A Letter from Tanzania

Sr. Anne Cahill provides an update on education and the emergence of solar power in Mwamapalala

           Graduation Day at the English Medium OLA School in Bugisi, Tanzania.

I have been watching BBC over the past two days and our prayer for peace intensifies and is more heartfelt every day. Thank God we live among a peaceful and lovely people here in Tanzania. Since I last wrote we have had a General Election. Our president, John Magufuli, and his assistant are both upright men who are determined to rid the country of corruption. So far they are making progress. We need many like-minded leaders in our world of today! Our supply of electricity has also greatly improved and thanks to your help, we have acquired two more solar batteries and a solar panel. We are now blessed with light aplenty and solar energy, should the electricity be cut off. Solar torches are now all the go here! It is amusing to see two solar torches being charged on a thatched roof - old and modern side by side.

Did I tell you about John* before? He used to go to a secondary school which was a long distance away. To persue his education he decided leave home when in Form 11 and rent a single room (a shack) in a village bearby to the school. He brought a bag of maize flour with him to his room, and every day prepared his meals. Some days he would just have some green leaves or a little fish as his evening meal. Life was difficult for John.  We got to know John and with a little help from Ireland along with his own perseverance he made it through secondary school.  Soon after we provided some support and he did his A-levels. Again he succeeded. We then explained how that was all the help we could give him. John got a place in Mbeya University. Before he left for university, he went to Mwanza and worked for six months to get enough money to survive at university. He graduated last year and is now doing research for his MA! He succeeded because he was totally focussed and thanks to the generous support from funds raised in Ireland.

Anna*, an orphan, was helped by the OLA Sisters. She did so well in her A-levels that she was accepted to go to university and do her degree in nursing.  Anna is now in her second year and doing very well. You should hear her reflections as she looks back at the difficult times she encountered and how grateful she is of the  opportunity given to her by you and us.  Just now we have a boy, whom we sponsored in our own school, doing his A-levels with a view to studying medicine. Two girls are studying Chemistry and Biology.  Elsewhere, two others are training as assistant nurses and hope to continue their studies this October. Another boy was doing very well at our school until his father threatened withdrawing him from school due to financial problems. You should have seen his face light up when he looked at the receipt and knew he could safely continue his studies.   

We are still looking for rain. It seems the rice plants need lashings of it! We have had about three rains during February and the same for March but these rains are showers not tropical downpours. In the meantime we wait and watch the rice plants get yellow and dry up. I hope your floods have dried up. 

Love to all, good health and a multitude of blessings.

Sr. Anne

*Students names have been changed