a little risk

Ok, so a school sent me their field manual draft. It looked very good, they borrowed some stuff from other manuals in the US, which is fine. But there was a little thing......a cut and paste about discrimination and equality which mentioned gender, disability, race, etc including sexual orientation. -homosexuality is illegal here, there tends  to be no mention in any school so should I point this out? hmmmmm. Heck, schools have it in the US but don't practice it; no, after all,  I'm so used to seeing the statement it made sense to me. So it stayed. This will likely be the template for all social work programs here since it's the first field manual. Of course it is a draft they will go over several more times, let's see if it remains. Maybe I could write an article about it!!

Well, this will be my first weekend in quite awhile that no friend is around to do something with.  I am going to venture out of the compound on foot! I will not take a purse and I will hide wallet, $, etc in all different places on myself.  I do see people walking I have no intention of being out anywhere near dark. Safety of this seems to depend on who you ask.  I'm comfortable walking in the downtown city from work so I will use my "standard" NYC I belong here" attitude.  A few other kids came up to me to touch my hair again, maybe my hair has magic power to only attract good people :-).  I'll let you all know how it goes.
I need to get out before I run out of photos and people lose interest here.  Photos in the next post. see ya. Still annoyed that My Verona is closed!

Zanzibar faculty

another Zanzibar sunset

Feeling better today so I went to dinner with Saundra and Rick, her husband. Our last meal together here, they leave Saturday. So the last month of my stay is looking a bit more empty, but that's really for the weekends, gosh, does that mean I'm gonna end up shopping? oh my.

I bought some stuff to sterilize food, not trusting much water or any food right now--seems to be mostly bleach but the bottle says to use it for baby bottles and it's safe to not rinse off before giving it to babies. I washed the carrot with my germ x wipes then peeled it. I'm going to be more careful with everything, not just boiling water, all water will come from one bottle brand (here's to you coca cola, spoiling the land in Africa and making $$ off the people). I've also been taking doxycyclin that I bought here but I could not find the same brand/name on Mayo or webmd so I think I'm stopping that today, going back to just lotions which has worked well. I saw on Lonely Planet advice to only get Vibramycin which is doxy because the brand name non-generic from US is better, other countries haven't the same controls (even fewer??) on ingredients.

I'm much disturbed about the scam debacle in CF with that investment guy. It has actually made international news. I do feel bad for his employees. I wonder what his tactic was for marrying so close to suicide, surely not to leave insurance, doesn't suicide preclude the possibility of insurance? Anyway, what really pisses me off is My Verona closing. 1/2 price wine from 4-6 daily, those yummy breadsticks, and the role of the pizza section in my life as respite from work. Dang it!
In other news, Postville made it to the NY times today, long article about the ICE raid followed by discussion of the new population of legal refugees. Still making poor salaries, likely treated no better. And Mark Grey was interviewed. Why don't they ever talk to the people on the ground-the nuns and the social workers (tip of the had to William Deutsch, our graduate) who worked so hard with the aftermath. 

ok, need to try to sleep now

 some photos, sorry if I duplicate:

tingatinga art in an alley

photos

from the window of the plane  the Indian Ocean. That is a plane tire bottom left.

Sunset

alley way in Zanzibar, lots of these in Stone Town. I hear the beaches and the islands are beautiful. I got this

tree in the national spice farm

Tanzanian "crow" I call it, big black with grey head and neck

sun setting on the Indian Ocean, people playing, kids always playing soccer

Zanzibar market fruits & baskets

Zanzibar markets

truck of bicycles, I just really liked how this looked

The social work faculty at University of Zanzibar and me

One more note: remember I said I've learned stuff about food and since my stomach is upset I was eating more simply. So tonite I boiled water and took out the bag of rice from the fridge. I poured a cup out and noticed something looked wrong at the open corner of the bag. Sheesh, it's string! A child's handful of curled up string! in the bottom 1/2 of my bag of rice!  I considered---do I cook rice? People are starving right here, wouldn't they eat it? Shouldn't I? I decided to toss it, if they get string in there I don't know what else might get in there. Went for plain pasta instead.

