Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone! Just wanted to apologize for the lack of updates this month and let you know that it is because I have been travelling through Zambia for the last couple of weeks. It is very beautiful here with much to do and see. The internet access is a bit dodgy so I will write a full post about my holiday time here once I get back to Tanzania. Thanks for your understanding!

Huruma Kids

I mentioned in a previous post that I was spending some of my free time volunteering at an orphanage called Huruma (literally "Compassion") Center. Huruma has been a joy for me to spend time at, especially in times when it feels as though my own work is stalled in the proverbial red tape. The center has about 40 children, the majority of whom have been orphaned by AIDS. This is but an infinitesimally small glimpse into the yawning generational chasm that has been created in Africa because of AIDS. A conservative estimate puts the number of children orphaned by the pandemic at over 10 million. I am not particularly fond of throwing out staggering statistics because it is really beyond our capacity to accurately comprehend the scale of these numbers. Sometimes I do a mental exercise because it is the only way I can really get my head around such figures – first, think of the largest sports stadium you have been in – for me it would be BC Place, which holds around 25 thousand people. Then picture the stadium filled to the brim with small children under the age of 14. Now multiply the stadium vision by 400. Try and grasp the ridiculously huge number of people this represents.

These kids have gone through some of the most excruciatingly painful experiences possible. Death by AIDS is often a drawn out and painful affair – it is long, agonizing and filled with indignity. These children have stood in the shadows of their homes and watched their parents die, knowing there is nothing more they can do to help their suffering guardian but search for an aspirin to ease the pain of some opportunistic infection. There are thousands and thousands of child-headed households across Africa where the oldest sibling, sometimes as young as 8, has essentially taken over the role of mother, being responsible to find food, shelter, water and school fees for his or (more often) her younger siblings. There is no global or even national comprehensive plan for what to do with these orphans. The current policies are a grab-bag of frantic interventions where individual organizations try desperately to cope with the numbers, but rarely have the capacity or the resources.

Before I depress you too much, I just want to embark on one point which has caught my attention specifically over the past couple of weeks. Even if the UN miraculously provided a fool-proof global plan to meet the physical needs of all the orphans in Africa (which isn’t even remotely close to happening), what of the emotional damage that these kids have undergone. In the West we know that children need to have adult love, affection and discipline in order to grow up as healthy individuals. Some term the therapeutic response to emotional distress “psycho-social support”; the problem is, in Africa, it doesn’t exist. From what I have seen, most orphanages have, at the best, one adult worker for every 20 children. More often, the ratio is more like 1:50 or 1:100. There is no way that a child can get the proper care with these numbers. Many of the children have not been shown affection by an adult for as long as they have been without parents. Even if there were more workers, the individual trauma of loss is so intense that you would need hours upon hours to plumb the psychic depths of the child and repair the emotional disarray.

Apart from my long digression, I do have a story to tell that relates to all of this. This past weekend I was invited to help take the children of Huruma for a camping trip at Riverside Campsite near Iringa. This is a big treat for the kids as they only get to go on such trips once a year. We left on Saturday afternoon after a delicious lunch of rice and beans - one of the staples here, and luckily one of my favorite Tanzanian dishes. To accompany the 40 kids we had Sophia, a German, Lilly, a Tanzanian, and I. Also a couple of the “kids” are actually quite old, up to 18, and tend to act more as caregivers than children. So we were off in our big bus, and arrived at Riverside to a sky that was only threatening rain. Riverside, as you can imagine, is a picturesque campsite set next to the little Ruaha river, which flows from the southern highlands of the country out to the Indian ocean. There are bandas and tents, and the main service of the site is as a Swahili school for wazungu (if you haven’t yet figured out what wazungu are, you need to read this blog more). It is owned by an English family that has lived in Iringa for over 20 years.

Up on a rock overlooking the river with some of the guys.

The children really wanted to go swimming so the first thing we did, even though it was quite chilly out, was headed down to the river and had a splash. I say a splash because the river isn’t very deep at this point, maybe up to about waist height of an adult. The kids loved it, and it was great to see them so happy. After this, we organized a treasure hunt for them, where they had to break into teams and find clues that lead to a “treasure” of candy and cookies. The whole scene was fairly chaotic, and when they discovered the bounty, the reaction was as though they had won the lottery, the Nobel Prize and the World Cup, all in the same moment. I have never seen that many kids so excited over something so small. They indeed have something to teach the children of the West. After the hunt, we broke into various games and basically let them do as they wished; there was football, volleyball, dodge ball, tag, dancing, and I am sure many other activities that I don’t understand or know the names of.

