Photo Gallery

 Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro (images) 

Working as Financial Administrator on a Rice Irrigation Project, for  CIDA, in the Tanzanian bush; 100 miles from the closest telephone  (images and excerpts)

“In reality, the sort of problems that the Gender Issues people dealt with were related, not necessarily to increasing the proportion of women in the workplace, but alleviating the increased burdens placed on village women; already working their asses off. The brilliant expatriate men arrived, telling people how to reorganize their environment, to enhance crop production. They tended not to take into consideration that, when they eliminated a watering hole here, or a wood-lot there, they also created a situation where women (who did all the fetching and carrying) had to walk as much as 10 or 12 kilometres farther, in order to get firewood and water, every day! The 40 or 50 year-old women in the villages looked 60 to 80 years old. And they were still fetching and carrying and slogging in the fields, and cooking and washing, and minding kids.”

“. . . we had just pulled over to avoid hitting an old man walking along the road, when we had to pull over again, just in time to avoid a huge python coiled in the centre of our lane: right in the path of the old chap. While Lameck and I held on tight, Jovin turned the vehicle around and did a slow bump and grind over the snake, turned and repeated the exercise four or five times, before announcing, “Imekufa!” Dead as a doornail! With no moon or stars to provide light, the old man would surely have tripped over it in the dark and become reptile dindins.”

“Being new to the Project, he (Lameck) was an invaluable source of information regarding potential suppliers, and priceless as an interpreter. With his help, I had opened doors and made contacts and obtained information we would, otherwise, still have been digging for. He provided the added bonus of being someone with whom to discuss problems, such as the dumping of outdated equipment, machinery and medicines in Africa. And external agencies’ nasty habit of overcharging for technical services, and how much good, if any, those services were producing for Tanzania. And what a person from outside the country could do to help bring about change. On such topics, the Canadians, with the possible exception of David, were not in the least interested or concerned. Lameck thought I insulted God when I wore make-up or “dangly ear-rings,” so I tried to remember not to “insult God” Monday through Friday, when he was around. A small price to pay for the absolute devotion, loyalty, support and companionship I got from him.