JAMBO!!
Happy Valentines day!! a little late but sending all our love from Tanzania..Peter's uncle invited us for dinner... a new home for them, three small rooms, two for sleeping with 6 people (Peter hunkering down on a mat in the storage area across the hall)...one room for the living, eating area...small with a couch and a couple of chairs, table, heavily curtained and very hot, this year with water and electricity, very exciting, the small 12 inch tv on throughout our meal...chipatis, a very soft beef stew cooked with onions, carrots, beans, and rice...a feast to celebrate the day!
Charles just got back yesterday, so happy to connect with him..he is my main stay here, the glue which keeps it all together - we spent the day going over details..Majengo the orphanage, how it has been going this first year, and as far as i can see, things are wonderful! we have a bright yellow swing set now outside, the bougainvillea fence we planted last year thick and over 6 feet high! blossoming with pink yellow and red flowers....the trees and bushes grown high and bushy...The outside toilets and showers we began last year, still stand exactly as i left them 9 months ago, basically cement stalls without connection to water!! the owner of this house was meant to finish them, but she has had financial and health problems...and so it goes...
Nothing ever gets done here as you might expect.
It surprises me sometimes, when things appear, things get done, miracles happen and they do! Brought two computers this year, hooked them up to the internet modem at the office yesterday with great expectation, the internet cafe shut down over this year to my dismay, but maybe....alas this didn't work either...sympatico mail is a million cybermiles away from Canada and the Olympic games and all that cold and snowy falling flakes... kept breaking down.

So today Elias..the baba of Pambazuko, the first orphanage..i know this is confusing, but we are working with three now.. hopped into a small bus, squeezed into the very back with 26, i counted them, other squished souls and off we went, the milk run stopping at every small village until finally pulling into the larger dusty bustling noisy crazy town of Arusha...another bus and a twenty minute walk through dusty roads housing dilapidated corregated tin homes, a very poor area of Arusha, with little children dressed in tatters happily playing in clumps along the road, the odd cow, with many goats and chickens pecking their way along, sipping from puddles left over from last night's most welcomed crashing downpour. It is very hot here this year...noticeably...way more than last...and without a lot of rain, they talk of the cows that have died, especially up in Masai country, hundreds of them dropping dead in the parched fields....shepherds from Kenya herding hundreds down into Tanzania in search of green grasses, leaving them at the side of the road, roaming along now on their own devices, their owner high tailing it back north across the border. Gone.
A few more turns and we find Pastor Naiman and his wife Kathleen inside their big airy wonderful church, with 100 very poor children who come there every morning for nursery school, singing and running through their a b c s....exhilerating, seeing all these kids together, dressed in green sweaters and blue shorts and skirts, uniforms donated by a group of Lutherin church people in Denmark. We are greeted with a great show of songs, and introductions..Pastor Naiman describing this church which he built 10 years ago, how it is by day servicing this school for pre schoolers in this very impoverished area with another 400 other kids out there hoping there will be a space for them...without any other schools in the area.
My friend, Lyn Barnes, from Australia raised enough money to finance a plot of land, 3 and a half acres just outside of town, where they hope to build a big school to accommodate all 500 children. Pastor Naiman invited me there today to discuss 18 of his most neediest kids...all of them orphaned by HIV AIDS...some with one parent living, but who is totally incapable of looking after their child. These kids are roaming literally from family to neighbour....desperately in need of a home...
He has arranged for a house to rent a few blocks away which we visit, almost ready to take in the children...He and his wife have agreed to become the papa and mama of these children temporarily, to move into this house until they can find another couple to become the real parents..imagine making the decision to take on the responsibility of 18 children, to be their life long mama and baba...to love them, to mend their scratches, to feed them well, to provide school for them, uniforms, books, education, and most of all love them all as their own children. Like Elias and his wife Tabea did, wow, it is a huge undertaking.
The situation looks good to me. Honest, hard working, good people.Intent on making a home for these kids...i met the children, what can i say, there are over 14 million orphaned kids in Africa now...all by HIV AIDS....there is no way to try to help, a little a drop in the bucket, but nevertheless, a drop....again, i could never be here without the help of so many of you out there from Canada and the US..Sweden...Holland...thank you so much!!
The budget they have put together is incomplete...
If we decide to commit ourselves to creating this new orphanage, the next few months will be busy, building beds, tables, benches, arranging for two staff, buying the necessary kitchen things to feed 22 people....to set up the financing...mosquito nets, curtains, clothing, shoes, uniforms...
we did it last year with Majengo, the logistics are in place....
we just have to decide now, whether we can do this, or not...
My big challenge this year is our on ground infrastructure. Communication with Canada and the United States....Budgets...making sure the people who are in place at each orphanage are honest and working hard at their jobs...and so far, from what i see, i am delighted with what they are doing here...the kids are happy, hugely...they have grown, not only physically but with their confidence, they are laughing amongst each other, singing with strength....hard to describe but amazingly reassuring, all of this achieved in just one year. Bravo to everyone out there..i wish you could be here with them now..
i am working also thinking and talking alot on how to make these orphanages self sufficient someday unto themselves. A friend came by last night from Handeni, a wonderful woman, Digna Peters who i lived and worked with four years ago in her village, her work is in organizing and running workshops to empower women, three thousand of them in fact. It is incredible. WE talked into the night about how these women set up businesses themselves, making soap, bread, selling rice, sugar, bananas....sewing, tailoring, selling used clothing, all sorts of things...how with just a little help, they form groups amongst each other to begin these enterprises, and how so many of them are working so well..She woke me up as she was leaving early this morning with her plan to bring me one boy chicken, and 8 girls, with the necessary information on how to raise chickens, to lay lots of eggs to sell...how to feed them, their vaccinations every three months,their wooden cages with perches for the guinea hens she would also bring to sleep upon..how to keep them clean...all of this at 6am!! Digna filled with new ideas, new dreams...how we can begin to make Majengo self supporting! it is a small start, but nevertheless a start.
And the other thing i am thinking about, is how to reach and provide support to the biggest numbers of children...orphanages are one thing, and a very good thing for the most neediest vulnerable children....but what about all those kids who have been orphaned by HIV AIDS..who have been taken in willingly by neighbours or relatives, who are having a very difficult time of it themselves, often with many children of their own. How to help them in their own homes? How to reach them, and how to make sure that money offered actually goes to the children, or to their school uniforms, supplies....how to monitor this kind of project....i have no idea, yet!