Her name is Ry, and she followed me around all weekend, such a gorgeous smile.

Soon the sun was creeping below the horizon, allowing the gorgeous tones of red, pink and orange that characterize the African sunsets to cascade across the clouded sky. We gathered around the campfire, and it wasn’t long before the drumming and singing was bellowing out of these 40 children in a way that would put any Canadian campfire sing-along to shame. On that note, let me digress to the fact that Africans have the most incredible singing voices, and they really make our best vocalists pale in comparison. The endless strength, prefect tone and amazing harmony combine to envelope your senses with sound - it is difficult not to become mesmerized by the beauty of the song. As night drew in, the songs continued, and the children grew closer to the flickering light of the fire. This is when I noticed how much these kids desire affection from an adult. At any point in the night I had a small child on my lap, gradually falling into slumber, one child stroking my hair and/or face, and both hands and arms in the grasp of little fingers. On two occasions I had small girls fall asleep in my lap and be carried off in the arms of an older child. You can also tell by the way that the kids look at you that they are in dire need of loving care, with their charcoal black skin and distinctively African features punctuated by two wide white eyes that seem to penetrate your being with their cry for affection. This night was one of the most powerful experiences I have had in my life, and it is good that I am not in the stage of life where the capacity to adopt a child exists, as I was seriously entertaining the thought with each one who touched my heart.

Around the fire before dark.

In the morning, we had tea and mandazi (Tanzanian doughnuts – so good) for breakfast, and the kids went for another swim in the river. After the swim we went on a hike out to some magnificent waterfalls created by huge boulders that you can walk out onto and surrounded with lush vegetation. Really picture perfect. This took most of the morning up and the bus arrived shortly after we returned to camp. We headed back to town and bid farewell to the children. As I slept in a tent with some of the boys the night before, I didn’t get much sleep – they go to bed late and wake up very early (the elbows poking into my back didn’t help either) but I knew I could make up for it when I got back home with a nice afternoon nap. We were all pretty exhausted but found the energy to go out for lunch for some chips mayai (basically a french fry omelette – yum) and sodas at “Family Investment Pub” – you have to love some of the names of businesses here. After a short walk home I hit the pillow hard and smiled at the thought of a great weekend.

Left: Some of the scenery on our walk; Right: Some of the kids scrambling on the rocks.

I feel privileged to have the opportunity to gain some insight into the problem of orphans in Africa, but I acknowledge that I far from understand the issue fully, as every child can tell a different story that will bring new facets to light that shatter our beliefs about the nature of the pandemic. Also, from talking to the full time volunteer at the center, Sophia, I realize that it is very trendy now for people to take some time out of their lives and come to Africa to work with orphaned children. While on the surface this seems to be a very noble effort, in the big picture sometimes such volunteers can do more to harm then to help. First of all, the shorter a time the person spends, the worse the effect. Many times people come to Huruma to see the kids, and the center. They come with their shiny new vehicles, nice clothes and expensive cameras. They tour through the center and want to photograph the children, look in their rooms, and examine their school work, among other things. Sophia tells me that the kids begin to feel as though they are some kind of zoo exhibit – come and see the poor orphan children of Africa. This doesn’t help them overcome their embarrassment of living in an orphanage that they already deal with everyday at school and in the community.

Even when people who come with big hearts for a few weeks or months, it is difficult to measure the pros against the cons. The kids gain valuable care and attention from an adult, and will maybe even share a bond with that person. That is, until the person gets on the plane to go home and move on with life in the West. Then the children are exposed to yet another abandonment that they cannot control. Over time they begin to associate affection and care with heartbreak and disappointment. Once this happens a few times they are no longer able to connect with anyone for fear of being perpetually hurt. I cannot criticize too much because of course I am one of these people. I truly do believe that the care they receive, even if for a short time, is beneficial in the long term, but I am biased because it is rewarding to work with these kids, so of course I will try and justify it. I have to say that my ideas of development and aid work are going through a monumental transformation and evolution as I look around and see the difference between what works in theory, and what works in practice. In the long term we in the West need to pressure our governments and corporations to share a portion of our exorbitant wealth with those in the developing world. We need to empower nationals to take leadership on the social issues that affect the Global South, and they, in turn, need to empower local communities to confront these problems head on. It is possible. We have all the resources. Now we only need action.

For more information on what you can do please visit:

http://www.stephenlewisfoundation.org/whatyoucando.htm