By Steve Weatherbe

Always a serious outdoorswoman, Mary Hof made her first hiking foray overseas eight years ago.  Along with her husband Gerry and friends from Duncan, she tackled Tanzania’s Mt. Kilimanjaro.

The group conquered all 19,000 feet of the fabled mountain – but Africa itself conquered Mary’s heart. Ever since, she’s been raising money for a health clinic in the nearby village of Muungano – home to 3,000 members of the renowned Masai tribe.

“We hiked through the villages for a few days before taking on the mountain,” she recalled. Homesick and anxious about the climb, she visited the local Catholic church of St. Peter and St. Paul to pray. The pastor gave her a tour of the village.

“I was struck by the poverty, the smokiness of the homes, what they told us about the huge death rate of women in childbirth and of newborns, the 13 kilometres the women had to walk each way to get water,” she said. “There was so much need.”

Hof, a member of Duncan’s St. Edward the Confessor parish, resolved to raise funds for two years for a Muungano project. The goal was to build a health clinic for the village, starting with a well.

But once the well was built, there was the building, and then there was medical equipment, solar power and staff.  With each request, Hof ran more bottle drives and got herself into the local papers asking outright for donations.

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She and her donors – mostly from the Duncan area – helped dig the well, and buy a generator and a moped. This past Christmas, they paid off a loan on the solar power unit. Again, Hof’s personal touch made a difference.

“I was asked to give a talk about hiking, and decided to talk about Africa. A few days later, I got an email from Africa saying they were way behind on the loan for the solar power. After the lecture, people had already asked about making donations,” she recalled.

Hof went into high gear once more – wangling a new article in the Duncan News Leader, and putting out the word through other means. The effort raised $3,635 in two months, bringing the grand total – accumulated over eight years – to $11,635.

The clinic has gone through hard times. Most significantly, it was robbed – probably by some staff, who have since been dismissed. Now one individual has been hired – a trained nurse, who will restore order, if they can keep her paid.

“The only source of funding is through donations to the Assumptionist Fathers,” Hof said. The Quebec order staffs the parish.

Mary Hof has hiked and biked with her group in Cuba and Nicaragua, and concluded: “there is poverty everywhere. You can only do so much.” Because of the results she has seen, she’s sticking with Muungano.

Donations made directly to Mary Hof  – sent to 1078 Cherry Pt. Rd, Cowichan Bay, V0R 1N2 – will be acknowledged with tax-deductible receipts from the Assumptionists.

February 2011