June/July 2006 Tanzania Trip Report 1

July 1st, 2006

Hello to everyone, we have arrived safely in Nkungi village. It was wonderful to be greeted by our friends in the village and to see that they have all made it through the drought.

Dr. Gene Wright, Dr. Betsy Hall and their son Geoff are with us to do mobile medical clinics in the bush.

Lori Kovich is staying at the duplex, everything is in order and the village is pleased with her presence. The work is continuing on the teachers housing where Lori will be living, while here in Nkungi. She will be assisting at the secondary school with English lessons and computer classes.

The primary school head teachers provided a list of Swahili books, which are now on order. Most of the books, in English, which were provided by BCLUW, have been distributed to the primary schools in the Ilunda ward. Bookshelves are being built for the secondary school to hold the higher level educational books that were sent.

Geoff has assisted the village in organizing, welding and mounting the basketball back drops and hoops to the poles. The poles are now installed on the playground with the first game to be between the village council and the Nkungi teachers. We were very excited to hear that the girls from primary school will be permitted to play basketball. The primary school and the village each have one basketball, both leak air! (let’s see if we can get them some new balls)

Dr. Gene, Dr. Betsy and Geoff, accompanied by Dr. Rwezaura and Mr. Mbigi, have been visiting the Hazabi village and the villages in the Ilunda ward to provide medical treatment. The Toyota truck purchased to carry the Porta-Doc has not been released from Dar es Salaam, therefore Dr. Gene, Dr. Betsy, Geoff, Dr. Rwezaura and Mr. Mbigi have been using the truck provided by Karl Gingrich to make the medical trips. They are averaging 64 patients per day and have been out four days this past week. Children and pregnant women are the first priority, unless there is an emergency which would take precedence. Most of the people seen are anemic and lack the daily vitamins needed for good health. They have seen many cases of malaria, typhoid and one case of scabies. The first day out, the team treated a small infant which would have died. The mother was very malnourished, the father and baby were brought back to the hospital in Nkungi for intensive care.

Alan Stricklin has been an essential part in the drip irrigation system, which is being installed at the Gunda Secondary School. This project at the school is important because it will provide the water necessary to grow the food for the children who attend secondary school. A 50,000 gallon holding tank is now being built by Macha, a local masonry builder, for the irrigation system. Nine drip irrigation systems are ready to be distributed in the village. The local agriculturists, Regina and Matthew, have one drip system that will be the pilot project for the village.

Because of the large volume of people using the wells, the pumps are always in need of repair. Two of the pumps in Nkungi village are being repaired.

Lori was here in time to help with the “Kids Against Hunger” distributing in June. Monday, food will be distributed to the five villages in the Ilunda ward. The villages are now in the middle of the harvesting of sunflower and maize. They may receive only enough food for a couple of months. This distribution of the “Kids Against Hunger” meals for this month will be to the families who have no crops to harvest, due to lack of money for seeds, the elderly and the disabled. There will be 8,000 meals per village distributed on Monday.

All of your support is appreciated and the villagers send you their greetings!

Floyd & Kathy