To my delight, the shower works, despite the loss of power! For breakfast I have chipati, avocado and lime. I spend quite some time trying to figure out how to:
a. wash my avocado and lime before slicing/peeling
b.wash the knife to do said slicing/peeling
Finding no soap, I try scrubbing my avocado with my handsanitizer, then rinse with tap water. Really? in Moshi, they say, “Sure?” (shoe-ah) with a soft, elongated drawl. I decide that since there is no soap that I can find in the kitchen (or anywhere else) and I don’t have a belly ache yet, I will trust that my avocado and lime will be safe. Neurosis notwithstanding, I remember my Canadian doctor friend reminding me to wash all veggies in soap. Then I remember another young Tanzanian friend reminding me “TAB! This is Africa, baby!”
I proceed to peel the biggest, richest, deepest green but ripe avocado that god ever grew on a tree. It is huge, perhaps the size of my two fists. I ponder saving half of it for later….. where would I save it? I have no baggies, no plastic wrap. If I put it in the frig for later it will not be as savory and buttery. I think of all the hungry people I know and feel slightly guilty for eating the whole damn avocado at once. I remember a 12 step saying of particular significance……pardon the vernacular, “Screw guilt”. I peel the avocado and put it in a blue plastic bowl. I slice the lime to get the maximum juice from it, like Gaby showed me in Guatemala. I cook my chipati on the propane burner . After arranging my avocado on the chipati, I drown them in lime juice. Each bite is exquisitely delicious. Breakfast is the best after such a miserable night of not sleeping!
UPENDO ARTIST ASSOCIATION……..
I first met Sibo (pronounced See-bo) at an agency orientation at CCS in May 2011. His broad smile, his open demeanor, his passion for the children, women and families he serves is what impressed me the most. Sibo is Tanzanian, maybe late twenties, strong and muscular, open frame, confident, gifted and clear as a bell. Although I was already assigned to another agency, I found myself wishing that I had been assigned to UPENDO because of Sibo’s commitment to his work in the community.
Less than a year later, I had another opportunity to volunteer. Despite a very busy schedule, I asked my host if I might volunteer at Upendo, since I was unable to do so last year. I was told that Luke and Sibo would come for me that morning. There was a delay. I was to find out later, why, but in Tanzania, delays are not uncommon. One must accommodate by being flexible. Mid morning, I am told that Luke and Sibo have arrived. Luke (prononunced loo-ka in Kiswahili) meets me at the gate; his handshake is genuine, his eye contact and graciousness authentic. A 20s-on- the- cusp- of- 30s-looking guy from Australia, wearing a Boston Red Sox cap, a Kilimanjaro Climb t shirt and baggy, longish basketball kind of shorts, Luke has the grizzly stubble of the young on his face, along with a labret. He begins to explain to me how Upendo began.
I will tell the story as I understand it:
A few years back, Luke was traveling in Africa, ostensibly to visit a child in Ethiopia that he had sponsored for some time. While in Moshi, he met Sibo, an artist, who was selling his work and sharing his income with children/youth who had no homes, no income and no families. From this conversation, a friendship grew and a home for children was borne. Upendo Artists Association is registered with the Tanzania Government as a Non-Governmental Organization. Presently, they provide pre-primary school for approximately thirty, three to six year old children in the neighborhood. About seven of these children live in the Upendo Orphanage, a short walk through the village, also funded by Upendo. They also facilitate economic empowerment for four local women in this village and seven women in another neighborhood as they design and create their fabric arts products to be sold in Australia. UAA also provides training to local youth who are artistically talented so that they may also be able to sustain themselves economically.
The day that I visited Upendo was a very special one, unbeknownst to me. Luke drove us on the dirt road, through the banana trees, dodging the deepest ruts, slowing carefully to call greetings out to the locals with whom he was acquainted. He moved back and forth easily between English and Kiswahili, evidence of his bi-culturality. Luke exuded a warmth, sincerity and emotional connection that I have not often seen in young men of his age. I am affirmed, again, by the amazing generosity that I see in Sibo and Luke. They are unpretentious, real and visionary at the same time. We continue on a road that I actually recognize from my visit the year before until we arrived at the Upendo school. Luke introduced me to some of the Mamas working there, the teachers, one of whom I recognized from my previous visit and another Mama who would soon be taking maternity leave, and to his own mother, Mama Luke, from Australia. To say that I “volunteered” that day, would be a stretch of the meaning of the term. Nevertheless, I sat in the classroom among the children while Madam Salma taught their lessons. The children touched my face, rubbed their hands through my hair, pressed their hands to their noses to smell my hair gel after. My lap, my arms, my heart, were filled with love and the essence of their curiosity. If this is “volunteering”, PLEASE, let me sign up again. As my friend, Daniel says, “When I hold the children in my arms, all my problems go away.” (Is this what Jesus meant in the Scriptures when he said “Suffer the little children to come unto me?”)
