Widows and Orphans

Every week now I go out to Aston Vision Orphanage and a couple of weeks ago Aston took us to visit his village, Ambreni Moivaro. Aston became chairman of the village 5 years ago and since then he has been working to try and improve the quality of life for the children and people of the village.

Aston wanted us to see the families of the children that attend his school and altogether we visited about a dozen different families. There are more and Aston said he could take us to visit them another day if we wanted. All of their stories are very similar – the mother is a widow with three or four or more children to look after. They all sleep on one bed or the children sleep on the bed and mama sleeps on the floor or on a skinny couch.

Other children live with their grandmothers, as both their parents are dead. Some of the children are disabled – we met four and there are two more that Aston supports. The first child appeared to have cerebral palsy. I don’t know about the rest.

Most of the houses are made of mud and sticks and have only one room. They all have the same problems – mama or bibi cannot work because she either has to look after the children or she is too old. This means that there is no money for food. Everything seems so inexpensive to us – the rent for their houses costs between 10,000 and 30,000 shillings a month ($7.65 - $22.90 NZ) and yet they have nothing. All of them are hungry and the majority of them need mattresses – either they have none to start with or there are too many people to fit on one so some of the family members have to sleep on the floor.

This house was probably the biggest and nicest that we visited and yet it only costs 30,000 shillings a month to rent. Inside lives Veronica, a widow whose husband died in an accident in 2007. Three children live with her, including Susannah who is 7-years-old and who has severe cerebral palsy. Veronica says that there is never enough food so often she doesn't eat, giving what she has to her children.

11-year-old Bilali is disabled and lives with his mama Zainabu. She is a widow with four children, one of whom lives at Aston's orphanage as she cannot provide for them all. A volunteer donated a bicycle for Mama with a special seat on the back for Bilali, which helps to make their life easier. The skinny bed that you can see in the background is where three children sleeps. Mama sleeps on a tiny couch off to the side.

Bilali and his siblings sit outside their house. The door on right belongs to the room that they rent. When we left Mama was cooking ugali over an open fire outside.

When we first went into this Maasai lady, Maria's, house Aston kept talking about her children. She looked so elderly that we kept looking at each other, thinking that surely he meant grandchildren. It turned out though that she is only 51-years-old and her youngest child is 7. Maria's husband died two months ago from a combination of typhoid, malaria and malnourishment and she has three children. They all live in the room on the right side of the picture. The dirt floor has flees that live in it which have given Maria some sort of parasitic infection in her toes.

This one-room house is home to Theresa, her brother and grandparents. Theresa is six-years-old and is severely disabled. Her Mama died two years ago in an accident.

Theresa, her brother and her Babu (grandfather) all sleep on a single small mattress. Bibi sleeps on a skinny couch. Babu was in the same accident that killed Theresa's mother and now he cannot walk without the aid of crutches and is unable to work to provide money for the family.

A volunteer kindly donated a stroller so that it is easier for Bibi to move Theresa. The other children in the photograph are Theresa's brother and cousins. The cousins live in the room next door.

These three children, Happiness, Prince and Dennis all live in the room on the left with their older sister, who is 23. Their parents are dead. When we went to visit, the sister had gone to market and nine-year-old Happiness was in charge of looking after her younger siblings. They have no bed so all four of them have to sleep on the mud floor.

This is the home of widow Happiness. She had three children, but one died three months ago. Her second son, Crispen, is on the left in the photo and is disabled. He spends his days at a school for disabled people where they learn to do basic household tasks. The third child is Kelvin, who lives at Aston Vision full time. He was born with bad eyes and the local doctors do not know how to help him.

These are the neighbouring rooms to Widow Happiness and Crispen's home.

Walking from house to house through the village was beautiful.

Aston and Betsy.

When we got back to Aston Vision we helped Aston serve the children their lunch of rice and beans.

Helena with her lunch.

Sharon, one of the children we met the first time we went to visit Aston.

Everything we saw that day was very sad. The people were very welcoming and friendly, but the majority appeared to be rather hopeless – like they’d been beaten down by life and were finding it hard to carry on. I guess I can see why that would be.

The thing that gives me hope is that by helping Aston and his children, we are helping these families as well.

xoxo,

Hannah

Oh My God

Two weeks ago today, my mother, friend Betsy and myself were driving home from an outing in Usa River, when we saw a sign that said “Aston Vision Orphanage”. Betsy and I had both heard of the orphanage before, but didn’t know much about it except that it was excessively poor. We decided to stop, thinking that there might be something that we could do to help then.

