By Susan Dahle
In mid-March 2020, life as we knew it became “life in the new normal.” It didn’t happen overnight, but gradually our lives began to change in ways we could have never imagined. For many volunteer organizations, including our own Village in the Village (ViV), new ways to operate became essential —not just to maintain, but to survive.

Considering that our members are seniors, and many are in the high-risk category, taking the most conservative approach to minimize risk became our highest priority. Prior to COVID, our calendar of activities was filled with activities such as: driving members to appointments, socializing together at coffees, lunches and “happy hours,” visiting members in their homes to help with chores or simply visit to offer companionship and conversation.

The ViV board quickly realized that changes needed to be made, and soon. We kept in close contact with our local leadership, especially Tanya Lattin, our intrepid Village emergency manager, and monitored the situation and decisions made at the state level by our governor and her team. We immediately communicated to our membership that in-home visits were suspended and driving to appointments would be limited to medically necessary ones.

Getting ready to do business in the new normal involved some research. superstar, Sarah Pastore, led this effort. Thanks to the work of many, we complied a new handbook with updated protocol for all members to follow, whether providing or receiving services. From wiping down car door handles, leaving car windows open a crack and making sure the member was seated in the back seat, every important aspect of safety was researched, verified and implemented. Masks, sanitizer, wipes —all were located and made available to members in need. That led us to wonder: with all this extra work, will volunteers still be willing to offer in-person services? Thankfully, the answer was yes.

A few volunteers share their thoughts on what it’s been like for them during these challenging times:
• Joseph Henderson (with spouse Caroline Koons): “It’s our way of expressing gratitude for all we have been given. My thought is to let my service be like sunshine. Makes no difference who it shines on.”
• Meg Chapman: “Helping our Corrales seniors get to their doctors, dental and other important appointments during the pandemic feels like a neighborly thing to do. We are all feeling isolated and a little lonely. These visits make the important connections we need.”

Companionship visits changed from in-person to check-in phone calls. We paired up the member in need with a consistent volunteer ambassador, so that the relationship could develop into a comfortable one. This worked out even better than hoped for, because the ViV volunteers assigned to these “buddy checks” nurtured these relationships into true friendships.

One of our ambassadors, David Davenport, shared this thought: “I always try to be more of an old friend…. I know more about the lives and feelings of my contacts than I know about most of my own relatives. I keep them in my heart and thoughts every day. I want them to feel reassured that someone is always there for them.”
One of my favorite service recaps came from ambassador Pat Lattin. In her weekly phone call, she and her member friend were reminiscing about music they had enjoyed years ago —and ended up singing a song together! In her words “I have found that reaching out to make another person feel less isolated is also a boost for me. It is empowering. When the call is over, I always feel more joyful than before the call began.”

Susan Dahle is President of Village in the Village. ViV’s mission is to help Corrales seniors stay in their cherished homes, connected to the community, for as long as possible. For more information: www.villageinthevillage.org or call 505-274-6206. Inquiries from prospective new members are welcome.

By Sandy Farley
“Help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!” When I was younger, I thought this was a funny commercial. Now it is one of my fears as I become older and less stable on my feet. But luckily, thanks to the foresight of Chief Anthony Martinez and Commander Tanya Lattin of the Corrales Fire Department (CFD), falling at home is now less of a concern. CFD reports that, in 2019, 67 percent of all calls were from people over the age of 50, with 47 percent from people between 70-79 years of age and 24 percent of all calls over the age of 80. Mechanical falls represented 15 percent of calls; and this is in a community where you cannot hear the cries of a fallen neighbor.

Village in the Village collaborated with CFD to purchase 12 Knox Homebox™ for senior Corraleños who live by themselves and are unsteady on their feet. ViV applied for, and received an Intel Community Grant to purchase lock boxes because safety and response time can be greatly enhanced with the use of lock boxes in emergencies. These boxes provide seniors with a safe and secure rapid access system that can only be accessed by CFD. The boxes also allow emergency responders to enter the home quickly with less damage to property, and less risk of injury to responding personnel. (CFD currently supports multiple Knox Boxes in our commercial properties.) The box hangs over a door (front or back) and the Corrales Fire Department has a master key to unlock it, and retrieve the home key inside.

