Jambo! from Arusha town!
Tonight we will travel to Kilimanjaro airport to pick up Diana McKissock and her friend Jamie Bee...9:30 flying in from Toronto via Amsterdam, two 8 hour flights with a bit of a four hour rest in Holland, it can be gruelling! I can't wait to greet them! Diana is Matt's mom...who has been so incredibly supportive of everything we are doing at the Majengo orphanage since it opened a year ago in March 09. I met her last April while visiting Warren for the first time with Matt and so many of his friends and relatives - at a presentation we gave of Matt, Bill and Ian's visit last year, meeting the children, the staff, the village leaders in charge of Majengo, lots of great pictures, stories, culminating with an astonishing commitment to finance the operations of Majengo for the next six months!!! And just last month in January, another visit.. Matt's mom Diana so enthusiastic about Majengo, the stories she has heard, the pictures of the children...dying to come to Africa, but as she told me one snowy morning over coffee at her home, way too scared to actually make the journey. Way too scared!
We talked for three hours, about everything, where we stay, what the room is like, small but clean with two beds and two windows, outside the high fence encrusted with cement dotted with lines of broken jagged glass and bottles sunk securely into the fence to prevent anyone thinking of making their way in. Saloon, the overnight security guard sleeping on a small couch in a little glass lined room just outside my door, a bathroom to myself with a real toilet.
Food - very little choice in Mto Wa Mbu....rice, beans, ugali if you dare to try, a form of corn flower mixed and cooked with water, like a thick paste where you scoop up a chunk of it in your right hand, make a ball and dig your thumb into its centre forming a sort of spoon, this is eaten with a mix of greens, like chard or spinich, a great tomato/onion/carrot sauce, tasty, sometimes sprinkled with bits of beef or chicken. bottled water is everywhere, maji baridi, cold water, ndogo or cobra, small or big, 50 cents or one dollar, approx. You buy phone cards for phone time, to talk or to text, most text as it is cheaper, the cards lasting so much longer. The streets of Mto Wa Mbu, lined with shopes, cubicles and booths, stalls selling everything from matresses, clothes, sox, pants, shirts, Masai blankets, kitchen wares, ghetto blasters, cd players, they have everything here for sale, mostly, you just have to know where to get it! Goats and chickens and cows herded along amongst the people, Masai guys draped in red and blue sheets carryig sticks, with guys peddling necklaces and clothing in and out of the shops and restaurants, waitresses running to pick through the brightly printed blouses and skirts, dresses, shoes....blankets lined up along the ground carrying underwear, cds, hair products...chickens squawking, tied to metal bicycle carriers by their necks, two to five at a time, into the backs of restaurants they go...the expensive cuku arriving on plates a few hours later, boiled, fried, cooked, each part of the bird used, nothing ever thrown away. Their poultry is pure, not juiced up and overfed with chemicals like back home..consequently to me, scrawny and thin, my daughter Lindsey says eating a chicken like this in Africa is like sucking its bones, no meat! Charles disagres of course, on his visit to Canada the chemicals in our foods distastful to him. Nothing is processed here, nothing. Everything pure and cooked that day. What else can i describe to you, i know this place so well, that is has become like home, where i can make my way across dusty potholed roads and paths, past women cooking corn husks in small open fires, charcoal burners holding frying pans of french fried pototatoes cooking in oil to later be combined with eggs for the famous street food: chips my eye (not spelled this way in Swahili!), almost without noticing now. Mto Wa Mbu. Deep inside a banana belt, clusters of women dressed in brightly patterned textiles wrapped tightly around their bodies as skirts, tops, head pieces, tied up and holding sleeping babies on their backs, fronts,sitting on overturned red and white plastic pails in circles, bunches of bananas, avocadoes, pineapples, mangos inside the circle ready to sell. This is called small business, the women, businesswomen...their only means of making a few dollars a day to feed their families and pay for the rent of one or two rooms monthly. Most homes i visit have mud floors, a couple of windows, the bed and living room couch or chairs separated by a table in the middle, for eating and working upon. Cooking is done outside often in a community area where dishes and pots are brought out and shared with neighbours, small fires or keroscene stoves, sometimes charcoal burners, all very primitive to us, and always done close to the ground. No electricity, no water often, and when there is it is a luxury.

