Education That Opens Doors to the Future

Nusra in the TEMBO Guesthouse kitchen window.

If you've ever stayed at the TEMBO Guesthouse in Longido, Tanzania, one of the memories you leave with is the smiling face of Nusra. And you are smiling, too, because you've been able to taste her delicious cooking in the middle of a small dusty town far away from any western influence. For international travellers visiting Africa for the first time, Nusra makes the transition so easy by preparing sumptuous dishes like spaghetti and meat sauce, guacamole, Chinese stir-frys, chocolate cake, home made bread, French fries, and the best pizza in the world. Really!

Nusra baking fresh white buns over a home made outdoor charcoal oven

When I first met Nusra in 2008 she was working as a "house girl" for a woman in Longido. She spoke very little and spent her days cleaning, doing laundry, running errands in town, and preparing meals. Those of us from Canada who knew Nusra always had the feeling that she understood a lot more English than she was letting on. When she started reading books we brought from Canada it was clear that Nusra wanted to know more.

Nusra was like so many young women I have met in Tanzania. She had loads of ability but she lacked the money to develop that ability through training. One day I said "You don't always want to be a house girl, do you Nusra? What is your dream?" Nusra shyly replied that she wanted to be a cook. But, her parents were dead and her family could not afford the cost of further education. The 30,000 TSH, or roughly $20.00 US, she earned each month was easily used just meeting basic needs.

Nusra's story is the story of millions of young girls in Africa. Without sponsorship they have no hope of realizing their dreams or of significantly bettering their lives. They are doomed to live as poor women, marrying young and raising children, locked in the same downward spiral their mothers and grandmothers were trapped in. It doesn't have to be this way, and it shouldn't be this way.

For most secondary school students, 
Vocational Training is their key to future independence

Vocational Training opens doors. Most of the girls that TEMBO sponsors who will be leaving Form 4 Secondary School this year have already asked TEMBO to sponsor them for Vocational Training. They want to enroll in a variety of programs: pre-school teacher training, tailoring, hotel management, agricultural studies, nursing, and military training. They will join young women currently enrolled in community development, tourism, police training, and other programs. When they graduate they will have the necessary skills to support themselves. Some will be supporting children, too, since child-mothers who must leave Secondary School also want to continue their education. Because they cannot return to the government school system Vocational Training is a wise choice.

Nusra at the Sinon College graduation ceremony, with Namaluk.

TEMBO was able to offer Nusra sponsorship at The Sinon College in Arusha where she studied Food Preparation. She graduated at the top of her class - no surprise to any of us - we knew she was very talented and hard working. As it happens, Nusra's graduation occurred just as the TEMBO Guesthouse was opening in January 2009. We needed a trained chef and Nusra needed a job. It was a win-win situation. Nusra has continued to develop her skills. Her pizza is famous throughout Longido - just ask any international NGO worker who spends time in town. Did I mention that the TGH does not have electricity or an oven? So how can Nusra cook pizza, you might wonder? You will have to visit Longido to find out her secret. You won't be sorry you did.

My dream is that one day TEMBO will be able to fund all requests we receive for Vocational Training. Every young woman deserves a chance to learn a skill that will enable her to be self supporting and live an independent life. Young women like Nusra stand as shining lights to girls in the community. What they are able to give back in exceptional service makes the initial investment in sponsorship so worthwhile.

The Dreams of Mothers and Grandmothers

I remember asking a young girl in Tanzania once who in her life had been an inspiration to her. Who was her model or her ‘hero?’ She told me it was her mother. It’s not that she didn’t know about Rock Stars or Movie Stars. Her role model truly was her mother and her response really is not that uncommon.

The celebration of Mother’s Day in North America is only a few weeks away. I can’t help thinking about the mothers and grandmothers I know in Longido and Kimokouwa. They’re very remarkable women. I could show you hundreds of photos and tell you so many stories. They’d be about women of great courage, with stamina and strength and resilience, who will do anything for their children and grandchildren. Their lives will not be celebrated on the second Sunday of May. But you should know they share this earth with you and I and they are very important – to their families, and in their villages and bomas.  Few have positions of prominence or power yet without them advocating on behalf of their daughters for education, the change that is happening in Tanzania today would not be taking place. 

