06/25 - Maternity clinic and hotel shopping

This morning was a bit rough.  We had some communication difficulties with our lodge.  They were supposed to have arranged cars for us to get to our meetings this morning.  At 8:30 when we were supposed to have been leaving, there was still no car here.  After waiting a few more minutes, one small taxi showed up.  There are 7 of us.  At this point, we had to wait for a second car to arrive, and had to start all over negotiating price.  After all the chaos, one of our group members had gone to the bathroom and got left behind.  We each thought he was in the other car.

Outside the clinic where we were working today

The new lawyers we are working with are very nice.  We arrived at their office late, but they were very happy to see us.  After going through introductions (greetings in Africa are much more substantial than "hey how are you?") we left for the maternity clinic.  What a surprise! When we got there at around 11 (now an hour and a half late) there were more than 100 women (almost all were expectant mothers) waiting to listen to our presentation about wills.

The doctor at the clinic giving us the tour

Part of the crowd that gathered for our presentation

The presentation was well received although our translator had to use a megaphone there were so many people so that they could hear what was going on.  I have a feeling that we will be revisiting the clinic in the coming days to draft wills for some of them.  Last week in Mwanza, after we visited Kivulini and did our presentation, we got calls the next 3 days from the workers there saying they had ladies who wanted us to come help them with their wills.

Great lunch at Green Hut (which is an apt name)

After we left the maternity clinic, we headed to the headquarters of the Pan African Lawyers Union, where Kelsey will be working for a couple of weeks after the official program ends.  There we met with Don Deya, who is the CEO.  He was very friendly and I am looking forward to doing some work with him over the next couple of weeks.  PALU basically works with all the individual lawyer unions in all the countries in Africa.

Meeting with Don Deya at PALU

PALU office (beautiful house inside a gated compound)

Gates for the PALU office

We spent the remainder of the evening looking for new hotels.  In addition to the taxi debacle, the latest development in mine and Kelsey's room is that everything is damp (this is not a good thing anywhere but in Africa, its particularly bad from what I have been told as it can lead to all sorts of fun things in your clothes).  We were able to find a couple of suitable alternatives and hopefully, after we finish up the week we prepaid here at the lodge, we will be in a new place here in Arusha.

The city is beautiful.  We had our first clear view of Mt Meru today without clouds and it is truly stunning.  We also managed to find an amazing little cafe at a Masai Art Gallery which served pizza.  We all needed a little comfort food and it was the perfect end to a long day.  I am feeling much better today, and looking forward to the work ahead here.  Tomorrow, we will be participating in a historic day at the African Court of Human and Peoples Rights.  More on that tomorrow.

Mt Meru from Arusha

Mt Meru.  Pictures don't do it justice. 

06/24 - Arusha day 2

Today was a quiet day at the new place.  It is quite isolated here.  We started with a great breakfast.  Then we headed into town to try to get some supplies.  We took a cab and the driver tried to gouge us (again, it seems everything here is a negotiation).  We were going to buy some groceries to save money on food as we have been doing at other places, but we don't have a refrigerator in our room here so we are sort of at the mercy of the hotel for our meals.  We are working on a solution for that, but at this point, they are delicious but exorbitant.  

I think we will likely stay out the week here and then find somewhere more suitable, but it is tough because the trip budget was set and most of the hotels here are surprisingly expensive.

The guy serving us breakfast this morning seemed very concerned that we were not in church.  "It is Sunday.  Why aren't you in church?  God is everywhere!"

I am feeling very disconnected from the world at this point (really for the first time since we left), but hopefully that will improve tomorrow when we start working.  Its very random the things that you miss.    

I was really looking forward to Arusha, so I am going to give it some time.  We spoke with one of our contacts tonight, and it appears they are VERY excited to have us here.  They also shared that we  have been invited for the very first verdict delivery of the African Court on Human and Peoples Rights which will happen on Tuesday.

Gretchen had to take her son to the hospital today which was also a little scary for everyone.  Everything ended up fine, but it was a bit of a scare.

Tomorrow, we are meeting representatives from the Tanzania Women Lawyers Association.  They have been extremely helpful in coordinating the mission here.  Just to give you some idea, we were able to draft more than 20 wills in Mwanza last week alone.  I was able to do 6.  They previously ran an educational extended will drafting campaign a few years back for months and only accumulated 50 wills total.  They have some good things planned for us.  Pictures from yesterday and today posted below as promised.  We are off to have dinner.  :-)

Sunflowers everywhere.  They always remind me
of my grandmother

The road leading to our lodge

Scenery on the way from the airport to Arusha.

East African Court of Justice.  We will be visiting this place

Mountains

In city center in Arusha

Small part of the main market in town.  

