Hospital Opening Ceremony

The opening of the new hospital occurred on Thursday, the 11th of December after years and years of work to get it ready. The cool picture of the chameleon has nothing to do with that celebration, fyi. For the past week either Jessica or Stephen has accompanied me to the hospital to assist in all of the activities necessary to pull off the opening. I received an e-mail from Sue Green, the wife of Mark Green who is the US Ambassador to Tanzania, saying that she had got an e-mail from my uncle Phil Hauck who she knows in Green Bay. She read our blog and her husband was happy to greet us at the opening. Small world. Picture to the left is Mark Green shaking the hand of Eunice Simonson (see info later). Apparently the country of Tanzania is the largest recipient of both malaria and AIDS treatment funds in the entire world (thank you USA), which is good, they need it. Kathleen and I found out on Friday that the hospital is assisting to educate over 5,300 kids in the Arusha region who don’t have parents, and 75% of those kids are orphans due to AIDS. The extended families take care of these children, they are not in “orphanages” as we think of them (there are orphanages in Africa but they are more like schools with extended “day care” Kids go to the orphanages during the day for school, meals and to be bathed. In the evening, they go home to the relatives with who9m they live). The president of Tanzania was supposed to do the opening ceremonies but unfortunately he was predisposed at the last moment and the vice-president came in his absence to do the ribbon cutting. FYI - Mark Jacobson, the man behind the whole hospital, is shown at right. A couple hours late but again, this is Africa, get used to it. But perhaps the biggest honor was meeting Eunice and David Simonson (see picture on left) who are partially responsible for the Lutherans even having hospitals in this part of the world. David is very aged but is the only white Maasai (he killed a lion that was accosting a village which earned him the unique title) that I believe ever existed. His wife, Eunice, in the 1980s was serving medications out of her back porch when 3 out of 5 children didn’t make it to age 5. It isn’t great now, “weanies” is the term that is used to refer to children who are off of breast milk and that is when the death rate is the highest because at family meals they are the last to be offered food, men first, then women, then children from oldest to youngest. It may sound awful but if, for example, you reversed that and fed the men last and they died then there would be no food for the family which would mean….you get the idea. Years ago I heard that they were bringing AIDS vaccine to Africa but were giving it to parents, not kids. It sounded so awful but follows the same logic, if the parents die, there is little chance for the kids. FYI - The picture of Mack and Zoe also has nothing to do with this post. But we were talking about the opening of the hospital. Cannot tell you how big of a deal this is, Arusha which is home to hundreds of thousands of people, now has an ICU unit opening next week. People with money will no longer need to go across the border to Nairobi, Kenya for great medical assistance, it is located in Arusha, right here, right now! Yea. So it was an awesome opening. We arrived at 8:30 and it was a lesson in patience to hang out for hours to await the vice president who was several hours late. Truth be known, we unfortunately left 15 minutes before he finally arrived because we were really late for an appointment to visit the International School where, if we returned to do work for a longer period, our children would possibly attend. We love it here. Need more friends for everyone but the next couple weeks should be fruitful in that category.
Love, ben’s little family

Africaid Schools

Dear friends and family,

On Friday, the 12th of December we spent the day focusing on Africaid projects. We started the day with me visiting a solar power shop to understand the intricacies of solar power then went to the old hospital where we picked up a long time supporter of Africaid, John Laiser. We proceeded to the Ebenezer School to evaluate new classrooms and Internet projects that Rockland Church in Colorado is championing and then proceeded to Losinoni which is on the other side of 15,000 ft Mount Meru from where we live (took us an hour to get there). For both schools we delivered a couple hundred dollars of school supplies and took pictures to prove it but more importantly at Losinoni we handed over a check worth almost $600 for lunches for the 700 children. Let’s talk financial dynamics at Losinoni for fun. The government funds education for children. This means that they pay 10,000 Tanzanian shillings per year for every child that goes to school. Wait, let me say that they are supposed to pay 10,000 Tanzanian shillings per child. In the case of Losinoni they only received 5,000 shillings per child. That is for the entire year. Wait, I don’t think I mentioned the exchange rate. One US dollar equals 1300 Tanzanian shillings per child. Let’s do the math, each child at Losinoni (did I mention many walk as far as 10 km away each day to AND from school to attend?) gets about FOUR BUCKS for the entire year of education. I don’t think that I’ve mentioned the number of teachers, there are 6, as in SIX, as in one more than five, for the school of 700 kids. I’ve attached a picture of the 6 teachers names and the number or males (left) and females (right) in each grade level.

