Reward, Athuman and yet another God Story!!

Angela

God’s Work . . .

It is hot today . . . really hot, but last night a “breeze” (gale comes more readily to mind) blew through and at least cooled the night down and that “breeze” continues today.  I hope the laundry stays on the line.  We have no water again/still.  (The 11 hours we enjoyed it were wonderful though).  Our older children are at their schools (Amani, Haradali) writing month end exams and our first graders are completing their exams upstairs.  Liadi and little Aisha are playing on our seesaw as a “flock?” of white butterflies glide past . . . there are thousands of them.  I hope we’re not witnessing an infestation of the African gypsy moth or something . . .  

An always happy Martha

Reward and big sister Mary complete their 2nd year in university soon . . .

Reward and I have been in touch this past week and he continues to improve.  We still wait for his medical records from the doctors in Dar es Salaam.  He is excited to begin his final exams this week and big sister Mary has begun hers already.  

Connie and Latifa

Emmanuel

 Athuman’s father has explained to us that his parents (where he deposited Athuman after taking him from his Bibi) want to keep Athuman with them as he is not an orphan (he has a father now), but we still need to see Athuman.  We have insisted upon a meeting, face to face with Athuman to be certain this is what he wants also.  A meeting with his grandmother on his mother’s side, who seemingly has custody, is later today, when we will explain to the family that if we don’t see Athuman by the end of this week we will be forced to go to the police.  There is nothing more we can do if they will not be forthcoming with him and we must ensure he is safe. 

Lucia

Fundraising for the Lupia (Bibi, Lucia, Baraka) family I shared about with you a couple of days ago is coming along.  Our initial need of $4,697.00 has been reduced to $3,800.00 because of your generosity.  Thank you!  I would ask that you please reach out to help us help this family.  We can change every one (six children and five adults) of their lives . . . truly.  A donation of any amount large or small will go, 100% towards securing their home and paying for Baraka and Lucia to attend school.  We CAN do this!!!  Please help.  You can read about their situation in the preceding blog.

Yesterday, Oddo and I had a meeting with the head mistress of Makumira Secondary School where Raymond, Deo, Mzamiru, Rose, Redigunda, Anna, and Mary attend.  Anna and Redigunda failed their Form II national exams . . . again.  In fact, even after a year of boarding school, of quality teachers and teaching, their grades did not improve by even 1%.  Both failed their first exam with a grade of just 25% (30% is a pass if you can imagine) and they did the same again this time.  Traditional education is over for them and it breaks our hearts.  Redigunda is Raymond’s sister, Anna is Athuman, Harriri and Liadi’s and without an education . . . Anna’s parents are dead and Redigunda’s are too poor even to have helped their brightest son get to school.  While waiting for headmistress outside her office, I marveled at the attendance stats:

	Form I	Form II	Form III	Form IV	Form V	Form VI
Girls	28	34	59	42	19	38
Boys	31	43	84	57	55	108

How sad it is that, as the grades progress, the ratio of girls/boys declines, hmmm?  Redigunda and Anna didn’t try very hard.  They didn’t study; they didn’t reach out to our volunteers for extra help in English.   Headmistress put it directly and succinctly when she advised against another attempt at Form II. “Some children lack the fundamentals, some, the intellectual capacity, but unfortunately, some lack the drive, the determination needed to succeed.  As educators at this level, we can only bring knowledge to them.  Instilling it is up to them.” 

We are meeting with their families and have asked the girls what alternatives appeal to them:  cooking, sewing, some type of trade and will assist them in acquiring training in one such field.

Omari Said Mhando

After our meeting with Headmistress Oddo and I drove about to Shule Uraki, Kilimani and Leganga to pay school fees for our Mana OVC children, the orphan support group we outreach to.  At Uraki, while calculating fees for “security, cook, building fund”, illegal fees for which the children are beaten and sent home if left unpaid, the head master shared with us the story of a young man who desperately needed our help.

Omari Said Mhando, age 15, completed the national exam for Standard VII and passed, with two A’s and four B’s.  Considering his living situation, this is little short of miraculous.  Originally one of six children, Omari’s father abandoned the family in 1999.  Their mother followed suit in 2008, and two siblings left home shortly after her.  That left Omari, a younger brother Abdi 13, an older sister Fatuma who fell sick while working in a flower factory and has never recovered and big sister Halima 24, single mother of two and day worker with two children, the youngest just five months.  She is in the hospital with her baby who, it is discovered, has a heart condition.  More on that another day. 

