JAMBO JAMBO JAMBO!! The morning after dropping Matt, Brian, Diana and Jamie off at the Kilimanjaro airport around 8 last night, after a harrowing four day whirl wind flury of meetings, visits with the children, songs, dancing, celebrations, birthday parties, more meetings, interviewing 14 families with dear sweet very poor and vulnerable little ones so desperately in need of assistance into Majengo, the little wonderful orphanage that is growing and growing, a bumpy dusty pot holed road crossing for a couple of hours yesterday through what many would call God's country, green rolling hills filled with Masai warriors herding huge clumps of cows, goats, sheep and donkeys weighed down by the burden of massively high piles of stacked wood, yellow plastic water containers, anything and everything that can't be carried atop the heads of proud African women, with posture we noted, much better than most of their North American sisters....
Ah..i leap ahead...racing from one thought to another this morning, thinking about these incredible people i am lucky enough to have met,at this very moment, most probably relaxing with much appreciated western showers and bathroom facilities at a hotel in Amsterdam, awaiting their final flight into Toronto....go safely...
Matt and i yesterday, in the big Land Cruiser which seating 9 bouncing along, with Jamie and Brian helping, en route to Kili, recalling these last four days, diana in the front seat with Abdul the driver, putting our stories together, thoughts, ideas, recollections, highlights so many....
Matt's final directions...to write it all, get it all down on this blog, station yourself in Arusha for as long as it takes....so here, to the best of my ability, it goes!! plus i have a good 300 photos to post, but without the ability to do it from here..hopefully, next week!! Bear with me!
My Gawd it feels like a few months back, Diana and Jamie arriving a short 10 days or so ago...as i said in another blog, Diana quite worried about this trip, bracing herself for the worst....scared, what if, what if...the weather, the heat, the FOOD!! O My God!! she would say, they came burdened over with packages of crackers, peanut butter, boxes of health bars, vitamins, ointments for every kind of injury or bug bite, or misfortune they could imagine...Matt had done a great job of leading them through, the phone cards, what to eat, what not to eat, drink....visas...everything, but in retrospect they could not imagine how incredible each day would be..how truely their hearts would break open with the huge smiles and dancing eyes of each little kid wrapping their hearts and souls around them, little fingers searching for love, for soft tummies, for a warm smile, for care...we can't imagine what these kids have been through, and yet, the joy they exude now, the very fact that they are being so incredibly well looked after, washed every day, well fed with three nutricious meals, by a wonderful group of people who truely love them and care about them...not just a job for our staff...
I jump about...Diana and Jamie....arms wide open, filled with huge hearts now...not just in being told about these kids...but knowing them...hearing their stories, watching what joy and comfort and support the magical assistance from the Mc Kissock clan, family and friends have given to these kids buried out here in this hot dusty impoverished part of the world...what hope, what inspiration. What future. It is immeasureable and indescribable...the stories of the changes in just one year since Majengo opened....it is apparent, visual, seen through shining confident beaming faces....what has been created....oh yes, a new family is born.
Diana and Jamie....exhuberent themselves, each day an adventure jam packed, learning, growing, reaching as high as they did....understanding, sitting back, musing, wondering, offering great suggestions, helping with budgets, bios of the children, job descriptions, infrastructure logistics...an incredible learning curve...aS Brian said, a couple of weeks in Africa, equals about ten years of living at home in a land we understand as the days fly by unnoticed...here everything is new, a challenge, packing so much into so few days...but it feeling like a lifetime, that is the good that travel into new cultures can do....

