Amani - Day 13 (Sept 13, 2009) A Final Act....

For my last day at Amani, I would spend it hanging out with the kids and helping out in the kitchen. I promised the Amani kids I would do another magic show yesterday so when I arrived, many of them surrounded me and kept repeating “mazingaumbwe.” My answer was “Soon, soon”. (I didn’t know this in Swahili, but they got the picture.) Joe and I wanted to make sure all of the kids were available so they could all see it together. I realized today that these kids love to imitate. Recently, Joe got a great deal for bringing them all to the circus. When they got back, they formed a club where they all practice tumbling and handstands. You can see in a couple of pics where they are practicing their circus maneuvers and some of them are really good! I’ll have to add that to my Outlook calendar. :-) So, after seeing my show yesterday, a couple of them came up to me today and tried to imitate my “mazingaumbwe”. One kid tried the coin disappearing trick with a leaf. Another got a small piece of paper, tore it in half, and gave it to me to magically put back together. It was pretty funny. That whole morning, I hung out with them in the main play area and participated in their banter until lunch.




I wanted to help out anyway I could so I thought some assistance in the kitchen would be a nice way to lend a hand. Amani is incredibly efficient with the way everything is run. Nothing goes to waste, including leftover food scraps which are collected and sold to a pig farm. And if you were wondering about cleanliness, everyone must wash their hands before touching food. I was assigned to do the chopping with a couple of the kids. Each of us had these big (very dull) knives to chop these leafy greens to go into the stew they were making; this image alone would make most parents freak out. But around here, that’s how things get done, as everyone participates without being asked. There aren’t a lot of adults here to monitor them on the weekends, so the bigger kids help out with the younger ones. Again you also have to remember these kids survived on the streets. They’re smart and they’re survivors.






During lunch, everyone sets up dining tables. Systematically, each table gets up one at a time to grab a plate of ugali (mashed corn – tastes like mashed potatoes), beans (just arrived!!) and vegi meat dish (it was suggested that I don't eat any of the meat – I didn’t ask why) and then go back to their tables, say a prayer and begin eating (with no utensils, just their hands). One of the youngest kids at Amani who is six sat next to Joe and me while we ate. I listened as Joe asked him how his weekend going in Swahili. I couldn’t follow too much of the conversation after that, but I could tell the little guy liked being near us. :-)






After lunch, they were giving out awards for (I think) good behavior (although I really couldn’t understand what they were saying). Note to self: I need to learn the language a bit better before coming out. It‘s not a difficult language, just takes a bit of time to pick up the structure. During this little gathering, they let me be part of their meeting like I was one of them. It was so cool that they started accepting me, as you can see in a couple shots. It was kind of surreal. I’m in Tanzania, hanging out with these children like we were in my own back yard. But that’s not what I’ll most remember about this trip. After they presented the cookie “awards,” one of the kids broke his cookie in half and offered it to me. Wow! That just blew me away. These kids have nothing, yet they are so gracious. Amazing! I said “Asante sana” but told him that he earned it and that he should get to eat it himself (don’t think he understood a word I was saying, but I think he got the message).






Up until this point the kids were anticipating the next magic show and they had many requests this time around. :-) The show would be held in one of the classrooms where we could kind of control the surrounding kids’ vantage points. However, it didn’t really matter because once the show started, there were kids viewing from the outside window, all around and even underneath the table (Got this whole thing on video; sorry no pictures). One thing this reinforced with me was how smart they are as some of them had some of my tricks figured out. Or maybe it was just because I hadn’t practiced enough. ;-) Anyway, the highlight of the show was the sponge ball routine (info: this is where you place a ball in your hand and one in theirs, you open up your hand and both appear in their hand – you keep doing this until there are like 6 balls popping out of their hand). I had them rolling on this one. It was awesome! Me and my bag of tricks in Africa! I’ll never forget it.




I left at the end of the day, and said my good byes. It was good in a way that my visit was so short because I can’t imagine trying to leave this place after developing connections with these wonderful children. My goal is to continue helping this organization from home, however I can and plan to one day come back and possibly teach one of their classes. Joe and his staff were amazing and so gracious, and I will never forget this experience. The little bit of money my family and friends helped me raise made a real impact at Amani. I’d like to end my last post on the last day of my Tanzanian trek with a bit of paraphrasing from the book Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson – “The difference you and I made here we made with something almost worthless in our society – a few dollars, but here, these dollars can move mountains.” Thanks all for following me on my journey.

Asante sana.

Amani - Day 12 (Sept 12, 2009) A Truck Load to Deliver

Thanks for your patience everyone. My schedule has been crazy since being back and I'm now just getting back to working on the blog again. I also have to apologize for all the grammar and typos as I have been at a rush to get these posts out. This blog is a bit of a work in progress and I hope to continue to edit the posts once I get all of the pictures and video loaded. Enjoy.