OK, so we were able to deliver a check for almost $600 to provide lunches for children (thank you to everyone who purchased a bracelet) which can purchase months worth of food to the kids. The lunch meal for many of the children is the only meal that they will receive. Africaid has put in several classrooms and bathrooms for the children which are beautiful from African standards. This has significantly dropped the number of kids per class but the problem still remains that it is difficult for them to get teachers. The issue is primarily one of power, there is none at Losinoni. Think about that for a moment. No cell phone, no lights, no TV, no computer…the list goes on. And for teachers assigned by the government to go there? Good luck…they go to visit but they don’t come back. Would you? So my goal was to assist Africaid and Evergreen Rotary in finding out how we can implement a solar power system first in the staff houses that will help raise staff retention…if the staff can watch TV, use laptop computers and charge their computer they will be much more interested in teaching at this very rural school. I’ve attached a picture of the specifications of the system we are proposing to use.

Safari

So, if you ever have the opportunity to safari in Africa, please jump on it. I believe that this is one of the best trips we ever took as a family. Great time during the day and playing cards and journeling every night. We thought after 2 days that we would be bored with looking at animals after 6 days but no, on the last day in Ngorogoro Crater the end of the light of the day basically forced us to leave. The location of the lodges where we stayed was magnificent and again, please let us know if you are ever interested and we can point you in the right direction and share advice.

We probably saw several hundred giraffes and baboons, but more like thousands of zebra and definitely tens of thousands of wildebeests, who were in the process of their migration across the Serengeti plain. We saw close to a hundred hippos (the most dangerous animal to humans in Africa, able to reach speeds up to 40 km per hour…don’t ever get between these animals and their water source or else!). Also 25 lions, 5 hyenas and then 4 black rhinos in Ngorogoro crater (our guide boasts that the most he has ever seen has been 5 in his 8 years of doing a safari and there are only 23 in the 260 sq km park). To see the tougher animals requires concentration looking out into the wilderness or plains but it is so much fun when you “find” a tough to spot animal. But, the best part had to be seeing the huge herds, that stretch for miles across the savannah, and seem endless. We got to see a herd of about 50+ giraffe, a herd of no less than 10,000 wildebeest and at least3,000 zebra. We jokefully called these zebra "the ghandi of the savannah," because you would see them hangin' out with everything from buffalo to giraffe to impala. We got to see newborn baby warthogs, a baby elephant, baby monkeys, baby zebra, pregnant zebra, baby impala, baby hippo and baby lions. The guide let us get so close to the animals it was unbelievable! I don't know how we will ever be able to go to a zoo again, and get as much out of it as we used to, because nothing could compare to this.

House for Sale!

Our house is for sale in Evergreen, Colorado so that we can move to a house up the street...note that it normally looks NOTHING like these pictures:
http://www.obeo.com/509542

First Week – Happy Thanksgiving!

Dear friends and family,

So we settled in quite well during our first week. Most importantly the little ailments that my family experienced seemed to go away with the exception of Stephen’s cold which doesn’t appear to bother him very much.

NORMAL DAY FOR MY WIFE AND CHILDREN
FYI - The lizard is on Jessica, hard to tell it's her from this angle.

Kathleen wakes up early, as usual, to get in her yoga and perhaps a run. When she runs the kids will sprint along side her and everyone shares a greeting. And when I say everyone I mean about 30-40 people every kilometer. The neighborhood outside our walls is typical Africa, tons of Africans walking, the women carrying impossibly large loads on their heads and all of the children so excited to see a “Munzungo” (white person).

She went for her first run and said she would be back in 45 minutes. After an hour and a half I got on the bike to try and find her (she, as usual, had told me where she was going). But after riding for 30 minutes and then turning around I found her about 200 yards from our house sitting on the ground. I thought she was hurt but no, she just couldn’t find her way back to the house (her only real leftover issue from her “accident” is that she sometimes can’t find her way around). She was not upset at all, she knew that we would come find her after some time so everything was OK.

After a little time for herself each morning the kids wake up and she starts home schooling, which is totally new for her but she brought lots of materials. She is very good at it as anyone who knows her would expect. Zoe, our 5 year old, for some weird reason, like her older sister, can’t get enough of her homework and pushes herself on her own. Constantly. The boys don’t need much encouragement so we are very lucky in that sense. After a couple of hours of homework they make their way to the pool at the hotel in our community which is very nice. They spend the rest of the day there typically. Zoe could do that for the rest of her life if necessary.

We live with Mount Meru in our backyard. The mountain is 15,000 feet tall and rises from our elevation of 3000 feet so is the largest mountain that we have ever seen. It is amazingly beautiful.

The children are learning Swahili and love Africa, but miss their friends very much. We got faster Internet and started calling everyone the day after Thanksgiving. If you have Skype, our Skype name is BenAllenFamily.

