Another eye-opening day in Tanzania

Some of you had asked for my mailing address so here it is:

c/o TVE HOUSE, PO Box 16446, Sakina, Arusha, Tanzania

Today was the holiday known as Saba Saba here in Tz.  That is the seventh day of the seventh month and it seems to be a workers holiday.  My school was closed so I took the opportunity to go to a different placement, at an orphanage known as Big Furaja, named after its eccentric founder, a pastor who cannot have children of his own and now has up to 200 that visit his small school on any given day. Of these there are some 30 who are HIV positive due to a variety of reasons, mainly that one or both of their parents is/was HIV positive.  We spent the morning playing and singing songs with the 80 or so that were there today.  Then we took all the younger ones, 58, and piled everyone to a total of 68 people with all the teachers and helpers, into a daladala (like a minivan) and I think we must have broken a record as we made our way to Lake Duluti for an outing.  A daladala has seats for about 16 people usually, so you can imagine we were quite crammed in! The lake is beautiful and probably for many of the children this may have been their first time in a vehicle and to a lake, all in one day!

After that adventure, we had a Swahili lesson with Furaja and his staff, then a lunch of plain salted rice and finally ended the visit by going to a funeral with him to pay condolences to the family ("Pole" - sorry). We were not even sure who the mourners were, but on our way out a very tall Masai man seemed to take a liking to the mzungus and followed us out to the road, chatting away the whole time! Apparently he is the village oddball.  So in the time that would be a normal teaching day for me, I had a whirlwind of different activities and so many beautiful children.  And now I am pretty exhausted. 

I wonder about how it would be possible to help out Furaja and his orphans.  They need everything.  Food, beds, books, pens, medicine... the list goes on.  In some ways it seems that the volunteers who come to him are really keeping things on the ball.  He is eccentric, and passionate, and obviously full of love for the children.  But he is not the most organized or long-range thinking.  One of his staff, the ''interpreter", spent most of the day hitting on myself and the other female volunteers, and then asked us each to sponsor him to go to college to become a tour guide.  This is a fairly frequent occurance, to have someone ask me to support them, within 10 min of talking to me.  With him it was easy to say, well, I am a student myself, and how could I support you when I see there are so many children here who need food and medicine? But he kept asking nonetheless.  With others, they simply see volunteers as money.  As access to support.  And at the same time, there is such a need for administration, long term and sustainability planning, there is no way that throwing money at anyone will do much good.  A bit frustrating to be sure.  And at the same time, many people seem happy.  For more reflection, but I welcome any discussion or comments about this, and how I might help these children.

Best wishes,

Erin