Well, it’s Australia Day and we’re operating!Amid the acacia thorns, mini Scarlett-O’Hara dresses, 20L buckets of clean drinking water, skipping ropes, mango-beetroot-avocado salad, woven baskets filled with plastic cups, soccer balls, picture card games, balloons, Maasai blanket and recycled cement bag rugs… among all that we, yesterday, welcomed the Kesho Leo house mamas and their 17 odd children to their first life-skills lessons with the Kesho Crew.
While Mum underwent her fourth chemo treatment back in Australia, I steeled myself not to cry during my welcome speech. It’s an emotional thing to have someone you love doing some hard yards, while you’re not so close, and it’s an equally emotional experience to stand on a patch of prickly grass, with the Kesho walls rising behind you, as you explain to 12 Tanzanian women and their fatherless children, that finally, all that you and everyone involved with fws for the past three years, has promised will now begin to happen. Delivering on promises…can’t say I do it often (as most of my friends and family will attest), but I’ve turned myself – and just about everyone I know – inside out to deliver on these promises. And I can say proudly that today, we were delivering.
With Mudi translating, we welcomed these women to their home (still being built!) and to their new life (starting today). We explained that we would begin to deliver a “training allowance” each week, starting today – via our sponsorship program (two wonderful people have put their hand up to contribute – so we’re still looking for another 10 – visit www.foodwatershelter.org.au/sponsorships for more info). The “training allowance” is really just to allow these income-less women to receive a small but regular contribution towards feeding themselves and their kids – if they are in our lessons 4 afternoons a week, that’s 4 afternoons they can’t be selling their vegies or chapattis. It’s not much, but it’s a start. We’re also using some of the sponsorship money for resources (butcher paper, textas, exercise books etc) for their lessons.
We also explained to the house mamas that we intend to offer them another opportunity – to farm the bottom 1-acre of farm land next door to the fws volunteer village. We explained we’d be happy to advance them the $25 for the ploughing, the $200 for seed, and that they could form a shamba co-op, just like our labourers have (their garlic is due to harvest in a month or so...) and pay us back when the crops, whatever they decide to plant, come to harvest and are sold in the market. They seemed pleased with this idea.
Heather, our wonderful volunteer nurse, then got up to talk to the group about the type of health lessons she intended to cover – water & hygiene, nutrition, how our body works, recognising sicknesses, positive parenting and teamwork to name just a few.
We explained that it was our idea that house mamas and children would arrive at 2pm and split from their kids. House mamas would accompany Heather inside the Lutheran church (we arranged to use it with the church officials last week – we’ll need to think of a gift we can present to them, a new bell? Some curtains? More pews? Happy for ideas, all!). For the first hour, health lessons would happen inside the church, while kids lessons would happen outside, under the tree and under the guidance of the inimitable Clare, who is quite the energetic teacher! Then we’d reconvene, joining mamas and kids for some playing, interaction, positive parenting games and refreshments outside for an hour… and then the final hour would see the mamas head back for a final hour of health education and the kids be calmed with a story book.
We did our best to follow this format, and despite it being the “first” day, we went pretty close. We had extra help from volunteers, NuNu (last week she was known to us as Janelle but this week, we’ve met NuNu!), who was a huge hit with the kids and mamas - and Lily (who managed to nurse crying babies, play soccer with the young boys and still photograph and take the name of every kid attending so we could later work out which kids belonged to which mamas!)
We broke the ice early on, by someone’s (Clare, Lily, Nunu’s?) genius idea of playing skip-rope. Too easy, the mamas and kids were in and amongst before we had our second swoop going! Energised and laughing, we headed up to the Kesho Leo site, where with Mudi’s help I gave a brief rundown of what each of the rooms we are building would do – education centre – give lessons to the mamas, their kids, the orphans they take on, the wider community. The massive communal kitchen – allow the mamas to cook together, and eventually perhaps even run classes, the dining room with killer views of Meru and Kilimanjaro, to allow this big family to eat together, and to double as a second education room. I talked briefly about the fantastic rainwater harvesting system that would ensure that the water they drank was clean and healthy – and would not make them sick like the water they drink now does… and on that note, we headed back to our Maasai rugs to begin a huge fanfare about “washing our hands” before eating. Heather headed this one up, asking mamas and children to queue (not an African behaviour!) to wash their hands in clean water, and with soap, one at a time. Hands washed, we served up a salad of cabbage, beetroot, capsicum, mango, tomato and avocado with orange juice dressing. We knew it would have mixed reviews, but we also know that these women and children haven’t exactly been pouring the vegies into their systems and we decided a super-nutrient boost wouldn’t go astray. Why not? Like many Tanzanians, these women live on ugali (polenta – ground corn), rice or potatoes, so this instant introduction to full-on nutrition was quite surprising for many of them. Some liked it, some weren’t so keen. One commented that she had never eaten capsicum uncooked (it didn’t look like she wanted to repeat the experience!) – and of course, the kids did the job of kids all over the world and avoided the cabbage at all costs. Maybe we’ll have to introduce “fresh, crisp, raw” veggies that haven’t had the goodness boiled out of them, and that aren’t purely carbohydrate, a little more slowly… a little more strategically. They’re not going to sell well until we explain what beneficial effect colourful, nutrient-packed veggies will have on everyone’s health, says the ex Weight Watchers magazine editor. Anyhoo, I digress, suffice to say, I personally felt pretty good watching the carrots, beetroot, tomatoes and avocados make their way down a few gullets!
Sad bits? Absolutely. Little Patrick the nine-year-old son of Elizabeth, who has been in hospital for days with malaria and typhoid (yet still managed to make our lesson despite being extremely weak). Patrick has been handed the role of caring for (feeding, washing, clothing, taking to school) his three younger siblings Satina (7 years), Diana (4 years) and Nanci (2 years). When the soccer ball came out, Patrick couldn’t quite remember how to have fun… he’s been burdened with the responsibility of looking after his younger sisters for so long, that he’d … really forgotten how to have fun, how to play. We tried to help him relax, stop worrying, and feel free, but didn’t get too far. This one is going to take a little bit of time.
We observed a similar situation with Joseph, who is an orphan, taken in by Ester, and yet he’s clearly the main care-giver at the moment. He looks after his two tiny sisters, Gladness (3 and a half years) and Grace (4 months0… Ester has had mastitis so while Joseph was dead-keen to play, hecouldn’t quite onpass his baby sister to anyone – every time she cried, she was brought not to her mother, Ester, but back to Joseph. He kicked the ball a little, and was clearly overjoyed to do so, but he kept being called to his “duties”.
We’ve also committed to stepping up the pace of getting Bibi (“grandmother”) Frank a home closer to the Kesho Leo lessons, as she’s having to walk too far to attend at this point. Lucas seems to think he’s located a closer home – we’re going to check it out on Tuesday, so hopefully Bibi Frank can move in with her three grandchildren and they can all return to their hometown of Sinon…
Many jobs to do, all of them urgent and rewarding. Many hands to help, all of them willing and capable.
I feel so proud and privileged to be involved in the impact we are making on this community, the help we are giving these women and children.
Happy Australia Day!
Beck