What this left is a young man who worked his butt off to earn the grades he did but is now left with not a prayer at finding school fees for secondary school.  With his sister in the hospital, food has even become an issue.

Soooooooooo.  Oddo and I took the boy’s information and Oddo headed immediately to the District Education Commissioner’s office (whom we just happened to run into at Shule Leganga) so he remembered us.  Oddo cajoled his way into a very busy office and explained Omari’s situation (whom he had not even met yet because Omari was waiting at Tumaini House with me).  I think what impressed our friend the District Education Commissioner so much was that we have no connection to this child.  He is not a relation of Oddo’s, nor the child of a friend.  Until yesterday we didn’t know this child even existed.  He was presented by his Headmaster as being (like our Chikira orphaned children, whom the headmaster is aware we are helping) in desperate need, having worked, under unimaginable living conditions to earn his way to secondary school and, who, short of a miracle (don’t tell me this is a coincidence!), would never get a chance to continue his education. (Don’t you just LOVE GOD stories???)

So, to bring this tale to a close, Oddo is out as I write this, getting the required paperwork for Omari completed and rushing a physical (I noticed a nasty rash on his chest when I took his photo).  Oddo came BOUNDING (no less and for a man who suffered polio!) into my office exclaiming how we are “truly in God’s pocket dada (sister), truly!” having been granted permission for Omari to attend what the commissioner hopes to build into the flagship public boarding secondary school in Arusha District!  I cannot BEGIN to tell you how good we are feeling today, Oddo and I (and probably Omari too!) . . . by God’s will, having been in the right place, at the right time, to help this deserving young man garner an opportunity at a future!  THIS is what we can do . . . with God’s help and with yours!  Asante!

PS If you’re looking for Oddo or me in the next few hours, look UP! We’re still levitating!!!

SHIDA? PROBLEM . . . SHIDA HAPA? PROBLEM HERE? NINGI! MANY!

L/R Baraka, Bibi, Lucia, Eva . . .

A Home Visit – “Shida” “Problem”  Here?  Shida Ningi!  Many Problems!

People ask all the time how our outreach begins, where the families we help come from, and how we choose those we will help.  Bibi Lucia’s family and our recent visit to their home illustrate clearly the extreme conditions many people find themselves living in. 

On Tuesday of this past week an older woman (Bibi Lucia) with a small, very pretty little girl (Evelin) walked through our gate at Tumaini House.  We try to keep the gate locked to prevent people just wandering in but one of us had forgotten.  Bibi found her way to my office where Oddo and I were working together.  After formal greetings (a custom here), Bibi was seated and began her story. 

Bibi Lucia is from the “interior” of Tanzania.  She lost her husband a number of years ago and was struggling along as a widow until her health began to fail.  Her daughter (Esther), out of love for her mother, and in a very uncustomary act, asked her husband to allow his mother in law to come and live with them.   Uncustomarily, he said yes.  That was last year.  Her health has stabilized (blood pressure mostly) and the family has been scraping by.   

As an aside, Esther, her husband and teen children have been building a home for four years and were renting two rooms, one for them, one for Bibi, while construction progressed.  Progress is slow . . . As of our visit the house has walls (rough brick with gaps present), a sheet metal roof (with eaves and gables exposed), no windows, some grills (the ironworks placed into the windows for security) and no doors.  The floor is rough, raw concrete.  I mentioned they’ve been saving and adding a bit here and there for the past four years.  Mume Esther (her husband) is a meter reader and at present she has no income. 
Enter Lucia Alex, (DOB Oct. 20, 2002) granddaughter of Bibi Lucia, her namesake and sister to that pretty little girl Evelin (DOB Jul. 24, 2008).  In January of 2011 Lucia and Evelin buried their mother just three years after their father’s death in 2008 and only weeks after Evelin’s birth.  Knowing that Bibi had health issues and was fortunate enough to be allowed to reside with her son in-law, the family was loathe to burden her with the children of her dead daughter, which IS customary here.  Eventually though, it became apparent that, even with her struggles Bibi was the best candidate to provide for the girls.  Family discussions ensued, Esther’s husband, (my partner Oddo marvels at the compassion this man has for his in-laws as it is NOT traditional) acquiesced and the girls were brought to their Bibi. 

