Dirt Rollercoasters

I stopped by Fonelisco today. Joseph and the children gave Max and I a phenomenally warm welcome: the local volunteers sang for us and the children ran up and hugged us when we arrived. Joseph invited me to join him on a trip to one of the rural villages near Mwanza to hear from traditional midwives, so a short while later I jumped into a 4 wheel drive with a Dutch researcher, Joseph and a local translater.

It took about an hour to drive out to the village. I have to say that all my previous reports of awful road conditions were blissfully naive. This was the road to end all roads. There were potholes covering the entire road for the entire journey. We had to drive through giant muddy "puddles" on about a dozen occassions, knowing if we got stuck we'd be the ones to jump out in at least knee deep mud and push the car out. I was extremely grateful to be making the trip in a 4-wheel drive and NOT a dalla-dalla!

When we reached the village, we learned that the women had been waiting all day for us and had just given up and left. We tore off in the direction they had gone to catch them, and spent about an hour rounding them all up again. After so many delays, they were finally able to begin their performance. The women had recently undergone a two week residential training programme through CARE International, during which they had put together skits which warned of dangers in childbirth. Maternal mortality is a major problem in Tanzania, and our long journey to the village showed one of the main reasons: most of the women are spread out really far from hospitals. A contributing factor, is that when women start to have difficulties in childbirth, they are far more likely to consult the local 'witch doctor' than go to the hospital. The witch doctors can't help and often end up delaying the woman so long that she doesn't reach a hospital in time, if at all. These traditional healers acted out the dangers of going to witch doctors and when women should go to the hospital immediately. Their performance was wonderful, drawing a large crowd from passers-by and a very warm response from the onlookers. Work like theirs is a really effective way to educate people and they are doing their communities an enormous service.