Recipients were identified and Chief Martinez recently installed the boxes. The CFD staff are also willing to perform a safety inspection of your home and surrounding property (can also be scheduled at a later date when the COVID-19 risk subsides) by a Certified Community Paramedic. ViV will track distribution and, as boxes become available, offer this benefit to other interested, vulnerable Corrales villagers.

We have a few boxes remaining, and if you are interested in having one installed at your home we ask that you meet the following conditions. To qualify for the lock box, you should answer yes to at least four of the following five questions:

Do you live alone, or are often at home alone?
Do you have general mobility issues?
Are you a fall risk or do you have balance issues?
Do you have problems hearing or seeing?
Do you have worries or concerns about emergency access to your home?

If you are qualified and would like to request a lock box, please contact our Call Managers at: (505) 274-6206. Lock boxes will be distributed on a first come, first served basis.

Sandy Farley is a board member of Village in the Village. ViV’s mission is to help Corrales seniors stay in their cherished homes, connected to the community, for as long as possible. For more information: http://www.villageinthevillage.org or call 505-274-6206. We welcome new member inquiries!

Stockholm, Sweden. January 2019

The Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs was closed when I tried to delve into the 1969 assassination of my former professor at Syracuse University. The commander of Mozambique’s war for independence from Portuguese colonial rule, Eduardo Chivambo Mondlane, was blown up when he opened a mailed book bomb at a home outside Dar es Salaam, Tanzania  February 3, 1969.

The assassin or assassins were never brought to justice or even definitively identified. Primary suspects were the government of Portugal, the apartheid regimes in South Africa or Rhodesia, the U.S. government or the Chinese government. Or possibly all of the above, since each had motive and opportunity. Portugal, a NATO ally of the United States, was determined to hold onto its impoverished East African colony. It mounted an armed force of an estimated 60,000 to counter Mondlane’s 7,000 troops.

After the grievously exploited colony gained independence in­­­­ 1975, his widow, Janet Mondlane, a white, American woman, told me in her office in the liberated capital, Maputo, she did not know who had sent the bomb, and did not care to speculate.

I wondered whether the government of Sweden might know. Sweden had been an essential supporter of Mondlane’s Frente da Liberaçao do Moçambique (FRELIMO), and a persistent and generous backer of national liberation movements in Southern Africa. But the ministry was closed when I tried to visit with my inquiry, first because the country’s prime minister was scheduled to spend the day there and then due to unspecified other security matters.

When I explained my dilemma to the receptionist at my hotel a short distance away, she suggested a friend of hers,  Birgitta Karlstrom Dorph, might be able to help. She gave me contact information for her friend and neighbor. Dorph had gained national celebrity when it was eventually disclosed that she had been Sweden’s main spy operating from Pretoria, the capital of the Republic of South Africa at the peak of anti-colonial wars of national liberation. But that, too, was a dead-end in my search for the assassin or assassins. I was told Dorph was out of the country, and I was unable to leave a message.

So the primary purpose of my trip to Sweden was fruitless. But my own experience with Professor Mondlane in Dar es Salaam just two months before he was killed offers some real, but unsettling insight about his death. In late 1968, he agreed to meet with me for an interview about Mozambique’s war for independence and said he would pick me up in front of Hotel Kilimanjaro. He drove up in a military jeep with no escort, no armored vest and no weapon that I could see. He headed out to the suburbs, while we chatted about our time at Syracuse. When we passed wooded areas along the road, the commander of the largest rebel army in sub-Saharan Africa at that time seemed unconcerned about the possibility of an ambush.

Inside a supporter’s home in the plush   Oyster Bay neighborhood, the Northwestern University anthropology PhD talked of threats to his life but said it was not something he dwelled upon. Assassination was a risk he accepted. Perhaps he knew martyrdom would consolidate the divisive elements arising within the independence movement he founded. Radicals within FRELIMO were increasingly confrontational about his white American wife; his affinity for American values rankled Communist governments in Beijing and Moscow which supported him with weapons and training as the Cold War raged.

Today Mozambique’s main institution of  higher learning is the Universidade Eduardo Mondlane.

—Jeff Radford