09. The tragedy of the hedgehogs
25th August 2013
Just over a week ago, still full
of Africa, I landed on an unaccustomed green island, a bit befuddled and
bemused. Hordes of my tribe jostled and jabbered. Then, like ducklings crossing
a road, they self-organised into a wavy line to negotiate passport control. They
seemed instinctively to know who had arrived first, and this unwritten law
wielded an awesome power, woe-betiding any would-be self-advancement. It felt strangely foreign. At the baggage
carousels, I tried to find my previous impatience, but it never appeared, presumably
lost in transit. I grappled my 40kg of luggage from the belts, trying to
remember why I had brought so many pairs of trousers and yet only two legs.
Then, as is customary for the
English, nothing to declare, and so through to England. Aaaaaaaah! England!!
Thanks for waiting for me. A fresh breeze. Damp, leaf-green trees, and vivid,
bright green grass. Why would I have missed grass? It hadn’t missed me. I am
struck first with gratitude to be back, and then with curiosity as to why it
should matter so. Wasn’t the weather better in Tanzania? Wasn’t the pace of
life less frantic? Weren’t even strangers there kind and welcoming, with a
shared chuckle at my mangled Swahili? Why would I prefer a cloudy sky with a
hint of rain? Do Tanzanians arriving home have the same sense of grateful
relief at the first hot whiff of Dar Es Salaam dust, or the first iron taste of
cauldron-cooked ugali? What is home, that it beckons so powerfully? I had only
been away two months, and you could get more than that, (if the magistrate were
in a bad mood), for vexatious tort in fief. I am part of the first generation
of a tiny proportion of humanity never to have suffered enforced and prolonged
absence from home, and I don’t think that I quite appreciate my good fortune.
I climbed into the back of the
car, revelling in the tarmac surface, the lack of roll-bars, and the absence of
dog, cow, chicken and impala dents on the bodywork. From the radio, I caught
the end of a programme: “… sadly, that’s the tragedy of the hedgehogs.” Apparently
our spiny chums, seemingly incapable of internalising the essentials of road safety,
are dwindling in numbers. This, it transpires, (unless you are an ant, or part
of the pro-ant lobby), is bad news. I could not help dwelling on our separate
understanding of the idea of tragedy. Funnily enough, as we cruised along the
familiar A45, (Oh! the glorious A45!), I could not extinguish my relief to be
home, even with thoughts of the tragedies I had seen. It needed a prickly
comparison to bring home to me the privilege of my circumstances. Soon I would
be eating a Taylor’s Welsh Dragon sausage. I would be drinking a glass of
Malbec, in our comfortable home, in our comfortable neighbourhood, surrounded
by my healthy family and friends, in our peaceful country. (Albeit made more
peaceful by lack of hedgehog revelry.) What a blessing.
I arrived back in Earlsdon, the
door was flung open, and I was hugged into the house. Five minutes later, I was
pouring real, liquid milk into a cup of tea. (I knew it hadn’t just been an
imagined memory.) Then, joy!, Freddie, my one-year old grandson, toddled in and
eyed me intently, brow deeply furrowed, for a full four minutes. This was a
moment I had feared: would he remember me? We had been so close before. Now,
however, not only had I lost a lot of weight, but also I had adorned the physiognomy
with a smart, closely-trimmed, attractive, designer beard. (“You haven’t
bothered to shave” seems to me a much harsher way of expressing it, especially
when shaving in Africa was a waste of two precious minutes of sleep before the
7.30 start.) When looked at from the right angle, my resemblance to George
Clooney, or Sean Connery’s much younger brother was now uncanny. After four
soul-searching minutes, Freddie’s brow unfurled, a big smile unfolded, and the
arms lifted towards me for a long, long, where-have-you-been cuddle. Home!
Mis came back from work that
evening and we met outside on the path. This year, we have been together for forty
years, and in all that time, this was the longest we had been apart. Our eyes
met, and maybe I’m reading too much into that deep and unspoken gaze, but it
seemed to say, “At last! Someone to mend the bathroom tiles!” I jest of course,
and, for the soppier readers of the blog, I have to admit to a slight moisture
in the eyeballs, at seeing my lovely wife again. After just two months! How mad
is that.
