Meeting with the Families...

(This entry was written by Gina)

This past Saturday Molly and I were welcomed by the current caregivers and orphans in Justas and Luka’s current program (Kilimanjaro Aid for AIDS Orpahans--KAFAO) at a meeting to explain who we are and why we are here. While they had all met Molly during home-visits the week before, I had arrived later and many of their faces were new to me. This meeting was productive in that I feel the clients have a better understanding of how OI is working toward integrating them into current programs, and also helped them be more comfortable with us.

It was also personally disturbing, however, because I think my understanding of the reality of these children’s lives was brought to a new level. These children in no way look or act differently than any others I have met anywhere in the world. Some love us and can’t wait to shake our hands simply by virtue of our being “mzungu’s.” One in particular is absolutely petrified of us and screams, cries, and runs away whenever he suspects we may even be looking at him. They are just kids who want to play soccer and get love and attention from whichever adult looks ready to give some.

As I do not speak Swahili, I have been spared really understanding the interviews I have been party to, but the bits and pieces I pick up are what lets me know these kids are not like the others in my life. Fractured comments in variations of “His dad committed suicide when he found out he had HIV” and “His mom abandoned him when he was 2” are repeated at every house. Also common are “We have no (mosquito) net” and “We eat only corn paste, rice and bananas.” Other comments from the grandmothers of many of the children are “All my five sons died of HIV,” and “My income is 500 shillings (less than 50 cents) a day.”

Yet they all smile, laugh, and greet us into their homes. And life goes on in what seems an absolutely normal manner. I continue to be inspired by the generosity and strength of these children’s families, and that of Justas and Luka.

"Hello, My Name is Name"

(This entry was written by Gina)

After a tumultuous journey, I finally arrived in Moshi, and have spent the last five days orienting myself, getting to know Justas and Luca (and Molly), and practicing my Swahili. The most surprising aspect of this has been that in Swahili, my name (Gina-spelled jina with the soft ‘g’ sound) means “name.” This is how a typical introductory conversation goes:

Tanzanian Person: “How are you this morning?”
Me: “Good.”
Tanzanian Person: “What is your name?”
Me: “Name.”
Tanzanian Person: (Nodding) “Yes, what is your name?”
Me: “My name is name.”
Tanzanian Person: (look of massive confusion)
Me: (In English) “My name is name—Gina”
Tanzanian Person: (various reactions from further confusion to hysterical laughter)

So that is fun. But at least they remember!

Otherwise, I have been so massively impressed by the beauty of this place, and being so thankful for the opportunity to be helping start this program. I have to admit that I almost didn’t believe the OIT staff in the US when they described Luka and Justas to me, and the beginnings of the project. I never would have imagined two men who have so much kindness in their hearts as to give anything extra that they have to support the local children, but here they are! They literally met at church, decided to help orphans, and started their organization. All expenses have been paid out of their own pockets with literally no outside assistance. They are nothing short of amazing.

Being a student of international development, I am always reading rhetoric in the literature about the importance of “community involvement” and “home-grown solutions.” I have never encountered a more pure example of either. I look forward to spending the rest of my summer here, and laying the groundwork for a fantastic NGO.

Swahili School

Today we completed our last Family Needs Assessment form, and this afternoon, Gina and I began our first Swahili lesson. After lunch, self-appointed "mwalimu" (teacher) Justas took us outside the office, where he had set up a blackboard and a bench for our outdoors lesson. Since the day I arrived in Moshi, he has been talking about being our Swahili teacher. Now that Gina is here, and things are settling down, Justas felt we were ready to begin learning. He was prepared with a notebook, where he had listed out his lesson plan. As he stood at the board, helpfully explaining greetings and feelings, one of the neighborhood kids, Bahati, came running up to our outdoor classroom demanding candy. We invited her to school, and she obediently sat down on the bench, promptly demanding soda and paper. I gave her a sip of soda, a piece of paper, and she took my pen out of my hands. After trading the pen for a box of colored pencils, she took a few moments to draw on my notes, and then left, pencils in hand. Our lesson concluded shortly after, and Gina and I headed downtown.

Aside from that, we're getting ready for our gathering this Saturday. Last night, Gina and I sat and hand-decorated our invitations for the 27 orphans and their caregivers, and today, during the Swahili lesson, Luka delivered them. We placed the order for 100 tea cakes (vitumbua) and 100 "mandazi". We're all hoping the weather will be nice... since this will be an outdoors event!

Speaking of climate, Mount Kilimanjaro made its first appearance, yesterday. It has been rainy or at least cloudy since I got here, but suddenly, in the late afternoon yesterday, the entire mountain became clear. You could see all of the base-hills leading up to the highest peak in Africa, which was topped with snow and absolutely breathtaking in the orange light of a sunset. Here, they say that if Kili comes out for you, it's a blessing. I hope that's true and it means good things to come for these orphans and their families.

