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ARF brings food to African villages
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| ARF Founder Maria Pool, her assistant Farida and reporter Sesame Campbell are joined by village men to distribute food in the Kisele and Kiguzo villages for Futari during the holy month of Ramadan. |
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the final story in a series from Chatham Courier reporter Sesame Campbell, who traveled to Africa.
By Sesame Campbell
MKURANGA DISTRICT, Tanzania — In Islam, it is said that if someone gives a thirsty person a drop of water, then the person will enter into the gates of heaven. I watched African Reflections Foundation (ARF) members give more than water; I watched them give flour, dates and sugar to more than 700 villagers in Kisele and Kiguzo.
Friday, Aug. 29: Today is the seventh day of the holy month of Ramadan. I have committed to fasting today with ARF Founder Maria Pool, her staff members and family out of respect and a bit of curiosity. Maria explained to me that one of the reasons Muslims fast for Ramadan is because it is a way to get closer to God (Allah) and also as a way for them to understand and sympathize with the poor by feeling what the poor feel when they have no water to drink or food to eat. Every day during the month of Ramadan, Muslims take no water or food from 5 a.m. to 6:25 p.m. I reasoned that I could go without food or water for a short period of time.
I plan to tag along with members of ARF to distribute food to the local villages of Kisele and Kiguza. Today’s distribution was one of several planned for futari, the main meal eaten at home by Muslims after the evening prayers for each of the 30 nights during Ramadan.
In the Islamic year, Ramadan is the most important month for all muslims and Swahili Muslims observe it with the utmost respect. There are several different types of meals shared during Ramadan, which include those taken before the fast (kula mfungo). Dates are usually the food of choice for the first food taken at sunset (kufungua maudhini) just as Muslims are called to evening prayers and daku is a small additional meal eaten before dawn. Tasty snacks (bembe) are brought in before sunset and served around 10 p.m. and there are the leftovers (kilalo). (Source: African Studies Center documentation)
Maria is delivering food to the villagers because in part, there is during the month of Ramadan the performance of good deeds at the time of the “Night Power” (laylat al-qadr), the donation of an obligatory gift (zakat al-fitr), which she plans to do every Friday night for the next month before the feast of the breaking of the fast (id al-fitr). (Source: ASC documentation)
A donation of $10,000 was recently given to ARF by the U.A.E to help Maria toward this effort. It is a generous amount of money and will go far in helping to feed several thousand villagers who might not otherwise have food to break their fast with.
At 9 a.m., I am feeling parched. It’s been two hours into my fast and already my coffee addiction is wreaking havoc. We drive to the Bon Voyage Travel office (a very successful business run by Maria and her sister, Nafeesa) to collect members of the ARF staff to help with the distribution. When I sat down at a desk, one of the secretaries brought me a cup of coffee and two biscuits. Maria told me that would be the last thing I would drink or eat until this evening’s futari.
After Farida Chilwan and Nurdin Mamujee were picked up, our first stop was Mwandege village, where a recently constructed well sponsored by Karen Flewelling and ARF funds in April was already experiencing some technical difficulties.
Deep wells cost approximately $10,000 U.S. dollars to build and they provide water to thousands of villagers who travel long distances, upward of 10 kilometers, for water that is often polluted. On their way to water, women are often the victims of rape and children, in order to help their mothers collect water, miss school and are sometimes killed or injured by wild animals. The small fee of 20 TSS (Tanzanian shillings) villagers pay for a bucket of water (20 liters) is the equivalent to about a penny; the fee for the maintenance of the well. On Fridays, water is free.
ARF hired a local man named Modi to manage the well. He contacted Maria to tell her that there were problems with the well and she needed to come sort it out. Maria examined the well with Modi and located the problem. It was faulty wiring.
She called up the contractor. “We paid $10,000 U.S. dollars for this well and you cheat us on the wiring,” she yelled, waving around the wires that were frayed. “It is three months after the well was built and we are already having problems.”
Maria is not a woman to be challenged. My observations have been that people either love her, fear her or both. I could hear the man’s voice on the phone babbling to assure her that the problem would be taken care of. With a satisfied look she said we would move on.
We stopped at the ARF warehouse in the village of Kiguza to pick up a truck and load it with food supplies. Brother Beretta from nearby St. Francis Mission arranged for the truck and helped load it up flour, sugar, dates and maize.
In Kiguza, the poverty is astonishing. Most of the people live on less than $1 per day. According to a local woman who was selling produce, there are somewhere between 1,500 to 2,000 people who live in the village. I was taken on a short tour of the “village square,” which consisted of a common space with an open cooking pit. Some of the mud houses were missing roofs. Small brick piles dot the landscape and when I asked why, I was told the buildings are slowly constructed over time because there is no money. Literally, they are paid for brick by brick. I am reminded of old photographs of bombed-out cities in Europe after the Blitzkrieg. Except in those pictures there was a sense of what had been. Here, people are living in the terrible conditions of disease, poverty and death as the daily norm. How can anything like that be normal?