Ah Arusha town, with a great internet cafe opposite the Naz hotel where we will stay tonight, Pastries sold a few metres away from where I sit,lined up in a long row with other mostly white typers, tapping away to friends and family around the world. I lke to come here once in awhile. To visit my culture, to enjoy the internet services which mostly don't stick or break down, where the infrastructure of basic electricity can be counted upon. Bliss.

So much to write about with Majengo these last few days. Firstly, a meeting with Peter and I and all the staff, 8 of them, the cooks, teachers, cleaners, secretary and accountant of the orphanage, sitting around a big table on benches, at 2pm, the murmering of 20 children freshly fed and showered and now supposedly sleeping on their beds, two to a matress... A go around first, of how they felt about this first almost year at Majengo...encouragement from me to be as honest and open as they can, that this is the time where if they have any needs or problems, they can openly speak, not to be judged, but to be listened to, otherwise how are we to know where they are at, what they are feeling, or what they need. Each one of course formally thanking all of us out there who have supported this place, how lucky they were to work here...how, after the village leaders were able to dispel their former director last year, how smoothly the place was running, where the communication between them was easy, where their needs were being met. The only thing that kept coming up, was their need to somehow raise enough money beyond their salaries, to support the education of their own children at home. Secondary school is expensive, and at age 14 after finishing primary, most parents are scrounging everywhere looking for the $500. to send their kids to government schools. It is prohibitive for most people..but our staff, with regular salaries are hoping to find a way.
I have been obsessed, as i mentioned in my last blog, on how we can help and support people to help and support them selves and their families..not just to offer them money, but offer them the ability to develop skills where they will be able to earn their own money, and more of it,each year, to feed their families and finance their own children through schools.
We begin to talk about MICRO FINANCING....it is for us, just an idea at this point. But how could we set up a system where families could submit small business proposals to a committee which would be analyzed for selection, and where loans would be offered depending on each project and the means of each family. Where groups of say four or five families would come together to register for loans, contracts would be drawn up, and where, after a period of 1 to 2 years, the entire group would be responsible for paying back these loans. If one or two were unable to pay, the rest would be expected to pay for them, offering an incentive for each group member to work towards their ability to pay at the designated time.
As i said...we are in the idea stage...first for the staff at Majengo, and then hopefully available for the relatives and families taking care of orphaned children in their homes, as well as their own children...
I am thrilled with the staff..they have worked incredibly hard this past year, putting the needs of the children ahead of their own. They have proven themselves to be wholey committed to Majengo and the children as they would their own, with full intention of carrying on; for me it is very exciting to see. Peter said, after our staff meeting, how unusual it is in Tanzania for the more senior staff, Killo and Martha, our secretay and accountant basically responsible for running Majengo, to be at the same table as the cooks and cleaners, for each one to feel open enough with each other to share their innermost feelings and, from Killo, the usually private workings of the facility. With such transperency, there is little opportunity for corruption, as everyone holds themselves responsible as an important part of the whole to keep this place running smoothly. It truely is remarkable!
Majengo is an orphanage, as opposed to a family ...with 40 kids, and 8 staff....raising happy, contented, growing children, the best we can do...and Majengo is a shining light out there compared to so many orphanages lined up along the safari route luring in unsuspecting tourists dismayed by the conditions of the children at those places. It is a travesty. Where corrupt directors use orphaned and sometimes their own relatived children to raise money for themselves, the children being kept dirty, poor, stomachs distended, bloated with malnutrition, kids with HIV AIDS, untreated - unhappy, listless, tired, angry. INside, hidden away, books, pens, pencils, games, puzzles, toys, donated by tourists, locked away in pantry cupboards, out of sight, never used, I have seen this myself. Safari drivers paid to bring in the tourists, government officials and townspeople paid to keep their mouths shut. Everyone knows what is going on; and no one knows how to stop it.

