Starting at Santa Lucia

We didn't come to Tanzania to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, although it was an excellent “add in” to our journey. Really, we are here in Tanzania to volunteer our time and services to a non-profit organization. Since I am heading back to school in the fall, and because I *think* I want to focus my studies in public health and international development, I thought it would be good to try out the job by working for a few months in a developing country. And since Jeremy spent the last five years of his professional life managing global clinical trials from the USA, and because he is committed to continue working within the biotech industry to develop new drugs that improve people’s lives, he thought it would be interesting to see how health care in the developing world works, as well.

So here we are, in between homes in San Francisco and Los Angeles at St. Lucia, a registered Non Government Organization aiming to improve the health and livelihood of marginalized people in the greater Arusha, Tanzania community through the provision of palliative health care, financial support, and education. We are here this summer to assist the team at St. Lucia in executing their mission in the following areas:

• Admitting sick patients into the St. Lucia nursing home, aiming to stabilize their condition, thus allowing the patients to return to their communities.
• Providing shelter, care, and training to HIV positive children whose parents have died of AIDS and whose extended families will not support them.
• Delivering at home health care and financial planning education to individuals afflicted with life-threatening diseases throughout the greater Arusha area.
• Educating impoverished families how to implement sustainable agricultural projects to generate income and improve health and economic conditions.

We have been working at St. Lucia for a week now, and thus far, it has been a truly eye-opening experience. We wake up each weekday morning around 6:00 AM to shower, eat breakfast, and catch a local bus (see “I Miss Muni”) to the nursing home, which is located on the Eastern side of Arusha, approximately ten miles from our home on the “West End.” We travel through town and to the village of Moshono. We ride the bus for as long as possible, which involves a few miles along a bumpy dirt road, before we hop off and walk the final mile to St. Lucia. Simply arriving to work each morning often feels like a major accomplishment!

As stressful as the commute may be, all the frustration melts away upon entering the nursing home. Every day, 15 small children accost us, smiling, cheering, hugging our knees, and saying in the highest pitch voices, “Good morning!” This phrase is one of the few phrases that most of these children know in English. We respond, “Samalkheri,”which means, “good morning” in Swahilli. And for a little while, we play with the kids and help them finish getting dressed.

Once everyone is dressed, the staff at St. Lucia gather in the living room with the children for songs and morning prayers. I don’t know if it is the African songs or the children’s high voices, but the singing is one of my favorite parts of the day. Throughout the songs and prayers, the kids are incredibly well-behaved, each child taking a turn leading a song or a prayer. I am not the type of person who prays, really, but during these few moments each morning, I think I do find myself praying that the world develops cure for HIV/AIDS as soon as possible. These adorable children do not deserve to have their lives cut short…

After the morning songs and prayers, we get to work. On our first day, we spent the day coloring, helping the school-age children with homework, and preparing lunch. (Specifically, I helped prepare chiappati, a typical Tanzanian dish which resembles tortillas – I made nearly 100 tortillas by hand, rolling dough with a wooden “cylinder” I soon realized was a tree branch… It was exhausting.) On our second day, we attended a meeting at Arusha city hall, in preparation for the upcoming Africa Youth Day, an event which will recognize and support the most vulnerable children in the Arusha region. These two days were good introductions into life at St. Lucia. And we appreciated that they weren’t too tiring, as we were still hurting from our Kilimanjaro climb.

This week has been a bit more intense. On Monday, we ventured out into the rural Malangarini Ward of Arusha, even further outside of town than our village, Moshono. We visited patients and families St. Lucia is supporting through life-threatening illnesses such as tuberculosis and cancer, in addition to HIV/AIDS. Seeing such poverty and suffering was difficult, but Jeremy and I are hopeful that our contributions to the team at St. Lucia will make life for those suffering in Malangarini a little bit easier.

Finally, today we accompanied one of the children to the hospital in town, as she needed to refill her ARV prescriptions. Since starting at St. Lucia, we have learned that Tanzania provides all HIV/AIDS drugs to patients for free, which is great news for Stella, the orphaned patient we assisted today. I had heard bad things about the hospital, however our experience today was quite positive. The staff greeted Stella with hugs and smiles, and they also welcomed us warmly to the team.

We have now completed our orientation of the major initiatives in which St. Lucia is engaged, and we have begun working on several discrete tasks assigned to us by the director of the organization. Winfrida Mshwala is a registered nurse who established St. Lucia in 2002, and she said she is thrilled to have two volunteers with such tremendous business experience! She has put us to work on the following projects:

1. Develop a business/management plan to address St. Lucia’s operating challenges
2. Create a fundraising strategy to support existing and future projects at St. Lucia
3. Research and apply for grants and loans offered to non-profit organizations in Africa
4. Create reporting tools to support St. Lucia’s financial reporting requirements
5. Conduct home visits with patients in the Arusha community and develop plans for improving each patient’s condition
6. Analyze and update database of St. Lucia patient files and health plans
7. Initiate program for microloans to HIV patients in rural Arusha

It’s an ambitious set of projects for only four weeks of time, however we are up for the challenge! We have already completed one application for a large grant to initiate microloans to members of the rural Arusha community, #7, and we have another grant proposal to finish tonight, as well. It’s almost like we’re working full time again! So, back to the grind!