Mvumi School Trust

Mvumi Hospital

The first volunteer, fully-qualified doctor came to the hospital here in 1938 and there has been at least one, with other qualified medical volunteers, ever since - until three weeks ago - when the last one left. It is looking unlikely that there will be a replacement. It is strange that after next weekend, I shall be the only expat resident in Mvumi. We have two outstanding young men here working as ‘gappies' for two-and-a-half months though. I shall leave the school in December and it will be a painful wrench. We have heard there is a new Bursar coming in January. (I have been covering this job since June, when John Clark left). There is also a search on for an English teacher to replace me and someone to do the sponsorship work that I do.

Tree Nursery – Reforestation Project

Our new tree nursery has begun under a Gogo structure entirely made with local materials, including palm fronds for the 80% shade and baobab bark made into rope. Everything was delivered by handcart or oxcart and can be copied with tiny expenditure. We will be able to train local people as well as our students in some techniques of water harvesting and management. It is a trial project but has the advantage of being at local level from start to finish. No one can milk it except in a good way! The official opening with our partners from Makang'wa and Makulu is tomorrow and photographs will follow.

Weather

My new toy, a weather station, tells me it is regularly 110 °F outside my kitchen window. The wind sucks moisture out of laundry as soon as you put it on the line and the dust makes everything gritty. The wind this year is even stronger and at times quite dramatic as it whips sand up as sky-scraping blankets or whirlwinds.

The school has a deep borehole and we have plenty of mineral-loaded water but the community has an increasing problem. Long queues at hand pumps last all day and into the night. At 50 shillings (2.5p) a bucket it is out of reach for most. Most have to use open wells. Many wells are dry and the holes in the dry river beds are getting deeper and their sandy sides more unstable.

Food Shortage

Most subsistence farmers are now eating only one meal a day, the very last of their maize (which should have been seed) or less favoured millet or sorghum made into a grimy porridge. Many are trying to raise some cash by brewing a lethal local beer called pombe. Naturally, in cases like this, there are many who want to drown their sorrows and what little money a family has may go that way, leading to child neglect and violence.

Some go to Dodoma to beg but those who stay here will suffer as The Hunger/Njaa grips tighter. I am informed that some of the weak will probably die from December onwards until the next harvest. The worst times for the vulnerable will be December, January, February and March, unless we have a third bad harvest in which case we shall be looking at hard-core famine.

This is incomprehensible superficially because the deep-rooted norm as you travel into the villages, is laughter, warmth and welcome. However, now when I leave a family after a home visit, I never receive a bag of groundnuts or a chicken or potatoes. There is none in most homes.

A wonderful, discreet and effective scheme, which has been handled by two English volunteers who leave this week, is called The Hunger Fund. Using Anglican catechists and a careful distribution with checks (thumb-prints of most recipients as receipts) is now in my hands for a while. I am also hoping to be able to give a little from donations to the desperately poor families of my sponsored students.

BBC

You may have seen us on the BBC this month. It is a piece in a series starting soon called Hunger to Learn. If you did not get a chance to see them, they are online: clip one and clip two.

One of the popular and highly efficient gappies who are currently helping me here now had an unsatisfactory experience of a BBC documentary on his old school recently, so we are all thinking the BBC are making it personal this time!

Graduation

Form Four had their graduation day on Saturday and it was a very happy day. The singing and dancing and acting are all fun and our VIP Chairman of the Board, Ambassador Lusinde, was as impressive as always. I always want to curtsey when we shake hands - he has Royal presence. The Vice Chancellor of St John's University was also there and is keen to develop a strong link with this school, particularly the sponsored students. Nothing could gladden my heart more.

New Headmaster

Our new Headmaster, Mr Francis Malugu, is well into his stride now and he is highly regarded and respected by all. I am very proud to have been able to support him and work with him. He is impressive. The students are happy and he is building his own strong team. One problem he has is that of there only being one school car here. He has to go to even more meetings than Mr Clark used to go to and is handicapped by the school being so remote. There are always logistical problems arising from that fact.

Academic Success

The results academically are still rising, not least because the sponsored students are so highly motivated and were selected at Primary level. I am hugely proud of them. They are almost all future stars. For instance in the Mock National Form 2 exams, 13 of the top 20 were sponsored students.

Visually Impaired

The ICAP Unit is an impressive building and the nine students who have been the guinea pigs this year are all lovely characters. I teach eight of them and will find it hard to say goodbye. The treatment they have here is as rare as hen's teeth in Tanzania and certainly nowhere in rural areas. They have hit the jackpot! They each have tragic stories to tell, but, of course, so do the other sponsored students too.

Finally…

I feel sad that I have so little time to write more newsletters and spend more time making them readable. I hope I have given you a glimpse of our life here right now. There is no doubt in my mind that education is the right form of aid. Thank you for supporting us.