Out of one of these, we formed PAMBAZUKO, the second orphanage we are working with, both Majengo and Pambazuko often sharing and working together. Over a period of one year, we managed to relocate 14 children into a new home, called Pambazuko, where they now are being wonderfully looked after by Elias and Tabea, their new baba and mama, along with two helpers....Pambazuko is not an orphanage, it is another model into itself, with a mama and baba - like a big family into itself. And again, like Majengo a joy to visit. I am very close to these children at Pambazuko, having worked at that first place for my first two years of being in Africa. I have taught 6 of them how to swim, draw, and taken them on safaris, picnics, and been a regular visiter at their celebrations and birthday parties. Just the other night we celebrated Zack's 14th birthday, where as guest of honour a special table with a white cloth had been set up for him alone, the other children feasting merrily at a huge table together. Neighbours and their children are invited to these parties, with bed sheets tied together and forming a fence around the premises outside - much singing, and dancing....with the cake, cut into pieces, the birthday boy offers each guest a chunk speared by a toothpick, a song erupts where the guest has to dance the full length of the room towards the cake, an honouring of the guest as well as the birthday person, a great custom i think!
and while i am here....in the midst of all this frivolity, the story of M., her full name protected for personal privacy...
M is 8 years old, HIV positive...a great little girl filled with exuberence and personality, when she is well, who i met four years ago while working at that first orphanage i described above. At that time she was kept very ill. As she sat on my daughter Seanna's lap, diligently and determinedly shooing away any other children vying for a place on her knee, the nasty open sores and liasions on her arms and legs, dripping and unattended to....
Her father had HIV AIDS...passing it along to her mother who went to the hospital for a postive diagnosis; the father, in his rage (of course he didn't get tested himself), chopped off one of the mother's arms just below the elbow, who consequently, at a very young age, passed away. The father ran away, leaving baby M in the care of a friend of her grandmothers for a few years, until that woman, herself very poor and looking after grandchildren of her own, registered the child, then 4, into that first orphanage along the safari route. This is where i first met M. That first year, volunteers took her to the hospital a number of times where we received ARVs and medicine to combat the effects of the HIV AIDS virus, bringing along bunches of fruits and vegetables, necessary for the ARVs to work. The next year, I found her, and two other children diagnosed positive in wreched condition again, once again, taking her to the hospital, the ARVs, the good fruits and vegetables. And once again, that director, once the volunteers were out of the way, stopped the medicine, as before.
When M was 6, she was relocated into Pambazuko under the great care of Elias and Tabeas, her new baba and mama. She thrived. I couln't believe it was the same child last year, fit, full of energy, blossoming, laughing, singing with the other children, you would absolutely never know that she was positive.
But this year, back in November, her birth father returned, and took the child away. He had remarried again, a young woman from another region and brought her to Mto Wa Mbu. Childless, this new wife urged him to bring the child back into their family. He had a problem, he had not told this wife about his diagnosis, and didn't want her to know about M, either. She insisted, M was brought into the one room home of these people, away from her 13 brothers and sisters, the companionship, her school, and the very necessary ARVs which the father refused to administer.
As she began to get sicker, the wife, believing her to be'bewitched', took her to a witch doctor, where she was given a concoction of drugs and salves...sometimes the cutting of her arms with the application of an herbal powder poured over the wounds. Elias and Tabeas visited a few times but were turned away. It is illegal to expose someone positive with HIV AIDS, so they felt it best to keep quiet, but as well, it is illegal here for someone positive to have unprotected sex with someone who has not been told of the diagnosis.
On Sunday morning, Elias and I set out to visit M, with a plan.
Being a foreigner, i don't know the rules, i can basically get away with any thing due to my ignorance. We arrived at the small home, with M rushing up to meet me, hugging, holding, she looked terrible. Weak, coughing, her breathing shallow, the light in her eyes gone. She was alone with her mother. Elias translating, i began my story, of how i had met M back four years ago, how terribly sick she was then with HIV positive, how that director had not allowed her the ARV's....then, how she had gotten so well under the care of Pambazuko...and now, as I see her, once again, weak and sickly....how....
and in the meantime, this young woman is staring at me listening to Elias, all the while texting madly on her phone for her husband to come home. Her face shows no emotion. He walks through the curtained door, and sits on the bed across from us. Huge posters of barely clad western white women hang on the walls, amongst pictures of hotrods and racy trucks....he listens without reaction to my story. All the while i am giving the history, now with both listening intently, talking freely about HIV AIDS, as if i think they have talked about this amongst themselves. Again, no reaction on his face, the wife cleaning beans scooped from a big bag under the bed, onto a metal plate. M is sticking red valentine hearts from a sticker sheet onto the walls and tables, sticking and unsticking, and listening.
In the end, he told Elias, that he had been giving her ARVs..but when shedeveloped a high fever he withdrew them and took her to the witch doctor. Of course this is a lie. He showed us the bottle of cough medicine, and vitamin B tucked away beside the table, an effort to indicate his attempts towards health. I took a few family pictures, assuring them that it was good that mama and baba and M were together, BUT insisting that they get her to the hospital immediately on ARVs, or that she could become very very sick, and could die.
He allowed me that i could visit again, and wished us on our way.