A group of children gathered around me laughing with each other and shyly smiling at me. They like my hair, I am told. They call it “jitri,” which means curly. We communicate with each other through gestures and handshakes. These little ones are dressed in rags that hang off of them in dirty tatters. It breaks my heart to see children who have so little. How is it they are so happy?
Inside the warehouse are stacks of supplies collected by members of Team Rafiki and other friends in the United States. Thirty-seven bicycles are stacked along one wall, which Maria intends to distribute. Toys, shampoos, soaps, batteries, crocs, pitchers, tennis balls, rope, notebooks, high chairs, tables, school desks, ladders, wheel chairs, hospital equipment, a gastro-intestinal drainage machine, chalkboards and first-aid supplies, including Tylenol, band aids and various rubbing ointments, are collected in the warehouse.
“This place was packed,” Maria said. “We had 10 times more than what is left.”
But some of the supplies are worthless. There is a broken suction machine and expired medicine. Maria explains to me that this can cause a lot of problems for the clinic. If a member of the government were to see expired bottles on the shelves they could close the clinic and put people in jail.
Several men from the village came by to help load the trucks and distribute the food. Medical supplies were also loaded into the truck for our next destination: Kisele. The expired medicine was taken out so as not to jeopardize the project. We piled into the back of the truck and sat on top of the bags and boxes of food. It was something out of a movie.
At Kisele, Abdallah Mbonde, the village elder, met us at the indoor clinic constructed by funds from ARF/TR. The clinic opened in November 2008. Inside one of the rooms, women sit at three foot-operated sewing machines where they are working on uniforms for school children. The supply room houses a grinder and fabric and supplies for the Sanitation Pad Project. To the delight of the women and myself, Maria demonstrated how the pads worked.
I have noticed that even in times of mirth, Africans are very discrete and respectful. As Maria buttoned the pad between her legs and attached it to the belt, women made sure the door was closed so that no one could peer in and watch the merriment.
In minutes, villagers swarmed around the truck and were organized into lines to receive the supplies. Older women were first, then mothers, since they are the heads of the households. Elderly men were also given food.
I am surprised at how orderly things are. That people who are obviously hungry are not overwhelming the truck and piling in and grabbing what they can is amazing. There are people standing in line who have not eaten for quite some time. You can see the hunger in their eyes. But it is the gratitude that moves me to tears. I bite the inside of my cheek to hold back tears as one elderly man begins to pray for us. I ask Maria to translate.
“He thanks God for sending an angel to give them food,” she said. “He prays that we are kept safe from harm and that God protects us in all we do. He thanks God for food because he did not know how he was going to eat today.”
I don’t know why I am so moved. Perhaps it is because these people have nothing and they are so grateful for any pittance of support. Perhaps it is the love they show Maria and the love she gives back to them. Perhaps it is the respect and dignity with which they conduct themselves under such horrific conditions. Their humanity, gentle spirit and courage are more than I can put words to. It has been a reoccurring experience for me throughout this trip.
For several hours, we scoop, bag and hand out supplies. Two young men from the village open bags as I pour sugar and flour into the bags. Two other men cut the packages of dates into four sections, which are handed out with the sugar, flour and maize bags. Farida sits next to me and cracks jokes and smiles. Her energy is infectious and when I am tired I look at her and feel refreshed.
The line of villagers who are waiting for their bags seems endless. My wrist starts to hurt from the constant scooping I am doing. I want to stop for a drink. I want to stop for a rest, but the line has not gotten any shorter. I have to keep up with the bags that are being handed to me.
Maria is constantly going. She is like a well-oiled machine that never stops. She is firm but kind with the villagers. They smile at her. “Asanti,” they say. Some grab her hands and kiss them. Some say a prayer of thanks as they take their bags. Maria seems to know them all by name. “Give this woman two scoops,” she says. “Her husband died and she has no one to look after her. Or, “give that woman another scoop. She is taking care of an orphan whose parents died of AIDS.” Or, “give her more because I can see that she’s hungry.”
Finally, the line stopped. Many of the villagers sat with their bags and waited until everyone was finished. When we pulled away they thanked us profusely. “Asanti-sana, asanti-sana,” they call out, which means, “thank you very much,” in Swahili.
We leave for another village and as I sit in the back of the truck I feel thirsty. My tongue is thick and I feel lethargic. But I also feel grateful. I am only beginning to understand what people here experience every day. With limited water and food, my hunger and thirst is a small price to pay. At the end of my day, I will have a nice meal and a hot shower.
