Booking a trip to Africa

With luck, next summer I won’t be trampled by an elephant in Zimbabwe.

This particular terror has never been high on my concerns’ list. (Falling asleep during one of my own lectures is a much more frequent fear.) But then I got a note from an old college chum, Mark Grashow. In 2002 he and his wife Sheri Saltzberg were attending a wedding in Zambia. Not far away in Zimbabwe is Victoria Falls. As he was a recently retired teacher (mathematics, Lincoln High School in Brooklyn) and she from a career in public health, it was suggested that they visit a school while in the area. What he saw was out of a Dante canto. “The school had no books, no pencils, no paper, no desks, no blackboards, no chairs, nothing.” He knew that schools in America throw out thousands of used books every year. It was almost an algebraic equation. There had to be some way to get the two together. So that was the dream. I dream too, but Mark and Sheri also had the will.

Upon returning to the States they organized an NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) the U.S.-Africa Children’s Fellowship Program. Schools in New York are partnered with schools in Zimbabwe and Tanzania. But they had to commit for three years, donating all old textbooks, library books and other materials no longer in use, packed and labeled. Students in the American schools are asked to donate pencils, pens, notebooks and children’s books, art supplies, toys, games, toiletries, sneakers, sports uniforms and musical instruments. Sometimes specific items are requested. One day there was a bicycle drive. Students brought their old bikes to a waiting U-Haul truck. Seventy bicycles were collected in a single day. (The school athletic uniform drive may have been too successful. Reports have reached Brooklyn of five Zimbabwe soccer teams showing up for a match, each wearing the colors of Abraham Lincoln HS.) Students are encouraged to engage in an ongoing pen pal program and schools to raise money for shipment of supplies to Africa. These are shipped over in containers at a cost of about $11,000 to Zimbabwe and $10,000 to Tanzania. Each school is encouraged to raise $400.

There are three permanent 40-foot containers in the back parking lot of Hanger B in Floyd Bennett Field. Donated materials are brought there pre-boxed. The containers hold about 1,500 boxes weighing about 40,000 pounds. Four times a year the materials are brought by ship to Africa, escorted by Mark and Sheri who supervise the distribution of the contents. Bill Clinton in his new book “Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World” devotes a section to the effort. And his foundation donated $25,000 to the cause.

So far the program has partnered with 100 schools. Libraries have been created; classes have textbooks; the passing rate of the 7th grade reading exam has risen from 5% to 60%; art classes have been organized where none existed before; the population of many kindergartens has more than tripled with the introduction of toys. Boys and girls are participating in sports impossible before because they had no balls, and had no shoes—in fact, students now with shoes can attend schools in the winter. Before it was too cold to walk that far.

There have been difficulties. Hyper-inflation is the order of the day. Steve Hanke, an economist with Johns Hopkins and the Cato Institute estimates that in the two years following January 2007 the rate of inflation is 89.7 sextillion percent (89,700,000,000,000,000,000,000%). What cost 1.00 Zambian dollar then cost 853,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.00 in November 2008. In this economy, combined with an epidemic of AIDS, and another of cholera, teachers are leaving the schools by the thousands. Students don’t bother to return after vacation because there are no instructors. So USACF started a new program. It pays $250 a year to high school graduates to cover “distance learning courses” as long as they agree to teach in one of the Zimbabwean schools. In four years they will earn a degree. Currently there are 40-45 students receiving these scholarships. More would if there were more money. Write me if you want to contribute; I’ll send you the address; USACF is a 501(c)(3).

Mark does not describe himself as a religious Jew, but he wonders what great force brought him to that school to observe it. I wonder if he’s not more Jewish than he thinks. There is the concept of Tikkun Olam reflected in his use as a credo “There’s a big planet out there. Someone’s got to fix it.” Well, I give money; he does things.

Which brings me back to being stepped on by a pacaderm. Mark organizes trips to his African schools. He’s invited his old college friends to join him, but he warns “the safari part (six days) is in tents. Elephants wander through the camp site at night.”

Next summer I hope to see with my own eyes the results of his Herculean efforts. I’ll report.