~ Henry David Thoreau

Are you a big dreamer? A believer in new possibilities? A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post for I Had Cancer – Hope Is My Religion – where I shared my favourite quote from the Alchemist about believing in possibilities and daring to dream lofty dreams.

I love connecting (both off and online) with other dreamers and Carolyn Taylor is one person I can’t wait to meet in person. She is a fellow survivor, global cancer advocate, and BIG dreamer. During her 2010 around the world trip to photograph the face of cancer, Carolyn recognized the desperate lack of cancer awareness and support in developing countries and decided to do something about it. Global Focus on Cancer is the result of her dream and I would love for you to click here to read more about her recent trip to Vietnam and her inspiring mission.

When Carolyn learned about my Big Hairy Audacious Dream and my desire to volunteer within the African cancer community, she made a few introductions and while in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, I had the privilege of meeting even more women who are dreaming BIG, INSPIRING dreams.

My time in Dar started with an Easter Monday visit from Dr. Dominista Kombe – one of only four oncologists in the entire country of Tanzania. (It’s unfathomable to me that this figure roughly translates into ONE oncologist for every 10 MILLION people). After a few hours of sharing stories, she drove me to her home so I could meet her family and see her dream in action. You see, Dr. Kombe has big plans to spend her retirement running the Dar Es Salaam Oncological Care and Counselling Services facility. In a small building next to her house, she will offer mammography, cervical cancer screening, awareness seminars, and counselling to people who otherwise would not receive it. As she and I walked through the compact rooms, still filled with the smell of fresh paint, she showed me where she wants to put the mammography machine (once she can raise the money to buy it) and where women will get access to one on one counselling. With a breathless voice and shining eyes, she talked about her dream to provide these (in my mind essential) services to as many of the men and women of Tanzania as she can.

The next day, Dr. Kombe arranged for Angela Kuzilwa, the Founder of the Tanzania Breast Cancer Foundation to pick me up at my hotel. As we drove through dusty streets, jammed with rickshaws and locals carrying wicker shopping bags or plastic buckets on their heads, Angela shared with me some of the struggles and successes she has faced since she started the TBCF in the living room of her home in 2006. Running a breast cancer foundation in Africa is not without its challenges. In a country where stigma and secrecy enshroud the disease and access to funding is a constant challenge, I can imagine that Angela and her team of volunteers often feel like they are knee deep in mud, trying to push a freight train uphill.

When we arrived at the TBCF office, I met a few more of my Tanzanian Sisters from Another Mister. We dished about treatment, life after cancer, and living with both the physical and emotional post-treatment scars. In life, sometimes it’s easier to show rather than tell so although it has been a while since I wrote, “I’ll Show You Mine If You Show Me Yours”, I again disrobed to demonstrate what reconstruction looks and feels like. (In all honesty, I couldn’t help but feel a degree of first-world guilt because so many women in Africa don’t even have access to a prosthesis and I’ve had the “Rolls Royce” of implants “installed” for free because I happened to be born in Canada ). Over the next couple of hours, the five of us found plenty of reasons to laugh and I suppressed my impulse to cry when I realized how many women in the group they have already lost. Of the 10 founding members, only 2 have survived the past 5 years and and one is currently going through treatment for a reoccurrence.

Although the woman dealing with a reoccurrence didn’t have the energy to travel into the city, Angela and I finished our day with a visit to her home in the country. Goats bleated and the sun roasted my scalp as we walked the dusty path between small stone houses and watched children using sticks to chase spinning tires through the village. As soon as we arrived in her home, a beautiful bald woman rose from the couch and showed off her shaky, but determined, steps across the small living room (the chemotherapy is helping shrink the tumours in her back so she is once again able to walk). Her eyes burned with determination when she vowed to be well enough to participate in the Komen sponsored walk in October.

In spite of the many obstacles they face, the women of TBCF continue to dream about erasing the stigma around cancer and helping their sisters across the country get access to screening, diagnosis, and treatment. In particular, I love their program of awareness seminars in secondary schools. They want to educate a whole generation of teenagers and create a society where cancer is not swept under the rug and people get diagnosed early enough so that cancer is no longer viewed as a death sentence.

Although emotionally intense (don’t even get me started on my experience with the children at Muhimbili National Hospital), my time in Dar Es Salaam filled me with intense gratitude. I met people who had the tenacity to rise above their circumstances and to ask the question WHY NOT?

Now…it’s over to you. What is your dream? Can you rise above your fears for long enough to ask yourself the question “why not”? Why not join the Hope Revolution and think about what you can do today to make the world a better place (simply because YOU have lived). Why not believe in what IS possible instead of what ISN’T?

Thank you Dr. Kombe and the women of the TBCF for reminding me to keep dreaming BIG dreams and believing in possibilities.