A page from a Journal

During the trip many of us kept a journal.
This is one page from Silvia's journal:

July 7, 2010
This morning we prepared our own breakfast. We spent a long time rolling and frying maandazi and brewing chai. After our delicious meal, we began our daily activities with the children from the orphanage. Some of us did papier mache with them, other made pompom balls out of yarn and I wrote up a story with Emanuel. I typed it up as he dictated it to me in Swahili. It was very interesting to phonetically decipher the words. We actually finished the whole story (in English and Swahili) and left space on each page for drawings. I will figure out a way to print it out and give it to him later on.
Afterwards I talked to Emanuel for a very long time. His English is very broken so we used a Swahili- English dictionary to community more easily. This is what I understood from our conversations: He is 14, born in 1995. His name is Emmanuel Joseph and he originally comes from a tribe in Arusha (Northern Tanzania) called mchaga. He went to Dodoma, the capital, and from there was indicated to come to Dar. Before arriving at the Hananasif Orphanage he was homeless and slept under a tree for 5 months. When I asked him how he ate, he said he simply begged for money on the streets and used it to buy food. He also told me he wants to act in a romantic movie when he’s older. He’s so passionate about learning English, he says it’s beautiful. He has only been at the orphanage for 2 and a half weeks, but he’s so well-mannered and joyful, you wouldn’t know.
Later that day, I asked if any of the kids wanted me to read them a story. Emanuel preferred to read the Swahili-English dictionary, but Viktor, a quiet little boy wanted to hear some stories. We didn’t have much time as they had a prayer session, but I read to him for as long as possible. He is HIV+ and has an infected ingrown nail on his pinky toe. We disinfect it every day and Laura gives him Pop Rocks (the candy that explodes in your mouth) to distract him.”

As a side note: when we returned to the city after working in the rural branch of the orphanage we learned that Emmanuel had run away. Without telling anyone he just walked away and didn't come back. They had no way to look for him, he was just gone. It broke our hearts.

United Words

I wrote an article about the Tanzania trip for the online UWC mazagine 'United words'.
It was published today on the site!

If you want to read it click here