 |
| Villagers dance across a new concrete bridge in Mwika near Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. / Courtesy of Young Hoy Kim Kimaro |
By Young Hoy Kim Kimaro
.jpg) |
"What? Snow just 3 degrees south of the equator? Impossible! Perhaps the good missionary was hallucinating from a malaria attack." It wasn't till 12 years later that a special expedition confirmed Rebmann's surprising discovery.
Yes, despite its proximity to the equator, Mount Kilimanjaro's peak is snowcapped. Depending on how much rain fell the night before, the extent of the snow coverage on its peak varies.
Glaciers that had once covered the summit have dwindled in size considerably. Some even predict the snow cap may well disappear before the end of this century.
Plentiful rainfall (annual average precipitation of 1,200 millimeters) and the melting snow have corrugated Mount Kilimanjaro's slopes with numerous springs and streams. To cross them, villagers have typically built footbridges with tree trunks and wooden planks.
These bridges do fine when they are new. But high humidity and frequent rains causes wood to rot away fast. Bridges weakened thus wash away in flash floods, leaving villagers stranded until another wooden footbridge replaces the lost one. That could take months.
When bridgeless, villagers must take long, circuitous detours, maybe 40-50 minutes on foot to reach their destination which may be within view just across the stream. Children who are too young to walk such long distances alone can miss school for months and the sick at home without treatment.
Being one of the frequent users of a footbridge, Anence Kawiche, the head librarian at the Mwika Community Library and also a Rotarian, is painfully aware of the situation.
She educated fellow Rotary members and steered her Club to take a deeper look into how easily rotting wooden footbridges affect the lives of people in Mwika.
With fellow Rotarians and local leadership, she surveyed more than half of its streams and took note of those which provide critical access to dispensaries, schools, clean water sources, and the central market where villagers sell their farm produce.
When Anence became the Club President, she took it as her mission to start replacing wooden footbridges with concrete ones, one at a time. Since July last year to date, three new bridges have been built. These very first concrete footbridges in Mwika were funded through none other than the Ewha connection!
When I was attending the 50th reunion of the class of 1964 at Ewha Girls High School, Mrs. Kang Soon-ja, the then head mistress of the school, pledged $3,000. Donations from Mrs. Kyoung Hoy Kim Cho and her two sons added enough money for two more concrete bridges.
A little diversion which I cannot resist … Mrs. Cho is a dear older sister of mine who is also an Ewha alumni. She was very much into speed skating while at Ewha High School.
At age 16 she was selected to compete for Korea in speed skating at the Winter Olympics. Little did she know then that she was the very first Korean female athlete to participate in the Olympics.
Though in her mid-70s now, she was one of the Olympics torch bearers at the opening of the PyeongChang Winter Olympics in South Korea earlier this year.
At the start of each footbridge, Anence and her fellow Rotarians make a point of meeting with villagers to verify first of all that a concrete footbridge is indeed their priority and to ask what they themselves were ready to contribute to make it happen.
They invariably offered stones, gravel, sand and labor. They collected these materials and carried them to the site. Villagers also cleared the pathway to the footbridge.
As president of her Rotary Club, Anence was to cut the ribbon at the official opening of the new concrete footbridge. Instead, she invited the village chairman to do the honors.
He took the scissors, cut the ribbon and lifted up his arms triumphantly to the rousing cheer from his villagers. Then the villagers followed him across the newly opened bridge with dancing steps.
The parish priest Mlay added, "This bridge belongs to our children and our children's children. For them we must all do our part to keep it in good shape," he said. Villagers gave another rousing cheer.
Three footbridges have been completed so far, all through the Ewha connection; two more are lined up with a donation from Yesoon Chang and the Ewha class of 1964.
Thereafter two Rotary-funded bridges will follow, one each from Rotary Clubs of Chico and Santa Rosa in California. That covers about one quarter of the concrete footbridges Mwika needs.
A small step as a starter which will hopefully add one at a time to make a big difference to the lives of people in Mwika. Anence surely won't stop here till she sees that all the people of Mwika can cross its many streams safely in all seasons.
The writer (youngkimaro2015@gmail.com) resides on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. She worked for the World Bank for nearly 30 years.
