Back up the mountains, through stunning hills,valleys, a sunset of pink, peach, purples to never forget...after aday with Lindsey facillitating two half day acting improv workshops, this mornings at the office under hot African sunny skies with 8 local drama people,3 Rasta artists, the second at the secondary school just outside of Mto Wa Mbu with kids from 13 to 20, twenty maybe....both great! Monday and Tuesday my turn with art workshop..takes a fewdays to get supplies together,paper, paint, mixing colours, 28 of them in plastic containers with airtight tops - I'm reducing supplies to a minimum, the paper very rudimentary, the colours: red, yellow and blue, with black and white..everything costs so much more here,maybe twice..sponge brushes, Sharpies, felt markers andcrayons...trucked around in a red suitcase like a travelling fuller brush salesman.25 participants, three women with Hiv aids who are home care workers, the above Rastas who are good artists selling their paintings out of a wooden shed with corregated roof along the road coming into town to tourists from around the world en route to Safari up Ngora Ngora crater or around Manyara National Park. The tourists stick to campsites or pass through to expensive Safari lodges seldom seen venturing into town,so Lindsey and I are basically the only whites around...I'm called Mama Canada, affectionately careened by venders selling Masai blankets and necklaces made from bone and beads along the road - each one determined to lure us into their huts to buy and buy and buy..we insist we are NOT tourists, we are working here...and move along..I had maybe 12students at the workshop, secondary school kids,dressed in white shirts and grey pants or skirts, so keen to learn. Primary school is free here in Tanzania, tho books and uniforms are not...tough for parents desperately trying to put food on the table,pay rent...if kids complete primary with a very high average, they MAY get accepted into government SEcondary..likely not as the numbers are terribly low despite great grades, and still have to pay school fees of about $75.US a year,plus uniform, books..maybe room and board as well, it is prohibitive to most families... a woman positive with hiv aids collapsed andwas hospitalized upon learning her son was accepted,with no possible way of affording his future; luckier kids head off to private secondary schools costing over five hundred a year....
Well where was I? with the flick of my finger I lost a good half hour of writing, but retrieved this bit so far...
I'll get to the point. I am smitten by one sweet seven year old boy called Eliah... the oldest of ten kids at the Blessed Comfort orphanage just outside of town..I want to bring him home...we rented a big van, with Charles our director, the driver and conductor, two teachers and headed Sundayinto Manyara National park...for a day of animal watching...great....except a massive elephant broke from his herd of over one hundred beasts and headed down the road straight for us, his huge wide ears stretched out like a big bird, a nasty look in his eye, steadfast, he trod closer and closer. Charles in the front was unperturbed....the bus driver terrified, slammed the gears into reverse and headed backwards into a muddy trough. We made it through, racing as fast as he could backwards, Lindsey in the back remarking: "then tradgedy struck"..on and on...
I have three minutes time left, having lost so much..
Quickly, Eliah...oh my heart...
What can i say...?
More after the Masai workshop tomorrow and next in the village...
xL