We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For

Paulina is on the left and Mama Baraka, on the right.

Many of you who read this blog already know about Paulina, a mother, grandmother, and very feisty middle-aged Maasai woman living in Kimokouwa. Paulina gets frustrated with the slow pace of change where she lives in rural Tanzania and she's not afraid to tell you about it. I know she's not the only woman who feels this way; she's just one of the most vocal. I am thinking back a couple of years ago when we were standing outside of Philipo's duka or small shop by the Arusha Nairobi Road sipping on a warm Coke (regrettably, the only drink available) on a hot day. "Even the donkeys are treated better than we are," Paulina said with lots of passion and very expressive eyes. She was referring to 'women'. 

The Rio+20 Summit on Sustainable Development has ended in Brazil and, sadly, it did not deliver what so many around the world had hoped: concrete actions and commitments to achieving them. "Instead, we saw a wasted opportunity to build on the way the MDGs (Millennium Development Goals) have focused global attention on the needs of the extreme poor...this is a huge setback for Africa...the continent continues to suffer from deep, persistent, and enduring inequalities," said Mohammud Yunus. The international aid organization, CARE, summed it up this way: "Without a clear road map to achieve sustainable development, millions of women and men are forced to continue a life of poverty and are threatened by ever increasing shocks such as natural disaster, food price hikes, and climate change." I have been trying to understand sustainability in a simple way. Isn't it about all of us living  in such a way that we take adequate care of our "home" - the earth - and our "families" - all the inhabitants of the earth? The failure of the Rio+20 Summit means that Paulina's life of extreme poverty - and others like her too many to count - stands very little chance of changing or improving if we leave things to the world leaders. We know we can't do that. 

"Women are the real architects of society."

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Paulina is already helped by the women in Kimokouwa Village when it comes to performing the daily activities she must do to take care of her own grandchildren and orphans entrusted to her care. Things like walking many kilometres each day to fetch water for cooking.  Paulina only has the use of one arm since losing half of her right arm to a snake bite years ago. Still, she makes the daily walk to the open well where the women draw water after the cattle drink. The other women hoist the heavy canvas water bag onto Paulina's shoulders and set the strap around her forehead so she can bring water back to her boma. 

In order to better provide for herself and her family, Paulina joined the KWGP - Kimokouwa Women's Goat Project. She is raising female goats and selling male offspring them when they are a year old. She keeps 90% of the sale price - usually about $50.00, and 10% or about $10.00 goes into a bank account for project maintenance. And Paulina gets milk from the goats, a good source of nutrition. In TEMBO's estimation, Paulina is doing all she can do to empower herself. Still, it's not enough to raise herself out of extreme poverty. She lives in a part of the world beset by extreme drought that worsens each year because of climate change. When the water supply from Mount Longido dries up each year, Paulina and her family have no choice but to drink polluted water, risking severe illness.

The Summit document agreed to by world leaders at Rio+20 contains inspiring words, like the ones below, from Paragraph 120:

We commit to the progressive realization of access to safe and affordable drinking water and basic sanitation for all, as necessary for poverty eradication, women's empowerment, and to protect human health, and to significantly improve the implementation of integrated water resource management at all levels as appropriate. In this regard, we reiterate our commitments to support these efforts in particular in developing countries through the mobilization of resources from all sources, capacity building, and technology transfer.

There are so many women just like Paulina in Longido and Kimokouwa and millions more like her in the world. It will be up to ordinary citizens like us to put the Rio Summit words into action without waiting for world leaders to set a course for us. That's why the title for this post is so poignant. The words were spoken by the elders of the Hopi Nation in Arizona in the year 2000. They are so relevant for us today. We simply cannot wait any longer for others to act: we are the ones we have been waiting for. 

One Beautiful World

We all live under the same sun

The Rio+20 Summit that is being held in Brazil  reminds us that we are all connected in one way or another. We actually do breathe the same air and feel rays on our bodies from the same sun. And the moon I see when I look up at the sky each night in Ottawa, Canada, is the same moon I stand under as I gaze up at the starry night sky from the patio of the TEMBO Guesthouse in Longido, Tanzania.