06/23 - Arusha

So we arrived in Arusha.  The airport at Mwanza was a real pain.  We had to go through security twice, and then they charged us because our bags were too heavy apparently (odd because we have less stuff...snacks have been eaten, etc then when we left Dar).  It was also a little sketchy because Gretchen told him we did not have as much money as he was trying to up charge us for the bags and he took less.  Everything is a negotiation here.

The plane was a smaller prop plane but the flight wasn't too long (about 1 hr. 15 minutes) to Kilimanjaro airport.  A couple of people attached themselves to us when we were picking up our bags at the airport.  I thought they were with our driver.  They helped load our bags, but then demanded money.

It was about an hour drive from the airport to our lodge.  The countryside here is beautiful.  Parts of it actually remind of TN strangely enough.  There are rolling hills and mountains in the distance.  We saw endless cornfields and more sunflowers growing than I think I have ever seen anywhere.  When we got into town, we took a turn onto a really rough dirt road.

After a pretty nasty ride up the road, we arrived at Moyoni Lodge where we are supposed to be staying for the next two weeks.  It is very beautiful, but we are still not certain it is going to work for our purposes.  We are in the middle of nowhere.  It does not seem to be within walking distance to town and there is no internet in our rooms (I'm sitting up outside the property office right now to type this and check email).  There are also no televisions in the room so we will have no more survival tips from discovery channel for awhile.  Also, waited for 10 minutes before the water became hot and it came out as a drip basically.  We are prepaid here for a week.  After that, we may reevaluate.  It is going to be a challenge to do research for my paper assignment part of this project, but I am going to remain flexible.  I know I sound like a spoiled American at the moment, but it is quite an adjustment for all of us (and maybe a bit telling).  Gretchen has already been calling other places because apparently this is not how the place was billed to us when we booked the reservation.

All that being said, I AM IN AFRICA.  Even after 2 weeks, it is still a strange, but incredible feeling.

Tomorrow is going to be a low key day.  We are going to go into city center and check out the town.  We will begin our work here in Arusha on Monday with our will drafting project.

I will attach pictures tomorrow, but for tonight, I left the camera in the room and its a hike from here.  

06/23 - Off to Arusha

I was unable to update yesterday because our internet connection at the hotel was not working last night.  

Yesterday, we were working with the police women.  They listened to our presentation and asked a lot of questions, but not as many wills yesterday.  I was able to draft one for a woman police officer who owned a number of plots of land.  It is a little challenging because much of the land here is not surveyed.  You actually have to describe the land in the will (as in bordering neighbor so and so to the north, bordering some unnamed road to the west, etc etc).  In drafting a will for her though, hopefully she will be able to pass the property to her daughters in accordance with her wishes, which would never happen according to customary law here.  It would go to her sons or her husbands family.  

Improvised wheelchair

Mosque in Mwanza

Outside of the Police Canteen where we did our presentation

Lecturing about wills

Street kids outside the police canteen

Last night, we had dinner at the Japanese grill outside our hotel.  It was actually a very nice meal.  Who knew they could do hibachi in Africa?  We invited our new friends, the attorneys who have helped us here in Mwanza.  After dinner, there was some sort of wedding going on at the property next door.  The bass from the sound system was reverberating through our room.  It made for a difficult nights sleep, but this morning we are checking out of Hotel Tilapia and headed for Arusha.  We will be in Arusha for two weeks, so it will be nice to be able to unpack a little at the hotel.

Sundown on Lake Victoria

We had hibachi in Africa... ???

Stefan, the strange little child (he wanted this caption) Gretchen's son.

06/21 - CIty Hall today

So if you read yesterdays blog...I was a little frustrated, angry, irritated.  Today, I feel better.  It was a combination of exhaustion and a feeling of helplessness in a strange country.  A little bit of rest and I am feeling much better.  I will throw out a comment that African tv has been very strange.  We have mostly stayed within the safe confines of the discovery channel so I now know how to escape from a terrorist attack at a mall, a home invasion, a bio weapon attack on a subway, and how to hillbilly hand fish (disgusting).

One of my favorite billboards yet...

Back to the work at hand... we went to city hall in town today and did an education session in front of more than 20 women.  The women today were a little more reserved than the ones at Kivulini yesterday.  They were a more "mature" group, but we still ended up drafting about 10 wills.  

Kelsey and I working on a will City Hall

City Hall sign

I am still sad that I was not able to do the radio program this morning (and apparently so were the producers because I saw one of the attorneys today who said "we were looking for you to do the show")  

Either way, the timing here is bad for public discussion of anything relating to LGBT issues.  Statements were made in the Parliament here yesterday reiterating that homosexuality here would not be decriminalized and that the western countries could keep their foreign aid money if it was tied to such conditions.  The response here from people of all levels is visceral and frequently violent.  I am glad I live where I do.  