We pick up Matt and Brian WEdnesday night...after a pretty gruelling flight, Toronto to Amsterdam, eight hours, a brief five hour wait over, and then on into another 8 hour stint into Kilimanjaro...we are standing in the waiting area our faces pressed against the torn clear part of the arrivals window, spotting them making their way through custom men, the four huge suitcases packed by the wonderful Yvonne from back home, opened and surveyed dutifully, 50 pairs of little underwear, pens, pencils, medical supplies, clothing, shoes, world maps....stuffed to the brim....thank you Warren! It's Matt's second time over...but Brian's first..a very soft spoken lovely professor of linguistics who spent much of his time in intense conversation with both Masai warriors and Swahili speaking African people, fascinating me immensely with very very tiny and small jottings in his small notebook with his small little pen each section on the page, the placing of words, a space for nouns, verbs, sentences, each portion a work of art - as an aside i learned a little about language structure, a lot over these last four days...watching with amazement as he remembered, learned songs in Swahili culminating in leading a sing song Tanzanian style in front of a hundred gathered together SAturday night in celebration of two little gorgeous girls, dressed in brand new pink gowns, with pearls, at their birthday party, music, dance, festive with Brian up singing - reminding us, of John Lennon....
Overnight at a nice hotel near the airport, and that is another brief story, this place was expensive, room by room...a slice of luxury for me, costing 15 times the amount of what we pay in Mto Wa Mbu....and yet, amidst the gorgeous setting each individual room a house unto itself, snuggled amongst exotic tropical plants, jungled and cut out, a winding path of stones between each, and yet, the air conditioning wasn't working properly, mosquitoes in the room..i didn't sleep all night. When you are paying a lot..you complain...and when you are paying very little in our terms, you have no expectations...re housing, it is safe to say, that no matter where you stay here, whether in an expensive hotel, or in our little Continental spot in Mto Wa Mbu with Mwanna Eddie, dressed in hot pink satin, tight long skirt and bodice, beautiful, smiling and shrieking non stop to each and every neighbour or friend just outside my front facing window from 7am on, annoyingly< i might add...a young woman supporting three small children by herself, sometimes very engaging, a flirt, who can turn on her charm to most every man, especially our Matt, to whom she proposed unabashedly last year great offers of marriage. Every place you stay will have its great points and its flaws, no matter what. Plumbing can often be the problem, the toilet doesn't work, or in Jamies case, no toilet seat. but i might add how lucky we are to have a toilet at all....so often, in Africa, a hole in the ground, so we can't complain, taps leaking. WEak pressure..but at least, we have water...hot water, a plus....it is all workable, and after a few days, something you just get used to...it is okay.
Thursday morning, a great breakfast together at the hotel, and on our way jammed into our big Land Cruiser into the bustling Arushatown, filled with dust and noise and movement of people, along the street, on bikes, with goats and cows and sheep, with pecking chickens running alongside, women sitting on plastic pales roasting cobs of corn tasting more like nuts than kernals...stopping off at ATMS...picking up wads of Tanzanian shillings stuffed into our bags, and off we go to meet local minister, Pasteur Naiman with his 100 little children, age 2 up to 7, sitting 10 to a bench in orderly rows in their uniforms of emerald green sweaters and blue shorts or skirts, some in tatters, waiting for us in his big cement lined church room buried deeply off the main road into a very poor slum area of Arusha...winding dusty hot pathways flanked by shacks strung up with corregated wavy sheets of steel, tin, wood, sticks stuck together with mud, dried cow dung, cement....children playing outside, wee ones barely walking in little clusters backing off and waving gleefully as our car passes through. Pasteur Naiman has been working in Arusha for over 20 years, sponsored by a Danish couple who raise monies through churches back home, who live also in Arusha. 7 years ago he built this church, offering schooling each morning to 100 children, his daughter Anna teaching wonderfully, with a group of local women volunteering their time, dolling out plastic cups of porriage every morning after a great drill of songs, lessons, and numbers...this church a miraculous oasis, a rescue place, without any schools in the area - with 400 more children on the waiting list...
Pasteur Naiman greets us. It is my third visit, the second last week with Diana and Jamie...and now with Matt and Brian. Pasteur Naiman has a dream...and one that so easily could be reached with not so much effort by some of us back home..Out of these 100 children, he has picked out 18 amongst this huge group, of the very most neediest. Well they are all needy, but out of the one hundred, this small group is the most vulnerable, without parents, or relatives, with no resources of their own. Pasteur Naiman's dream, is to rent a four roomed house nearby and move these kids into it, creating a new orphanage, called PUMZIKO, meaning, resting place, with a mama and baba and two people to help with washing, cooking and cleaning. The situation, is dire. Not unique here in Africa, at all...but dire non the less. I have worked with Pasteur Naiman over my last four years and know him to be an incredibly hard working, huge hearted man, honest, loving, caring. And having worked out our budgets so intensely with Majengo, i am well aware of what this new project could cost. Start up, furnishing this place with 6 bunk beds, (12, with one or two to a bed)...kitchen things, tables, benches...about 1,500 US dollars...moving the kids in, renting the house for about $90. dollars a month...firewood, food, uniforms, shoes, medical and staffing comes up to a total of $550. per child per year...or jut under $10,000 US dollars a year.
WE sit through a small ceremony on our behalf, lead by Anna the teacher, the children attentive, wide eyed and hugely curious about this small band of white people snapping pictures and smiling at them, with another group of local people on the other side at the front, a man dressed smartly in a suit, his wife and two other women, who, we learn later, will be the mama and baba and helpers of this new orphanage, IF we are able to help.
Loud exuberent songs, lessons of E equals elephant...followed by a brief formal hello from Pasteur Naiman...and a speech by the still recouperating from jet lag Matt..who, he declared at the end of his stay, would be very happy if I would refrain from laying speech making opportunities upon him every three hours,from dawn to well past dusk, of which he claims he is totally unprepared. Of course everyone out there who knows Matt, knows how much he loves to stand up, prepared or not, and how capable he is emoting properly the correct phrases and sentiments in any crowd i am certain. At the end of it all, we hand out cups of porriage row by row to waiting children, this morning allotment perhaps the only food these kids will receive all day. A get together over coffee and tea in Pasteur Naiman's office with the newly appointed possible mama and baba...who have been brought in from the villages to take on these new 18 children, as their own...if we are able to help. And on to the house they have chosen to house the new orphanage.
Just to give you an idea of how desperate Pasteur Naiman is to successfully begin this project...on my first visit, this house was filled with building rubbish, unpainted both inside and out, without a kitchen, proper windows and outside the grounds littered with garbage and junk. On our second visit the inside was clean, washed down, and painted, but still no outdoor kitchen, no plumbing or ability for water, and outside, huge piles of gravel, garbage and junk.
At that time, I told Pasteur Naiman, that next week, upon Matt's visit....if he is serious about asking for our assistance, we need to see a mama and a baba who will be committed to living in with these 18 kids, two helpers, an outdoor kitchen, a new paint job, and total all around clean up...and water. One week later, it was done.