When the school lessons ended around midday, I was invited to share a meal with the children at Upendo Orphanage. The African sky was filled with turbulent cumulus clouds that occluded the view of Mt. Kilimanjaro. The path was dry when we walked to the home of the children. On the way, we stopped to buy fish for the meal at Sibo’s request. I have seen these fish before. They are shiny and thin, measuring about five inches in length. They seem to grow in mud holes. I have no idea how they are caught. They are dried in the sun on racks on the shrubs. People seem to enjoy eating them. (I am grateful at this moment, that I am vegetarian.) From the heavens, we must have looked like a ribbon of humanity, winding along the path between the banana trees….. at the front, Luke, with several children chasing around him, soaking up all the goodness he has to offer, Mama Luke, playing with and hugging the wee ones along the way, Madam Salma, their teacher, guiding and nurturing as we walked from school to home, myself, not knowing where I fit but knowing without doubt, that I belonged, holding hands, laughing, observing.
We arrive at their home: a modest, one story stucco house, meticulously clean. The floors are concrete painted red. In the sitting room is a couch, two chairs and a low “coffee table” upon which our lunch is served. The adjoining room has book shelves to store puzzles and numerous English language children’s books that I recognized. We played while the Mama and Madam Salma prepared our mid-day meal. Children in all directions; playing tag, teasing, singing, snuggling, reading, putting puzzles together. Luke and Sibo are taking photographs with the children on the front porch.
What makes this day special, in a bitter sweet kind of way, is that today is the day the twins will go to the English boarding school. The twins, perhaps four years old, have lived at Upendo since it began. I am acutely aware of what this must mean for Luke and Sibo, having cared and provided for the girls, wanting them to have every opportunity available to them as any parent would, receiving a sponsorship for the boarding school and at the same time, while this success is realized, it means a loss for Luke and Sibo. The girls will not be living at Upendo. I watch these young men, fathers to these “orphaned” children, as they prepare to take the girls to the boarding school. The girls have been told that they will be moving. Although unspoken, we are all aware of the poignancy of the day.
The mid-day meal is served. The children sat on the floor near the bookshelving, their little legs open like triangles, their brightly colored plastic food bowl in front of them. The rest of the food is served in thermal pots on the “coffee table”: shiny, silver fish, ugali, beans, fresh tomatoes served in lime juice with jalepeno like peppers and cooked greens, sort of like spinach. We began with hand washing as the Mama came around the room carrying a large bowl, small bar of soap and a pitcher of clean water. Naomi, the newest child to this home, said the blessing for the food. The only word I understood was “Amen-i” but I am confident that the Great Creator of us all understood every word that she uttered.
The meal was delicious and eaten with our fingers. I savored every bite appreciatively, mindfully. Being in this home, filled with laughter, blessed with goodness in the context of such want and poverty infused me with hope, like the sunlight through the moisture in the air that creates a rainbow. And still, there was a lump in my throat, knowing that the twins would soon be leaving this beautiful home for another. While we were eating, the sky began to rumble, as only the sky can rumble in Africa. The thunder collided above as the heavens opened up and the water began to pour onto the roof and the dry, red, African earth. We had to close the windows to keep the blowing rain out. Luke half joked that if the rain was too much, their car might not make it up the mountain to take the girls to the boarding school.
The motto of Upendo is “ Fanya kweli“….. keep it real. So it will come as no surprise that there is no Hollywood ending at Upendo. Despite the mud and the rain, the girls were taken to the boarding school that afternoon. Madam Salma walked me back through the neighborhood to my home away from home in Moshi. We slipped on the mud, sloshed through puddles and hopped across pot holes back down the road, through the banana trees, along the edge of the drainage ditch to the gate of my house. I have returned to my home in North America, writing to share what I saw and what I learned, preparing to return next summer. Luke is fundraising in Australia, Sibo is negotiating, painting and advocating in Moshi, Mama Luke is selling fabric products and art work, the twins are at the boarding school, Madam Salma is teaching lessons in the school and the other children are tucked safely in their beds at night by the Mama at the Upendo Orphanage. Our hearts are all connected in the greater family of humanity.
I began the story by saying that the day I spent at Upendo was a very special day, unbeknownst to me. For me, the day was special not only for the twins, who will benefit from their new opportunities, but because I experienced hope and the hope is embodied in Luke and Sibo, two young men, doing what they are called to do, led by their hearts, fueled by their passion to serve and to give back to their community. All of my professional career, I have worked with young men, often in crisis, sometimes in serious trouble, drifting, lost, without compass or rudder, crashing against the rocks in the tempest of the oceans fury of life. There have been times when my hope has been nearly snuffed. These young men, a mechanic and an artist, runners, friends and “fathers” are an inspiration and they give me hope. I am not a religious person but I do believe that the capacity for good dwells within each of us. Asante! Thank you, Luke and Sibo, for sharing your goodness with the children and the community. Asante! Thank you, Luke and Sibo, for sharing your goodness with me.
For anyone who would like to know more about the Upendo Artists Association and the work they do in Moshi, Tanzania please find them on Facebook or contact them at:
They are in need of donations to sustain the work they do and sponsorships to support the children’s educational needs.