In 2006, Josiah and I met up in London to travel together to Tanzania. It was wonderful to see each other again and to travel back together to the continent we so much love and to see the children we got so attached to. In addition to our own belongings, we took ten pieces of luggage with donated goods for the children: books, toys, clothes and beads! The real adventure started once we had to drag all the luggage on a nonstop, 40 hour train ride across Tanzania. We went to work again for Watoto Tanzania, helping with a project to build a girl's orphanage. In addition to this, we assisted in the preparations for the new school year, checked if cost of materials went up (as they seem to every year), organized sporting events, a beach day and creative days. It was wonderful to spend time with the children again. While there we also met a local pastor, Gerald Nuhu, in another part of Kigoma, called Kamale. By himself he had started taking care of many orphans and street children. Some he took into his home and tried to provide some food and education when funds permitted. It just made our hearts warm seeing a local, with hardly any money, doing all he can to help out these children. He had dreams for "his" children. "Farajah Yetu" is the name he chose for his future orphanage, which means "our comfort." After spending more time with the children there and talking with Pastor Gerald, we felt this was a cause that needed help. We asked him to choose some of the orphans in the community, who were in most need of help and unable to afford school. The money raised from my mom's 60th birthday was enough to supply forty children with shoes, school supplies, uniforms, mosquito nets and medicine. A special Christmas meal was served for all the streetchildren in that community.
We were very impressed and delighted to see that pastor Gerald kept track of everything in his note book and had exact names and ages of all the children. He is a very organized man. We decided to give him a calculator, bag and supplies to make his "office work" somewhat easier. We also had a blackboard made for the church on which pastor Gerald now teaches the children on saturdays. View it here in the photo collage.
Pastor Gerald gave the initiative to have the uniforms made locally in the Kamale area. Not only was this cheaper than buying the already made ones, it also gave jobs to some of the women there, which is one thing we were very pleased about. We find it important to get as much of the community involved in the project as possible and believe that is the right way of "helping" and reaching out to the people, to rather assist them than to take over.
With hearts full of joy and much gratitude to everyone that helped us reach out to the children, we left Kigoma in february. Josiah's parents live here and we now have this commitment to this project, we knew we would be back again.
But before each going our separate ways again, sadly, we had some days on the beautiful island of Zanzibar. And I left there with a beautiful ring, Josiah had proposed to me!
Wat een prachtig verhaal,what a story!!!
Realy love to sit down and read the following parts of africa..Mamaayanna and art.
Love
papa en mama
Posted by: mama | 09/30/2009 at 03:53 AM