We have almost finished our work in Mwanza.  On Saturday, we will be flying to Arusha for 2 weeks.  I am looking forward to a change.  The Hotel Tilapia has been a little less comfortable than our hotel in Dar in several ways.  The staff is rude and in a number of instances, they have tried to cheat us on the bills at the restaurant.  The rooms are right inside the gates and near some of the staff work areas so it is quite loud by our rooms at night.  At any rate, it has been safe for us here thus far and that is the important part.  If I visit Mwanza again, I will not stay here.  I guess I should be putting that comment on tripadvisor.com rather than my blog.  

06/20 - Bird stole my breakfast

I went downstairs for breakfast this morning to meet some of the group, as has become the ritual.   I did not sleep particularly well last night (loud frogs outside our window, the night staff yelling and singing outside our room, etc).  After going thru their makeshift buffet and getting bacon and scrambled eggs with no shells in them (YES! its going to be a good day!), I stepped outside with a smile on my face as I headed for the table where I could see Gretchen, Stefan, and Devota (our group translator).  

My new breakfast friends

About 5 steps out of the dining room, while I was walking with my plate in hand, a hawk came out of nowhere and took the bacon right off my plate midair.  It knocked one piece of bacon onto the ground which a second hawk promptly picked up while I was still trying to figure out what had just happened.  

After she finished laughing, Gretchen took it upon herself to fix me a second plate because at this point, I was sitting at the table staring into space drinking my coffee.  

Today, we had two appointments.  First, we went to the Coca-Cola bottling plant.  (Can I say one of the things that has really amazed me is the permeation of Coke and Pepsi logos on everything that will hold still here).  When we got there, we were warmly received.  The plant is huge, with about 1,200 workers here locally.  

The plant manager showed us to a room full of women in their work uniforms, after walking us past a wall full of plaques for quality awards and explaining with pride what the different plaques represented.  

Presentation at Coca-Cola bottling

After leaving the Coca-Cola plant, we went back to a women's center. They had asked us if we would come back and actually help some women draft their wills.  There were more than a dozen women there waiting for us when we arrived ready for our help.  Our group split up and we sat outside one-on-one with them in the hut behind the building and worked individually to create the documents.  I personally drafted 3 wills.  

Just to give you an idea of what we are working with, two of the three women I wrote wills for were simply accounting for the disposition of their personal property.  They had specific bequests, for example, for their shoes, their backpack, etc.  One woman specified that her sewing machine was to go to a local orphanage.  Another woman wanted to make sure the money in her checking account would go to her 12 yo sister who is struggling to raise her eight month old baby... 

We were all really drained by the experience today, but I needed to speak with our supervising attorney here in Mwanza about the radio project tomorrow to find out the parameters of the discussion.  As it turns out, he told us that two very strong statements were made in Parliament here today about the subject of LGBT rights.  He told me that he did not feel it was safe for me to go on the air and talk about "my topic."  He refuses to actually name my research area, even though he has commented freely on all the others.  I was a little infuriated by the whole situation, and in general, it was just uncomfortable the way he was handling it.  I know his position.  At the end of the day, I caved to the pressure and bowed out of the radio show they had asked me to participate in because there are some genuine safety concerns.    It makes me sad and angry, but I think it was the only choice.  Thats all for now.  

Kivulini Women's Center

 
We started this morning with a visit to Kivulini.  It is a Women's center here in town.  The center is in a small tin-roofed building on the side of a hill.  They had some plastic tables set up for us behind the center in a hut.  We were expecting to meet with some of their clients about drafting wills.  There was a slight miscommunication between the coordinating attorney and the center apparently because instead, they had assembled around 20 women who are the leaders of local NGO's.  They came from all around the local area to hear what we could teach them about drafting wills.

We ended up having a great 2 hour interactive session with these women.  It is still amazing to me how little these women know about the rights we take for granted.  They were all taking copious notes about every detail of the presentation so that they could spread out into their individual groups and pass this information along to women in need in their respective areas of service.  They continued to thank us for our time and the information, and the women were so excited, several of them asked us if we could come back tomorrow to draft wills for some of their clients.  Before we even got out of the center, a couple of them could be heard in their offices, already calling their clients telling them to come in tomorrow for our help.

One of the ladies thanking us after our meeting

After the meeting at Kivulini, we were honored to have been invited to meet Justice Sumari who is the judge in charge of the High Court of Tanzania in the Mwanza district.  She met with us for almost an hour in her chambers, and invited a couple of other magistrates and judges to sit in on the session.  She was very interested in our mission here.  It was a great visit.

The old high court building

We are all getting a bit on the tired side.  We have been pretty busy since we arrived.  Hopefully soon, we will have a little time to unplug, but I will say the meetings we've had have exceeded any expectations i had for the trip and we are really just getting started with our mission here so life is good :-)