DOB – April 26, 2006

Came under Tumaini care early 2009!

Older sister Martha, Daniel, Gerehad and Connie all came to us from one of the poorest regions in all of Tanzania: Songea.  My partner Oddo was born there and although I haven’t yet been, he shares stories about people walking about without clothes because, although they have a relatively stable food source (fish from Lake Malawi), they have virtually no means of earning money.  Many, many people walk around shoeless and without clothes and when we arranged to bring the children to Tumaini from their various villages, we sent a large supply of our used clothing down to help the situation.  It is a dream of Oddo’s for us to find the money to travel to Songea one day and drill wells so that the people of his former village will be able to drink potable water and not the horribly contaminated water so many of them consume now.

I met Anna after an eighteen hour journey (first by bus and then eight hours by car from Dar Es Salaam).  Our cook, myself and a couple of other mamas were working in the kitchen and joking around with each other.  The mood was jovial, in anticipation of her arrival.  By the way, it should be noted that neither she, Daniel, nor Gerehad spoke a word of English nor Kiswahili, only the tribal dialect of their home village.  They arrived exhausted and, of course, hungry.  We greeted them and brought them to the table to eat while we continued with our banter.  At one point, mid joke, I smiled and reached for Anna.  She lurched away from me with a cry of terror at which point we all realized I was quite possibly the first white person she had ever seen!

I, as you can imagine, felt terrible for frightening her but the food had her greatest attention!  I am happy to report that within two days Anna would not leave my side and you can see in the photos how terribly happy she is to be at Tumaini House!