Since Diana and Jamie have been here, we have spent most of our time in Mto Wa Mbu working over our new Majengo orphanage budget. It is up from last year. Why? WE have decided to expand our work, with 15 of our pre schoolers now age 7 and off to primary school, we now have the opportunity to add 15 new little ones into our day program of breakfast, lunch and schooling, who will live out...our numbers now growing from 40 kids last year up to 55! Plus the price of food has escalated, the cost of maize, corn..almost doubling this year, as Matt pointed out, with international governments electing to allot much of the world's corn now to be made into ethanol and added to oil as fuel - a huge cost to developing nations trying desperately to find the means of feeding millions of its people, the barest of dietary requirements. So our Majengo budget has grown...and Majengo is our first concern. So what to do about Pasteur Naiman's request..how can we help them?
I admire Matt's ability to access a situation and to find quickly a situation, as he did here. Explaining to Pasteur Naiman of our commitment to Majengo, how that comes first, what could he do with a donation of $2,000. USdollars now....where would that money go? Without pausing, he would lay down immediately the downpayment to secure the house first for one year, bring in the mama and baba, and begin with 6 or 8 children right away....working toward hopefully raising the money for the other 10 kids and two helpers. It is a start, seed money to get going, with his huge faith and heart he was sure, the rest would come.
And i believe it will...
Now...out there amongst the many churches, and wonderful people, there must be a group who will be willing to take on this very worthwhile, well researched project..one that i can assure you, is honest, straight forward, with assistance going straight from the donors, through Pasteur Naiman, and to these children..
Between us all, all of you out there reading this blog, your families and friends, i am sure once we get the word out that someone will come forth as part of this growing team of donors, to make Pasteur Naiman's dream come true...how about it!!

Ok and off quickly back into the truck, across wide expanse of green hills, spotted with Masai tribal bomas, igloo like homes made of sticks and cow dung here and there across wide vistas, cows, goats, sheep, Masai children running along sticks in hand guiding their herds, being careful not to lose one animal, for, if that happens, and it is the woman of the house who will be beaten by her husband... the loss of a goat more important always than the life of the wife with a status much lower than that of her cows. Ah....we are here, not to change tribal customs ever, but to observe, to stand back, not to judge, but to offer, when possible our assistance. And while i am at it here, at each meeting, at each discussion of where to go, what decisions to take, we wait and stand back, listen, learn, determined never to force ourselves or our ideas, or dictations on people here, knowing without doubt that they are totally capable of making their own decisions based on skilled experience of how things work in their country. What do we know? Virtually very little. But honoured we are to be part of this process....and with the means, as Matt said, so often, "putting it on the appropriate scale , we have the ability to do more good with such a relatively small effort when seen under the context of our means..."...it is impossible to describe what the magic of a few US or Canadian dollars can do here....

Time out...I started here 3 and a half hours ago, the internet cafe now filling up with people patiently waiting in chairs behind me, eating pastries, but i have a job to do, and am still just half way through day one with three days to go! Charles our great project coordinator took a bus back to Mto Wa Mbu last night after dropping us off at the airport, just text me that someone close to his family had died, that there were seven people at his office waiting for counsel and that he hoped that i was happy in Arusha..unlikely that we will head out to Moshe today to visit Doris, the head of ICA Tanzania, recouperating without vocal ability now from a thyroid operation...a meeting i very much want to attend soon, as Charles, my beloved director and without whom i am lost here in Tanzania, intends to take a leave of absense from ICA for his masters degree in Public Health, for two years, next month!! Yikes!!!...A lot of our discussion these last four days is WHAT TO DO WHEN CHARLES IS GONE?????Who will be the new Charles, and Doris, over in Moshe, unable to speak at this point with her thyroid, is the only person to answer this question... At the rate i am going, and Matt assured me to write as much as i was able...sorry, pole in Swahili, if this is long and dragged out, misspelled and not edited...and for those of you who are still here with me, i promise, or intend, as Matt would say, with all expectations, but no promises, to do my best to stay on course.

While i am on that subject. There is never ever ever enough. As much as we are trying to do, with as many ideas as we have for expansion, slowly and carefully, making sure, without doubt, that with whatever we are doing, we are doing it with people who as Matt outlined at a meeting a few days later were four things:
1- honest and ethical
2 - hard working
3 - competant in their jobs, and
4 - genuinely caring of the children
Each and every person we have working with us here on the ground on our team, be they directors and administrators at ICA TANZANIA, the four village leaders, or the hand picked staff of 8 people in charge of running the orphanage, they must have not all 4 of these things...underlying without doubt, that 3 doesn't cut it...all four, he must have mentioned this ten times....or they are out. AND..if we sense, in any way shape or form, at any time, a situation where corruption is spreading, or beginning to reveal its ugly self so prominent in so many of these aids operations in Africa unless so carefully monitored, by each and every person on the ground, and by all of us on the other side, with direct and regular interested and dilegent communication...if we sense corruption, in any form, if it is not abolished and dismissed IMMEDIATELTY...we are out of here...gone!!!

