Goodbye Kigoma, Hello Kasulu

My time in Kigoma, Tanzania is wrapping up and soon we will be off to the Teachers' College in Kasulu, a mere 75 KM east from here. It will be a sad day when I do not get to work with these wonderful local volunteers committed to making Kigoma region a "better place." Their willingness to endure the heat and dusty conditions of the Kigoma fields truly indicates their desire to learn how to teach using sport. Selfishly I will miss my afternoon and night sessions with the local children, especially the girls and young women. I will leave knowing that these young women have gained a certain level of respect in the community as well as have learned to approach difficult situations with an eye towards analysing the problem to make a choice rather than just following local tradition. And, I will know that I taught them no grammatical skills by re-reading that last sentence.

Anyway, I wish you all the best and send a hug to my family, especially my Dad. When I learned of the news of Uncle Joey's passing, I recalled his laughter as one of his greatest gifts. I will miss him.

Much love,
Christian

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"Girl Power" or "Wasichana pata nguvu!" Those words have been our calling card as we have provided some of the first girl-only soccer sessions in Kigoma history. Our partner Nico Pota -- the Municipal Director of Sport for the entire Kigoma region -- has worked tirelessly to establish opportunities for girls to participate in sport in order to combat teen pregnancy and HIV/AIDS in this remote fishing town. The community has found sport to be an effective tool in teaching boys about certain issues and Nico asked us to come to Kigoma to assist with training his teachers and girls on these issues while keeping the atmosphere light and fun to allow for free discussion. With a focus on health, respect and equality issues, we have run two weeks of instruction for teachers in the morning and have run afternoon sessions for girls. While the Regional Director was worried about a lack of attendance, we have seen a rise from 45 girls in our first session to over 150 girls in our last. While the words were humbling to hear, we appreciated the statement that by next year, they were confident rates for teen pregnancy and HIV would be down!

In addition to the sessions, I was lucky enough to hand out some beautiful orange soccer shirts for 50 of the girls. As many of you know, when I departed from Boston on this journey to Africa, I had a backpack and one duffel bag. In the backpack were my clothes and supplies for 6 months. In the duffel bag were 50 soccer shirts and 50 pair of soccer socks as well as 2 soccer balls and 20 cones, totaling roughly 30 KG. For 3 months that bag rode in many a dala-dala, plane, pick-up truck and even rickshaw. However, when I handed out the new shirts for the girls, there was disbelief from them for a bit until someone who actually speaks Swahili was able to "clean-up" my attempts at an explanation. Getting hugs and smiles made all the effort worthwhile. Granted this photo does no justice to their joy as we had to stop the games to take it, but believe me the shirts were loved.

From the shores of Lake Tanganyika,
Christian

PS – I would like to wish the Happiest of Birthdays to my big brother Andy. He celebrates a special birthday for him this week and I hope he has a wonderful day. I love you man.

Female Empowerment; Part I

As those close to me know, I have many strong, independent female friends. Additionally, I have been fortunate to have a confident and intelligent mother and three powerful and witty sisters. In America, I still see females facing challenges that I do not have to face. Because of my upbringing with a focus on equality, I find it very natural to play soccer with both boys and girls. However, I have found my experience in Africa to be quite different than America. Looking at the picture to the left, one can see how difficult it is for little African girls. Here, the 7 year old sister was asked to watch her younger brother at the same time as our session. She was not to be deterred. She asked if it was ok if she just did her drills with her brother on her back. I of course allowed the amazing feat to happen. The next day there were more girls carrying their siblings. This resolve continues to leave my mouth wide open. Knowing that I carried a 50 pound bag for three months across three countries for the girls' program here in Kigoma makes me feel great inside.

All the best,

Christian

Jambo Augustin!

One of the realities of this voluntour is that I cannot readily return to the USA to welcome my new nephew into our family. So, this blog post will be my way of saying Jambo and I love you to Augustin Vaughn Capuzzi. Of course, I will also use this post to congratulate Peter, Rocco, Stella, Big Pete and of course Mama Capuzzi -- Lorelei! I wish I could be there to help change the diapers but I am sure I can lend a hand in December...

Love your Favorite Uncle (start the process early),
Christian

My friendly neighbor...

Hello my younger voluntourists. Many of you have been asking me to upload a photo of some wildlife I have seen. I have many pictures and will try to add them as my connection gets better but here is one of a friendly hand I saw not far from my sleeping quarters. Fortunately there was a wall between us or else the crocodile's hand/paw/foot (?) would have been too close for comfort. I didn't sleep well because of the closeness anyway...