I will go back to a country where my children wear clean clothes, have access to education and receive regular check ups with the doctor of my choice. For the people of Mkuranga, theirs is an uncertain future. They depend on the supplies brought in by ARF, TR and other benefactors. Hope is how they survive.
For more information, visit www.africanreflectionsfoundation.org.
Friday, Aug. 29: Today is the seventh day of the holy month of Ramadan. I have committed to fasting today with ARF Founder Maria Pool, her staff members and family out of respect and a bit of curiosity. Maria explained to me that one of the reasons Muslims fast for Ramadan is because it is a way to get closer to God (Allah) and also as a way for them to understand and sympathize with the poor by feeling what the poor feel when they have no water to drink or food to eat. Every day during the month of Ramadan, Muslims take no water or food from 5 a.m. to 6:25 p.m. I reasoned that I could go without food or water for a short period of time.
I plan to tag along with members of ARF to distribute food to the local villages of Kisele and Kiguza. Today’s distribution was one of several planned for futari, the main meal eaten at home by Muslims after the evening prayers for each of the 30 nights during Ramadan.
In the Islamic year, Ramadan is the most important month for all muslims and Swahili Muslims observe it with the utmost respect. There are several different types of meals shared during Ramadan, which include those taken before the fast (kula mfungo). Dates are usually the food of choice for the first food taken at sunset (kufungua maudhini) just as Muslims are called to evening prayers and daku is a small additional meal eaten before dawn. Tasty snacks (bembe) are brought in before sunset and served around 10 p.m. and there are the leftovers (kilalo). (Source: African Studies Center documentation)
Maria is delivering food to the villagers because in part, there is during the month of Ramadan the performance of good deeds at the time of the “Night Power” (laylat al-qadr), the donation of an obligatory gift (zakat al-fitr), which she plans to do every Friday night for the next month before the feast of the breaking of the fast (id al-fitr). (Source: ASC documentation)
A donation of $10,000 was recently given to ARF by the U.A.E to help Maria toward this effort. It is a generous amount of money and will go far in helping to feed several thousand villagers who might not otherwise have food to break their fast with.
At 9 a.m., I am feeling parched. It’s been two hours into my fast and already my coffee addiction is wreaking havoc. We drive to the Bon Voyage Travel office (a very successful business run by Maria and her sister, Nafeesa) to collect members of the ARF staff to help with the distribution. When I sat down at a desk, one of the secretaries brought me a cup of coffee and two biscuits. Maria told me that would be the last thing I would drink or eat until this evening’s futari.
After Farida Chilwan and Nurdin Mamujee were picked up, our first stop was Mwandege village, where a recently constructed well sponsored by Karen Flewelling and ARF funds in April was already experiencing some technical difficulties.
Deep wells cost approximately $10,000 U.S. dollars to build and they provide water to thousands of villagers who travel long distances, upward of 10 kilometers, for water that is often polluted. On their way to water, women are often the victims of rape and children, in order to help their mothers collect water, miss school and are sometimes killed or injured by wild animals. The small fee of 20 TSS (Tanzanian shillings) villagers pay for a bucket of water (20 liters) is the equivalent to about a penny; the fee for the maintenance of the well. On Fridays, water is free.
ARF hired a local man named Modi to manage the well. He contacted Maria to tell her that there were problems with the well and she needed to come sort it out. Maria examined the well with Modi and located the problem. It was faulty wiring.
She called up the contractor. “We paid $10,000 U.S. dollars for this well and you cheat us on the wiring,” she yelled, waving around the wires that were frayed. “It is three months after the well was built and we are already having problems.”
Maria is not a woman to be challenged. My observations have been that people either love her, fear her or both. I could hear the man’s voice on the phone babbling to assure her that the problem would be taken care of. With a satisfied look she said we would move on.
We stopped at the ARF warehouse in the village of Kiguza to pick up a truck and load it with food supplies. Brother Beretta from nearby St. Francis Mission arranged for the truck and helped load it up flour, sugar, dates and maize.
In Kiguza, the poverty is astonishing. Most of the people live on less than $1 per day. According to a local woman who was selling produce, there are somewhere between 1,500 to 2,000 people who live in the village. I was taken on a short tour of the “village square,” which consisted of a common space with an open cooking pit. Some of the mud houses were missing roofs. Small brick piles dot the landscape and when I asked why, I was told the buildings are slowly constructed over time because there is no money. Literally, they are paid for brick by brick. I am reminded of old photographs of bombed-out cities in Europe after the Blitzkrieg. Except in those pictures there was a sense of what had been. Here, people are living in the terrible conditions of disease, poverty and death as the daily norm. How can anything like that be normal?