Some of the mothers and grandmothers in Longido and Kimokouwa.

Because I have the good fortune to travel back and forth to Tanzania I see the change. It's seldom reported in the news - all the hopeful things that are happening in Africa. The changes are small and incremental, too, and can be so easily missed. And the women are at the heart of it all. They want their daughters to have lives better than the ones they have, "with education and without FGM", as one grandmother said to me.

There is a very old coco or grandmother in Longido who is raising her grandchildren, as so many women do. She has worn a path to the TEMBO Office, having come so many times to request sponsorship for the girls in her care. Somehow she knows that going to Secondary School, or receiving Vocational Training or Teacher Training holds the possibility of a different and better future. She's right. It does.

I hope you will remember all these women in Tanzania this year as you and your families prepare to acknowledge with appreciation your mothers and grandmothers. TEMBO will meet as many sponsorship requests as it can this year - to provide education opportunities for daughters and granddaughters. The women tell us it is such a great gift. It is the realization of their dreams.

The Power of Mary's Passion

A child-mother in Longido.

I woke up this morning with the image of a very small Maasai girl in mind. She could have been any one of hundreds of young girls in Longido or Kimokouwa. And she could have been in high school because traditionally raised Maasai girls can be very small in stature. While there are many factors that contribute to the size of children, one is the practice of FGM or Female Genital Mutilation.

FGM is a cultural practice performed all over Africa, not just in the TEMBO project area. It is considered to be a right of passage for girls, just as male circumcision is for boys. Education will and is changing the frequency of this harmful ritual being performed on girls before marriage. It is another of the many benefits of formal education in Tanzania: so long as a girl is attending school, early marriage will be delayed and so will activities surrounding child marriages including FGM and early pregnancy.

Penina chose education and no FGM for Naana, her daughter.

I have sat in dark smoky huts with very young girls and women, holding newborn babies that were so tiny and struggling to survive. I know a woman who had twins and was so physically small herself that she could not care for both babies. She made a choice to keep one and gave the other baby away. Babies are born tiny and malnourished because mothers severely restrict the amount of food they eat during pregnancy. This is to limit the extreme pain they will experience delivering their babies as a result of FGM. It is one of the terrible consequences that will linger for a lifetime.

Mary works for change from within the community.

Mary Laiser, TEMBO Education Coordinator and Community Facilitator, has come full circle from being a Maasai woman who believed circumcision was a woman's right to being one of the staunchest advocates against FGM. Mary speaks openly about being circumcised herself. She also made it very publicly known that her own daughter, Happiness, would never experience FGM. Happiness would, and did, have an open ceremony attended by dozens of villagers, including public officials. It was a beautiful ritual filled with meaning, but there was no cutting. Since that day five years ago Mary has facilitated the same ritual for other families so that the right of passage is preserved and so is the health and safety of the girl. Slowly, attitudes are changing.

Women like Mary are important change agents in the community. Mary is trusted by the Maasai community because she is part of it. Her voice and her experience matters. I have said before that the modern world is at the door step of the Maasai. If their culture and traditions are to survive the Maasai must adapt. They do not have the luxury of time and the slow progression through stages that other peoples experienced before the spread of technology. Decisions need to be made now that will determine if there will even be a Maasai culture in the future.

It would be a terrible mistake to conclude that because of harmful practices like FGM the Maasai are "backward" and should be forced to abandon their traditions and assimilated into a western system of values and behaviours. For there is so much more, so much richness that would be an even greater loss if the Maasai culture ceased to exist. I am thinking about things like a deep connection to the land and a respect for the elders in the community - things that our western culture so often loses touch with in its race toward industrial superiority and individuality.

Primary school girls learn from Mary that their voice must be heard.

