Tumaini

Three New Children

On Friday, Social Services called to say they had three children awaiting pick up. Since we had just returned from a long day in town and then needed to help with preparing the butchered meat, Ferdinand went into town to pick the children up.

Today, he told me their stories.

Omari Sharo is fourteen. He was born at Sengerema hosptial but was living beyond Nyakaliro. He was living there with his parents. His mother passed away and then his father remarried. Then the second wife also passed away. When Omari's grandmother came to live with him and his father, his father ended up leaving. His grandmother became sick and the doctor told her that she would need to be treated in Dar es Salaam. She was not able to take Omari with her and so she left in a taxi and put Omari on a bus to Mwanza. Omari was supposed to meet his uncle in Mwanza but he doesn't know where he lives. He went to the police for help. They said they would help him and then sent him to Social Services. Hopefully, SS will be able to locate Omari's uncle.

Helena Zabron is thirteen. At first when she was telling Ferdinand her story, she began to lie. Ferdinand told her that we are Christians and here to help children. She then admitted that she was lying and told him what really happened to bring her here. She came to a region near the Serengeti with her mother when she was five. Her mother left her at her brother's house and went to Dar es Salaam. Helena calls him "mjomba" (uncle) though. Her uncle is a bus driver so he is not always around. She stays with his wife who is a shop keeper. One day a TV was broken and it was broken by the children of the aunt. But her aunt didn't believe her children broke the TV and blamed Helena instead. Her aunt beat her and so Helena ran away and came to Mwanza. Our hope is that Social Services can locate her mother in Dar and she could be reunited with her there.

Jackie Elias is around eight or nine. She comes from the Geita region. She was sent to Mwanza with her brother. He has a hair salon so she was living with her sister-in-law. One day the sister-in-law left her and asked her to play with the children. She returned and called her into the house and beat her. The sister-in-law collected her clothes in a bag, handed it to her and told her to leave. She waited by the road until dark and a man took her and sent her to the police station.

Town and Butchering

One of the children during the monthly clinic trip last week needed to have their CD4 test re-examined. Since the re-examination coincided with our team's weekly market day, we combined the two. I returned the Tumaini people to the orphanage ealry in the afternoon and then was able to return to Sweya with Rob, Dr. Snoeberger and some of the Institute students. We also carried with us a butchered pig and three buckets of chickens. The team spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning out the chickens, chopping up the pork and packaging the meat to be frozen and then sold.

First Ride

Today, even though the car was going out to Tumaini because of Bible Institute, I decided to take the scooter. I decided that I would rather have my first ride while there would be men out at Tumaini who know a thing or two about scooters and motorcycles in case something went wrong. I could have waited until Saturday for my first ride but the men were taking a trip to Nyakaliro and I would be on my own. I did take a small test drive on Wednesday evening so I knew the basics.

I loaded up the basket on the front with 3 kg of frozen nyama for Tumaini dinner that night. I strapped a backpack to my back. I cautiously exited the mud hut with the scooter and started it up. I made it through the driveway gate without harming myself or anyone else. I started up the road, passing Mama Stella's "diner" on the right. I got maybe a mile without incident and then had my first "run-off the road moment." I passed a guy with his cart loaded with cut grass for livestock and for some reason over-corrected and couldn't get my balance back. I found myself half on the road and half in the grass of the field with the scooter on its side. It really wasn't so bad but scared me a little. I got the bike righted and retrieved the nyama which I had thrown into the road when my bike went awry. The guy with the grass cart came back to check on me and advised me to go "pole pole" (slowly!). I made it to Tumaini without any other "run-off the road moments" except that when I entered the gate, I got a little wobbly again and the bike came out from under me. Of course this happened when everyone was going to the house for chai and so I had a large audience of witnesses. It was quite the talk of the site for the rest of the day. Little children kept telling  newcomers who hadn't seen "how Eliza fell when riding the piki piki (motorcycle)."

Scooter

Since there are three people on our mission team who have business which often requires the use of a vehicle, we have to coordinate schedules and vehicle usage to best accomodate all three of us. For most of the six months I've been working here, I've been able to spend time working at Tumaini two and a half days a week. Recently, Rob has been evaluating some things and decided it would be best for the team if I could have a relatively inexpensive vehicle to get myself to Tumaini whenever I needed to be there. So today, we arrived home from Tumaini to see a scooter sitting in the driveway.

Agness Richard

Agness has an older brother and sister also with her at Tumaini. A Canadian man brought the siblings to Tumaini through Social Services. They still come and visit the children every couple of months or so.

Agness is probably close to the age of 4 now. At first glance you might think she is quiet and shy only to find that as you play with her she can become as loud and rowdy as the other children. She is a chubby little girl and loves to be held and cuddled. One of her favorite playmates is Kristen Howell. When Kristen is able to come play at Tumaini I often see her and Agness holding hands or Agness riding piggyback on Kristen. I've found that when you speak to Agness directly she won't look you in the eye but will nod her head  enthusiastically or will move her eyebrows up and down so you know she heard you.

An Odd Monday

Monday is usually my day off but today I decided to make a quick trip into town to see George the shoe maker today. On Thursday the Aussie girls had helped me to make tracings of all the children's feet at Tumaini who don't have new shoes yet. Since the Luchelele school is pressing to have the children all have black shoes, I thought it would be good to get the shoe production moving a little faster. When George made the 5 shoes for us earlier in February, he told me it would take 3 days. When I brought him the 20 tracings for the shoes today he said they would be ready in a week. That was much sooner than I expected!