Last year, at the very beginning of the idea of Majengo, before we moved into our newly renovated facilities and were still operating from a mud floored leaking small foyer of a house, dark without light, without furniture, desks, benches, the children packed in in tatters on the floor, owned by the mother in law of an increasingly unsavoury fella who declared himself 'director' of HIS new orphanage. He paraded around his neighbourhood, forced prospective guardians to donate food or money to himself personally to register their child into 'his' orphanage, beat the children, and fired and hired teachers at whim....I disliked him immensely, immediately, but was forced to deal with him until we moved into our new facilities. The new Majengo. Within days, after long meetings between this guy, the village leaders, the other staff at Majengo and us at ICA, we were able to, under the direction of the village leaders, pay him off, and begin afresh without him, hiring now Killo and Martha, the two very capable and honest people who had been working under him before. It was a difficult intense process, huge discussions of corruption, lies, truths and testimonies...but in the end, with his final official dismissal, a good example and warning to anyone connected with Majengo.
Without truth, without monitoring, without good accountability, without correct cash books, monthly receipts, follow ups....we are fully aware that there is always the danger of corruption sneaking in, but with, as Matt insisted, honest, ethical, hard working, competent and child loving people we are doing our best to ensure that we are on the right path. And as far as i can see, so far, so good!

Ah...back to the gang...day one..Thursday...a couple of hours out of Arusha, past a few zebra lazily grazing in deep grasses along the highway route, we pull into the Carwash, an outdoor restaurant aptly named with its by hand car and truck wash right next door, the operators climbing around the vehicles atop with brushes and soap and big buckets filled with water hurling and cleaning....

Charles has set up a great lunch buffet style, with rice, chicken, bean, greens of a spinach or chard like chopped up vegetable dish called 'amaranth', and boiled potatoes floating around a chickeny tomato, onion, carrot delicious sauce to be poured over it all. Dotto, the second twin whose name is always Dotto, the manager of the popular Double M bar and restaurant in the middle of Mto Wa Mbu haS BEEN hired to dole out the food, with Peter from ICA, Hamidu our Swahili-speaking ICA driver and Charles charming as hosts...a celebration for us all, a grand occasion....of course, the guys are exhausted, but holding up...we pile into the truck and off we go to the orphanage where Matt gets a first-hand chance to see where his money has been spent since he made his decision to assist this Majengo orphanage, just last April, one year ago.
Backtracking...for some who are new to this....Matt and two friends came over, sight unseen, after a few very intense conversations with me about what we were trying to do over here in Tanzania...for one week, to check it out for themselves. They were blown away, by the children, the people they met, by what we were trying to do here, by what we had achieved. Friends from Canada< US and Sweden had raised $24,000 USD to completely finish the building and renovation of a beautiful new home, furnishing it completely....and relocating 40 kids and 8 staff from that mud floored leaking foyer with an official opening last March 08, 2--9....EXACTLY ONE YEAR AGO TODAY!! Happy birthday Majengo!!!! Wow!!!
Matt never makes promises. He makes intentions, sometimes with positive hopeful expectations, but never promises, until he is absolutely sure without any doubts himself of both the worthiness and feasibility of the proposal. Whether to assist for one year, the financing of the ongoing expenses of the orphanage, or for a request from someone to assist their ailing mother for two months in the hospital, or to help our staff support their children through Secondary school, or to buy good open sided shoes for a young diabetic street boy....the list goes on and one, there is never ever enough. Each day there is someone, or many people, who show up at the office, knowing there is a white person working inside, requesting help....I am sure i don;t know the half of it...Charles acts as a buffer between me and the street.... the woman we supported two years ago to begin her rice selling business, last year doing well enough to send her oldest boy to school, pay for food, uniforms, books...but with this years terrible drought, rice fields drying up, rice prices skyrocketing, Masai people with dying cows and limited resources, unable to afford food, her business, like so many others, faltered..in January, time to pay her son's hefty school fees again, she pulled all her money out of her business to do so, and now, sitting across from me, her head down, as if in shame of failure, she offers me a beautifully hand written note asking again for help, again the $60 US I gave her two years ago, pain, sadness, across her face. Who am i to say no? And who am i to make these decisions which so easily can change a life on the twist of a dime, or dollar, so easily given by us at home, if only we will, or could, or can....
To be here, to witness each and every request first hand, to actually SEE with my own eyes the wonder of what this money is capable of doing...
My finances are limited. Back in Canada i make speeches, a few a month, where at the end, a stream of wonderful people line up and offer me $20. or a cheque for $50 or $100....based on their trust that their donations will go straight to the children, or to the women, mainly, who need it, the most. At least from my limited point of view....I put it in a separate account, add it up at the end of the year, translate it into Tanzanian shillings....and withdraw once if get over here...it works...from them to me to them....
Where, again, was I!!!
Oh my gawd....5 hours later...and still where, on day one!!!
Majengo...Matt, one year later..oh, a few weeks, briefly, after his visit last year....he emails me a letter which he has sent to all family and friends...he has decided and made a commitment to support this orphanage for the next ten months...that is a promise....like I said, Matt doesn't ever make a promise he can't keep..but with the intention to support it 'indefinately', not a promise, but an intention...for years down the road..to watch these little kids grow up, to send them through primary and secondary school, maybe on to university, and all the while to add more and more kids along into our little pre school..whenever we have slots and space..to keep growing and expanding..and just last summer..he declared to me...that despite all the work he had managed to achieve back home, that this was for him the most important thing he had ever done in his life!! and that, all going well with everything, his intention, again not his promise, but his expectation was that we would be able to expand and assist hopefully up to 1,000 kids in 5 years...be they at the orphanage, through helping children outside the facility within families who need assistance....through micro financing...through many different ways, some of which will be more successful than others...but nevertheless a hope, an intention, of getting out there on our side, and raising enough interest, compassion, and energy to help and assist as many kids as we can over here...always, keeping in mind the BIG FOUR: honesty, hard work, competence and care for the children....
Back to his visit at Majengo, and for Brian the first time - we pull in, the beautiful bougainvillea fence of my dreams a year ago, now in full bloom, thick and abundant, bursting in pink, white, red blossoms surrounding the house, outside the two cooks greeting us with big smiles....Glory the teacher pouring out of the building surrounded by children, lots of them. WE head back into the classroom, with Grayson in front of the newly painted blackboard, 28 little live in kids shovelling their way along the benches. Glory leads the songs...welcoming the guests...laughing, the kids jumping up and down, reciting: yes madame, thank you sir, welcome to Tanzania....they take us through the rooms, the back bedrooms, with shelves filled with clothing brought over last year from Warren, clean new sheets we just bought last week in bright yellow, pink, green and blue....about $3.50 per sheet...$4. per new towel, 24 of them....the place looks great...the kids are happy, healthy, bigger than last year, as is Grayson our teacher who we tease, is obviously eating well now...and on outside at the end of the visit for a short meeting with the staff..after which Matt couldnt' get over...there were two women last year, who he felt were very wary, almost even hostile toward him, during his brief meeting at the beginning of this project...one of the cooks, one of the cleaners..almost even scornful,of motives maybe, whatever..but who, this year he was astonished by their open warm, confident happy expression, the body language....everyone coming together without any restraint at all, in celebration of each other, really, of what they were all able to accomplish in one year. They KNEW they had done a great job.

