Malaria, Water and Language: Issues That Matter To A Volunteer

By Lauren Pelascini
CRS Volunteer, Tanzania

I have come to be with the people of Africa. Live it and breathe it, and not try to change it.

I learned how to roast peanuts and make chipati with a young Tanzanian girl. I made my first visit to the used clothing market. I visited people living with HIV. I attended the wake of a coworker’s brother and a Tanzanian baptism. I witnessed Ramadhan celebrations. I carried water into the house every day.

I have battled round two of malaria. I had no running water for ten days. And I experienced constant language misunderstandings.

How many people back home will ever understand what it is like to pass out with malaria in an African city?

Will people back home ever have to leave a bucket outside to collect rain water to bathe with?

Will people back home ever have to badger someone to translate and then decipher the spiral logic?

It is a privilege to experience these things.

I am experiencing a tiny fraction of what an average person in Mwanza, Tanzania experiences every single day of their life. It is not pretty, and it is certainly not as romantic as it is made out to be. But it is a blessing.

In these seemingly strenuous struggles, incredible revelations have emerged. I have come to be with the people of Africa. Live it and breathe it, and not try to change it.

I have been introduced to some of the problems other Africans deal with their entire lives.

To have a truly authentic African experience I will need to grapple with these issues of health, water and communication.