Lizzie's blog: Something Swahili

MUSOMA, Tanzania (CNN) -- Lizzie Cameron is in Musoma, Tanzania working with the Musoma Engineering Project.

The Musoma Engineering Project is the only charity of its kind in the region and aims to provide teaching and support for local disabled children and teenagers.

With this project, Lizzie will be helping support teachers with dressmaking, woodworking and leatherwork, as well as setting up a Web site, fundraising and campaigning for those with disabilities in the Mara region of Tanzania. Follow her experiences in her blogs and video diaries.

September 26, 2007
I've been in Musoma for almost two weeks now. Feel like I'm settling in pretty well.

The beginning of the week got off to a bit of a slow start as the first couple of days we were without electricity or running water. This was due to some really bad storms. I'd never heard thunder like it or seen such heavy rain; and I'm from Scotland!

On the up side, this gave me time to write some proposals and learn a few basic phrases in Swahili. I think I've just about mastered greetings, and the numbers one to 10 -- I have a long way to go!

The language barrier is what I'm struggling with most here. It makes it difficult to really get to know people and it is frustrating not being able to understand what others are saying. Hopefully, within a month or so I'll be able to hold a conversation.

Yesterday we drove out to see the plot of land that the Musoma Engineering Project (MEP) has recently bought. It is about a 15-minute drive from Musoma, in a rural area where the highest percentage of those with disabilities live.

In the future, the MEP would like to build a new workshop with classrooms where the children can be taught brail and sign language.

It is Dennis' ultimate goal to build a hospital for the disabled in the Mara region (Musoma is part of this area), where those with disabilities can go to get eye tests, hearing tests, glasses and hearing aids fitted, prosthetic limbs, wheelchairs etc. At the moment, the closest place that offers this is about a 14-hour drive, which is a near impossibility for someone with a disability to reach.

On the way back from visiting the plot we stopped off to see Peter -- a boy who, along with his brother, became blind after eating a poisonous cassava plant as a child. He has never had any mobility training, so has never traveled further than a few meters from his house since he was young.

Peter is unable to travel to the MEP school, so Dennis has set up some simple equipment at his home that enables him to extract fibre threads from the sisal plant. Peter's mum then turns the thread into rope, which they sell, at the local market.

Peter is one of many who suffered as a result of eating this plant. It took years for the cause to be identified.

The poisonous cassava plant, along with many other causes, has resulted in the Mara region having so many people with disabilities -- about 10 percent of the region's population suffer from some form of disability. So, not only is a new workshop and hospital required here, research into the causes of disability and community education is also really needed. E-mail to a friend