The Beginning of Home Visits

Yesterday, we began home visits. The Family Needs Assessment forms take a lot longer than we had expected. We DID manage to visit 10 orphans and their families, BUT we spent 9 hours straight doing these surveys! Which means-- including the half hour of walking to and from work-- I was essentially walking for 10 hours yesterday. Tiring as it was, it was incredibly rewarding. I can't get photos to upload on any computer I've found here, BUT I will try to get pictures out ASAP.

Today, we continued with home visits, but we only made it through 5. We were all tired from yesterday, plus, (in my opinion) some of the visits today were a lot more emotionally challenging. We began this morning with a visit to an adorable 11-year-old boy who has AIDS, who is sick, and who may have been perscribed the wrong dosage of ARVs, which is making him even more sick. The situation in itself is sad, but what made the visit heartbreaking was how loving his family was towards him. His grandmother, who took him after his parents died, wasn't there, but her brother was. Every chance he got, this boy's great-uncle was hugging him. As we were leaving, they asked us to stay and to eat oranges with them.

At least for me, I was walking a lot slower for the rest of the day... worrying about the boy's medication, and wondering what it must be like to watch as a child you love dies. Pretty heavy, to say the least.

On the bright side of things, we got one of the smaller, quieter girls to have lunch with us. We suspect she is not getting enough food at home, and despite her TINY size (she's somewhere between 2 and 3 years old), she ate two mini-cakes, half of a large avocado, and half of a cucumber. Between mouthfuls, she managed to tell me she loved avocados-- the first thing she's ever said to me-- so I promised her I would bring her another tomorrow.

With 15 down, that leaves 12 more home-visits to go. I don't think we'll finish tomorrow, but the work has been good, and it feels like we are accomplishing a lot. I am also realizing how much support these children and their families need, and hoping that we can get what they need to them, as soon as possible.

Starting in Moshi

I am so excited. Today was day 2 in Moshi, and I was able to officially meet with Luka and Justas—our African contacts for the Orphans International Tanzania project. I have to admit, I came to Moshi rather clueless, but full of motivation and excitement to help what sounded like a “good idea” get started. Essentially, all I knew was that we had 2 African contacts who would help us reach out to 27 orphans living with “foster” families, and as the program expanded, we would eventually create a center that would provide services and support for these orphans and their families. I wasn’t even sure what had been accomplished already—as I understood things (and this may have just been poor-listening on my part), we hadn’t even confirmed the “orphan” status of these children, we didn’t have “headquarters,” and I had no idea who these Luka and Justas people were, other than kindered-spirits.

I was very pleasantly surprised. It turns out, Luka and Justas are far from “random” participants in this project—they have been unofficially running the Kilimanjaro Aid for AIDS Orphans (KAFAO) organization for the past two years, completely out of their own pockets. This is no small feat, as I quickly came to see. Their organization—which currently has seven volunteers—has been providing exercise books, food, soap and even clothing to these orphans and these families on a regular basis. Last year, they even managed to have a “social event,” where they welcomed the orphans and their families, in order to create a community for the participants in the program. When they went to officially register their program with the government last year, they realized they needed a headquarters; so, they began renting a two-room office in Majengo. It was in this office that they welcomed me this morning, where they shared story of KAFAO, and where the future of this organization—soon to become, officially, Orphans International Tanzania—began to take shape, and to seem so clear and possible and immediately exciting to me.

On one of the office walls, pictures of participating orphaned children smile down on those who sit opposite them. Throughout our meeting in the office, some of these children—who live, play or go to school in the neighborhood—managed to pop their heads into the office to say hi, to smile, or to shyly run away and stand, watching, behind the tree in the courtyard out front.

Luka and Justas presented me with a folder containing an official documentation of each child’s confirmed status as an “orphan”, signed and verified by the government. They began telling me about visiting these children and their families—each week—and it became clear to me that Orphans International will be supporting and enhancing a program that is already in motion—albeit precariously and continuously on the verge of running out of money. With each file, each document and every photo that they handed me, they smiled hopefully—at me, at each other—and the excitement in the room became palpable. These men’s vision to create a stable support-base for these orphans and the families that took them in is soon to become a reality.

First things first: we need to fill out “Family Needs Assessment” forms for each of the 27 participating families. This is good, explain Luka and Justas, because ever since they told the families that Orphans International would be sending interns, the families have been asking to meet us. But the questionnaires are in English? Luka and Justas proudly hand me their Swahili translation of this eight-page document. After making 27 copies of both the English and Swahili versions of these forms, we are ready to begin home-visits tomorrow morning. Justas estimates we will finish 10 per day (meaning we will finish by the end of the week… which seems reasonable to me), however, Luka makes a more ambitious estimation that maybe we could finish all 27 tomorrow. We will see! In any case, I have a feeling the next day(s) will be pretty intense.

I have been SO inspired by Luka and Justas’ commitment to these orphans and to their families, by their motivation to get things off the ground as SOON as possible, and by their obvious compassion and care for the well-being of these children and their community. I’ve been dedicated to this project since the first, rough-explanation I was given about it… but after meeting Luka and Justas, seeing their work, meeting some of the other participants (they called all of the volunteers to come meet me, but only some of them could make it), and meeting some of the orphans, I feel VERY motivated, and very positive about this project.