Bringing hope to Africa

He was meant to go to Sudan but escalating dangers in the war-torn country blocked his trip. The next stop for Christian Aid representative Paul Chambers was Tanzania, where he travelled with the charity's south-west regional organiser, Robert Pearce, to see its lifesaving work in action. Here Paul shares some poignant extracts and pictures from his African diary IT IS LATE evening, 24 February, and I find myself a good mile or so nearer heaven than is normal or with what I am comfortable. I don't like to fly - the idea of such a hulk of metal staying in the air for so many hours is beyond my understanding - and consequently, over the years, a world of fear rushes into my existence every time I step inside one of these airborne communities for a few hours.

I am travelling with Marion and Robert and have left behind a world I care about deeply to once again visit one that is part of my own and yet somehow distant and somewhat removed. A place that has become to me, in the words of rock star Bono, the most regal of countries: Africa. Tanzania to be precise.

Sometimes we have to look beyond the troubles of our own. We're all lonely - the world keeps on turning even as we stand withering away - but there are some people who are not able to fight their own battles. In blunt terms, they have no voice. Actually, that's not particularly accurate: they do have a voice, it's just that it's very, very faint and nobody seems to be listening - even worse many don't even care. When you are frozen out of all the conversation around you. When you're worth only 10% of all your possessions, then, I suppose, you need some help, you need someone to be on your side, because lifetimes can't be lived out in a day. A mournful sigh echoes in the dark 35,000ft above North Africa as I think of the task ahead.

Arrival

I awake rather confused. I rarely sleep on planes. Yet somehow (miraculously even) I seem to have been out for the count for some four or five hours. I'm grateful, although I did miss a glorious sunrise, complete with Mount Kilimanjaro poking her head through the clouds.

Having left a freezing Heathrow an hour late due to the de-icing of our steel carriage (the temperature had been minus two degrees), we walk off the plane and into a blast of hot air. It's 7.25am and 28 degrees already. By midday, it will have risen to 38. I am taken aback at how less exuberant Tanzania is compared with Ghana (maybe it's an east coast thing). There's no pushing, shouting and grabbing of bags, just a laid-back 'jambo? jambo' (welcome? welcome).

After a simple and brief tour of Dar e Salaam, Robert, Marion and I find a bar and talk of what we have seen. Robert was first here 25 years ago and is dazed at how developed Dar now is. There does seem to be a rather strange juxtaposition, though. I for one started to feel a little uneasy. It's as if (even with the development) some part of a rich culture has somehow disappeared, as if old wine had been poured into new wine skins. I think it has much to do with a language that finds itself devoid of meaning. Or as Shiva Naipaul more eloquently observes, 'progress that has been confused with possession'.

As the first day draws to an end, I sit in a bar and listen to a couple of guys serenading their captive audience of 15 with what I can describe only as a cross fertilisation of African and Cuban rhythms ? I think about this as I quaff a few beers. It's good, I conclude, to be back on this great continent.

Day seven: The tyranny of distance: malaria

I am becoming very aware of certain contradictions and complications facing the work of development agencies. There is a difficulty to enact effective programmes for sustained periods in the rural areas of places such as Tanzania rather than the urban cities. This is mainly due to the huge number of people who live there. In Tanzania, 85% of the population lives in the countryside and this does beg the real question of what aid and development can and can't do. In truth, it has its limits.

We meet The Diocese of Central Tanganyika Dodoma Region, which has been in partnership with Christian Aid since 1998. We take a 100km drive north over the kind of terrain Chris Rea must have had in mind when he wrote 'The Road to Hell' to meet people whose lives have been changed and shaped by the projects Christian Aid funds through its partners. As I gaze out of our window, I see a weary, worn people desperate to carve a life out of this rural jungle. Even in open space, this wilderness is claustrophobic. Bits of wood, mud, tin and stone thrown together are the ingredients of that sacred space called community.

I'm beginning to understand that real poverty is not about having a home or any food or clothes. It is where there are no choices. As we drive to our destination, we pass through a dust village, where children at best walk around in old dirty underwear. I realise that this community has been robbed of the greatest seed planted deep within each of us - choice. I have lost count of how many children I have seen with a lost, distant look in their eyes. They look for a tomorrow that may never come, somehow dazed, confused and exhausted by their very existence.Arriving at Chendee, we continue with the now common custom of signing the village visitors' book. It becomes an 'in-joke' smiley moment, but to the people of the places we visit, it is important. The signatures become a sign of hope, proof that there is somebody real and tangible in this world who not only cares for their plight but, more importantly, is willing to do something to make a difference.

Over the next few hours, we see how the projects are helping improve the low agricultural productivity, malnutrition, particularly in children under five, environmental degradation and the shortage of water supply to cover the 8,405 rural households in the eight villages in Lamaiti area of the Dodoma Region.

Tragically, no matter how good the knowledge and ideas for development are, if the rains don't come, the crops fail and sadly that is what has happened with much of the maize plantations of Chendee.

Fortunately last season was better and the people can live off their stored resources, but if the rains should fail again? Well, I don't think you need me to explain what will happen. Neema, while being an upbeat, 'glass half-full' lady, knows this all too well. It obviously troubles her, you see it in her eyes.

Then something happens that catches me completely off-guard and disturbs me to the core. An explosion deep within me like some kind of spiritual depth charge takes place. I suspect my life will never be the same because of it. Moleni Ndumizi walks towards us with her four children. We are told her youngest, Elea, who is three years old, is unwell. I have a two-year-old back home and at this point I just assumed, in my western mindset, he had some virus and would be well again in a few days. So, when Moleni uncovered him to show us her boy and he began to vomit so much that he passed out and had to be carried into the shade to have water poured over him, I realised it was something a little more serious. Little Elea has malaria and he needs medicine - quickly. The trouble is this costs money, something Moleni doesn't have, and it's a 15km walk in 38-degree heat to the medical centre.