A group of children gathered around me laughing with each other and shyly smiling at me. They like my hair, I am told. They call it “jitri,” which means curly. We communicate with each other through gestures and handshakes. These little ones are dressed in rags that hang off of them in dirty tatters. It breaks my heart to see children who have so little. How is it they are so happy?
Inside the warehouse are stacks of supplies collected by members of Team Rafiki and other friends in the United States. Thirty-seven bicycles are stacked along one wall, which Maria intends to distribute. Toys, shampoos, soaps, batteries, crocs, pitchers, tennis balls, rope, notebooks, high chairs, tables, school desks, ladders, wheel chairs, hospital equipment, a gastro-intestinal drainage machine, chalkboards and first-aid supplies, including Tylenol, band aids and various rubbing ointments, are collected in the warehouse.
“This place was packed,” Maria said. “We had 10 times more than what is left.”
But some of the supplies are worthless. There is a broken suction machine and expired medicine. Maria explains to me that this can cause a lot of problems for the clinic. If a member of the government were to see expired bottles on the shelves they could close the clinic and put people in jail.
Several men from the village came by to help load the trucks and distribute the food. Medical supplies were also loaded into the truck for our next destination: Kisele. The expired medicine was taken out so as not to jeopardize the project. We piled into the back of the truck and sat on top of the bags and boxes of food. It was something out of a movie.
At Kisele, Abdallah Mbonde, the village elder, met us at the indoor clinic constructed by funds from ARF/TR. The clinic opened in November 2008. Inside one of the rooms, women sit at three foot-operated sewing machines where they are working on uniforms for school children. The supply room houses a grinder and fabric and supplies for the Sanitation Pad Project. To the delight of the women and myself, Maria demonstrated how the pads worked.
I have noticed that even in times of mirth, Africans are very discrete and respectful. As Maria buttoned the pad between her legs and attached it to the belt, women made sure the door was closed so that no one could peer in and watch the merriment.
In minutes, villagers swarmed around the truck and were organized into lines to receive the supplies. Older women were first, then mothers, since they are the heads of the households. Elderly men were also given food.
I am surprised at how orderly things are. That people who are obviously hungry are not overwhelming the truck and piling in and grabbing what they can is amazing. There are people standing in line who have not eaten for quite some time. You can see the hunger in their eyes. But it is the gratitude that moves me to tears. I bite the inside of my cheek to hold back tears as one elderly man begins to pray for us. I ask Maria to translate.
“He thanks God for sending an angel to give them food,” she said. “He prays that we are kept safe from harm and that God protects us in all we do. He thanks God for food because he did not know how he was going to eat today.”
I don’t know why I am so moved. Perhaps it is because these people have nothing and they are so grateful for any pittance of support. Perhaps it is the love they show Maria and the love she gives back to them. Perhaps it is the respect and dignity with which they conduct themselves under such horrific conditions. Their humanity, gentle spirit and courage are more than I can put words to. It has been a reoccurring experience for me throughout this trip.
For several hours, we scoop, bag and hand out supplies. Two young men from the village open bags as I pour sugar and flour into the bags. Two other men cut the packages of dates into four sections, which are handed out with the sugar, flour and maize bags. Farida sits next to me and cracks jokes and smiles. Her energy is infectious and when I am tired I look at her and feel refreshed.
The line of villagers who are waiting for their bags seems endless. My wrist starts to hurt from the constant scooping I am doing. I want to stop for a drink. I want to stop for a rest, but the line has not gotten any shorter. I have to keep up with the bags that are being handed to me.
Maria is constantly going. She is like a well-oiled machine that never stops. She is firm but kind with the villagers. They smile at her. “Asanti,” they say. Some grab her hands and kiss them. Some say a prayer of thanks as they take their bags. Maria seems to know them all by name. “Give this woman two scoops,” she says. “Her husband died and she has no one to look after her. Or, “give that woman another scoop. She is taking care of an orphan whose parents died of AIDS.” Or, “give her more because I can see that she’s hungry.”
Finally, the line stopped. Many of the villagers sat with their bags and waited until everyone was finished. When we pulled away they thanked us profusely. “Asanti-sana, asanti-sana,” they call out, which means, “thank you very much,” in Swahili.
We leave for another village and as I sit in the back of the truck I feel thirsty. My tongue is thick and I feel lethargic. But I also feel grateful. I am only beginning to understand what people here experience every day. With limited water and food, my hunger and thirst is a small price to pay. At the end of my day, I will have a nice meal and a hot shower.
I will go back to a country where my children wear clean clothes, have access to education and receive regular check ups with the doctor of my choice. For the people of Mkuranga, theirs is an uncertain future. They depend on the supplies brought in by ARF, TR and other benefactors. Hope is how they survive.
For more information, visit www.africanreflectionsfoundation.org.
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