Last Sunday we visited the community church which is attended mostly by ex-pats and had a picnic after service which about 100 people attended. We met many wonderful people and started some relationships that should prosper throughout our visit. Two people, Jessie and Ben, are missionaries in sub-saharan Africa. They aren’t true missionaries, which require extensive schooling, but rather pseudo-missionairies, meaning they have all the right intentions but for lack of education had to pay their own way to get to Africa and be able to “prove” that, if necessary, they could return back to America. They teach English at a school about 3 hours from Arusha. They came for a year but found that it took them a year to just learn the language. After a second year they found that they were really enjoying themselves. Now in their third year they are contemplating a 4th. Like me 6 year ago, they have obviously got the African “bug.” They are the only white people, they believe, in about a 50 kilometer circumference. They are apparently looked down upon because they are not married and do not have children but that doesn’t affect their love for what they do.

My children are in love with Africa, as I had always hoped they would be. They are so inquisitive and have such respect for the culture that it makes Kathleen and I very proud. We went to Thanksgiving at Mark and Linda Jacobson’s house (the Dr who runs the 2 hospitals and the clinic) with approximately 70 other people from the USA. Garrison Keeler was quoted prior to our prayer, having mentioned that since the election visitors from the US in other countries no longer have to say they’re Canadian to be in the good graces of the country they are visiting. If you don’t understand this, let’s just say that for various reasons the USA is not considered as highly as it should be by many cultures…but this has changed where we live since the election. Kenya and Tanzania think extremely highly of the US since the election of Obama and it is with utmost pride that we share where we are from.

In Tanzania Kathleen is referred to as Mama Stephen and I am Baba Stephen, we take the name from our first born male. If we had no boys then we would be Mama Jessica and Baba Jessica. The children are learning Swahili but we all feel that we are not learning it fast enough, it is apparently a simple language but we do not understand many of the nuances. What we do know is that it is important to greet everyone, and many things influence those greetings. For example, when any of us greet someone older than ourselves it is important to greet them with the phrase “chakamu.” If they are the same age or younger we can simply say “jambo.” What is most important is that everyone, and I mean everyone, deserves a greeting. If you do not acknowledge a person that you are passing on the street than it is considered rude. And almost everyone you pass greets you with a smile. What is better is that because we are married and have children, we are held in higher esteem then Jessie and Ben mentioned above(sorry guys, but you know how you can fix the situation ;). Kathleen, and her children, were stopped by a man today and the man inquired of Kathleen if all of the children were hers. When she replied yes, he honored her with a handshake and a mention of the word, “congratulations.” Very unusual in our culture, but oh so wonderful.

I shared an article in the local newspaper with Jessica regarding the Masai relationships and how to curb the AIDS epidemic. It “recommended” that the Masai need to consider having relationships only with their “wives” but not with the wives of their friends who are the same age, which is typical in their culture. Interesting difference in our culture versus theirs. Jessica is going to bring the article back with her so this is the warning to her middle school.

On Monday the 1st we will be leaving for Safari using the itinerary previously published, please keep us in your prayers.

NORMAL DAY FOR BEN
I have been so fortunate to work with such amazing people at the new hospital. My boss is named Moye and he got a degree in computer science in Dar Es Salem, a big town in Tanzania, a couple of years ago. I have extremely high respect for him because he cares so much about what he does which I think is rare…Tanzanians hold their relationships much higher that their work but Moye does not have a girlfriend and so he is putting all his energy into what he does. He cares very much about security and getting everything to work well. We have had many conversations about standardization and have come up with some good goals for the new hospital that is due to open up by the 11th of December.

We are on track for the deployment of computers by the 11th and it is the hope that our hospital will become a example for the other 19 Lutheran hospitals in Tanzania. The reason this whole project has come about is due to Rotary in Evergreen. Rotary is known for having Group Study Exchange programs where people from one culture visit another culture to share their experience. That is exactly what is happening during this trip. For example, the head of the most successful ISP in this part of Tanzania is going to work with me where I will share experience on networking with his employees in exchange for him to share his experience with Linux and security, which is what the hospital standardizes upon, with Moye and myself. I am looking forward to finding ways to setup standards at this hospital which can be shared with other hospitals eventually.

We feel so fortunate to be part of this culture, assisting in any way that we can.

We thank you for your prayers and blessings, please keep them coming.

Love,
Ben's little family

The Journey

Taking 4 children to the other side of the world is no easy task. I had purchased plane tickets that required only 1 plane change in Heathrow but we only had 1 hour in between flights. Unfortunately our plane left late from Denver and it was clear that we would not have enough time to make our second flight on time. But what I thought was wonderful was that our plane, which had several hundred passengers, announced that anyone going to Nairobi would be met by an agent outside the plane. What could have been a difficult issue turned into a blessing. We were escorted to the ticket counter, booked on a different flight later that afternoon, given plenty of credit to purchase food and offered insight as to how to enjoy our day in London. As a result we had a wonderful experience taking the Underground to Picadilly Circus, visited Buckingham Palace and the parks by the palace and then returned with plenty of time to get on our other flight. The children, armed with two digital cameras and a video camera, took plenty of pictures of our experience. That flight landed with just enough time Saturday for us to be whisked away to our shuttle from Nairobi to Arusha (we also picked up several boxes of exotic fruits and other foods to fill our famished family).