In this moment, my soul becomes thirsty for the intimate embrace of compassion, mercy and justice. I long to hold my own boy and not let him go. I put my hand on Elea and look into his eyes and I wonder how we came to this - and more poignantly, I wonder how long he has to live.

The enormity of what I am seeing finally gets the better of me and I have to walk away. Life is painfully tenuous and fragile here.

We quickly drive them the 15km to the medical centre at Lamaiti. There, she gets the drugs her boy so desperately needs and the partnership (DCT) pays for those that need money. Relief is tangible. Sadly, though, this won't be the end of the story. Elea will need more drugs and it may not always be possible to obtain them. Robert gently says what we all know but don't want to admit: that little Elea may not be here the next time DCT visits Chendee.

My detached state of mind is brought back to reality in the sights and sounds of the Lamaiti tribe as they welcome us with songs and dancing. The lead dancer is wearing a stunning bright red tunic for the opening village number, before changing into a fluorescent lime vest and a wig. The reason behind this is lost on me. This goes on for some time, much to the frustration of Stanley, general manager of DCT Dodoma, though he does have to admit he's never seen the Lamaiti people give this kind of welcome to anyone before.

The programmes here are in their early stages and although it is difficult to assess the success of the agricultural productivity - due to the unpredictability of the elements rather than the projects - it seems that there are successes. Training has been given to improve farming methods, which, with the help of Mother Nature, allow an improvement in nutrition, particularly in children. The provision of small loans was introduced in late 2004 and training on dairy goat-keeping has been very well received, to the point where one child whose mother is unable to breastfeed, now has a real chance of survival if he drinks goat's milk. The priority groups are the most vulnerable ones: widows in particular and those who inhabit poor homes (those with fewer than three bags of food per season).

It's a three-year grant from Christian Aid which looks to be heading in the right direction. Effective results for the community to nurture a better way are beginning to help conserve and manage land resources, to found and direct community leadership, improve water supply? and improve the health of the 35,960 people of these eight villages through primary health care, especially awareness of HIV and Aids.

Day 11: Shattered life: HIV/Aids

Every day 8,000 people die of HIV. Three thousand children become orphans. Fourteen thousand more people are infected. Only 5% of HIV-positive people who need help get it and world governments spend US$2.6bn on defence.

Today was the day I had been looking forward to and dreading. I had never before spent time and listened to the stories of people infected with the awful disease of HIV/Aids. Tanzania is among countries in Africa where there are reports of increased risks of HIV infection in women as a result of violence during sexual encounters with family.

This is not what I expected to hear (even though I wasn't really sure what I would learn this day). We are informed of women and girls being raped by 'husbands and sundry'. We are told of bad traditions and other violent acts, all of which fuel the spread of HIV infection to the innocent women we meet (and thousands more we don't).

We are spending a couple of days with The Anglican Church of Tanzania, one of Christian Aid's long-standing partners in Tanzania. It is composed of 16 dioceses throughout the country. Its vision is a holistic one, calling for an integrated mission of the Church to cater for the needs of all in the community, regardless of race or religion.

HIV/Aids is one of the top priorities of the ACT programme. Its objectives are to increase awareness of the pandemic, particularly to train religious leaders (of different faiths) to teach the basic facts, as opposed to the misconceptions most people have regarding HIV/Aids. Pastoral counselling and home care are an essential part of the rehabilitation of people suffering from this disease. The dignity of humanity is of paramount importance. What is needed (and what we hear is happening) is that real, positive change is giving more power and confidence to women, which brings a culture of change that transforms relations between men and women within communities at all levels of society.

Through education and courage to challenge systems, which bring social and legal reform, a greater awareness banishes ignorance to the backwaters of culture and empowers people, particularly women, in this struggle. In short, it allows hope. The work of ACT is giving birth to a remarkable self-realisation for these broken women of Tanzania. From the misery of self-estrangement and hopelessness, they now see a horizon of a new beginning - even from within their illness.

Yet when you look deeper into the reasons why, you realise that the problem is not just about Aids - it's about poverty. As photojournalist Don McCullin says: 'This isn't just a medical situation. It's a combination of things. But the primary cause is poverty, which leads to hunger and despair.'

Neema takes us to Huduma Afya Maendeleo Kwa Watu Wanndishi Vinavyosababisha Ukimwi, which is a centre for Aids victims to gather together for support, education, friendship and love. These ingredients allow something very special to take place - the dignity of life. We meet a group of women, all of whom have tragic stories to tell, all of whom are living with full-blown Aids, all of whom (bar one) will be leaving children behind when they die - this, they say, is the hardest part of living with the disease. I stop writing at this point because there are no words to describe how I feel.

Conclusions

I have heard Christian Aid described as 'Christianity with its sleeves rolled up'. I like this description. Christian Aid works in the poorest communities in more than 50 countries around the world. I have been deeply moved and impressed by how this development agency has acted through its partners, regardless of religion, helping people tackle the problems they face and build the life they deserve. I am more convinced than ever that we need to continue, at home and overseas, to campaign to change the structures that keep people poor, challenging inequality and injustice.

Christian Aid is making a difference - I have seen this first-hand in both east and west Africa - development work bypasses corrupt governments and finds its way, through local partners, to the poor who need it most.

I promised I would tell their story, to speak for those who have no voice, to fight for truth and justice and to lift the downtrodden. My wish is that we embrace this crisis together and bring some grace to the lives of those who have so little. I return with hope. I have seen the beginnings of good news, the reliance of each on the other and the care that we can bring to our neighbour. It will be by such incremental gains that the struggle of the poor will be overcome.