Money, which was tight, became tighter still and the family had to give up those two rooms they were renting and move to their unfinished, unsecure home.  They live and sleep, every day and night, without a door or a blockade of any kind preventing intruders, human or otherwise, from entering their home.

Baby Belina, 7 mos. may be positive . . .

Additionally, Esther has a sister (Neema) who has a six year old son (Baraka) and a new baby Belina (7 mos).  During her pregnancy she was tested and discovered that she is HIV+.  We had the children tested and Baraka is negative but it is too soon to tell for baby Belina and so we wait.  An immediate problem for her is that Neema cannot nurse and so milk must be purchased for her.  Fearing her husband will leave her once he discovers she is positive, she has declined to inform him.  We explained as strongly as we could that, (she swears she has been monogamous) if she doesn’t tell him soon and he receives treatment, he will fall ill and leave her in a different way . . . please pray for courage . . .

Completely open . . . to the elements human and otherwise . . .

There is no money for school, little for food and none left over to secure that house.  Bibi and Esther shared their struggles with friends, our name came up, and Bibi trekked up here to ask for help.  Oddo and I and volunteers Luke and Dallas from Canada visited their home and we recorded the family history which brings us to today. 

We’ve asked our fundis (carpenter and ironsmith) to go to the house and provide estimates for doors and grills to secure the house.  A very pleasantly surprised husband calculated what we will need to make the house livable.  It has three bedrooms (the children sleep on the floor, lacking beds), a large living/dining space and a kitchen.  There are three doorways and the house still requires two grills.  The floor needs the cement finished to level it.  I am asking for your help.

Baraka

 What have we done thus far?  We are paying for milk for baby Belina.  We’ve put Lucia, who is a very fearful and serious little girl (I can appreciate why), slow to smile, very gentle and very willing, to listen, to obey, to study, into Haradali Boarding School on a promise to pay.  We have purchased her uniforms, mattress and linens, and school supplies.  We have done the same for Baraka who is virtually silent, quicker with a smile but still serious and carries the responsibility of caring for his sick mother and potentially sick little sister on his tiny (and they are tiny as he is especially small for his six years) shoulders.  When you look in his face you can see that he recognizes his responsibilities already . . .

So proud to go to school!

I have made a small business loan to Mama Esther who will partner with her sister (a pragmatic decision in case her husband leaves her) and bake and sell bread.  They should net about 25,000 shillings each, weekly (about $16.00) and this, in conjunction with Esther’s husband’s income will change the course of the both families’ lives.

Baraka and cousin Lucia 

I am not asking for sponsorship or any sort of ongoing support.  I am hoping you will help us help this family secure their home and establish a stable environment for everyone.  The family count now sits at eleven.  Here is what we need:

Milk for Belina for three months                                SH.     90,000 or   $57.00                                 

Two sets of bunk beds                                                  SH.   400,000 or $253.00

Mattresses, sheets and blankets for 4 beds             SH.   220,000 or $139.00

School Fees for Lucia for one year                             SH. 1234,000 or $781.00

School Fees for Baraka for one year                          SH. 1234,000 or $781.00

Sand, gravel and soil to mix with cement:                SH.   610,000 or $386.00

40 bags of cement:                                                        SH.   600,000 or $380.00
Nails                                                                                 SH.     96,000 or $   61.00
Lumber      (Esther’s husband said this could wait   SH.   800,000 or $506.00
Ceiling Board (He said to wait for this also)              SH.   578,000 or $366.00
Fundi (labor) (This too will wait)                                 SH.     60,000 or $   40.00
Doors                                                                                SH.   794,000 or $503.00 (FYI-Profit? $20.00)
Grills required for security-Doors/windows              SH.   705,500 or $443.00 (Profit? $70.00)
 JUMLA/TOTAL                                                               SH. 7421,500 or $4,697.00

 I just totalled that number!  That is a lot of money . . . true . . . BUT, it corresponds to just $427.00 per family member and six of them are children!  If we could just find eleven people each to give us $427.00, or,  eleven groups of people to compile the $427.00, or, perhaps if one or another of you could choose from the list above what you may be able to help with, THAT, would be wonderful! 

This is how we outreach at Tumaini . . . we meet, listen, visit and assess need and then we reach out for help.  I’ve attached photos for inspection and will do on completion. 

A shy smile from Lucia . . .

So many of you would like to help but you don’t really know where your dollars go.  You can help this family now and watch the progress of every dollar . . .  

For caring, for wanting to help, thank you so very much!  

Mama . . .