foreign aid, face-to-face

Fantastic news! All of the money that people so kindly and genderously donated last holiday season has reached its destination at long last: Mwanza, Tanzania.

10 months may seem like long time for a donation to be processed in our wireless, instantaneous age. Unfortunately, I don't have the vast resources of a official charitable organization at hand, and things often happen more slowly in East Africa. After a series of money transfers and events, however, the funds have finally been hand-delivered to 22-year-old Sikitu and her family.

My internship was facilitated through an organization called Western Heads East. The project focuses on sustainability and has thus sent a steady stream of interns to Mwanza to ensure the ongoing success of a probiotic yogurt nutrition program. In addition to their project duties, nearly every intern has ended up volunteering for orphanages, schools, hospitals and other institutions. Also, I am positive that every intern has been touched by the people they have met in Mwanza. Because of these circumstances, I am able to send money to a reliable source, and to be certain it will reach the right people.

Doug Keddy, a gentleman who is in Mwanza helping out the project right now, accompanied Meghan (the intern who is helping me deliver the funds) as she traveled to Sikitu's house. Mr. Keddy wrote about the experience here. Though I have not met him in person, I am grateful that he was able to share the experience of delivering the money on his blog. His rich descriptions paint a vivid picture of one of Mwanza's villages.

Although money can be damn helpful and necessary, foreign aid is more than just money. As Phyllis Pomerantz explains, "Money is a crucial part of the story, but it's not the whole story...just like money can't buy you love, money can't buy you reform."

Although sending money is vitally important, more necessary is sending people to establish sustainable organizations that are run by local people, as they themselves know how to best help their communities. By sending people abroad, we establish relationships with our international peers, to find out what they need, and how we can best use our resources for their benefit. Foreign aid happens when people from two very different countries come together to help eachother. One party may give money, one party may help the other find reason, meaning in life.

Buoyed by funding and donations, foreign aid occurs largely on the ground level, in face-to-face interactions between people. It is wonderful to see--despite the many challenges it has faced--Western Heads East is still present in Mwanza, and sending interns who give their whole hearts to the community there.

help me try to help the world...

Or, ok, help me start my thesis.

I recently sent out some mass emails canvassing for help with the beginnings of my thesis research, and I will continue to ask for help here. My research looks at the discursive patterns found in travel blogs of Canadians volunteering in African countries--how they choose to describe their experiences through text, and in some cases images. What I'm asking is pretty straightforward:

If you know anyone (preferrably a Canadian) who has been to any African country as a volunteer and has kept a blog while there, I would love it if you could pass on the URL. Also, if you yourself have been to Africa and kept a blog, please pass me on a link to your travel blog. If you don't wish to post the link in my comments section, please email me at [removed email address].

I have already received an overwhelmingly helpful response via email, but the more links the better. If you know of someone who went, but can't remember their blog address, consider sending me their contact info and I can ask them for the info myself. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

to remember

On quieter days, I remember. There are moments when fragments come back to me, and the memories resurge as lucid visions.

The heaviness returns when I remember feeling outside a society before I started to learn one of its languages. I felt beside myself with restless frustration being there, and being willing to help, but not knowing where to start. The heaviness sets upon me when I remember the light touch of children's fingers, reaching out to me from floors of school classrooms, and from crowded clinics. I remember being led over dry, red earth through villages where mothers and daughters pulled small buckets of water out of the community pond. I remember marveling at the hilltop views of families whose house would be decimated the following week by the government . I remember little girls running around in tattered 1980s party dresses from the Western world (hand-me-downs from the "developed" world), and being disturbed by the different contexts in which these girls, and the dresses' original owners, would have been living. I remember the twisted irony of a young girl living right below the city's biggest hospital, but unable to access its services.

The lightness returns as I recall walking through the dry season fields every morning, waving at the little faces peeking out at me through school windows. I remember being invited to sit down to tea by mama Rajabu and Ana, the ladies who ran the small tea stand under a black tarp for the workers who bundled coal for stove fuel. I remember the night markets lit up by candles, with women selling sweet, baby bananas and roasted corn by the roadside. I remember taking my watercolours outside and painting quietly, until half a dozen neighbourhood children shyly appeared and asked me if I could paint them into my picture of the street. They taught me the words for all my surroundings, which I included in the painting as a Swahili lesson for myself. I remember singing together with Mama Joyce's children and grandchildren, in their impeccably clean living room. I remember taking crazy buses all day with Pendo, to go up to the hills of Mwanza to visit her mother, who showed me her beautiful rug designs and her ducklings. I remember smiles, and hands reaching out to hold mine.

And in these moments, I am overwhelmed with guilt for forgetting, even for a moment, the feeling of being in Tanzania, the feeling that I vowed I would keep close to me at all times. Why does the relative luxury of our lives cause us to forget? Should not the stark contrast between my lifestyle and the disparate conditions of other parts of the world be a constant reminder? I take these moments to sit down and remind myself, lest I forget.