Dennis, my associate and our solar coordinator in TZ, and I are on the road in rural Tanzania. We are identifying final solar sites for installation, talking to schools, arranging for the sizing for the systems, and purchasing components, as well as arranging for accommodation food, planning the exact route for the students’ travel, etc. As we travel across the bumpy roads, these thoughts come to mind...
My thoughts are a metaphor of ‘Crossing the Timeline':
Ever since I came first to Tanzania almost 2 years ago, I have been asking myself the same question – the critical question. A question that I am sure some of the students are asking themselves as they prepare for the trip. ‘Why are we coming to this far away country to deliver aid?” and "Why are we spending all of our time, money and other precious resources in this project"?
And the problem is that when we first arrive to TZ, to Dar Es Salaam. We see the glitz and glammor, in certain places very much the same thing we can see in almost anywhere in the world: we see expensive cars, nice hotels, shopping malls, and everything else. When we come to Iringa, and as I was sitting at breakfast, having breakfast with the European businessmen with their laptops and blackberries in our fairly comfortable hotel, we do not see a need for aid.
So, the question arises, 'Why do we come to deliver aid?' In cities and towns like Dar and Iringa, we have nice rooms, with bathrooms, and almost all the luxuries of the rest of the world- including our laptops and internet connections with the rest of the world. So, we certainly did not come to places like Iringa and Dar to deliver help; because, people here have a reasonably comfortable standard of living.
But we did come to deliver help to those areas in the interior of these regions such as Iringa. Only less than 1 hour away from Iringa – a mere 20 or 30km on bumpy dirt roads, at a certain point we cross an invisible line; a timeline from the present to the past. When we go to places like Idodi or to Kecombo High School, somewhere along the road we will venture from the ordinary world into a life not just like 100 years ago, but to a lifestyle that can be compared to the lifestyle in the United States or other countries of 200 – 300 years ago. So, at some point, we will go through this bubble, cross over the 'membrane' from present into the past. When we get there, we are going to see villages, schools, and hospitals that might as well be 200 years ago. And, that is where we are delivering aid.
We bring aid to those people, who in most cases have lost the communication with the present and to the rest of the world. We want to bring to them the first tool of communication- electricity. We bring electricity to enable them to have lights at night, to play radios, and get news and communication to the rest of the world. It is that timeline that attracts me to Tanzania and the Africa. And I hope that the students will also experience the fulfillment and the thrill which comes from bringing help to those beyond the boundary; to those who have been forgotten and have been left in the past.
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