What a trip! I am safely in Dar es Salaam and have just finished interviewing Maggie Bangser, the Founder and Former Executive Director of Women's Dignity Project, based here in Tanzania. We have talked at length about her 25 years working on maternal health and her last 13 years or so on fistula and women's health and equity here in Tanzania. It is a fascinating story. I am thrilled to know that as an expert and as a member of our Grantmaking Advisory Council, that she supports our ongoing work to fund free fistula surgeries for women in need. To that end, I will be visiting one additional fistula repair facility here in Dar as well as interviewing a fistula surgeon who works in the Songaya district of Tanzania in a place called Peramiho.
Getting here was largely uneventful unless you count the number of electrical cords and adapters I had to pack to power video cameras, still cameras, microphones, and equipment to begin our research study at Bugando Medical Center. Seems ironic to head to a low resource country with so many cables; it took me an hour just to label them. But it is already worth it having just finished a very informative interview with Maggie.
It is humid here but feels great just to be grounded in Tanzania. Now if I could just get my supposed global phone to work.....a girl can dream. Pictures coming soon.....
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