Walking back along the road, all of a sudden a huge crowd of people emerge in our direction running along the road in hot pursuit, throwing stones at someone who had stolen a bunch of bananas. He heads down another road and into his own house, locks the door. The crowd gathers around. We join them to get the story. An old woman emerges and shakes our hand, the friend of the grandmother of M. who had long ago looked after her when her birth mother had passed away. She has seen us visiting M and over a Fanta she tells her story, of baby M, the first orphanage, and now what is happening in this house, how this father is violent toward his new wife who is very afraid of him, and how the new wife makes M. carry buckets of water for her, makes her wash dishes, sweep floors, all the while as she has watched M becoming sicker and sicker, tears running down her face now.

Charles promises to contact his doctor friends, to pay a visit, to force the father into confessing his diagnosis to the mother, and to put little M onto ARVs...or he could be up against a criminal charge.

I took 8 new kids from Majengo swimming that afternoon, who had never been in a pool before. We started with blowing bubbles, and after two hours everyone of them was able to jump in off the side, bounce up and down and go completely underwater with their heads! It amazes me, children, without fear...each following each other...and loving every minute of it!

What else what else what else!!

Oh. the budget. Yesterday, finally a very detailed meeting with Charles, our computers, our excel sheets and our calculators....step by step, from last March on, our budgets!

Amazingly, we are on track...last year, when we set the budgets, none of us had really done this before, trying to figure out how much it would cost, and how much we would need, to feed and house 50 people monthly, and over the year to come. We did a pretty good job, considering. The reports and receipts have been kept immaculately. Each item duely recorded. The food costs are much higher than expected, our contingency fee and monies set aside for other things now alloted towards food. Maise, corn, sugar, rice prices have skyrocketed as well over these last six months. Also, last year as i left in April, i bought 40 new uniforms, shoes, cleaning materials, and along with Matt's clothing and school supplies we were in great shape...but we neglected to add these things into our costs for down the road. So there will be some adjustments, but not over the top, and not anythingi can't live without. Next week the task will be to sit down with Killo and martha, Charles Peter and I to figure out a more precise budget, based on 8 months of experience, fair enough.
The very main thing for me, is the way that records were kept, the monitoring of each item, the food things, the pantry, the care of the children. I cannot see mismanagement at all, or corruption, I couldn't be happier.

Charles hopes to go to university to do his masters in Dar, in March or April this year, for two years. He and Grace, his wife have just had second child - her work is based in Dar as a nurse with the Department of Defence. It is important for that family to be together. But what in earth to do without Charles? I have been stewing over this for two weeks now; I know he has to go, i know he has to further his education, he has been working in Mto Wa Mbu for 7 years now with ICA TANZANIA.
I also know how lost i am without him here as my advisor.

Our Majengo infrastructure has been in great shape this past first year. Our task now is to create a new structure, with Charles working out of Dar, but in constant touch with someone, I say 'as good as him', here...and we are working on it as well. Peter will take over the Majengo file...the books, monitoring, keeping in touch with, the liaisoning...but in the next two weeks or so, that certain SOMEONE will emerge, I have great faith, here, that this too, along with everything else, will work out too!

Abdul...our driver, just called...all set to pick me up at the Naz at 7:45....and out we go to meet Diana and Jamie! what fun!
Tomorrow we take them to visit pasteur Naiman and his 100 children at his school in the church...meet the 18 kids who need to be brought together under one roof with a new mama and baba...and vist the house which we saw last week, then, filled with debris, without water, or electicity, which, i hope will be in great shape tomorrow...! and then on to MtoWa Mbu...a great lunch where they will meet Charles and Peter and all the kids at Majengo..where Diana can see for herself what great things are happening, and the reason Matt so incredibly committed himself to this project.
Matt called last night! A brief outline of where we were going, how things were doing, his mom's visit, and the beginning of the new MICRO FINANCING project which he said he knows a lot about! Wow! He arrives for a few days in about a week from now...with so much to talk about, to work on...!
and so it goes!!!
over and out...and the best to everyone out there..!!
thank you so much for wading through all of this with me, whomever you are...
it is great to feel someone out there is alongside!
hugs...!!Lynn