“So what was it like?” someone
asked. How could I sum it up in a word? I decided on: “Big.” That seemed to do
the trick, and as no-one asked for further amplification, willing messengers
were then dispatched, one to the frying pan and another to the wine rack.
The next morning, sausaged and
malbecked to the gunnels, I had time to reflect on what next. There is a long
road ahead, but staying where we are is just not an option, even if it were
wanted. The world is striding ahead apace. Whilst I was in Berega, electricity
arrived. I was there for the first caesareans done without the background hum
of the generator. Roads were being built. Concordats were being signed. There
were even plans for water to be piped from the lakes to the dry, high centre.
One of the most bizarre developments was even ahead of the UK: last month
Berega began to pay all their staff salaries using mobile-phone money: credit
that you can then text to any other mobile phone. In June 2013, staff took the
three-hour bus ride each way, and the two-hour bank queue, to pick up their
monthly salary in hard cash. In July 2013, they could buy a kilogram of rice in
the mud-hut village store by mobile phone credit transfer.
Progress is happening. Change is
coming, and we have to be moving. Once the anchor is up, and the sail is set, the
wind might blow us where we need to be. Mothers and their babies must not be
left behind.
I annexe the first draft of The Plan.
Let’s just begin, and see where that leads. I am in for the long haul, all
being well, and I commit to being a stimulus, a catalyst. At the Tanzanian end,
we have utmost commitment from the hospital bosses, and determination in the
direction of travel – as evidenced by the new charter of standards in the hospital.
We have a number of volunteers lining up for future medical involvement with
the hospital. Most of all, however, we have a daily tragedy unfolding, which,
with a little effort and some limited resources, we can begin to tackle.
I need money. Not huge amounts,
but about £20k/year for five years. With that, we can transform our chosen
isolated village of Mnafu from being a distant and inaccessible place where women and
children needlessly die, to one where they have a realistic chance of a healthy
future. The accompanying draft plan gives you the flavour of what we will be
doing.
Can you help financially? If I
had forty people each giving £500, that would pay for the first year, and then
it is up to me to stimulate the developments that might entice future
investment. Or you might just have £50 to spare, or £5, and that would help. But
let me tell you very clearly: Not a single penny will be spent on
administration, on overheads, or on any form of greasing the wheels. I will be
writing the blog fortnightly for as long as I am getting support, and I will be
demanding hard evidence of progress. Progress might be as simple as liaison,
talking, engagement with the community, and all the preludes that will lead to the
twenty-first century. But we have a plan, and the worst that can happen is that
it fails.
If you do not want to give money,
don’t worry – I know that many people are already over-committed, and if you
are struggling to get to the end of the month, it is not you I am targeting. Even
if you are rich, but this is not your thing, that’s fine, and please still be
my friend.
But if you have been looking for
someone and somewhere to send that extra few quid that Aunty Edna left you that
you did not really need, then I am that someone, and rural Tanzania is that
somewhere. Email me on email.lozza@gmail.com,
and I will give you details of how to make Gift Aid payments. Alternatively,
just ask for the account details, and put in what you think is right.
I am not saying to ignore the
hedgehogs. By all means encourage the repopulation of our hedgerows with these
diminishing denizens of the darkness. But the much more urgent tragedy that is
happening out there also needs our attention. We cannot make the whole world
right, but why not try to make just one bit of it better.
One day, an Mnafu mother will be smiling down on her new baby, wondering why those wazungu so far away cared so much.
Laurence Wood
At last back
in the world of fast internet, I can give
you some moving pictures! The road to Mnafu shows the beginning of the road
from the hospital. Mnafu is about an hour further on.
Road to Mnafu:
http://youtu.be/cDGP2GJRWuA
Hospital House: http://youtu.be/n84o3Mztf9o
Berega Hospital: http://youtu.be/D9YBOYn10FA
Sion Bird:
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