De Road, De Road...Oh Wait! De Bridge De Bridge

Let's play the age game.  I am guessing most of my readers are old enough to remember a show from the late 70's to early 80's called Fantasy Island that aired on ABC.  The concept was simple, the wealthy (normally though some story lines indicated you paid according to your means) paid to have their fantasy fulfilled on this wonderful little island run by the mysterious Mr. Roarke but was typically associated with his sidekick who would run and yell "De Plane, De Plane" when a new group of passengers were arriving.  

When I first started coming to Tanzania in 2001, they were starting a major road project across the country.  At the time very little of it was done-let's say 3%.  In 2006 there was progress but still a long way from completion.  Each year after that more of it was done until I arrived in January and was happy to find that all the major roads were completed which means I travel from Arusha to Singida on mostly paved roads (proper road substructure is not a concept the Chinese have yet grasped) and part of my trip to the valley is on paved roads.

A couple of weeks ago another surprise which I mentioned in that week's blog.  They started road construction near the Full Dimension Ministry site from the Boabab tree where I catch the bus to just beyond our clinic and plans to eventually go to Igunoguno.  Now I realize that really does not mean a lot to everyone so I downloaded some Google maps to see if I can help make it clearer.

In the above picture the blue (I think it is) line shows the current route taken.  The small line under it is the currently paved road.  The sharp turn towards the GPS location marker is where the Boabab tree bust stop is located and the location marker is where our site is.  The yellow line is where the new road will eventually go.  They intersect at Igunoguno which is on one end of the valley.

The yellow line shows what has been graded to date and the red line would be the future planned connector to the back side of our site.

The small blue line shows where the future connector to the back of our site would be and yes that is how close the new road is to our site.

The standard project sign which like most government functions is all in English.

Some images of the graded work to date.  So you can understand I got excited much like Tattoo on Fantasy Island hence the "De Road, De Road"

But wait this week I go out and they are working hard on the first of two bridges necessary to cross over the river beds.  It appears it will be a full concrete footing all the way across for water to flow over with a front face footing to protect from water getting under the main structure after soil erosion.

In addition they had dumped truck loads of dirt all along the road, which one can assume is for the building up of the road and creating a suitable substructure.  But like I said that concept of suitable substructure has escaped most of those that worked on the Chinese constructed roads.  Most of the piles are filled with non-suitable boulders too large and large amounts of organic material which if not separated out will rot over time creating voids.

 With the excitement over this new road construction and all it can mean to the site, I recall in 2006 a discussion among team members of whether all the road construction was a good thing or a bad thing.  All of it meant more opportunities, more chances, access to more things.  Selling items from the harvest are much easier than once when you had to wait on traveling crews to come buy your items.  Going to a post high school education is much easier now allowing for more opportunities in education.  But it also brought issues:  higher rates of unemployment in the hub cities as people continuously travel there looking for a brighter future, more transient behavior of looking elsewhere for the next opportunity which typically means less family structure. This has lead to a rise in STDs and unwed pregnancies.  

Now I am reminded that on every show as Mr. Roarke would tell Tattoo about each guest's fantasy there would always be the hint that it would not turn out the way the thought.  Being a show of the 70's and 80's that meant a moral story of them finding what they really needed instead of the fantasy they desired.  

I pray that the advancement of real opportunities are not overshadowed by the desires of the proverbial "greener grass."  In other words that our ministry can affect the changes to be more positive than negative.