Buy a window for Noel’s house.

8 08 2008

Our night watchman Noel has been building a house for his family. It has taken him 5 years so far, and he is nearing the final stages. All he needs is the glass for the windows. Samantha and I went to visit him at his old house, which is right next to his new house. It is a 10 minute walk from our house, through the shambas and banana groves on the side of the mountain. His new house is impressive. It has three bedrooms, is made completely out of cement, and when it is ready will be very comfortable. A dream for Noel and his family. Noel estimated that he can get the money together for the glass (about $450) in two years if there is no bad luck (funerals to pay for was the example he provided me when I asked). Samantha and I gave him half of the money so that he could get started. Of that half, half (a quarter of the total if you are counting) was a gift, and the rest he will pay off by bringing us fresh milk every night. He has two milking cows that his wife milks and takes the milk to sell.

Samantha and I are going to try to raise the other half by asking you to donate to Noel’s cause. Just use the donation button below that will take you to my Paypal account. If we can get about 20 people to give $10 each, we should be in great shape. Feel comfortable to donate as much or as little as you want. If you would prefer to send a check e-mail me and I can send you a US address that you can send a check to.

If you do make a donation make sure that you e-mail me or leave a comment here so that I know where the money is coming from. I would like to keep you informed with how Noel’s house is doing.

Thanks.

: Noel’s new house.

: Noel and his family. His wife Mary, daughters Winifred and Mageret, and an aunt.

: Winifred with the milk cow.

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Date : August 8, 2008
Categories : Arusha

4 responses

13 08 2008: Beth and Ian (02:34:12) :

Hi Guys….We donated $25.00 for the windows! Hope you are all well!

Reply
13 08 2008: Theresia Greca (10:15:16) :

Thanks for this initiative. I will donate $20 toward Noel’s house. I’ll need your contacts in Arusha as I’ll ask one of my friends to give the cash to you. Blessings.
Theresia

Reply
15 08 2008: Jennine (03:16:26) :

Hi Marcello, I made my donation to Noel’s windows! : ) I can’t remember if I emailed you about it yesterday or not….so, here is (another) note from me. Wishing you all well. Hugs and kisses to Sam and Sofia for me ; ) Love, Jennine

Reply
25 08 2008: Giorgio (11:34:43) :

Ciao guys, I sent $50.00 last week but I forgot to email you, better late than never.
Zia Kay says you are all fine. I presume you will have been told Malaika has scodellato “Pietro”
so the Bianchi’s are in turmoil! Ciao from Barbara too.

Reply

Books and Movies (I’m in bed by 9:30).

Confederates in the Attic- Tony Horwitz (1998)

This book has been around my mother's house in Italy for a couple of years. The cover features a photograph, aged and sepia-toned, of the most fierce looking man you have ever seen, seated and posing for the camera. It turns out that the man is a modern day Civil War re-enactor. He is "hard core", meaning that he goes to incredible lengths to be as authentic to the experiences that true Civil War soldiers endured. He carries (and eats) rancid bacon with him, sleeps in the pouring rain, marches barefoot for miles in search of true authenticity...The book is ultimately about the connection that the South feels to the Confederacy today, a connection that seems to be getting stronger. I have never been south of Cincinatti. This was all new to me.

Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1963)

Matt's donation again. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. died recently (a man in Arusha keeping you all up to date on cultural current events!), so I pulled this crumbling and yellowed paperback off my shelf. By chapter 2 (of 127!) the cover had fallen off. Soon I resorted to reading it like one peels a banana, discarding pages as I went. This is a book that left me wondering how beautiful it must be to have no filters, to write (or draw or whatever) with no concern about how ridiculous your creation might seem. So I won't write about the story, because it sounds ridiculous. In this book Vonnegut makes ridiculous images, events and characters into something beautiful. Rather Bokononist, perhaps.

The Conversation (1973) - starring Gene Hackman

Another of Matt's blind selections (blind to us). Matt is feeding us these great movies that we would NEVER have watched otherwise, and is giving us great cocktail party conversation. No more chatting inanely about the stunning flat note hit by the guy on Idol last night. Now I wax on for hours over a Tusker about about the terribly sad, desperate and lonesome men that are featured in Matt's films. Well, that is what I plan to do when I finally get to a cocktail party in my life. In this film Gene Hackman plays the above mentioned variety of man, a private detective/wiretapper by trade, who captures a conversation on tape that begins to affect him more and more as he listens to it, until it tips him over the edge. The usual Marello-sponsored descent into madness.

The Pawnbroker - Directed by Sydney Lumet, starring Rod Steiger

This came out of my collection without my knowing what the film was about at all. You see, I took Matt's 100 best films of all time and brought them all with me, not knowing what most of them are. It might have been a slapstick comedy with Jerry Lewis as the bungling pawnbroker. It isn't. This is an incredibly sad, powerful film of a Jewish pawnbroker in East Harlem slowly unraveling as his memories of losing his family in the holocaust begin to take over his mind. Rod Steiger is amazing, the music is beautiful (Quincy Jones), and the black and white photography of New York is great.

The Dragon Scroll - I.J Parker

Before leaving New York I bought a couple mystery novels. I have never really read mystery, so this intrigued me. The book features Sugawara Akitada, a young Japanese nobleman who has fallen on hard times. He spends the book trudging through 11th century Japan's muddy streets, defending honor (his own as well as other people's) and trying to solve a crime.

The Shape of Water - Andrea Camilleri

This is the other crime novel that I bought. Set in Sicily, it is the account of Ispettore Montalbano's efforts to understand and go after the local malefattori. The police and the criminals all work, of course, Sicilian style. My highlight of the book is that each time the Inspector comes home, he describes the meal that his maid has prepared for him. Managgia la miseria, they don't cook in Arusha like they do in Sicily.

Childhood's End - Arthur C. Clarke

Bradley gave me this, a fine old hardcover version, that I shipped across at book rate. I have never read sci-fi, but this was beautiful and sad. It is a great novel, set in a dark, Jetsonsy world.

A People's History of the United States - Howard Zinn

This came in my bags. I find that when I leave the United States I immediately suffer a strange nostalgia. Not for reality TV, nor for the re4st of the bullshit. Maybe for what might have been? I guess you have to get out of all of the crap to be able to see the beauty. Anyway, I read this compulsively.

Network (film, 1976) Faye Dunaway,William Holden,Robert Duvall

I think that this movie had a similar effect on me as Zinn's book. I now look at the United States from afar, and so the shocking relevance of Network's message (who does the media serve?) to today's western societies is even more glaring. Beyond that though, the movie is almost perfect in many ways, with really great writing and acting.

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