R&B superstar Kelly Rowland, formerly of Destiny’s Child, visited Dar-es-Salaam in June to present an MTV Staying Alive Foundation award to a former Tanzanian sex worker named “Eliza” who is now working to save the lives of her former peers. Ms. Rowland is MTV’s 2008 AIDS Awareness Ambassador for the Staying Alive Foundation.

The Staying Alive Foundation and the Tanzania Marketing and Communications for AIDS, Reproductive Health and Child Survival (TMARC) project both provide small grants to support local projects that reach people who are particularly at risk for HIV infection.

Eliza’s Sad Beginnings
Eliza was born in Iringa, and her father abandoned her mother and the family when Eliza was just a baby. When she was 12, her mother “sold” her to a family in Dar-es-Salaaam to work as a house girl. One day when Eliza was 14, the wife of the family went out, and Eliza was brutally raped and beaten by the husband. Bruised and battered, Eliza went to the police station to report what had happened to her, but the police refused to open the case without a bribe. As Eliza was leaving the police station, the wife and husband arrived and claimed that Eliza had been stealing from them, and Eliza was thrown in jail for six months.

After being released from jail, Eliza found her way to Uwanja wa Fisi (Hyena Square), a poor neighborhood in Manzese notorious for alcoholics, addicts and prostitutes. There Eliza met a young woman who invited her to stay in a guesthouse where she lived, and subsequently taught Eliza how to sell her body to men. Eliza managed to live and work under those circumstances for about four years, avoiding the drug use that felled many of her peers.

Despite the horrors of Hyena Square, Eliza had good moments. She cherishes a photo album chronicling a few happy times hanging out with friends. When Eliza shows that album now, she points out all of her friends who are gone – dead from AIDS, malaria, drug overdoses, or the many other diseases and afflictions that are associated with living and working in impoverished conditions. Along the way, Eliza tested positive for HIV. She was devastated at first, but eventually realized that she could live a healthy life by taking care of her health and taking the appropriate drugs.

The Light at the End of the Tunnel
One day, Eliza met some outreach workers from a local organization that had started a counselling booth for people in Hyena Square. She was inspired and started visiting them everyday, and eventually they invited her to join them in their rescue house. Eliza left her room in the guesthouse, started to think about her future, and before long was in the counseling booth, reaching out to her former colleagues with advice on how to escape the lifestyle and start over.

Now in her early 20s, Eliza serves as a role model for many young girls. The Staying Alive Foundation is funding her return to her home region of Iringa, where she will work with young women and their parents to help them understand the consequences of sending their daughters to be “house girls” in Dar es Salaam. She is also educating her community about the devastating consequences of sex work and the trials of HIV.

Kelly Rowland’s Journey to Hyena Square

Kelly Rowland (centre) and Eliza (right) at Uwanja wa Fisi (Hyena Square)

During Kelly’s visit, she spent time with Eliza and T-MARC staff at their office in Dar es Salaam and then toured Hyena Square meeting and interviewing other sex workers. Kelly spoke with many young women and shared that she grew up in a household with no father like many of them and understands that loss. She also shared that she believes in the power of faith and the perseverance to create a better life, just as she did for herself.

For more see http://www.staying-alive.org and https://pshi.aed.org/projects_tmarc.htm

Ivuna Meteorite

The Natural History Museum (NHM) in London have acquired the largest specimen of the Ivuna meteorite from a private collector in the United States of America.

The 0.7 kg meteorite landed near Ivuna, Tanzania, on December 16, 1938, and was subsequently split into a number of samples. Most of the other specimens are held by private collectors or by the Tanzanian government.

Ivuna is one of only nine known meteorites that are classified as carbonaceous chondrites. These meteorites contain “heavy elements” (i.e. elements other than hydrogen and helium) in nearly the same abundances as in the sun, which means that they are essentially unaltered since they were formed at about the same time as the solar system itself, some 4.6 billion years ago. In 2001, investigation by a team from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands, and the NASA Ames Research Center showed the presence in Ivuna of two simple amino acids, glycine and beta-alanine, and linked Ivuna with a likely origin in the nucleus of a comet.

‘Ivuna is a real-life time capsule that means we can look at the very first steps of how our solar system formed,’ said Dr Caroline Smith, meteorite curator at the Museum. ‘We hold one of the most comprehensive meteorite collections in the world, yet Ivuna has been a missing piece in the jigsaw.’

Ivuna will be a star specimen in a new meteorites gallery, which the NHM is planning for the near future. Before being put on display, the NHM’s Ivuna fragment will be taken to NASA’s Johnson Space Center, where a 20g piece will be removed and subdivided into two 10g pieces. One of these pieces will be set aside, while the other will be further divided into 200mg allocations for various teams of researchers to study.

In two years time 24 100m-plus-high power generators able to produce 50 MW of power (almost 10% of Tanzania’s current power needs) are due to have been erected in Nijapanda village in Singida region as part of the first commercial wind farm in sub-Saharan Africa. The company behind the $113m project is ‘Wind East Africa.’ “It’s important that Tanzania diversifies its power sources,” says project manager Mike Case. “The country is very reliant on hydro-electric power, which means that in times of drought, there is a power deficit. Oil-generated power is very expensive, so wind power offers a cheaper and more reliable alternative.”
The demand for power in Tanzania is growing by more than 50 MW a year, fuelled partly by an expansion of gold and nickel mining in the north of the country. At present, electricity is sourced from power plants more than 1000 kms away. This first wind farm will mean that power-hungry industries will soon be provided with electricity generated locally.
According to wind expert Dr Ladislaus Lwambuka, from the University of Dar es Salaam, Africa is now ready for wind power on a commercial scale. There are already plans, if the first phase of the project goes well, to double the number of wind turbines and increase Wind East Africa’s output to up to 100 MW – BBC News.
People braving torrential rain to see the Olympic Torch procession pass through Dar-es-Salaam
The Olympic Torch for the Beijing Olympic Games passed through Dar-es-Salaam as the only African leg on its world tour to reach China. Thousands of people turned out to watch the procession despite torrential rain and flooding. There were no reports of protests which have affected the other legs of the torches journey.

An article on the BBC NEWS website ( 10th April) describes how a small army of women are trying to restore the labyrinthine alleys and carved wooden doors of Zanzibar Stone Town. “Among them is 31-year-old Asma Juma, one of six Zanzibari women who have been trained to plaster. She is part of a team restoring a dilapidated old spice house which will be reborn as a tourist hotel. All the women have been taught by Vuai Mtumwa, who says that they all like the work because of their desire to renovate Stone Town. “They work hard, they come every day,” Mr Mtumwa says. “They are working like men. Some work they can’t do – they don’t climb the scaffold.” Mohammed Mughery, from the Zanzibar Stone Town Heritage Society, fears for the future of Stone Town. “Most buildings are made of coral stone and lime mortar. So they need to be attended often. Just a small crack if left will become wider and will lead to the collapse of the building.”
Although the heritage society is making its contribution by renovating the wall of an old trader’s house, there are still dozens of other buildings which need urgent attention. The women plasterers are ready to help out. They’re just hoping that the funds are provided before Stone Town disintegrates beyond repair.”