There are all sorts of little things I am learning that I wish I knew when I first arrived--if you eat bananas cut the tips off; chickens are fed dried fish so watch out for eggs; yogurt is runny, there is some brand of what claimed to be soy milk on the container but had smelled like sour cream and was full of lumps, there was no English on the carton, Arabic, French, but it was called Soy and the store guy told me that's what it was. It was not out-dated either. I was told today by the landlord who puts lemon in his beer and I've seen him with ice also that Castle is decent beer and light Castle is only 4% alcohol and tastes decently. And now, B. at the office told me to never buy the 6 liter containers of water...which I've been doing for 2 months now. For the second time I became  ill Sunday a little bit but more so yesterday. (don't worry, just intestinal) She said it could be the water that I've been drinking, that I should never buy those large containers, she sticks to water under the Kilimanjaro label (owned by coca cola as most sodas seem to be here) and only buys the small bottles, then I'm talking to the landlord and I told him I was home yesterday and will stay home and rest  tomorrow. He says that I should NEVER buy that 6 liter bottle of water, I should only buy the Kili 1.5 liters or smaller.  Well, now I know. He gave me several bottles to tide me over. B said I can boil the larger water and use it but never drink it directly. So I guess getting sick just 2 times in 2 months of drinking the stuff is really pretty good!

And I've been so careful, washing and peeling fruit and veggies (staying away from tomatoes and all salads even the lovely looking ones with good looking tomatoes and red onions sliced small in a vinegary dressing with herbs. Fresh fruit peeled and cooked veggies or peeled and cooked. Well, I'm feeling a little better, watching what I eat since Sunday, Love that melba toast and so glad I found some here.  I think just need some rest for a bit though I've been sitting for 2 months pretty much with my face in my computer.  Oh well, it's good to learn something new and that it's just the water, thank goodness not anything I need. Oh. wait. :-).

photos

fruit seller & kids

Another OSHA photo Don't just look at the guy on the right, notice the one on the left. What is he standing on?

this is the explanation of the crucifix. Apparently Dr. Livingstone (remember, Dr Livingstone I presume?) said his heart will always be in Africa. When he died his body was shipped back to England via Zanzibar; but his heart was removed and buried near Lake Victoria. The crucifix was made out of the tree under which his heart is buried. there's a story.

Dr. Livingstone's crucifix we presume

Zanzibar street/market through car window

This is a Masai young man. People hire them as guards because they have a reputation as great warriors. But every one I've seen is young and very thin. They do carry large blades and sticks though. He is watching at the Sunset Bar at the first hotel we were at

Me and social work faculty at Univ. of Zanzibar

State University of Zanzibar faculty. The tall guy on the right is our social work volunteer who travels and assists me

Last training day. I am so impressed with these people!  Tuesday when we started they had no idea what a syllabus is, had never done one; they had no field manual and no idea of what they could do in the classes with students, some online and some classroom classes.  By today at 4pm, they had a very nice first draft of a practice manual, 9 syllabi, and had begun to look at resources for their classes. wow!!!  That's all I got--wow!  A group of people from a couple of different programs and they can sit down and work intensively, about 8 hours a day for 4 days, some discussion, some disagreements but came to consensus and have great products.  They make me look good! Now I feel that I've accomplished something really concrete. And I can rest a little too.

It amazes me that folks without backgrounds in social work could believe so strongly that it is an important profession that they are working from nothing, committed to getting programs up and running. I'm lucky to be able to watch and be a part of this; it's inspiring. It is not a matter of these people all being new faculty who are young and are new to teaching, these people have been teaching here, the salaries people get are low, lower than the US, social work is not even known in much of the country so it's an uphill challenge.  Inspiring, and we complain when we have to teach in another building, if our "smart" classrooms are not totally working. etc.  Some of these schools do not have updated bathrooms, no air conditioning, no computers in classrooms, no subscriptions to online search engines or journals, and their students cannot afford textbooks. There is not an existing career in "social work", the same time programs are being instituted a social work education group is gaining strength, a national association is struggling to start, and they are trying to get a council under the government that will grow into a legal structure for social work in the country. wow. A good week.

sunset sailboat Indian Ocean

Zanzibar market

Zanzibar bus

OSHA training photo. This is the scaffolding put together--tied with rags & ropes, used for many construction projects in Zanzibar & Dar

truckful of bicycles. The guy stands on the roof of the truck to hold up and off the bikes the electric wires that run through the streets. I imagine if they got caught on the metal bikes..fireworks and all Stone Town Zanzibar electricity would be out

artist working on his tinga tinga painting. The colors are wonderful and they do not first sketch it out on the canvas

slave holding cell for women & children, hold @75 people on this raised stone bed with a narrow walkway in the center. No way to stand, hard to sit without ducking from the roof, a few slit openings are at ground level outside so water can be tossed in to "wash" the waste

slave holding cell for men, for @50 men. chained to the stone platform, narrow walkway/waste way in the center. All of these pictures taken with flash so it is very very dark.

slave memorial outside, next photo is whole view.

memorial, statues are chained together, each represents one of the tribes taken from villages inside of Africa--Congo and other countries