25.07.2011 Dala Dalas on Strike.

25.07.2011

            I couldn’t make it to my placement today because the dala dalas are on strike.  By the time we found out, it was too late to walk because it would take 2 hours at least to reach placement, and by that time the children would have already returned home.  We had no number to call because Mama Anna’s phone was stolen so I hope she understands why we didn’t make it.  I don’t know how long this strike is going to last so I have to try to find alternative transportation that is inexpensive.  It was amazing seeing hundreds of people walking on the streets, most of them being children in school uniforms.   Normal pedestrians were stuffing students in their cars, sometimes as many as 10 or 12.  Kelvin told me he drove a few students also.  I hope the dala dalas resume driving again very soon, because the people are suffering from it.

            Since I couldn’t go to my placement, I decided to go with Ashlee to hers.  She works at a special needs school.  The children there have amazing souls!  I just wanted to gather them all in my arms and hug them tight.  They were very dirty, and some very much abused, but their faces were plastered with smiles.  I fell in love especially with one 19 year old boy, Samweli.  He has dwarfism and looks like an old man.  He also has brain damage.  He would sit in a chair next to me and put his arm on my shoulder and massage me.  Then, while we were singing, he slowly, in a sloth-like manner, crawled into my lap to sit down.  He was just smiling and smiling.   He kept asking, “How are you?  How are you?  How are you?”  I’ve decided that I am most certainly going to make a trip or two back to that school.  The woman who runs it, Mama Mary, is one of only two people in Tanzania who are educated and specialize in special needs children.  She found that her passion was for autistic children, and decided to build this school, even though all odds were against her.  They now have over 40 children who attend to learn the basic skills they will require on a day to day basis. 

            While on my short tour of the school, Mama Mary told me that many children who are born with obvious mental or physical disabilities are killed as infants or are not cared for and then die from lack of proper care.  They are sometimes locked in huts all day, or left to wander while the parents and older siblings are trying to make money.  This facility allows these families to go on with their day to day activities, like selling veggies on the street, while the children are being cared for at school.  If I were forced into a situation in which I had to choose between caring for my extremely-high need daughter or son and going without an income, or leaving my child at home to make an income which would allow me to feed said child, other family members, and myself, what would I do?  I keep thinking of all the special needs children in Tanzania who are not able to go to a school like this. 

            One child, Joely, hadn’t been to school in two weeks.  We walked to his mudhut to see if he was ill.  When we arrived, we found two children, one barely older than a year old, and the other maybe two and a half years old.  They were sitting outside the hut, by themselves.  Nobody else was around. We called for somebody, and eventually a woman came running over from the other side of the street.  She didn’t say anything, just ran in the mudhut and came back out with Joely.  Then we left with Joely to return to the school, and she seemed to be staying near the hut and the children.  I am so tired of seeing children of such a young age left without supervision.  Not ten feet from where they were sitting was an eight foot drop to collect water in the rainy season.  What can I do?  This type of parental care has been weaved into their culture.  It’s apart of their daily lives.  It is normal.  And there sure as hell aren’t any statistics measuring the amount of children and infants hurt or accidentally killed due to being left unattended for hours on end.

            The ride home was interesting.  Three people sat in front, seven in the middle, and an unknown amount in the back.  Children were sitting on adults, who were sitting on other adults.  Also, Joely was sent to walk home as, I was told, is done every day.  To insure he makes it home, the driver follows behind him in the packed jeep.  Joely ran down the street, and if he slowed to a walk, the driver honked and Joely would begin running again.  Sometimes Joely ran to the side of the street behind a tree and stood perfectly still, probably hoping the jeep would continue to keep driving.  He got honked at, and restarted running again.  Almost every day, during this, Ashlee says the younger kids from primary and secondary schools throw sticks and rocks at him.  These children are just the same as the ones in my orphanage and the ones I say hi to and goof off with in the streets!  On this particular day, there were no sticks or rocks thrown to Joely.  What would I have done if there were?  Gotten out of the car maybe?  Yelled out the window? Nothing? Would I have done nothing?