Most of the family slept on the bus ride from Kenya to Tanzania which was very surprising considering the state of the road. There was about 40 to 50 kilometers of very rough dirt roads while the primary road is being replaced. Once we arrived we were met by both Dr Mark Jacobson and his wife, armed with bananas and cheese pizza, who took us to our new home for the next 7 weeks.

Our surprise at the accommodations we were placed in has not yet ended. A little history is in order to give you an idea of how surprised we were. We went to the Dominican Republic in 2004 to share a hand washing program with approximately 1500 children across 9 different schools and were provided housing by our church, Lookout Mountain. The housing consisted of a 2 bedroom upstairs apartment for my wife, 4 children and my cousin. It was next to a disco that went until 2 AM most nights and the windows were really shutters that only partially closed. The primary mode of transportation consisted of mopeds with the mufflers removed for gas and performance reasons. There was a speed bump outside our apartment so that the mopeds would slow and then gun their engines once they were over the speed bump. The night quieted at 2 when the bars closed but the roosters (everyone had one) started at about 3 in the morning. We slept on air mattresses that deflated down to the concrete floor every night about at the same time that the roosters started.

So back to my surprise at the Arusha accommodations. Let’s start with pictures of the beautiful flat yard (we live on the side of a mountain back in Evergreen) that is about the size of a half a soccer field. We have never seen flowers as beautiful as the gorgeous assortment planted around the house and maintained regularly Monday through Friday from 8-4 by Elle. There are several banana trees that will have ripened fruit in the next two weeks. The house itself has a fridge, heated water and two bathrooms. There are 4 bedrooms and an office and a great room for entertaining. Christina is our cook who came highly recommended. The property is surrounded by a 2 meter wall of plants that have grown around a strong fence. We have a Masai guard who stays in his guard shack every night (we bring him dinner and a big thermos of coffee) and a gigantic 20 lb Star Tortoise that Jessica likes to feed salad. It isn't nice, it’s amazing! Kathleen loves it. Jessica has already stated that she doesn't want to ever leave! Although this may be because she has her own room in Africa unlike at home…HOWEVER did you know that our house in Evergreen will be listed for sale in the next couple days? We are planning on moving to the next house up the street.

We thank God for all of our good fortunes and for the relationships we will be forming while in Africa.

So that's it for now but we will be updating more shortly. There are lots of health rules that we need to obey in Africa which includes sterilizing vegetables and fruits, lots of hand washing, no touching pets, etc that I feel we have been observing well. But still Zoe has gotten a little tummy bug yesterday and got sick to her stomach but seems better today and Stephen got a little bug as well last night and Kathleen feels a cold coming on. So please pray for our health! But also know we are working for the best hospital in this part of the world and have neighbors all around us from different parts of the world that are experienced in pediatrics, ICU, surgery, etc.

Love,

The Little Allen Family

Our Safari and Other Fun Plans

While we will be volunteering in Africa we also intend to have lots of fun! We will be living on a hill in Arusha near Dr Mark Jacobson and his wife. This is apparently where the Tanzanian olympic team trains. The elevation is similar to Denver, about 1 mile high, and we will be visiting during the summertime so the temperature will be around 80 or so degrees each day. We plan on getting a monthly pass to the nearby hotel that has a pool so that the kids can have fun during the day and still are formulating our plans to visit the beautiful blue beaches of Zanizibar which is not more than a day away.

We are confirmed to go on Safari and here is our agenda. If you ever want to go on Safari in Tanzania feel free to contact our friend Mbogo at g_mbogo@hotmail.com and his web site at http://www.mbogoexpeditions.com who has a whole team of drivers who are thought of extremely highly by many of my friends who have visited.

• Dec 1.After breakfast drive to Tarangire national park lunch at Tarangire safari lodge after noon game drive overnight Tarangire Safari lodge.
• Dec2.After breakfast drive to Lake Manyara national park with picnic lunch game drive later afternoon drive to Bougainvillea lodge for Dinner and overnight.
• Dec3.After breakfast drive to Serengeti via Olduvai Gorge game as you head to the lodge for dinner and overnight Lobo Wildlife lodge.
• Dec 4. Full day game drive, meals and overnight at the same lodge.
• Dec5. After breakfast, drive to Southern Serengeti game drive around dinner and overnight Ndutu Safari lodge.
• Dec 6.After breakfast drive to the Crater game drive with picnic lunch dinner and overnight Ngorongoro Wildlife lodges.
• Dec 7.After breakfast drive back to Arusha