Arusha Street Children

It’s hard for me to communicate what a great experience it was to meet the children living on the street in Arusha. I left on Thursday afternoon around 2pm to travel by bus from Moshi by myself, which I was not too happy about considering there was another fatal accident on that death trap of a road. Especially because of my experience in Arusha the last time, I was a little negative about the whole hangin’ out on the street thing, but it turned out to be a great opportunity.

I am really coming to appreciate the time I spend with the kids at Amani and the kids themselves. That being said, there are definitely bad days and good ones with the kids in general.

Once I got to Arusha, Asa, the Visions program coordinator for Arusha, met me at the Visions house. Asa is a social worker and Swedish and decided to come with me to meet the kids. We met the field social worker for Amani who I will call X, around 4:30 or so at the main bus stand in the center of the city. X used to be a smuggler who would take sugar across the borders from Malawi and Zambia to TZ, which is mostly why I’m giving him a letter instead of a name (and my blog is public). He is a really amazing man who knows all of the street kids in Moshi and Arusha. At the bus stand he introduced us to Happiness, who is Maasai and has siblings living at Amani. The four of us got on a dala dala to a small village Duruma to go meet her prinicipal to pay her school fees that her family cannot afford. Happi has to attend boarding school because her village is close to 2 hours away and Maasai girls are expected to work very hard cooking and cleaning around the house, which would make it harder for her to study.

Even though Happi told X Duruma was close it took at least an hour by dala dala to get there, mostly on bumpy dirt roads in a remote rural area. The village is Maasai, but the villagers wear modern clothes. It was the first village I’ve visited where houses were built out of mud. There were only dirt roads and a whole lot of cows and goats being herded around like rush hour traffic. Once we walked a ways we reached the school and the principal’s house surrounded by loads of dust and mango trees. The principal wasn’t truthful at first about tuition fees, most likely because white people (me and Asa) had come along, and he had definitely been drinking. Eventually things worked out and the four of us walked back to the main part of the village as dusk turned to dark. The sunset was a beautiful pink orange that night. It was hard to see but ever so often a bike or a goat would come whizzing by. Looking up, there was an incredible amount of stars.

Once we got to the village center, there were only 2 lights lit by electricity in a few small shops…most of the light came from 5 lanterns spread out between women selling fruits and vegetables and roasting corn along the road. It was a pretty wonderful feeling to be in such a small more traditional African village where electricity and plumbing didn’t really exist. The problem was, there weren’t any buses going back towards the city. Eventually after Asa and I tried to find a toilet (a tree) and bought some bananas for everyone and roasted corn for her, X found a dala dala willing to go at least part of the way. There were two big mamas on the dala dala with their babies wrapped tight to their chests and one little girl who was scared of me and Asa. I don’t know what is up with the babies here, but they can truly sleep through anything, even a dala ride that feels like the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland.

Fast-forward 20 minutes or so later and we are being let off the dala in the middle of a dirt road, in the bush, in the dark. A car that looked like a taxi turned and drove away from us along with the dala behind it. X ended up eventually flagging down a pick-up truck ten minutes or so later, (thank you God), and our group of 4 hopped in the back while the big mamas and the babies got in front. I’ve ridden in pick-up trucks before, but this little truck was flying along the rocky, dirt roads like nothing I’ve experienced before for more than half an hour. Asa and I woke up the next day and we were still feeling the bumps on our backs. The beautiful view of the stars helped wipe away my thoughts of impending death at least part of the way. Once we got into town people were pointing at Asa and I saying “Crazy mzungu!” in swahili.

In town we were looking for a dala dala to take Happi to her Maasai village but ended up taking a taxi to Kisongo (the village). There was no electricity so we could only see the mud huts by moonlight.

When we finally met the kids we first went to the main bus stand area where buses come from different African cities (mostly Tanzanian). X showed us where the kids were sleeping first...there were two boys who looked around 8 years old sleeping in front a storefront on concrete with no shoes and definitely no blanket. The kids often sleep in groups to protect each other and avoid rape which is disturbingly frequent. Another boy who had hurt his arm in a fight was sleeping in what looked like a city pig pen and smelled like human waste between two stores surrounded by trash. In the parking lot of the bus stand there were kids who looked around 9 years old sleeping in a group of three huddled together on top of garbage who remarkably were sharing a blanket. A boy nearby who seemed smaller but around the same age was sleeping a empty plastic straw bag people use to carry rice and things to market. This last boy had actually been at Amani and run away. Alot of the children have difficult times dealing with structure after living in the street. Not to mention, the survival skills the kids have had to learn are not valued in the real world...instead it's the skills they don't have- reading, writing, trusting and obeying adults in school that they don't have and makes it more difficult to try and reenter society. After this we walked just outside the bus area (which is all open to whatever weather happens upon the area) and met a group of about 8 kids who were awake. Although they did ask us for money/food at the end, mostly the kids just wanted our attention. It was really very touching and heartbreaking at the same time. A few of them were definitely on drugs or drunk but honestly, when you have nothing and drugs help to aid your pain and lessen your hunger and you have no access to education or anything else, it's understandable. The kids were all asking us our name and where we were from and I played this foot game/dance with them. A few of the kids wanted me to watch while they did cartwheels and X usually plays card games with them to bond. 2 of the kids decided to come to Amani the next day but most of that group has come back and forth to Amani dropping out consistently...which I think has a lot to do having never been integrated into a structured society. Most of the kids we meet are 3 years or so older than they look having never been fed properly- the impact of a lifetime of poor nutrition is incredibly affective at stunting growth, as I've noticed from the kids at Amani as well. One of the boys Tangan said he was 19 but looked 14. Most of the street kids we met that night are also Maasai and sent to cities to earn money as it is more and more difficult for tribes to survive. However a lot of the kids also just come from abusive households or their parents have died or were alcoholics etc etc.

After this X took Asa and I in taxi to the street where most of the prositutes are, most of whom look like they are all in their teens and had a late night dinner at X's hotel.

This was definitely one of the best experiences I’ve had here so far and something I will remember forever. I feel really thankful to be able to experience such different cultures and the different social strata of Tanzania. It’s difficult to explain, but there’s something really freeing about being able to connect with people of all levels of society, particularly those whose lives have been so unimaginably hard, and share a common connection however simple it may be. That being said, it’s been extremely difficult to think about the kids that I met and that their situation exists throughout the world. It makes it all the more strange to look at news headlines and see how isolated they are to specific countries or think about the celebrity gossip news I read all the time while people are suffering so much. But I think everything has to be managed in moderation…if I get consumed by thoughts of suffering then I’m not helping anyone, and everyone needs an outlet for relaxation and fun and stupidity without feeling guilty and punishing themselves. I’d really love to go back and visit the street kids and bring them some food in a few weeks. We shall see…

…And now…if you are still reading this lengthy post: thanks and congrats you made it to the end!

Love,

W