I know this may sound trite, but the people we met, what we saw at that orphanage, the brief time we spent there, is something that I will always consider to be a pivotal moment in my life. While we were there we met a young man, Aston, founder of the orphanage. This is his story.

Aston Simon was born 31 years ago in a Maasai family, where he was the eldest child of the first wife of his father. His father had six wives altogether and many children, five alone who were born to Aston’s mother. His upbringing was tragic – his father was an alcoholic who used to come home and beat Aston, saying that he could not go to school anymore, but must stay at home and herd the cows.

When Aston was still a young boy he ran away to live as a street child in Arusha. Eventually a soldier found him on the streets, took him in and welcomed him into his own family, giving him a home and an education. At the age of 23, Aston left the soldier’s family and went to work in the mines. It was here that he learned English and met some local Christian pastors who converted him to Christianity. The church he attended sent him to a university to study to be a mechanic and driver.

Six years ago, in 2007, he bought a plot of land in the village Ambreni Moivaro. At some point during this time he became the chairman of the village. He built a house for himself and for his birth parents on the 5 hectares that he had bought and planned to settle down there.

Then three years ago he went to the spring to collect water, a thirty-minute walk away from his home. When he got to the spring he found a box laying on the ground, a baby inside. Aston took the baby to the neighbours and people of the village but no one would claim her or take her in. He then took her to the police who said they would have to, “Give her to the white people,” meaning that a Western orphanage would be the best place for her. Aston refused, wanting the baby to grow up in her own culture, with her own people, and he kept her. He named her Angel.

Since then, Aston has collected 42 children who are either orphans or the children of widows who cannot support them. Currently there is only room for 10 children to live at the orphanage and they are taken care of by Aston and his sister, Jessica. Because there is no room for the other children, they have to stay with neighbours and relatives, often in places where there is no room for them. Many of the children have to sleep on the floor. All are hungry.

At the orphanage itself there is one small building, half of which is a little office, the other half of which is the sleeping room for all 10 children. There are four skinny bunk beds and the children sleep two to a bed. All ten of them are approximately three to seven years of age. Most of their ages are estimates. Next to the sleeping room is a tiny schoolroom with a mud floor. Boards are missing from the walls and roof, leaking constantly in the rainy season. Across the yard is a chicken shed, generously donated by volunteers from Belgium and the Netherlands. In two months time the chickens will start laying and Aston will be able to sell the eggs to make a little money to buy food for the children.

The window on the right is the "office", the centre window is the bedroom and the small window on the right is part of the schoolroom.

Back of the schoolroom.

Inside the schoolroom.

There is no money to pay a teacher, so the children can only have school when there is a volunteer there to teach them. 14 of the children have been sponsored to go to local schools. The other 28 spend their days at the orphanage, where they eat one hot meal a day. It costs $1000US to send a child to school for a year by the time you add together all their school fees, books, uniforms and the cost of transportation.

Aston’s mother and father live on the grounds and Mama and Jessica cook for the children. Most of the time there is not enough food and often there is none. Sometimes all the children eat is a meal of a paste made of flour and water. The cost to feed all the children for a month is only 500,000 shillings, about $350NZ. This would buy them rice and beans, sugar, flour and cooking oil, all of which could be bought at a local market, supporting the village and local economy.

Beautiful Angel - the spring baby.

Aston is the chairman of his village and as well as looking after the children, he helps to look after a large number of widows in the village. His hope is that these children will not just have safe water and enough food, but that they will be able to dream of a better future. He says his dream is to help children because he remembers his time as a street child and he doesn’t want anyone to have to live like that.

Right now though, the children need dormitories and bathrooms, beds to sleep in and food to eat. To build a bathroom block with two toilets and a shower room would cost $1500US. When they have dormitories, all 42 children will be able to live there. Before they can even think about building it though, they need to finish the retaining wall on the plot of land where the dormitory will go. This will cost them 300,000 shillings, about $210NZ.

That first time we visited, there were only two children at the orphanage – Sharon, who is four and Angel who now is five or six years old. The other eight children had gone with Aston’s sister to get water. The spring is half an hour away on foot and they take several children so they can bring back as much water as possible. After they bring the water back, it needs to be filtered before it is safe to drink. At the moment they have one water filter that was donated by a volunteer. At $50US each, they are hardly expensive and it would be incredibly beneficial if they had more than one, due to the fact that there are so many children.

