The Tanzanian Sun

Composition homework time! We were asked to write about a life experience in the form of a news article. So I did that. Here's that thing I was just talking about. It's right here, under these words you're reading. It's also words, so don't get confused now. They're the words that aren't all slanty. Yeah, you see them. You should read them now. Go on, I believe in you.

The plane begins descent. The captain makes two announcements, one in English and one in Swahili. The view out my window is that of a desert spotted with lush tropical trees as the plane makes a few more rounds and finally touches down at the Kilimanjaro International Airport in Tanzania. I exit the cabin and take my first few steps on African soil. It’s been a difficult journey just getting here, months of preparation, vaccinations, language courses, and fundraising. But the most difficult task is ahead of me. I’ve come here with a group of volunteers from my local church, thirty-five in total, to construct a building dedicated to saving lives. It is an eye clinic, and nowhere on the planet is there a more desperate need for an eye clinic than Mwanza, Tanzania.

There are several traditional African tribes living in the shadow of Lake Victoria, where Mwanza is located. These are groups of people who to this day are led by witch doctors and superstition. In these tribes, it is the woman’s duty to collect firewood for cooking and heating in unventilated mud huts. When they get too old to go out and chop down trees, they will often resort to burning cow dung. Toxins released in burning coupled with the old age of the women will very often cause cataracts. To the witch doctors of certain tribes, cataracts are seen as a sign of demonic possession. It is not uncommon to hear of women being trapped in their homes for years out of fear of being seen and targeted by members of her own tribe. When such an observation is made by these spiritual leaders of the tribe, the woman will be led out of her home in the middle of the night, taken far away from the village, and hacked to death with machetes.

In America cataracts are hardly a serious issue. The surgery is a simple one, and has a 90% perfect recovery rate. But here in Mwanza even this simple procedure is a luxury that remains unobtainable even when facing death. There are optometrists and ophthalmologists from all around the world willing to volunteer their time and talents to benefiting the needy in Africa. Our mission is to give them an eye clinic to work out of.

I am just a boy of sixteen at the time. I have been outside my country, but never my continent. A strange mix of fear and excitement is brewing inside me, probably the same feeling any traveler has when they find themselves suddenly immersed in a strange new culture. But underlying all this is a conviction stronger than any I’ve ever felt in my life. I have a goal to achieve, the noblest task I’ve ever undertaken. I’m still young, and I don’t understand exactly what it means for me to be here. What I do know is that it’s good that I’m here, having this experience and making the most of my efforts.

The roads are rough and dusty as we make our way to the Nyakato Health Clinic. It doesn’t have the proper qualifications to call itself a hospital yet. They lack the staff and the facilities to request a subsidiary from the government. It is nearing sun-down, and around us as we exit the bus are half-finished buildings and astounding exotic brush that must look as common to the locals as petunias look to our suburban church group. Many have come before us, any many will come after us. It is an ongoing project funded and built by volunteers from all over the Americas and Europe, and this week it’s our turn.

I will be staying in one of the completed buildings that have yet to see medical use. The Patricia Ward was named for an elderly benefactor, one so dedicated to the hospital that it would one day become that she had requested her ashes be mixed with the concrete foundation. It will someday be an isolation ward for infectious patients who cannot be kept in the main building. But for now, it is a sleeping quarters for incoming volunteers.

The room is plain. Not much has been done with the interior, as construction remains the primary focus. There is a gurney to the side draped with an overhead mosquito net. Malaria is a very common disease here, carried by nocturnal insects, and the daily precautionary pills can only do so much.

The day begins, and with it construction. Building on the equator is sweltering, and by the end of the first day we have the frame for a single wall completed. Day two sees the completion of two more walls and signs that our acclimation is nearing completion. By day four we have all the external walls in place, and begin work on the rooms and halls. The support beams for the room are up on day six, and on day seven – our final day of construction – the frame of the building is complete. It’s far from habitable at this point. Three months would pass before I would receive word that the eye clinic was completed by another church group, one in a line of three that had worked on it since our contributions. But at the time, we were all filled with such an immense sense of pride at having done all we could do. Markers were passed around and blessings and scripture verses were written on the wooden frame, messages that would eventually be covered with concrete and dry wall. The next team would see it, though. And perhaps they would pass on the blessings to the next team. And even when the messages we wrote on those rough wooden planks have been hidden for decades, maybe someone, somewhere, will remember the effort and good will we poured into those blessings with every bit of conviction that we poured into the construction of the building itself. I know that I will never forget the time I spent in Africa, doing everything within my power to let the lost see the light.