I can't tell you how rewarding it is for all of us to witness what just one year can do for the lives of so many children, and for that matter, to the staff and their families of this orphanage. As Brian said at the end of his visit...yes...these children have all been through some of the worst unimagineable things we could ever think of, their early lives of such poverty and deprivation, watching beloved mama and papas dying in front of their very young eyes, wandering dusty roads, with luck finding help and assistance from neighbours, and loving relatives..and for many finding themselves basically on their own...often small children, age 6, 7, 8 taking care of smaller children, some tied in cloth bundles on their shoulders...the world turning their backs....child lead families..i have seen it here in Mto Wa Mbu. and while i am at it, there were, an estimated 14 million children orphaned by HIV AIDS a few years ago, with some 38 million people now living in Africa with HIV AIDS...one can only imagine the devestation this has meant to an entire continent, losing so many people at the time of their lives when they could be contributing th emost, between 15 and 50, teachers, soldiers, doctors, nurses, policemen, labourers, farmers, construction workers, aid workers....this virus attacked every segment of society, eating up and spitting out everyone, knowing no boundaries, be it from the very rich to the very poor....
But as Brian pointed out...despite whatever these kids had endured before reaching Majengo, it was easy to see, that amongst even the other neighbouring children surrounding the orphanage, these children, although we could never ever replace what they had lost, now had everything: the sense of being part of a big loving family, being well looked after, clean. well dressed, and most important of all, a real sense of being happy, being confident of where they were in their lives, of having a home.

Diana and Jamie had moved into the Jambo campsite about a mile from town, a lovely open aired spot with nice rooms, great food and a swimming pool, just that afternoon, raced back from Majengo and organized a big dinner party for 15 people that very night!!! Along with all of us....we included Kerstin and Berndt, our Swedish friends who had supported the renovation of Majengo at the start, and who were dying to meet this guy Matt who had appeared so incredibly into the project just one year ago. I have no idea what Kerstin thought Matt would be like, or look like, but she took one look at him, in total shock, and said, "what! you are Matt???" It was great....wonderful food a la Jamie who works part time as Matt and Kym's cook back home, we were treated to a very unique menu of Western food: beef with mushroom sauce, a great salad, herbal veg soup, steamed veggies, fruit...it was a treat! after so much ugali, rice, bean, sauce and green.....and a great celebration on our first night home...

I can't go back and type in ideas, or edit...this computer is such that when i try, it erases whatever i have written, rather than inserting a new phrase...and what i forgot to add, a la one of the things that touched Brian the most was the first song the children sang to us after our welcoming:
row, row, row your boatie
gently down the stream
medi medi medi medi
life is but a dream.......!!
all sung with such confidence, and joy, and strength, and fun in high pitched voices, booming out from each and every child, from Philip the oldest at age 8 who was found wandering down the roads at age 3 after being alone, and starving for 24 hours, his mother running off after a stepfather who beat him....to Amina, who stands as the top girl in their primary school, along with 5 other Majengo kids, the top in the class...to little Pendo, who last year was deemed to be 2 years old, found naked and dusty along with her sister peering out from the back of a tumble down shed, her grandmother being interviewed by Peter to determine whether these kids were amongst the neediest for entrance into Majengo....well now this year she is a girl...tall, and thin..and still the youngest in the orphanage, her records now state that she is 5!! so who knows...she is the little mascot of the group, really, our littlest angel, who has taken a loving to teacher Glory, acting magestically also in the matron role, who sleeps in the orphanage every night, with little age wondering Pendo curled up in her arms...mama....

