Bridge 2 Aid : 'Restoring Smiles - Changing Lives'

Vumi (the albino girl with a tumour on her face) is now travelling with an escort to the National Centre for cancer treatment in Dar es Salaam.  Before she left Mwanza she was examined by Dr Ian Wilson and the current locum dentist Dr Ian Redfearn.  They were shocked to see that the tumour had been left for so long, it is now the size of a tennis ball and aggressively eating into her cheek.  Vumi first saw a doctor for the tumour 3 years ago and was prescribed some cream which helped initially.  However, the combination of a lack of medical facilities, her passive attitude towards her illness and frustrating bureaucracy has delayed intervention for so long that we are not sure now what the future holds for her.  She has seen both her parents suffer and die from the same carcinoma so knows all too well how horrific the cancer becomes as it progresses.  We will be in touch with the Commissioner for Social Welfare in Dar es Salaam, under whose care she will be when she is in Dar, to find out what progress has been made. (AW)

 This week it was time to see how the Sijaona part of the ‘deal’ that was struck last week had turned out, whether they had cleaned the dormitory and washed their sheets so that B2A could arrange for the fumigation to take place.  Areas that had been festooned with cobwebs the week before were now clean and the doors had also been scrubbed.  Unfortunately the swarms of Lake flies had got worse and when I arrived they were sweeping up piles of them from the floor.  Talking with the men we found out that their habit of sitting outside until late with the main doors open and inside lights on was becoming a hit with the swarms of flies.  When I compared Sijaona to the ladies dormitory which had no flies in as they close the doors before dark, the men looked rather sheepish and agreed a new plan for ‘early closing’!  The sheets were still caked in 6 months of dirt and we talked together about asking others to help them clean the sheets.  It would be much easier for us to arrange for the sheets to be washed for them, but encouraging ownership and responsibility takes time, we hope that the community will see that they have a part to play in their daily lives rather than expecting others to do everything for them. (AW)

This week a workshop is being held with Bukumbi community leaders and other leaders from similar centres around the lake zone of Tanzania. It is being facilitated by Burchard Rwamtoga from GLRA (German Leprosy Relief Association) who B2A met last year.  The focus is to look at resettlement and whether it is better for people to live in ‘institutions’ or within the village community. It is a great launch pad for us with the community at Bukumbi to then allow us to work alongside them in assessing individual needs and reviewing who could move on from the centre with the right support and rehabilitation interventions.  This process will take many years to be fulfilled but we need to start somewhere!

The work on the Wafhadili (women’s block) is making good progress, the cupboards have been started in each room and the women are very happy to see them going in. When I asked one of them what they thought she smiled and said ‘Safi Kabisa’ which means ‘really good / spot on!’

Vumi is now in hospital in Dar and has had a biopsy taken and waiting for results and then she will probably have radiation therapy. We have been told that social welfare in Dar are looking after her well and she is being fed and cared for, which is great to hear. (JT)

We heard today that Chagu died yesterday, He was suffering with TB and HIV he kept fighting for longer than anybody thought he would. Each time we saw him he looked a little weaker but still had a smile and a hand shake for us.  Chagu was about 64 years old and had lived at Bukumbi for 17 years and had many friends there. As I was thinking about him on the drive back, it was good to think that even though his life for the past 17 years had been one of dependence and at times despair at least he had lived for long enough to see some of the changes at Bukumbi and that he died in a bed that was clean and a room that was no longer dark and dingy but was bright and full of light with friends around him.  (JT)

This week saw Fay our new Education Co-ordinator out at Bukumbi gathering the first stages of her research. Currently she is spending time at the centre establishing which children live at the centre and which live in the village, you’d think this would be straight forward - but not here! Fay is also beginning to map which children are related to which residents at Bukumbi and what schools they attend if any. She has a challenge ahead of her!

On Wednesday the B2A Community Development Team met with the Regional Welfare Officer (RWO) and the manager of Bukumbi to discuss the seminars that were held last week and how to move forward from these.