Hi!! I’m home, back in Toronto....it is wonderful to be back, this time...not at all like last year, there is a huge difference...I know where I am going with my work in Africa now, a focus, direction – raising money, for the HURUMA Orphanage..see below..way below!!
...and toward the MASAI GIRL’S EDUCATION FUND...a huge thanks to everyone who donated last year. We are sending 19 girls to secondary school now, girls who without your support would be at home, at age 13, married, pregnant and toiling with little.....In Masai country the men look after the cows, the women do everything else: caring for children, building the bomas, collecting water, wood, cooking, washing, cleaning, care of goats, cows and raising money to support their families...

Now through ICA TANZANIA, these girls will have a chance to finish school, to become teachers, doctors, lawyers, tv announcers..whatever it is they dream....with a promise to bring their education and leadership back to their communities...I interviewed every one of them, some in schools, some at home in their bomas with their families; 6 had run away to the safety of the school, unable to return to their families where they would be whipped and beaten and forced to marry old men, for a dowry of goats, cows. The head mistress allowed them in..and paid herself for their uniforms, food, bed, books....they were now in form 2 and 3..but without sponsorship would be unable to graduate and move on to further education or jobs without paying their back fees....This program is allowing them that. One girl was forced to leave school this year, half way through, with no funds...now she is back, with a supportive family, she is lucky..she is the Masai girls in the pink checked sheet.

As well...ICA TANZANIA supports two HIV AIDS positive groups, each with 35 members, mostly women, as men are still adverse to going public with their status...the stigma is still high. Most of these women have been thrown out of their homes by their own families and their husbands who have left them; once small business owners, perhaps women who sell their somosas, rice, bananas, they have lost everything; with children and grandchildren to look after, and with no resources now of their own...life is terribly difficult for them. IN these HIV AIDS positive groups they support and work with each other; they are all on the Anti Retro Viral drugs given freely by foreign donors and their governments to keep the virus at bay. Most feel well, but long for support to start their own mini businesses: rice, bananas, cooking, baking, etc....but cannot afford start up fees...

We are sponsoring, thanks to you! several women now....but I hope to do more in the future, thank you!

I have often felt, that what we have is NEVER ENOUGH...but I am told when i am there, over and over, that every little bit counts...and if it can make a difference in one person’s life, in one family, this is good...so very good, so let’’s keep it going....

I’ve got four speaking engagements set up already, and am looking for other opportunities to share my stories, pictures, projects - so if you know of any organization or group I could come to speak with, schools, churches, Probus, Rotary, private homes, grandmothers, etc.....please let me know.....

I've written extensively in the last few months - no, the last two years - about the Home Comfort Orphanage in Mto Wa Mbu....the kids I loved to take swimming, the shelves, benches and tables we had made, Seanna and Sierra and all the fun they had teaching art, the safaris, Elia - the little guy i wanted to adopt..all of it.

Well, it was wonderful to spend time with them, to work with them, and i will never ever forget those little kids...and as well, I am sorry to report that, in March 2008, I discontinued all forms of support for that orphanage, realizing that they had ample resources of their own. They did not need my help.

But with every cloud...as they say, somewhere out there, there is a lining....