Bukumbi Diary - May 2007
10th May 2007
May means the rainy season is coming to an end, but with a few heavy storms remaining it is both good and bad news for the community at Bukumbi. For the men in Sijaona block who now have a water tight roof it is great news but for the others in the community who are stil
l living in rooms where roofs leak and windows are just open holes it’s not so good. The dry season brings its own problems, mainly concerning the supply of water. Today at Bukumbi the women were smiling and pleased to be filling their buckets with water as the pump system managed to produce enough water for the whole community, however we then discovered that the water pressure was not sufficient to reach the lower toilet block, so even though the toilets have been cleared out and new water tanks provided the water is not reaching the farthest block, which means that the waste in the toilets cannot be flushed through to the collection pits. We are planning a meeting with the water committee next week to discuss these issues and will continue to work towards improving them.
Sijaona dormitory is looking good, today we provided Paulo the nominated cleaner with a ‘squeegee’ mop for the bathrooms and a long handled broom for cleaning under the beds and up high. Some of the small wasp nests are starting to return so we have asked the Manager to allocate a member of staff to do a daily check and clean away any small nests so that they don’t cause the same problems as before.
Fulgence our fundi (workman) at Bukumbi is also going to level the floors in the showers to stop the water collecting and which will make it easier for the men to clean them.
We plan to start the work on the women’s dormitory ‘Wafhadili’ next week, we will start as before with the roof and ceiling boards and then the windows and progress from there.
Next week will be busy at Bukumbi, the Regional Welfare Officer is visiting on Monday to see the renovation work and then on Wednesday we will take part in the water committee meeting, after which we have a meeting planned with the local Village Executive Officer who is the committee leader for Bukumbi Village of which Bukumbi Care Centre is part of.
18th May 2007
On Monday we took the Regional Welfare Officer Mrs Misana to see the renovation work at Bukumbi, this was the first time she had visited since the work had been carried out on S
ijaona block as she was away when the official opening took place. It was great to show her around and for her to see the changes that have taken place. She was very appreciative of our work and wanted to make sure we passed on her thanks to all the volunteers who came and worked so hard, so ‘Thank you all!’ On our way to Bukumbi we picked up one of the government electricians to come and carry out an assessment on Sijaona and Wafhadili (the women’s block) to repair the electrics. Up until 2 weeks ago there has been no power at Bukumbi for about 6 years – but recently the Welfare Office has paid their electric bill and had the power switched back on! The problem now is that most of the electrics within the buildings are very old and look unsafe, so we have agreed that part of our renovation programme will be to assist with ensuring the community have a safe an effective power supply within the accommodation blocks. We are waiting for the quote but hope the work can be carried out at the same time as the new roof and ceiling boards.
Wednesday was also a really productive ‘Bukumbi’ day as we met with the water committee and discussed some of the ongoing problems, although we have fixed the toilet blocks and water t
anks there are still two of the blocks where the water pressure is too low to flush through the system, we are trying to establish the reason for this at the moment. The water committee have asked that we close those two blocks until the water supply is sufficient and dig 2 temporary ‘long drop’ toilets (2 holes in the ground surrounded by a bamboo wall for privacy). It’s great that the community recognise that if they keep using the toilets without effective flushing then the same problems will occur as before where the toilets become blocked and over full. The water system has been an ongoing problem that we really want to get to grips with and the next stage will be to ask the welfare office if we can bring a government water expert out to carry out an assessment. We hope this will then start the ball rolling and identify the main problems.
Whilst Andie was meeting with the water committee Jo drove out to Misungwi to meet the District Education Officer (DEO) to discuss a future proposal. We are planning from September to develop an education programme at Bukumbi looking at both child and adult education. We got the go ahead from the DEO which is great news as it now means we can start officially applying for funding and planning the way forward.
25 May 2007
It was great to see Dr Julian Nyangali the new Clinical Officer sitting behind his desk when we arrived at Bukumbi this week. He has worked previously at Bukumbi hospital so knows the community and appears to have a good understanding of the needs here at Bukumbi. Those living at the centre are so delighted to have him there as it has been over 6 months now with just a nurse and a nursing assistant for the whole centre plus the surrounding village! Pretty hard work for them both. He has plans to do daily rounds within the centre and once a week Jo will join him which will give her the chance to see in more details the health needs of this community.
On Wednesday we had our Bukumbi Stakeholders meeting – this meeting is held twice a year and there should have been about 15 people attending but unfortunately several key people (including the Regional Welfare Officer) were unable to attend. But we went ahead any way and it was very encouraging to report back on developments over the past 6 months seeing that there really had been some positive changes. One of the main problems that came out of the meeting was the water supply. It is still irregular and doesn’t seem to be improving even though there has been work carried out recently. Mr Bundala the centre manager has requested a review by the government water officials so we will wait and see what that produces.
Work has started on the electrics in Sijaona block so hopefully within 4 days the men should have electricity and no longer need to use their kerosene lanterns which is great news, materials are being bought for the work on Wafhadili – the ladies block next week so we should see real progress their soon as well. We’ll keep you posted!