Orphanages in Tanzania or, I miss my sister Genie

There are 22 orphanages in Arusha.  This is in a large part due to HIVAids and the death of both parents.  One of the orphanages is the Good Hope Orphanage.

This is a privately funded non-profit school/orphanage/Boarding School.   My sister Genie volunteered here for the last 4 weeks.

So, what happens to the children if both parents die of HIV /Aids in Arusha, Tanzania?  Either they are lucky enough to be taken to one of these orphanages, or they live off the streets.

I found out today that the little children that sell the plastic bags at the stalls in the market are street children.  They are hired by the stall owners to sell these little bags.  Whatever profit is made over a certain amount from the bags, the children may keep.  I had no idea.  When I asked, “Where do the children live and sleep and eat?” I was told, “Wherever and whatever they can find”.  These are little children from the age of 5 to 12 years old.

These orphanages are incredible.  They provide living arrangements, an education, food, and safety.  What they don’t provide, and how could they? Is a loving family.  My dear sweet sister Genie provided that.  

Genie in the back of her class.

I stopped by on the way home from my work one day to meet her “kids”.  I could see right away that these children loved her.  They ran up to her, hugged her, called her “Madam”, and joy shone in their eyes when they looked at her.

Each day she would come to this orphanage school and teach, help decorate the classroom from it’s previously bare walls, and brings pencils, crayons, paper, scissors, and many other school supplies that our children here take so for granted.  But I think most of all, she would love these children.   Not only did she bring color into their classrooms, she brought color into their lives.  As only a most loving and kind motherly-type woman could.

She made friends with the orphanage’s teachers, very hard working dedicated women, she shared her wealth of knowledge with them.  

This school houses over 1,000 students.   Some are boarding students, some are day students, but the rest are orphans.   Genie says that when the day students go home to their families, the rest are left at the school.  They spend another hour at their desks doing their homework.

They then go back to their dormitories.

These are the lucky ones, these orphans, I mean.  And I suppose the orphans at the other 21 orphanages in Arusha.

Tanzanian Children.  The most beautiful children in the world.

Good Hope is privately funded, as again are the other 21 orphanages in Arusha.

When Genie brought in all the school supplies she had brought from home, she said the teachers rushed these school supplies like they were “sharks in a feeding frenzy”.  For example, Genie said the children have to share one pencil between 2 children, and at that they wear that pencil down to the tiniest stub.  The teachers are desperate for any school supplies they can get.  Even the desks the children use are a plank of wood with 4 sticks holding it up.  The chairs, plastic lawn chairs.

See the beautiful decorations Genie put on the wall?

You hate to think of orphans in an orphanage being “the lucky ones”.  But then again, you hate to think of children living on the streets too.  But this is only too true of what is going on in Tanzania.

All I can say, is when I buy my lovely fresh produce in the market tomorrow on the way home from work, I will give extra smiles to the child that sells me my plastic bag.  And maybe slip a little extra schilling or two, if no one is looking that is.  

You have to be careful with that I’m told.  If other children notice one child having any money, it is quickly stolen from them by a bigger child, and not in a kind way either.   It is survival.

I don’t know the answer.   And even the world’s health organizations, and all the governments in the world don’t know the answer.  I guess one little step at a time.  One thing would be to help educate people about HIV.  To stop these useless deaths.  And maybe also, one sweet grandma from Utah coming to spread love, attention, pencils, and coloring books.

Addendum:  By the way, we are still out of Malaria tablets at the hospital.  And we ran out of the Tetanus vaccine on Monday.  We wait for both to be delivered soon.