Meeting with Ward of Marangu West

January 18 — Monday is technically our ‘day off’ but we had to schedule a meeting with Rose Lyimo, the local Ward of Marangu West, which is the area where a lot of our children reside. Each Ward contains several villages and representatives of these villages were also at the meeting as well as the veterinary officer! This is an important position because of the dependance of the people on their animals. This was an important meeting for us as we wanted to establish our presence and work here with the local community leaders. It was a very productive meeting. Mrs. Lyimo read a speech she had prepared for us in English about her Ward and her role there; we all introduced ourselves, and we explained our purpose and work in Marangu West. Everybody present was very receptive to what we were doing, and the idea was floated for the creation of an ABCD-Marangu West committee to facilitate communication and sharing of the work of ABCD between us in Canada and these local leaders.

We also made a trip in the back of a pick-up truck to the local town of Marangu. It was market day and we shopped for carvings for ABCD to bring and resale back home at our fundraising events. We also purchased a couple of shirts for the new boys who have been added to the program. At a restaurant we met again a Norwegian woman, Tone Ellefsrud, who lives in Marangu and runs a clinic for children. This could be a valuable contact one day.