The Rio+20 Summit has 55,000 delegates from around the world talking and sharing ideas about sustainable development. In the past so much emphasis has been on the need to control population explosion, particularly in developing countries. Now we have so many experts like The Royal Society in the UK saying we have to look at consumption, particularly in developing countries, at the same time. Can't do one without the other. Isn't it telling that consumption side world leaders like Stephen Harper from my country - Canada, Barak Obama from the US, Angela Merkel from Germany, and David Cameron from the UK are not attending?

I am feeling like the planet is so small and that there are so many of us living on this earth. I live in such a vast and barely populated country with open space, resources, and opportunity everywhere. It is so easy to talk in "platitudes" when the very real worlds of most of the inhabitants on this earth don't impinge on mine. We live such insular lives and, although we can be in touch with anyone living almost anywhere on earth in a matter of minutes, we still behave as though we care mostly about ourselves. I agree with the experts who say that - at this point in time - we do have the intelligence and the resources to meet the basic needs of everyone on earth. We just don't have the will.  Isn't it all about consciousness and choices?

A young family in Kimokouwa

A year ago TEMBO held a 4-day session in Kimokouwa to help the women in the KWGP (Kimokouwa Women's Goat Project) gain knowledge and information about dealing with their goats during the drought. We also invited women to attend who were not yet in the project but were interested in joining. The day was structured so that we began about 9:00 a.m. and ended about 3:00 p.m. We included chai tea and mandazzis in the morning and a nutritious late lunch. When we asked for feedback at the end of the four days many of the women voiced the same recommendation. Next time we do something like this could we give the money we spent for lunch to the women - instead of preparing a meal - so they could buy food for their families. I knew this is exactly what the women would do with the money since their is nothing else they could possibly purchase in the barren Kimokouwa countryside.

I have to say that knowing individuals and families in Tanzania sure helps me to see the fuller picture. I think it would make such a difference in some of the assumptions we make if everyone got to know just one person in a developing country - I mean, really know them. The people I know are not looking for charity. They are looking for food, water, jobs, and education. I would hope that by knowing the real life situation of someone who happens to have been born in a different part of this world, we might be better advocates for them and their right to things like adequate food and clean water that we enjoy. I know we all think these are just givens, but it seems the US doesn't want to say that everyone has a right to food and Canada is just now agreeing that everyone has a right to water (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18475469).

Kimokouwa children

Perhaps a honest summit might look like this: an equal number of people from developed and developing countries would meet and share real life stories in simple language that everyone understood. Everyone would really listen. One wise person would help us all to see the simple connections: when enough of us make "this" choice in a developed country - say, Canada - "this" is what happens to people in a developing country like - say, Tanzania. Both choices that enhance life and choices that stifle the flow of life.

And, if this didn't help us see the very real consequences and the impact of choices we make each day, maybe we could do this: let all the delegates be children - no adults allowed.

I have a feeling one child would not want to see another without food and water.

Seeing, Recognizing, Celebrating

The Kimokouwa Village Chairman, left, with members of the village sub-groups

During the past week, I had a phone conversation with TEMBO staff Mary Laiser in Longido. It was about some photographs I took a year ago during the Circumcision Blessing Ceremony in Kimokouwa. It is so easy to mis-communicate with the many challenges we encounter in the space between Canada and East Africa - both in earth-space and in cyber-space - and we managed to do it regarding photos some of the elders had been expecting to receive. The disappointment was smoothed over with a promise to deliver what the men wanted during my upcoming September project visit.

The Maasai are unique and irreplaceable

This got me thinking about the importance of "seeing" ourselves, whether it be photos from a camera, a cell phone, a computer, on a mirror, or on paper. It was something I realized on my first trip to Africa in 1998 when I was still using a pre-digital camera. Images I took were stored inside on film and could not be instantly viewed on the back of my camera. There was, however, a family from New York who were part of the safari group I was with and they had a small, new, digital camera that did what mine could not. Everywhere we travelled they were mobbed by people who willingly posed for them in exchange for a view of themselves.

Ceremony and ritual that celebrate universal values are important 

Seeing ourselves is a way of locating ourselves in time and space. When we like what we see we walk proudly and confidently without being envious of others or feeling "less than" in any way. The endangered Maasai people and culture are at an important point in their history. Their way of life is being infiltrated by western influences that can work against their very survival - things like consumerism, individualism, and materialism. It is important that the good traditions and values of the Maasai tribe survive because they are just as irreplaceable as the uniqueness of the Native Peoples of North America, or the Amazon, or the South Pacific are.

