The year I spent in Tanzania was not at all what I expected it to be and for many reasons I stopped blogging about it some months ago now. Yet there is much to say and despite all that happened in that place, there are so many people that I am grateful for.
Some of you might know that in March I fell ill and in May I came home to New Zealand for a few weeks to recover. While I was home there were many generous people who donated money to help with the projects I was working on in Tanzania. Others gave things - clothes and blankets, books and toys and swaddles for newborn babies.
I won't name these people. Some of them don't want to be named. Others gave anonymously and I don't even know who they were. What I will tell you though is that the people who gave came from all different walks of life. These were primary school children only five years old, co-workers and relatives of mine, young couples, grandparents, couples with children who had left home, families, elderly people on a pension and strangers who approached me after I spoke in their church. Many of these were people who couldn't afford to give much, but who gave anyway. They followed the example of the widow with the two mites and gave what they could with love, knowing that God would bless and multiply it.
If you were one of these people - thank you. While words will never be enough to explain how many lives you touched with your generosity, I will try.
These are some of the things your money provided:
- Warm blankets for NINE families with young children or babies
- THREE treadle sewing machines to be given to three young women when they graduate from vocational school where they are currently completing a two year tailoring course
- Clothes, food parcels, kitchen utensils including charcoal or kerosene burners and medicines for struggling young mothers and babies in the community
- SEVEN new wooden tables and FOURTEEN benches for the lunch room of the local Emburis Primary School
- THREE new wooden bedsteads and mattresses for families in need
- FOUR loans for women to start small businesses in areas of their choice (selling avocados in the market, green vegetables door to door, handmade beaded sandals and staple foods from a shop in the woman's front yard) and a basic cell phone each for TWO of the women to help with their business
- Salary for ONE year for a home helper to live with a young disabled woman and her baby
- Medical bills for a young pregnant mother
- Toys for the children of the young women in a residential home for vulnerable women and their babies
- New clothes, socks, pyjamas and underwear for these FOUR young women
- A special outing for the young women in the residential program, their children and house mothers to the local snake park where they enjoyed a tour of the park, holding a snake for the first time, riding a camel and morning tea
When I left Tanzania three months ago, with no plans to return in the immediate future, I received a letter from one of the young women that I worked with. One of my girls. In broken English she wrote that I had changed her life. She said she never could have imagined going back to school and yet there she is now, studying to be a teacher. She said she loved me and that she couldn't thank me enough for helping her.
That thanks was for you too - for all the people who gave. For all the people who trusted me with their money, who believed that I would use it for God's glory. I don't think we will ever know exactly what a difference it made until that wonderful day when we all meet in heaven.
The thanks is also for the people in Tanzania who gave of themselves and supported me in every capacity - physically, mentally, emotionally and so on. Who helped me get through the best and worst and craziest year of my life. Sometimes you made life fun, other times you simply helped it to be bearable.
So here's to you:
- Amy and Malcolm - who are everything that friends should be; who came when I said I needed help, who kept me sane with homemade dinners and evening walks and movies and chocolate pudding and who let me talk and vent and cry for two whole months. The help you were to the NGO was incredible. The help you were to me meant even more.
- Ashley - for the good times at language school, our week in Zanzibar and all the days we spent driving around Arusha doing errands and eating snacks.
- Hope - thank you for your help teaching the health program at the girl's high school, for coming to stay in Monduli, for lunch at the Veggie Garden and for, quite simply, being one of the sweetest people I've ever met.
- Peninah - for being my sounding board, for your advice on all things cultural and for being the biggest help of anyone in the day to day running of the NGO. I will always be grateful to you and Oju for getting my car out of the mud not just once, but twice. Thank you for letting me find my own way, for letting me speak Swahili even when you could have said the same thing twice as fast and for knowing when to step in and translate for me.
- Violeth - my sweet Violeth. There are no words for how much I love you. Thank you for being my family, for all the evenings spent talking and laughing and eating chips and ugali and vegetables and banana stew and watching Mazu. Thank you for the market trips and expeditions out to the village, your baby strapped to my back whenever you were too tired to carry him. Thank you for sharing your life with me. Thank you for making your family my own.
- My other Tanzanian friends - Rose, Upendo, Judy, Rehema, Esther, Rozi, Tumaini, Mama Vi, Monica, Bibi Anande, Mama Junior and all the others. Thank you for all the meals and the hugs and the dance lessons and for never making me feel like an mzungu. Thank you for showing you love me by trying to marry me off to your sons/brothers/cousins so that we could be related. Thank you for letting me love your children.
- All the children - you came from all over the place and found a place in my heart. From Western orphanages to the barefoot neighbours who greeted me every day... amongst the sadness of everyday life, you made me happy. There is little in the world that baby kisses and small brown hands in mine cannot fix.
- My girls and your babies - Ruth and baby Daniel, Saumu and little Hadijah, Debora and baby Karen, Esta and baby Shabani, Felista and baby Upendo and Theresia, whose sweet baby Abiudi we will meet again on that glorious resurrection morning. I would have given up long ago, had you not needed me.
I could keep going. The thanks I received from that one girl extends to many people. From my parents at home, to the strangers who said they would pray for me and to everyone in between.
Saumu's gratitude is the same as mine. You blessed her life and you blessed mine.
Nashukuru sana. Mungu akubariki. Thank you so much. God bless you.
-Hannah
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