Friday morning, a quick breakfast at our favourite outdoor eating spot, Mi Casa owned by my friend Mirium who always takes time to dress beautifully with great eye make up and whose husband is lamentedly almost never around, a safari driver who is often on the plains but who also spends most of his time with his first wife and children in their home in Arusha. Mi Casa is a short walk around the corner from our sleeping quarters at the Continental hotel, managed by the aforementioned Mwanna Edie, the lovely young girl who has taken a special liking to our Matt. All very innocent i might add, not one of my favourites,but someone who adds to this very colourful cast of characters and friends here in Mto Wa Mbu. By the way, that word means Mosquito River....before coming here i was very afraid, a native of Canada, northern Ontario, and very familiar with the huge flying whining mosquitoes infesting us each May and June in cottage country. But here you almost never see them, and there are mosquito nets gracefully cascading from the ceilings over each bed...at night you slather yourself with bug killer of some sort...and it is okay.

Friday morning...meant to head into a heavy meeting with the four village leaders who are indeed the owners and responsible for the well being of every aspect of Majengo orphanage. Mayunga, Raymond, Vincent and Jumo Masata, the primary school headmaster who allows our children free lunches all year long. But these guys were busy with government meetings until mid afternoon...so we took this time to drive into Manyara National Park, only 10 minutes away to treat Brian to his very first safari. Lots of pictures taken for our kids and grandkids, of monkeys, baboons, zebra, elephants, giraffe, birds of all kinds....all of which were running freely, graizing happily, skirting around, gizelle, antelope, buffalo....flamingos....

All of us sitting in a circle on chairs in Charles ICA office..the introductions, with a formal welcoming and thank you to all of us for our work with Majengo, by Mayunga, Charles facilitating the meeting, the purpose of which to discuss the progress of this last year, the selection and admission of 15 new little pre schoolers to Majengo, the concept of sustainability, and micro financing.
So much said during those hours in that hot little office... the village leaders pressing upon us how important Majengo had become to their entire community, how skeptical at first many of the villagers had been, but how now, people were seeing the goodness of this place, not just for the children who were there but for the whole community. We learned that some farmers contributed maize to our kitchens during times of drought, that some had brought in firewood, charcoal...Matt, thrown into the position of spokesman once again, unwillingly he doest protest too much! Matt spoke of our honour to be part of this very exciting and very unique project which was proving to be bigger and better than his wildest expectations...his desire to keep going, his INTENTION to help make this thing grow bigger and bigger, his DEMANDS of the four main elements needed to prevent corruption (see somewhere above!!). I asked him to share what he had told me last summer, about this being such an important part of his life, maybe the most important thing he had ever been a part of...the actual WHY of what he was doing here, his intentions, his expectations, his hopes for the future. And as i have written before, scattered here and there down the main road leading into and out of Mto WA Mbu along the saFARi route well travelled every day of the year with well to do tourists from around the road, are orphanages set up as businesses for their director, kept dirty, and very poor, ill equipped, with sick and impoverished little ones, sometimes sleeping them three slabs of beds to one bunk bed, layers of little children being used aS aid bait to lure in well meaning unsuspecting tourists only too happy to unload their pockets to help these kids. Of course the money stays with the directors, the kids being kept sick and poor. It seems nothing can close these places down. Directors pay off police and others, and buy nice goat dinners to contribute to local churches periodically to keep their place in the community. It is common practice here.
Matt's final challenge to our four village leaders was....his hope, that they will come together with the government of Tanzania and close down these places, each and every rotten one of them, and he will personally try his best to move each and every one of those dispaced sick and poor children into a new home, like Majengo.

we all clapped!!!

Somewhere in and out of all these meetings and get togethers, Matt and I met with Peter, whose dream is to go to university after just finishing his high school studies up in Uganda this year. I have written about Peter before. But Charles needs to go first, having spent 7 years heading the ICA TANZ offices in Mto Wa Mbu, doing more HIV AIDS workshops, and seminars, and prevention agencies, and volunteer testing, and ARV hand outs...with Masai warriors, with people in communities stretching all the way to Arusha and back from Mto Wa Mbu..you can see he is my hero over here...he gets to go first. So Peter...well, he will likely take on a big role as our communications person on the ground with everything to do with Majengo, plus work on HIV AIDS ICA projects...a good full time job here needed, for a couple of years, to work with what we are calling the 'new Charles', whomever that person might end up being, and i will sooon be able to report that to you if and when i ever am able to meet up with Charles and drive on over to Moshi for our meeting with the vocal less, just out of the hospital, thyroid operated upon, Doris, who is the head of ICA TANZANIA. Ah...it is now 4pm....i have been at this since 9:30 this am...hogging this one wonderful computer..the lineup of needy users quieting down for some reason behind me, I dare not move.
Happily, because of the heat here, your need to rush to the toilet, except under unfortunate circumstances, is lessened, and today i find myself in good health in that way, so all, is well.

Also somewhere along the way, Charles revealed of his astonishment, when Warren established the Majengo Warren foundation with IRA tax approval....this is just never been done before in his experience. Corportations will take on a project for a couple of years, under a contract, and once it haS expired, the money stops coming, the project shuts down, the people go away, and that is the end of it. But what! What is happening here...?? With Warren behind this project, with Matt at its head, with his family and friends behind it, with Yvonne spending her days and nights sewing school bags for the kids, for everyone collecting clothing for the kids....with pictures, and friends coming over to check it out for themselves...with it all...Charles...is quite frankly, as we would say, blown away.

We are all excited about the prospect of growing. ICA TANZ has put together a micro financing agency of our own, now servicing 40 people in and around Mto Wa Mbu in small business, usually offering loans to people who are in need of a few more dollars to embellish their already existing businesses. It has been highly successful, the loans mostly going to women, not always, but often the members of society most bent on furthering their education and life of their families.