The next and final part of my journey in Africa had me excited and somewhat nervous as I really didn't know what to expect. With your help, I was able to raise $700 to give directly to the Amani children. Pretty cool, huh? So I would like to thank you all for supporting this effort. There are so many great charities out there and very worthwhile causes you could have donated to instead of this one, so I appreciate every dollar you contributed. The great thing about doing this is that I'm able to check out the home first hand and get to see how the organization is run. Most of the time you don’t get to see how your money was used or how efficiently it was spent or see the benefits of a donation. This experience allowed me to capture that information and show it all to you first hand.


As I arrived in Moshi and at Amani, there didn’t seem to be anyone around as I walked from the front and around to the back where I saw many kids playing and a couple who greeted me in Swahili. At this moment, I felt like I was a new kid at school on his first day. But this was the weekend, and there were only a couple of counselors there when I arrived. I eventually found my way to Mr. Rogasian who is the essential support coordinator at Amani and would be there to give me some background until Joe arrived.

The Amani Children’s home was created in September 2001 by three local Tanzanians who saw the need to start a home for street children who have been surviving on the streets of Moshi town. They rented a two-bedroom house and opened their doors to 6 children who had no where else to go. Over the past decade, the number of children living on the streets of Tanzania has grown rapidly due to the effects of poverty, HIV/AIDS, breakdown of the family, and other factors. The home was called “Amani,” which means “peace” in Swahili. For the hundreds of children who have been helped by Amani since its inception in 2001, Amani has truly been a haven of peace. In the beginning, there was only one bed and a couple of foam mattresses. Now, through the hard work of a few dedicated individuals, Amani is home to 150 children at any given time where they provide food, medical care, education, counseling, and assistance reuniting them with their families. If you would like to find out more about this remarkable organization, please visit their website at www.amanikids.org.



My purpose this weekend was to help in any way I could and to learn more about the organization where I would be volunteering. Joe Ventura, who is the communications coordinator, had been a great resource for me to communicate with and coordinate my visit. After my arrival, Joe gave me a tour of the home and introduced me to Mr. Kulwa who was responsible to maintaining all food supplies. Since 2001, Amani has become more and more self sufficient by growing their own corn and planting vegetables in their local garden. However, they still need essentials that they can’t provide on their own such as Rice, Beans, Sugar and cooking oil. Joe informed me that because the majority of their monthly budget goes to food, this purchase would be the best use and most beneficial way to help the children. So, Mr. Kulwa and I took a taxi to the market place in Moshi and we bargained for the best price for as much food as we could buy with $700 (converted to shillings). We had to rent a truck to carry it all back with us to Amani and as you can see, we got a truck load!






Back at the home, a few of the kids came to help unload all of the rice bags. They were quite heavy and I was surprised that some of the kids were able carry them on their own. You can see everyone helping out in the photos. While we were unloading, they told me they were so happy to have this food come to them now as supplies were getting low. I couldn’t have come at a better time as they were literally down to two bags of rice. They were so incredibly grateful for what they were receiving and continually thanked me for my help. What I later found out is that the amount of food we bought will feed 93 children for two whole months! That’s pretty amazing, considering how much food they go through each day, and a tribute to the way Mr. Kulwa was able to stretch every dollar. I have to tell you all that it felt amazing! Thank you again to everyone who contributed. This was definitely the best part of my entire trip and a great way to cap off my final two days.




Before I left the US, Joe asked me if there was anything I wanted to do with the kids while I was there. It could be anything -- helping teach class, playing games, music, sports or whatever I could bring to the table. I took the time to learn a little Swahili like: Jambo (hi), Mambo (how are you doing), Poa (fine), Jina lako nani? (What is your name?) to help me communicate a little. But I wanted to give them something that was a little different or entertain them in a way that didn’t require them having to do anything. I just wanted to be there for them. Most people who visit play soccer and basketball and games, which is great, but I wanted to take their minds off their day to day life and show them something a bit different.






In case you don’t know, as a kid I used to perform and compete in magic shows on stage (Yes I know, magic is not cool these days ;-)) and thought the kids might like to see some tricks. Now, I haven’t done any performing since I was 13, so as you can imagine, I was a bit rusty. I was grateful that Barry and his wife from Barry’s Magic shop in Rockville MD hooked me up with a few tricks for the children right before I left the U.S. Hopefully, I’d get my groove back by then and the kids would be entertained.



I didn’t have any idea whether or not the kids would like a magic show, so Joe asked me to go sit at the gazebo after lunch and he would go tell all of the kids in the break room (where they were watching cartoons) if they wanted to come see a magic show. The next image I saw was priceless. I wish I had had my camera while this was happening but there were like 50-60 kids running straight at me full stride to get a good seat. It was hilarious. The word was “Mazingaumbwe” which means Magic. So, being that I didn’t have an extensive Swahili vocabulary, I tried to make do with what I could. The kids were awesome; they were all laughing and saying “do it again” in Swahili. It was so much fun, I can’t really describe it. After that, I felt like they accepted me as part of their group which is pretty amazing after only having been there a day. Tomorrow, I would return and help out in the kitchen, do another show and make some more friends. It gets even better.