Eva's Birthday

This lovely lady just turned 6 years old!! We still haven't found birthday candles, but she didn't seem to mind ;-)

In this picture you can see (from left to right) Franky (Eva's eldest brother), Sadam (next-door neighbor), Tabitha (friend of mine), Eva, and me :-)

Camp Consolidation

These are picture from Kanembwa Camp, the camp which is being closed. Roughly 10,000 are being moved to Nduta Camp or to Burundi. These are photos of the people moving to Nduta camp.

Families must destroy their homes before they depart becuase the land is being handed back to the TZ government and they want to regenerate the forests here. In order to make space for trees, the houses must be taken down. Refugees are burning and tearning down their houses. Pictured above is a group of houses and you can see that the roof of one is on fire.

These children are waiting with their parents and belongings for the moving trucks to come. The trucks will take them to Nduta where they will live in temporary shelters till they erect and move into new, temporary mud shelters.

Loading belongins onto trucks...

A partiall destroyed house.

Camp consolidation

Currently TCRS has two camps, Kanembwa and Nduta, but we are in the process of closing Kanembwa camp and moving those residents to Nduta. Anywhere from 800-2400 people are being moved each week.

The new Nduta residents must start their lives over again. They stay in temporary shelters while they build mud houses. This process is expected to last 5 days, but it's taking longer because of materials shortages.

Children at one of the temporary housing centers. Most of their parents are either cooking, cleaning, or building their new mud house.

Children in the foreground and two of the six shelters in the background.

The inside of one of the shelters. Mats and matresses line the walls. Possessions are stacked in the middle.

The wood pile in the foreground is a combination of shutters, tables, and chairs that the refugees brought from Kanembwa. In the background you can see cloth tents. Some of the refugees erected their own shelters outside of the large tents.

Beautiful faces: Part III

Beautiful Faces: Part II

Shots of Burundians preparing to return to their country...

IRC Youth center at Nduta Camp

These are pics from the youth center the IRC runs in Nduta camp. At the center, kids can play games, listen to music, and recieve training of HIV/AIDS as well as microenterprises. They do a great job of providing a space for girls, who are often pushed to the margins.

Children of youth who attend the center. A woman who attended basket weaving at the center displaying finished products

Same woman from a different angle

Woman participating in hair braiding lessons. Essentially they are training to be hairdressers.

Women attending cooking classes at the center. They are learning to make bread.

Same women.

Women observing the cooking classes.

Women observing the cooking classes.

Beautiful faces: Part I

At the moment, I'm in Dar es Salaam and have a wonderful internet connection! I decided to take advantage of it by putting up more pictures. Since I'm not getting a lot of new photos at the moment I will post old shots, so these are not in any sort of chronological order.

The title of the post says it all: these are beautiful faces! Some of the shots are re-posts, and I hope you enjoy them as much now as you did the first time.

This child is the grandson of one of my co-workers.

This is Ketchu, the oldest child in the Nkya family. After Mrs. Nkya died, she began to act as the mother of the house. She's getting married in December!

Another picture of Eva, my 5 year old neighbor. Isn't she adorable! She knows how to pose for the camera ;-)

This is a shot of Sarari (far left), Eva, Sadam (base of the pyramid), and Willy (top). Pretty creative huh? Thankfully no one fell ;-)

This is one of the guards who watches the compound where we live. Sadly, I don't remember his name.