Another wonderful dinner at Jambo, boy am i getting spoiled. With Abdul at our beck and call everyday, running us from meeting to meeting, and with Diana well ensconced up at Jambo with that nice restaurant at our disposal, what am i going to do now that they are gone!!
Diana almost died of happiness when she first discovered the incredible vegetable quiches created at this restaurant, and soon Jamie was up at 7pm ready in the kitchen to learn of its secrets. Saturday morning we all congregaged with great anticipation for one of the best breakfasts i have ever had..this quiche made by our Jamie, created, she will tell you if you like, from only three eggs in all, one mixed into the aSSORTment of vegetables, onions, zuchinni, eggplant, carrots, greens, you get the picture, all chopped up and stir fried with one egg only, and then that whole mix layed out on a cookie sheet and FROZEN, yes they have electricity up there....for awhile while the crust, much like our own with one egg only, is baking....out comes the frozen veggies, scooped onto the warm crust about two full inches high, no kidding, and topped with grated cheddar and a dribbling of the third egg.....the whole thing thrown into an oven for twenty minutes, and that's it. Kym will love it..Matt is sure...

okay..i just might get this whole visit done going at this rate, but again, i apologize for no editing or checking..the facts are correct, i know them as well as i do my own life....but at this point, gawd only knows what i have written and told.
WE head over to Mayunga's village leader offices....to be part of an interviewing process, for the leaders to make their selection of 15 new little kids into Majengo, as pre schoolers, living out, we already have 28 permanent kids sleeping there full time. A small group of mostly women, a couple of men, and children dressed in tatters, are waiting patiently outside the offices as we begin. At first bringing in the guardian with their child, or children for the interview, being questioned by Charles and Peter, and then translated into English...At first the children were present during the interviews, but Matt soon questioned the need for the child to hear the stories, and after pictures were taken, the kids were moved back to the main group. all of this was done outside in a little circle, with the village leaders, our ICA friends, and us....
Stories which would break your heart....of men running off leaving wives and girls with one up to 8 kids...these women trying desperately to feed their families, begging for assistance from family members, often being turned away, the village leaders, or reluctant relatives helping out, often the husbands of those people, giving ultimatums, disrupting family relationships, and finally forcing an end to the assistance. A priest arrives with a lovely young girl he has rescued after both parents have died of HIV AIDS. A young girl who became pregnant with one child by a rich but married businessman, whose support by him had been stopped by his wife who had discovered the arrangement, so distraught was this guy, that he has now run away, disappeared into thin air, from both the wife, and the young girl. What else?
Drunk husbands, and to be fair, even one drunk wife who abandoned a very nice guy left with two children, one whod lost his plot of land and who was now surviving on odd farming jobs in other people's plots...grandmothers looking after grandkids, their parents gone from HIV AIDS...healthy mothers now broken down by illness, HIV AIDS...unable to work, trying, but too weak to get up, the younger children now being cared by the older...a dad in prison...

Each and every one of the 14 families interviewed, there was not one we could see, or feel, who wasnt it very dire need of help....and luckily, using our mandate of selecting only kids 6 years and under, we managed to be able to accept each and every one of the children who requested help from Majengo, all 15 of them...this means, that along with the 19 kids who are 7 aND OVER in primary school but living in, plus the 6 in primary living out, we will now be providing 24 pre schoolers with uniforms and shoes, breakfast and lunches and great schooling to prepare them for the primary when they turn 7....15 of these new kids will live out..
WE figure it is about $50 US per child per year primary...and $40. per child per pre school...including two uniforms, two shoes, books, school fees, food....for one year...not a lot of money considering the results of what can be done.

Next...on to Pambazuko...that wonderful other little family orphanage, sponsored by Kertin and Berndt from Sweden, with mama Tabea and papa Elias residing over the 14 children of this magical place...these kids were relocated from one of the orphanages along the safari route, which we all volunteered at three and four years ago. I know these kids well, have spent weekends teaching them swimming, attended lots of birthday parties....festivities..i call this my second orphanage..i know these kids better on an individual basis, than i do the kids at Majengo...but that will change too....
these weeks to come, before i fly home at Easter....Peter and I will spend lots of time over at Majengo, getting to know those kids just as well..writing bios..taking pictures, teaching English....

but that magical night was a celebration for Fabiola and Melania...gorgeous little girls around age 10, with birthdays unknown, they declared this to be the big day, especially that Kersin and Berndt were in town for the occasion...Dressed in new pretty pink prom dresses with pearls around their necks they sat at their own table with three pink and white cakes....pink and white balloons and decorations behind them...the rest of the family, were at another table, everyone decked out, with family friends and relatives, neighbourhood kids cramming into a corner of the room to be an uninvited part of the festivities, a band, dancing boys aND GIRLS....lots of music, laughter, great food and friendship...speeches...all of us getting up, being welcomed, as though we were in our own communities....

we have become, a part of this part, of Africa....

Tat is the most wonderful part, that we get to attend these celebrations, be part of the lives of these incredible people, TAbeas and Elias beaming, happy, childless before, and now parents of 14 kids, each and every one of them loved, and secure in their home, finally....

