Your Stories

The final report from Andrew Plant as he travels with Dr. Sue Wilson and two of her colleagues from the Tumaini Fund:

Thursday 9th February

I spent most of yesterday feeling quite sorry for myself, with fingers crossed that I wouldn't have to go to the local hospital. I won't go into details...but needless to say the tummy bugs over here don't mess around. But I'm feeling much better today, I've just not eaten and had a lot of rehydration sachets and I'm feeling okay.

Other than feeling unwell, what did you get up to over the weekend?

Over the weekend we did a lot of filming for the documentary that's going out on the 17th February, just after the normal Spotlight news at 6.30pm.

Yesterday, for example, a woman came in who had walked 40 kilometres, and it was extremely hot yesterday, and she wouldn't have had any water. She came in to request that the Tumaini charity appeal help her with her house. I think she'd been taken off her land. What Tumaini will now do is try to secure her land rights for her with the government, and then it will probably build her a house.

The thing is I know she's made the journey before. But the last time she tried to walk the 80 kilometre round-trip, she was bitten on the foot by a snake and couldn't walk for two months. And I really think that illustrates just how many times people over here get kicked. Life kicks them so much, they're just used to it, and I think Tumaini is really helping a lot of people to cope with situations that they wouldn't be able to cope with otherwise.

You're coming to the end of your time in Tanzania - what will your abiding memories be?

This will be my last broadcast and this time tomorrow, all being well, we should be on a plane to Nairobi. I've seen situations that people are in that you just couldn't imagine. It really is impossible to emphasise just how much HIV has ravaged this region. I think probably the best way to get a good impression of that will be to watch the documentary because to see it with your own eyes is the only way to really understand what's going on here.

What about the work of the Tumaini fund? You've talked a lot about the situation there, which at times seems almost hopeless, but as long as people like Dr. Wilson and her team are getting involved, presumably there is some hope?

We're in Rwanda right now, we've come across the border this morning and we're almost at the capital Kigali. They've got the same weather here, the same crops, but you can instantly see as soon as you cross the border, it's a much more affluent place.

After the genocide finished here, just over a decade ago, the world's eyes turned on Rwanda and ever since then it's been up and coming. Things are much better here and you can't ever imagine it going back to the state that Tanzania's in now.

So I think any outside help that comes to a place and just gives people a bit of a leg-up, to get past the basics, to get past spending every day searching for water and food, can only be a good thing. Tumaini's in it's very early stages, and without the support of Guernsey people, it could go either way.

See more in a special documentary:

If you want to see more about the work the Tumaini charity appeal is doing in Tanzania, there will be a special documentary by Andrew Plant on Friday 17th February after the Spotlight news at 6.30pm.