Actions that promote creating rich tapestries of colour, language, and behaviour serve us better than those that promote assimilation. Taking photographs in Longido and Kimokouwa is not an attempt on my part to preserve a culture under threat, although this is important to do. It is my way of celebrating and sharing what is today. If what I make visible through photography helps the Maasai to stand taller, use their voice, and experience pride, I am satisfied. I want my photos to reflect back to the people a simple message: You and your culture are unique, and beautiful, and irreplaceable on this earth. This is what I will be communicating in September when I give the leaders the photos they have been waiting to receive.

Living With the Questions

Living in two worlds can't help but pose many questions

I have been spending a lot of time at the Cancer Center in Ottawa the past few months as TEMBO Co-Founder, Marian, has been undergoing six months of chemotherapy for breast cancer, and now is in the first of five weeks of radiation.  Marian is being treated in the new Cancer Center on the property of the Queensway Carleton Hospital. It is an incredible place in every way – the services, the technology, the beautiful location, and the exemplary care.  We’ve sat in many different patient care rooms talking with some of the most expert health care workers in the world.

There have been days when Marian and I have looked around at these rooms as we waited for the Medical and Radiation Oncologists to arrive. State of the art would be an apt description. We agree that any one of these meeting/examination rooms – with individual computers, porcelain sinks with running water, overhead lights, panels of outlets to plug in any number of medical devices, chairs, an electronic examination table, and disposable gloves, masks, sheets, and much more – conceivably could have cost more than the entire clinic in Longido. Complain as we often do about the Ontario Health Care System, we are so fortunate to live in Canada. We’re blessed and I feel nothing but gratitude.

The lab in the Longido Clinic

The medical clinic in Longido is probably no different than clinics in other rural villages the size of Longido, Tanzania. The town itself has about 8,000 people who are scattered over many kilometers, and the 3500 or more people who make up Kimokouwa are 13 kilometers down the road. The buildings themselves were built many years ago and are showing signs of years of use and being exposed to the harsh environment. There is no money to repair them. The few small rooms that make up the clinic contain furnishings and supplies donated by other countries that are upgrading their hospitals or replacing what they have. I have been to the clinic many times with staff or villagers in need of care. I have also been the recipient of medical care myself as an out-patient. The few clinicians and care givers the clinic can afford to hire do good work with the limited resources they have. They are able to treat minor complaints like malaria and respiratory problems and refer people for surgery or other treatments to Arusha, 100 kilometers away. Nothing is free - except a consultation for children under 10 years of age - and many people die from preventable and treatable diseases.

I can’t help but see the glaring differences between medical structures and services in Canada and those in a part of Africa I have come to know well. Some days I don’t know what to do with all that I see and feel because of the opportunity I have been given to experience two very different worlds. Many times people have commented to me that it must be very difficult returning to Canada after I have spent weeks in Tanzania. It is. My country of birth is close to the top of the Development Index and Tanzania is near the bottom. It’s not just related to health care and services – that was just the catalyst today. It’s related to almost every aspect of life beginning with the most basic - water.

There are a few things I know:

• Tanzanians, like us, have basic human rights and some of those are not being met.
• Everything costs money.
• Resources are limited.
• Lasting change must happen from within rather than being imposed.
• Feeling guilty is utterly useless and won’t result in anything good.

And I know this, too:

• Change happens slowly and progress is often imperceptible until we look back later.
• Small actions do make a difference.
• Positively changing one person’s life can have far reaching effects for generations to come.
• The gift of empowerment is a very great gift.
• We can't change everything but we can do something, and each of us gets to decide how we will make the world a better place for ourselves and others.

Children delivering a message in Longido

"Be patient towards all that is unsolved in your heart," said Rilke, a long time ago. "Learn to love the questions themselves." And the questions seem to abound even if they are not in the form of questions. How can it be any other way for someone living in one of the most developed nations in the world? Rilke ends by saying, "One day, without knowing it, you will gradually live on into the answers." I believe this to be true. Thanks for the reminder, Rilke.