It would cost $1000US to get pipes laid and water pumped in from the spring so the children don’t have to walk to get water. I don’t know about you, but the thought of living in a world where four-year-olds have to walk miles to find water, makes me feel sick.

Mum with Angel and Sharon.

Aston, Betsy and I with Angel and Sharon.

After we left the orphanage that first time, we spent the car ride back to Arusha in near silence, all of us trying not to cry at what we’d seen. We went back to Neema House and the first thing that I saw when I stepped inside was my little Angel, wearing a new green and pink floral onesie, her face clean and shiny from her bath. She ran to me, laughing, before the nannies took her away to eat her dinner. That night, and every night, she will go to bed in clean pyjamas and sleep under warm blankets, tucked away safe from mosquitoes. She will have a warm bottle, be kissed and cuddled and told that she’s loved and she will sleep peacefully until morning. Our babies are so loved and so lucky and so very, very blessed.

As I sit here at the table, writing in candlelight because the power is out, I am crying about it all over again. You hear about this world – people living in filth and poverty, children starving, everyone desperate to survive. You would think I would be getting used to it by now. I don’t think I ever will. What can we do? So little would do so much to help these people.

Our electricity is out and when it’s on our Internet is slow. Our beds are hard, our feet are dusty, and we can’t get the same foods as we can in our Western countries. We miss the comforts of home – take away pizza and high speed wifi. How very trivial our problems are!

Since that first time Betsy and I have been back to Aston Vision. We met the other children that live at the orphanage and took them bread and bananas, margarine, eggs, biscuits and lollipops for a treat. It was a drop in a bucket that will take more than a few groceries to fill.

And yet, the children are so happy – they ran towards us, shouting, “Teacher! Teacher!” They climbed on us and laughed as we blew bubbles and skipped rope with them. Quiet little Kelvin saved his biscuits in his pocket and after a while of sitting beside him, he put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a sticky piece of biscuit, giving me, someone he didn’t know, his treat.

My first time at Aston Vision made me think of Habbakuk, crying out to God when he sees the violence and corruption happening amongst his people. He says, “How long, O Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, “Violence!” but you do not save. Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and conflict abounds.”

And it made me think of the song, Oh My God, by Jars of Clay.

“Sometimes when I lose my grip, I wonder what to make of heaven

All the times I thought to reach up, all the times I had to give up

Babies underneath their beds, hospitals that cannot treat

All the wounds that money causes, all the comforts of cathedrals

All the cries of thirsty children, this is our inheritance

All the rage of watching mothers, this is our greatest offense

Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God.”

I found this song powerful even before I came here, but now that I have seen hospitals full of people, but not drugs to treat them all; since I’ve watched tiny children walk miles to fetch water; since I have understood that mothers do not abandon their babies because they do not love them, but rather so that they will have a better chance with someone else; my heart has the same cry as Habakkuk’s.

I would despair except for the fact that I know if my heart hurts for 42 hungry children, then how much more must God hurt. And at the end of Habbakuk’s book there is hope. "Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Saviour. The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to tread on the heights."

Tomorrow Betsy and I are going back to Aston Vision. Aston is taking us to the village to meet the other children and the families they live with. While I know that what we will see there will break my heart all over again, I am grateful that God has given me the chance to witness it.

Tonight, in this dark and quiet house, my candle burning low, I am thankful. Thankful for Aston who was given a dream and is doing everything he can to help these children. And thankful to God, who a long time ago, on a cross far away, put a plan in place to save us from all this.

xoxo,

-Hannah

Oh Babies, How I Missed You

On the Saturday before last I flew to Zanzibar to have a holiday with my mum. She flew in the following day and we spent a week there before coming back to Arusha. We had an absolutely amazing holiday - it was a beautiful place and I loved it there. It's wonderful to see my mum again too.

What I didn't realise when I went there was just how much I would miss the babies. They have been my life the past four and a half months and there is almost never a day when I don't see them, even if it's just for a short time on my day off. 

We went out for dinner on the night we got back and then Mum and I went to Neema to say hello to the nannies and any babies that might still be awake - just Julius, although Ibrahim and Beulah woke up while we were there. The next morning was the big reunion - as soon as I walked in the door Angel and Angelous saw me and ran to the gate in their room. They were laughing because they had seen me and crying because they couldn't get to me fast enough as the gate was in the way. When I picked them both up they laughed and laughed. It was adorable. 

