Thoughts of Tanzania

[Nyakahanga Designated District Hospital, Karagwe District, Tanzania]

 Today I was continuing to lecture about the AIDS epidemic and specifically how it is playing out in Sub-Saharan Africa. The crisis involves economic issues, infrastructure, working with local customs and traditions, and a number of other factors.

This made me think of my brief one month visit to a more rural part of northern Tanzania, the Karagwe District in the Kagera Region. I was assisting with the guidance and instruction of students participating in a research-oriented study abroad project with an emphasis on community health. Naturally I thought of the hospital (the entrance to the ground shown above) that was at the center of much of what we did.

Mixed in with the lecture was a discussion of the economic challenges posed by having otherwise healthy, working-age adults to sick to work or in too many cases deceased because of diseases like AIDS. And then there is the social and personal cost. All of which is represented by the larger number of AIDS orphans in hard hit areas of Africa.

Having met some of those sick parents as well as children orphaned by AIDS, and greatly helped by organizations such as the local AIDS Control Project, discussing this and related topics took on a much different feel and tone that went beyond the basic academic analysis and reflection.

But my thoughts aren't just of poverty and disease, which is a part of every human community, but of the amazing people I had to good fortune to meet and the perspective I was able to cultivate way from the Western cultural and media bubble that even season travelers often fail to escape. I am wondering about what changes may have come in the couple of years since I was there, and what has remained the same. Whether the dreams and wishes we heard about are still alive in the hearts of those who shared them, and what the future hold for the communities we visited. It is too easy to generalize or romanticize about far away places and memories, so I leave you with footage that may portend that future from one of the schools we visited.


[Children from a school in the Karagwe District of Tanzania.]
Be well.