Be safe and I love you all,

Uncle Christian

The Ham Represents

By coincidence or providence, I met up with the uncle of a friend with whom I went to Framingham North High Scool. We are Spartans! Joseph "Joe" Morrisey, uncle of Mike, grew up in the Saxonville neighborhood of Framingham, MA (known to many as The Ham). Since 1969, Joe has been tirelessly helping the deaf, the blind and many others with physical disabilities throughout the world but mainly in Africa. Joe has a quiet demeanor but is obviously a strong, dedicated man to his personal mission and blessed with immense patience. Throughout 2009, I have met many wonderful people. Joe will go near the top of the list for his hard work and welcoming persona. My parents remain at the top.
Last week, Joe kindly invited me to come along with him to the Mkasanda School for the deaf and deaf-blind, just outside of Moshi town here in Northern Tanzania. Although this was a rest day, I jumped at the chance to meet these kids and I loved every minute of it. After driving some 10 km, 5 of which were on a horrendously bumpy dirt road that made New Orleans streets seem flat and well maintained, we arrived at a small boarding school secluded in a half rain forest/half cow pasture grounds. After an introduction to the head mistress, by slowly spelling out my name in ASL, I learned that my meager sign language skills might get me by for the day. Importantly, only one letter from ASL (American Sign Language) didn't translate to the Tanzanian counterpart - the T. I put the correct way of making that letter in the memory bank and was off to see a class comprised of 10 teenagers. After a few minutes of observation, the teacher surprisingly asked me if I would teach her Math class. She then walked out of the class before a response. For the next 30 minutes I channeled all my energy to try and best explain how to multiply and divide fractions, through sign language, in a strange combination of Kiswahili and English. Shockingly, I think 80% of the class understood me, and I didn't make any math mistakes (that anyone can prove). Yes, I was secretly glistening (sweating profusely), but loving the challenge. However, not satisfied with my less than perfect percentage, I tried a few other tricks Framingham Math great Mr. DiDomenico taught me many moons ago, and by the end, I am confident they all could do the exercises of the day!
Slightly drained, I recovered by sharing a cup of chai (tea) with some full time deaf volunteers who had a much better grasp of English than I do of Kiswahili. After a short rest I was offered the chance to run a sports session. With 80+ smiling faces in front of me, I quickly found boundless energy and we had 2 hours of soccer instruction and games, including some education on health and fitness. Highlights from the game included watching a family of cows parade through the center of the pitch without a care, listening to the quiet laughter of these children enjoy a special day, and lastly, appreciating the refereeing by the children of their game without any whining.
When I finally hit the pillow under my lovely mosquito net, and I stopped my brain from frantically recalling math lessons from my days at Juniper Hill, Walsh, FNHS, and with GU's Prof. Bobo, I truly felt the Ham had represented itself quite well for the day.

Wikend jami,
Christian


PS - So that these wonderful students would always remember The Ham, I donated two soccer balls that had been brought over to Africa by my father on his wonderful recent visit with my mother. [See Schmoopies to the left...] I presented the two soccer balls in honor of two loved ones - Aunt Grace and Joel B. The school, and Joe M., appreciated the gift immensely.

19-0

I often have to stop and admire the strength and resolve of the children with whom I work. Most days I encounter smiling faces wearing torn and battered shorts and t-shirts that have obviously been passed on from charitable organizations across the world, but mostly from the US. While I have heard economic arguments that say providing donated clothes hurts local textile merchants, I don't see how one could stop giving clothes when I see too many cold, barely clothed kids. I will leave the long term economic challenges to greater minds, and keep appreciating the short term, survival economics I see happening. Besides, the slogans on the t-shirts really crack me up. Some of my favorites include: "Fishing for Jesus: Dallas Lutheran Church Fundraiser;" "Marlboro High School Soccer" because it was the closest to home; "Sexy and Single" on a grandmother holding two children and carrying a stack of branches on her head that would have crushed my skull. Today, however, I laughed out loud when I saw a special shirt and I immediately thought of many of my voluntourists. It was dark blue and had a Patriots logo and read "19-0: The Perfect Season". I knew these shirts must have been printed and always said they would just be shipped off to some remote place, and today that statement was confirmed - apparently remote is Moshi, Tanzania where I currently find myself.
As the college and professional football seasons begin, and you cheer on your teams (Go Canes!), please enjoy yourself and think about donating your old summer clothes so that next year African children are not all dressed in Notre Dame National Champions Shirts and Philadelphia Eagles Super Bowl Champions sweatshirts.

Tutaonana,
Christian

The Terrible Train Accident?

Due to some unforeseen wedding plans of our CAC partner in Kigoma, I have had the luxury of spending some time in Dar es Salaam and catching up on paperwork -- reports, power points, videos, press, etc. With the added time I can now explore alternative means of traveling to Kigoma from Dar. Since I have taken buses, cars, planes, dallah dallahs, rickshaws, mopeds, and even some others methods, I thought it woudl be nice to explore the trains! Having loved John Candy and Steve Martin's film Planes, Trains and Automobiles, I really desire to get the train leg in so I can produce a sequel. Using Google, I punched in a search looking at Kigoma trains and schedules. The first result was titled "The Terrible Train Accident" and discussed a relatively recent train accident on the one train I would take. Having read a few more articles on the train across Tanzania and the possible day long delays, lack of bathrooms, etc., I decided I will be taking a bus to Moshi (so I can see Mt. Kilimanjaro), a flight to Mwanza and then a bus to Kigoma.

On a side note, I wish Mr. Evan Johnstone a Happiest of Birthdays!

Tutaonana,
Christian