Mum got to meet all the babies that I talk about so much - Angel and Angelous, the triplets, Bahati and naughty little Ibrahim who took a liking to her straight away - as well as all the rest of them.

Beautiful Angel

Baraka has been feeling a bit under the weather so all he wanted today was lots of snuggles.

Angelous playing the "Where is Angelous?" game underneath my kanga.

Franki in the tunnel.

Babies drinking their milk before nap time.

Julius, Gian and Joyce enjoying their first taste of ice cream at Ibrahim's birthday party. 

It was lovely to have a holiday and a rest for a week, but it was also nice to come back and see all the babies.

xoxo,

-Hannah

This is Africa

I have been thinking about this blog for a long time, trying to craft it in my mind, wondering which words to pick. In the end I decided to just copy here parts of what I wrote in my journal and in a letter to my grandmother a while back.

"Africa is a whole different world to what I am used to. Friends from home reply to my emails, saying, 'Yes we don’t know how lucky we are.' But seriously, they don’t know. I didn't know before I left home and came here. I don't think you can know until you have seen and experienced. Here, I am beginning to understand.

The city I live in, Arusha, is very Western. Yes, the roads are still dusty and full of potholes, the drivers still maniacs, people still beg on the streets, but when it comes down to it, it's still a city where you can buy just about anything you could at home. We are especially sheltered in our subdivision which is filled with huge houses, many of them built for United Nations workers who were in Arusha for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Now the houses are filled with white people, volunteers, wealthy Tanzanians and many Indians who are the more well-off people group here. Apart from the different trees, the African sky, the dust everywhere, parts of our neighbourhood look like they could be anywhere in the world. This is not Africa. Not by any means. You really only need to go outside the wall at the back of the neighbourhood, to the 'African side' to see this.

On our way to and from our safari in Ngorogoro Crater back in July, I saw the real Africa for the first time – the mud huts and barefoot children and people walking, walking everywhere with bundles on their heads and sticks on their backs, weighted down by the knowledge of how very vulnerable they are – how sickness or drought or childbirth could snuff them out at any moment. We drove by in our big safari car, on our way to warm beds and hot showers and a big meal – and all I could think was how luxurious my life is and how I could hear the very cry of the heart of God for these people, pulsing under the blood red road beneath us. It made me cry.

And yet for all the sadness here, there is hope – the people are strong and tenacious and won’t go down without a fight. They are generous – I’ve seen ladies give a quarter of their monthly salary to the church offering and I’ve eaten at people’s house where they have cooked a feast of rice and beans, bananas and chicken – all that they had to feed a person they barely knew.

A set of tiny triplets was born in a village near here and some our volunteers went to visit them – to take them formula and clothes and food for the parents. Their whole house was half the size of my bedroom at home, with only a single mattress and a chair inside. An ancient woman sat outside the house, her face lined with years of work and worry and hardship. An American man glanced at her and said, 'Look at that woman, sitting there without a care in the world.' He went on to talk about how she didn’t have to worry if the Internet didn't work or her DHL parcel didn't arrive and so on. It made me angry when I heard about it. Here was a woman who had almost certainly experienced hunger and sickness, the death of children and yet she had found the strength to carry on regardless. These people, this place, this country, it's beautiful and yet savage - enough to break your heart and give you hope at the same time."


August 30, 2013

"Tonight I have so many thoughts and feelings and words and I don't know what to do with them all. We went today to Kismiri Juu, a Maasai village up in the middle of nowhere. It was hard to get to - roads so dusty it was like trying to drive through a sandpit, rocks clunking under the car, no real road. And then walking, on and on through long grass and dusty plains, up and down gorges and ravines. I was out of breath, my body soft from a lifetime of no real physical labour, the Maasai striding on ahead. Bibi [grandmother] came out from the village to greet us ululating, overjoyed to see little Makaa. He was 6 weeks old and close to dying when he left the village. Now he is three and a half. This was the first time she had seen him since he left for a chance at a better life in an orphanage. The joy on her face as she held him was beyond anything I'd seen before.

Their lives there are unbelievably harsh - mud huts and no clean water (no water at all for miles) and walking hours every day with their animals so that they will be fed and watered. Makaa's uncle has twins - about a year or so old. How does a woman safely deliver twins out there in that barren place, far far from any medical help should there be trouble?

Such hardship and yet such generosity - they killed a goat for us to eat and gave us chai and soda. Makaa's father bought water for us on the way home. They are so poor and yet so willing to share what little they have. 

