feel so helpless.

Volunteers at the orphanage and some schools have found that, contrary to what they initially thought, resources and supplies are actually there but are locked away and going unused. Things like baby forumala at the orphanage will simply expire. Although there is drinking water for the orphans, it's so sparsely given to them. Things like this clearly exemplify that educating and organizing and managing are desperately needed at many of these institutions. To me it is this that is one of the most, if not the most, basic problem from which all others stem. EDUCATION. Having had a glimpse into the Tanzanian education system from a lecture/discussion and from the experiences of other volunteers, the problems begin there, and they are many.