When the Mountain Stops Giving

I think about water a lot. I find myself doing this because I live in a country where I have virtually unlimited access to water in my daily life to use however I please. It's also because I personally know so many people in Tanzania whose lives center around spending a good part of each day labouring to have enough water to just stay alive. Literally.

In Kimokouwa I am thinking about Merikenoi, Paulina, and Mama Sokoyani; in Longido, Elizabeth, Esupat, Maria, and Nairukoki. Seven women out of thousands, with children and grandchildren they love so much that they really do risk injury daily simply to be able to provide water and thin porridge made with maize flour and water, for their children. It's happening right now, today, as you read this. I know this because last Friday when I spoke by phone with TEMBO Trust Coordinator, Paulina Sumayani, she said that Longido was very hot and very dry and that the TEMBO Guesthouse is purchasing tanker trucks of water in order to stay open. This is remarkable because it is the middle of the season of the "long rains", the time each year when Mt. Longido has a chance to become replenished so it can provide water for the villagers for the coming months. But the rains are failing. Again.

Mt. Longido is the only source of water for people in Longido and Kimokouwa.

Longido and Kimokouwa are situated near the base of Mt. Longido. This is important because Mt. Longido is the only source of water for people who live in this area. Mountain streams flow into a large man made cement reservoir built near the bottom of the mountain, and pipes take the water to common taps scattered throughout the villages. When the rains do not come the water level in the reservoir is very low. Eventually there is no water. Every aspect of life is interrupted and negatively impacted. It's not the same in Ottawa where I live. When water is in danger of getting low we are restricted in watering our lawns.

Here is what is happening in Longido and Kimokouwa right now.

The pipelines bringing water from the mountain to the villages have all but dried up. In Longido, all but one of the taps will be shut off. People who ordinarily would bring their colourful buckets and line up to get water at different taps throughout the village, on their one weekly water day, must now all line up at one tap in the village center. The UN suggests that each person needs 20-50 litres of safe fresh water a day to ensure their basic needs for drinking, cooking, and sanitation (World Water Assessment Programme). Today, most people will wait for hours at the tap and then will go home with empty buckets. Water is prioritized for use in the schools so they can remain open, since schools are the one place where children will receive food each day. In Kimokouwa this is one cup of corn kernels boiled in water to soften them. It may well be the only food many children receive today.

Women fetching water from a deep well in Kimokouwa.

During times of drought, the women walk long distances each day in search of water in deep open pits that have been dug near Mt. Longido. As the water level goes down the danger of slipping and being injured increases. Water is being delivered by tanker trucks from Namanga, 30 kilometers away or Arusha 100 kilometers away, and sold by the bucket to anyone with money to buy it. Young men push crudely made heavy wooden carts filled with large yellow plastic drums to the cattle trough a few kilometers outside of Longido to fetch water to sell to villagers. Many people will buy a bucket or two of this because it is all they can afford. So, contracting typhoid and diarrhoea are also problems. Many people will get sick.

TEMBO staff member Mary Laiser, and women in the KWGP, share
 their challenges with July 2011 Traveling with TEMBO visitors.
Mt. Longido is in the background.

Why am I writing about this? It's important that you know the world the families of the girls TEMBO sponsors for education live in. I am thinking of Tepayani, and Nana, and Joyce's families. And the mothers and grandmothers in the Micro-Business program or the Kimokouwa Women's Goat Project - this is their world, too. And the TEMBO staff who live and work in Longido and Kimokouwa. If these days are any indication, 2012 is going to be another year - maybe the seventh or eighth in a row - of a drought that only gets worse and deepens.

And tomorrow and the day after, and the day after that, will be just the same as today. It is my deepest desire that a secure source of clean water will be available for all the people in Longido and Kimokouwa by the end of the UN International Decade for Action on Water in 2015. It's a basic need and a right that I look forward to working with the people to realize and enjoy, however I can.

Longido children sitting on plastic water containers.
Their future must include having their right to clean, safe water realized.