And finally as my fingers fly, trying to beat the clock, my back aCHING, but the memories of those four short action packed incredible days beating strongly in my heart...man what a time. Rushing home, packing up...the next morning, yesterday. a crazy ride for 50 miles or so out into the tundra to visit Chief and his huge Masai family out on his boma...cattle, and goats running about, children and family members rushing out to greet us, dressed in the reds and blue colourful sheets, fabulous beaded necklaces...we greet the Chief's great father, who had 6 wives and who knows how many children, he sits under the shad of a big tree on a blue plastic chair, just like last year, we bow our heads in greeting, and then offer our hands into which he spits a little as we brush our fingers down our stomachs, legs and back, for good healthy....off we go to visit inside the bomas where Seanna my daughter and granddaughter Sierra, age 8 slept for a whole night last year on top of a sheet of cowhide in that dark little igloo like building with only one window, likely filled with bugs and lice, but hey, we survived!!
Outside to the back with Chief to choose a baby goat to buy, for Pyper and Finn, my son Johnnys twins age almost 4, and a little black one for Baby Eve just born three m \onths ago, man i miss them so terribly sometime, all of them....
Matt, and Brian they bought goats for their kids....too....
According to Charles we paid a heafy rate, but again, hey, this experience to visit an authentic Masai boma as guests of our friend the Chief of the Engaruga tribe of Masai people scattered in the region outside of Mto WA Mbu...was worth it...Upon leaving, we paSS BY the Chief's father again, who has partaken in the cognac which we bestowed upon him upon our arrival and first greeting an hour before.
He becomes rather surely, all in Masai, he points to me, and grunts something..oh my gawd i am in for it, i think, he is going to banish me from this place forever, i have obviously done something wrong, maybe hurried our goodbyes along a little too quickly, standing there smiling like a dumb donkey i am, and now we all are because there is a problem..A MATTATa....AND none of us know what it is about. What have we done? The Chief is trying to quietly calm his father down who is not happy, and requests that we all assemble ourselves in a row...realizing later that he is separating the black Africans from us whites...and then Chief tells us it is time to go now...to leave well enough alone....we file back into the van...
Later, Charles told us, that the dad haD NOT been informed that we had spent copious amounts of cash on those three baby goats, way more than was needed, in fact, Matt bought a baby goat born four days before, which could barely walk, very cute though with Charles being astounded that a goat that young would even ever consider being sold, but again, hey!! what do we know!!!

so he thought we had spent lovely time on his boma and not offered assistance to his people....a big of a cultural misunderstanding, over and out..

And finally, another 15 minutes of jossling around in that truck, across running rivers, up embankments of sliding stones, Masai washing themselves, their clothing, cows and goats drinking alongside....over to the village of Engaruka...where Chief hAS his village home...where, we become surrounded by Masai women offering to sell a gorgeous array of bracelets, necklaces, neck pieces..all made so intricately by these gorgeously adored women...bedecked in beads of all colours, sizes, i know each necklace meaning something, whether they are married, widowed..single....each piece different...Brian busy all that day, with his notebook, writing and jotting down little tiny sentences...in little blocks, in strange formation, to me, on his pages...

Matt is convinced that on his next trip over..he will be fluent, not only in Swahili, but in Masai....determined to spend a few days, maybe a week out there on that boma with the Chief and his family, and the father, next time....

Behind Chief's house...a small fire is burning, with two goat legs roasting slowly in its char....we sit down around a small wooden table in the middle of a grove of trees, the table covered with branches and green leaves as a 'tablecloth'...the Masai warrior, the young very good looking morani at its head. He takes a branch and with his sword makes a spear which is driving into the soft earth, the branch acts as a brace upon which to hold the hot goat leg, he begins to cut it up into small juicy chunks offering the first one to Diana who, just the night before had told me she was determined not to eat anything strange again, until leaving Africa. The whole question of stomach issues visits every traveller, be they in Africa or to any part of the world where different foods with residue of water, could directly play havoc upon said traveller, without a lot of notice. Each and every one of us has a story or two of the dreaded mishappance....and Diana was determined to get out of there without grave disturbance. But just the night before, moments after making this declaration, her name was sung out loud and clear by birthday revellers to dance up to the two celebrated girls who offered white cake chunks stabbed onto toothpicks, each and every one of us including Diana, bending over and taking a piece of cake into our mouths. There was no getting out of it...she did it and she ate it..and today, aS BEFORE, the goat was offered to each and every one of us, and yes, indeed she took it, ate it and LOVED it!!

All i can say as my time here is coming to an end...
As we bid goodbye to each other...with lots of wonderful eye shining intentions, and expectations, and ideas and promises,yes promises in the budding form maybe, if all goes well, with our fundraising efforts out there...with the wonderful people at home...with all of you who have given so much, please know, that each and every bit you can offer, will make for sure those good intentions, become promises..become dreams become true!!

It has been a visit of a lifetime..
My good new friend Diana, and Jamie...their lives have changed forever. aS THEY have said, Africa now, is in their heart. They understand i think, what Matt felt last year, it just grabs you and take a hold. The resilience of these people, their love and joy, beyond all poverty, and illness, their ability to come together with each other as a community, a big family, each helping each other as best they can...
and now, we have the honour...of being part of that!!

I will be coming to Warren in May..mid May, i think around the 14th...ask Diana..
we will have a wonderful celebration of these days together, and hopefully of the incredible things we can do in the futures....dreams into promises...

i thank you all....big hugs....
and now, for a lovely Kili beer, and dinner..it has been great spending the day with you....xxLynn
ps Matt if i have forgotten aything.....let me know!!!!