The Village of Hope

Wednesday 14.10 (Nyerere day), this was a holiday in Tanzania. It is the day in which the Tanzanian people morn Mwalimu Julius Nyerere whom they see as the father of the nation.

On that day, we planed to visit an orphanage called the Village of Hope.
This orphanage is managed by and Italian fellow, who turned out to be a Priest. We did not know that until we came to the village on Sunday for the Sunday Mass, and there he was our Italian Priest holding the Mass in Swahili in a very Italian way, in the church which is in the village. I tell you folks, that was just hilarious.


Ok, now back to Wednesday and the ‘Village of Hope’:

It was a great experience and a wonderful feeling to be among those kids dancing and singing with them.
You have no idea how easy it is to put a smile up on their faces. Not only by handing out candies or goodies, no, you would really hear them crack up when showing them a picture that has been taken of them. This was what I enjoyed most, taking pictures and then showing it to the kids, they will start searching for them selves in the picture and then try to find their friends, all that while filling the whole area with their load innocent laughter.
They are also very clever and can pick up words from others very fast.
Shawn who normaly holds our speeches, stood up and held a nice speech for the kids and the sisters who showed us around.

Now picture the kids staring at him not understanding not one word of what he was saying.
So action had to be taken to break the ice. As Shawn started to introduce each one of us, Camille and I started to cheer up and clap and say out load ‘Wow Yeah, Hi so and so, happy to see you’ and the kids would just repeat in one go. When we start applauding and yelling loudly 'Hello, Nice to see you, how are...' they would just follow.
Later on while we were going around the village on a tour, when any one of those kids would spot us they would greet us as we taught them :o)) that was very sweet.

Here for you a short history to The ‘Village of Hope’, which was, grounded 2000:

The idea started when our Italian priest ‘sorry for not remembering his name’ realized that a lot of HIV orphan children die after they have lost their parents. Furthermore, the regime would even deny any medical treatment for those children as they were pushed off from the society due to their illness.
So, our Italian Priest thought of starting an orphanage to give these children a home. He knew that the most important thing these kids needed was love. To solve this, with his connection to Italy he managed to convenes those who have already done their duties toward their families back home and have time they would like to make good use of, those could come down to Tanzania and start a new family. The orphanage started with units in which you find a Mom and a Dad and around 7 to 9 children assigned to them.

Later on, he had to make sure to get the right medical treatment for these kids. So after convincing the government to allow him to by the medicine required from Bella Italia on his cost, he got the approval. And a medical center started.

The medical treatment went well and the children’s health condition was improving and their life average was prolonged, something that was not really expected, which made the Priest thing that they will need to start educating these children, so primary and secondary schools have been built for education.
That was not enough for our Priest, as he thought that he could also provide medical treatment to the external HIV children with families and that they could also attend the village schools.

Then he got more enthusiastic and thought, well, why not help HIV women give birth to healthy babies?
So the medical center was expanded and the HIV pregnant women were then kept in the center as soon as she gets into her seventh month to treat with the medical treatment. Then once she gives birth to her child she is not allowed to breastfeed the baby and that way the chance of giving birth to a healthy baby increases.

In year 2005 the government announced free treatment for everyone including HIV patients. That is when our Sweet Italian Priest thought, great, now the pressure on the village Medical Center will decrease… well he was very wrong ;o)) the fact of the matter is, it increased a lot more then he could of imagined, to his surprise.

Today, his main concern is to find a job for the children, which are now 16 – 17 years old. His plan is to build a factory to produce milk products, as they already produce their own milk for the newborn babies… I believe in a very short time this village will become a city of its own… :o))

PS:- Picture of a newborn baby well follow, as well as pictures of the village.

Mambo for now :o)