Matt's mother, Diana arrives with Jamie next Tuesday night, KLM at 9:30 pm...Kilimanjaro!! I am very excited to meet them here in this incredible land. The story of Matt arriving last year, with his great friends Bill and Ian...how they whirled around Arusha and Mto Wa Mbu...arriving the day of our big formal opening of Majengo orphanage....the long ceremony inside the dining area, with speech after speech from village elders and politicians...their very first day, so tired...and outside the children dancing and singing...Ian putting on a juggling show, Bill making a video..meeting the children, going on their first safari, the next day, with giraffes, elephants, zebra, monkeys running down the road, baboons...the kids taking their first ride on a bus, lunch, and some being a sick afterwards....and later, weeks later, Matt's email to me with his family's astonishing commitment to support the ongoing expenses of Majengo..the staffing of 8 with 40 kids, medical, school, uniforms, food, transport..everything, for one year...I can't thank you enough..and now, Diana is coming...

Yvonne has been sending emails asking exactly what we need...thank you to everyone out there amassing things for these kids..clothing, shoes... art \and school supplies...whatever you can think of we need here..they have nothing, except what we brought over from last year...thank you all so much!!

Diana...and Jamie...see you on Tuesday...bring suntan lotion, it is very hot here... mosquito spray for the evenings..books to read, flashlight, often the electricity goes, but at least we have it! light clothing...a bathing suit for down time..
time to run! have a great week....hugs..Lynn

PS My card for some reason works up in the Kiratu atm...hurrah!! i really panicked last week, with the equivalent of under $10. in my purse, and Peter alongside with pockets bare, not even enough for a bottle of water..scary! but a lesson to experience.....albeit for a day or two..only........