Babu [grandfather]  held my hand as we walked from hut to hut. He held my arm up in the air in the traditional respectful greeting and said 'God bless you' in Kiswahili and in Maa. Bibi kissed my cheeks. Makaa's uncle introduced me to the young warriors. The young children laughed when I tried to chase down a baby goat. The mamas giggled when they looked at their photographs on my camera. Beautiful, beautiful people.

Such a harsh place and yet I'd never felt so peaceful, so content. It seems cliche to say that something changed your life, but I know for certain that I want to help these people. I don't know what to do. This is Africa though. Real Africa and I want to live it and experience it and do what little I might be able to for these people. My eyes have been opened and somehow I don't think things will ever be the same for me again."

After reading through my journal again and reliving the things that have happened since I've been here, I was reminded of the lyrics of a song, Albertine, that Brooke Fraser wrote after she spent time in Rwanda. She tells the story of a girl, a family, who was torn apart by the genocide in 1994 and this is what she says:

"Now that I have seen, I am responsible,
Faith without deeds is dead.
Now that I have held you in my own arms,
I cannot let go 'til you are. 

I am on a plane, across a distant sea,
But I carry you in me,
And the dust on, the dust on, the dust on my feet,
Rwanda.

I will tell the world, I will tell them where I've been, 
I will keep my word,
I will tell them Albertine."

This is how I feel. This is Africa and this is the life that millions of people lead. Now that I have seen, I am responsible. Faith without deeds is dead.

xoxo,
-Hannah

Sabato Njema

Since I have been going to the (let me get this straight), Njiro Kanisa la Waadventista wa Sabato (Njiro Seventh-day Adventist church), I have learnt that "Happy Sabbath" is a universal concept, despite the different languages we might speak. However, here in Tanzania the correct reply to "Happy Sabbath" is "Happy Day." More often you will hear the Swahili version, "Sabato Njema," to which the other person replies, "Njema Sana" (very happy).

You know how at church someone up the front will say "Happy Sabbath" and the congregation will reply quietly; then the person at the front will say "HAPPY SABBATH!"again and will keep going until the congregation responds in an appropriately enthusiastic way? Well, that too as it turns out, is universal.

My first time at the Njiro SDA church was a few weeks ago now. I took a field trip there on a weekday to work out where it was and how to get there. Njiro is the district that I live in and the church is a 20 minute walk and then a 10 minute dala dala ride away. Most of the time I take the dala dala on the way there and then walk the whole way back.

I didn't know what time the church started, so I turned up at 9, only to find that the English service was coming to a close and I was just in time for Sabbath school. I went to an English-speaking class and then was told to go back to the church for the rest of the service. What I didn't realise was that this was the Swahili service! There was almost no room in the church and so I had to sit in the very front pew. No escaping or leaving early when you're sitting in the front! The good part was that I sat next to a nice young man who kindly translated the whole of the service into English for me, although to be honest I still only understand about one word in three.

Since then I have gotten smarter and been there early so I would be in time for the whole of the English service and then left straight after Sabbath school. It's lovely to be back at church after not having been for a while. I hadn't realised how much I had missed it. The music is amazing and I love the thing about Adventists being like a global family - I really do feel welcome there. The first week there I cried because the music was so beautiful and the hymns so familiar and I felt so much at home.

The one thing that I both love and hate is how very Adventist it all is. I could have been in a church anywhere in the world. It made me instantly feel at home and at peace, yet there was none of the African culture left in the service and I found that sad. The African Sunday churches that I have been to here have been very different... so much singing and dancing and clapping and the people's love for God is so very obvious. The Adventist missionaries who came here did a great thing sharing God's love with the people, and yet I wish that they had let the people keep some of their own culture and traditions.

Never mind though - I love the church here very much and look forward to going there each Sabbath. Last week I stopped across the road to take a picture of the church (it looks small, but there must be several hundred people there during the Swahili services) and I couldn't get the "Church in the Wildwood" lyrics out of my head. You know the one that goes, "There's a church in the valley in the wildwood, no lovelier spot in the dale; no place is so dear to my childhood, than the little brown church in the vale." Sure this is no wildwood, and it is not the church of my childhood, but in some ways it feels like it. God is great and I know He's with me all the time, but being with fellow Adventists makes me feel so much more connected to my home and to my purpose for being here.

Here in Tanzania it's Friday night. In New Zealand it's early Saturday morning and within a few hours the Sabbath will roll around to the American side of the globe. Sabato Njema my lovely friends!

xoxo,

-Hannah