In the afternoon today, I got a call from Rob that Social Services had yet another child for us to pick up. I drove into town and pulled up at SS at around 4 p.m. It appeared that it was just about closing time because only one worker was there and all the other offices were closed up. Mr. Mbaga told me that he had been writing the letter to give to the us about the new child when the little girl ran away. It must have happened within the 30 minutes it took me to get into town. He said she was 8 years old.

Balloons & Playtime

Also on Thursday, the Aussie girls brought some items that we could use to play organized games with the children. We spent the late afternoon showing the children how to have a balloon race. We blew up two smaller balloons for the little kids and then larger balloons for the larger children. We paired them off by size and then showed them how to keep the balloons between their legs and then hop-race to a line. Most of the little ones had no idea what they were doing but they enjoyed hopping and having everyone cheering for them. Michelle took several pictures and when I get them from her, I'll post them.

On Friday when I went up to take a profile picture of Alpha,  the children had just finished nursery school. Yakobo (2 years old) was practicing saying his numbers in English to one of the caregivers. He said it so well and correctly and he was visibly pleased with the adults exclamations at his ability. The nurse was also up with the children and was encouraging them to practice writing their letters in the dirt. Most of the children gathered in a circle and wrote in the dirt. Many waited patiently, and others impatiently, calling out "Nursi." She would make her way around the circle asking questions and then putting a check mark by their answer. They played so nicely and contentedly together.

On a side note, here is what Latifah was doing while everyone else was writing in the dirt. She just kept holding my arm and "eyeing" my watch. She's such a funny child.

Here and Gone Again

On Thursday after the Aussie girls and I had eaten lunch, Dan came down from the Bible Institute session and told us that Rob had received a call from Social Services and there was a child waiting to be picked up in town. Thankfully, we had driven the van out to Shadi, the original purpose being for me to visit the children's school but it was also providential for us to be able to go into town easily from the orphange. The Aussie girls asked if they could come along since they had not had a Social Services experience in their 3 months of orphanage work in TZ.

The new child's name was Alpha Nassor. He is 5 or 6 years of age. The Social Worker gave me his documentation but since there was a language barrier, she was unable to tell me the exact reason he was here. We bundled him up and took him out to Tumaini where we outfitted him with some new clothes and a pair of shoes. Then he was given something to eat since we weren't sure when was the last time he had eaten.

Today at around 10 a.m., Rob texted me to come to his office since it was a break for Institute. He said that Social Services had called again and Alpha's brother and caregiver had come looking for him and wanted to pick him up. Since I didn't have a way to get Alpha back into town, Rob told SS that they would need to send the family out to us if they wanted to claim the child. The brother and guardian came to get Alpha at around lunchtime. Alpha was with us for a little less than 24 hours. I was so pleased that the family looked for him so quickly and was able to locate him.

Luchelele School

Already this week has been quite full. Tuesday, I've already talked about. Wednesday turned out to be a town day with the monthly Sekoutoure Clinic trip for four of the children and a Butimba clinic trip for one of the workers and a child. It seemed like we had people coming and going everywhere!

On Tuesday during the ride home from Shadi, I talked to Rob about some recent purchasing we've been having to do for the school children. Before we left for the day, Happyness had handed me a request paper for her to be able to purchase 25 blue sweaters, 16 school t-shirts and 25 school bags. Ferdinand had informed me late in January that there is a new head teacher at the children's school and he is expecting all of the school children to have black shoes, blue sweaters and the same kind of book bags. We are working on the shoes, thanks to Evangelical Christian School in Florida and our Aussie friends' monetary contributions. Rob suggested it would be a good idea for me to go and introduce myself to the school officials and let them know we are working on the shoes.

So, today, we drove the van out to work and after chai, Happyness came along with me and the Aussie girls to pay a visit to the school. We took a short-cut to Luchelele school which was somewhat of an adventure in itself. When we arrived at the school, we could hear all the children shouting as we got out of the car. Most of them were pouring out of the classrooms. I heard many of our children yelling my name, "Eliza!"  It was a bit overwhelming and I think all of us felt very uncomfortable with all the attention. Happyness guided us to the head teacher's office and we sat down to wait. I don't think the head teacher was there at that time but one of the women teacher's took charge and I introduced myself and let her know about the shoes. Since we were there, I asked if it would be a problem for us to take a look around. This was my first time being at a village school. If I had known what a flurry of activity that simple request would have caused, I wouldn't have asked. I felt badly that we had caused so much of a stir and a disturbance but it was too late to call my request back. It took about 10 minutes, but the lady came back and took us to each of the classrooms and we spoke to each teacher and class.

When we finished the tour, I asked Happyness if the youngest of our students were finished with school for the day. She checked with the teacher and they were finished for the day. We gave our children a ride back to the orphanage since we were already going that way and it would have taken them an hour to walk back. We ended up with 5 adults and close to 15 children in the van. We probably would have had more if I had let more come. The non-Tumaini children were crowding around the vehicle trying to enter as well. It was quite an interesting experience.

Container Day

Yesterday I mentioned that the Aussie girls helped with a list of projects I've needed to get to for a while. After we finished putting the picture pages up on the wall in the morning, we trekked down to the container and got to work. In December, Happyness and I had gone through several tubs of baby clothes in the container and I found several boxes of older children and baby clothes all mixed together. She and I didn't have the time right then to sort all of those clothes. I knew that a reorganization would need to be done at some point. So on Tuesday, with three other willing workers, we sorted through about 20 boxes of clothing and got everything re-organized. Since it was quite a blistering hot day, we decided to finish sorting the rest of the boxes on Thursday. What's left are boxes of toys, linens, and baby supplies. It was (and will be!) such a blessing to get this task out of the way.