“Pilgrimage is belief in action."
Phil Cousineau The Art of Pilgramage
This book I am reading is challenging in me all sorts of ways in how to frame and see this time in Africa. Cousineau writes, “Imagine your pilgrimage as a metamorphis. Through simple acts of intention and attention, you can transform even a sleepwalking trip into a soulful journey. The first step is to slow down. The next one is to treat everything that comes your way as part of the sacred time that envelops your pilgrimage.”
As a Youth Minister, I am constantly enveloped in searching to make the sacred come to life for others. I am finding myself searching for the sacred here in Africa.
Eliade writes, “The sacred is always the revelation of the real. An encounter with that which saves us by giving us meaning to our existence.”
I have preached a sermon that life is NOT the pursuit of happiness, but the pursuit of meaning. I don’t think I have ever completely unpacked that idea, but perhaps it flows back into the “revelation of the real”, as a gift of the sacred experience, whatever form that may take and integrating that revelation more intentionally into your life. Here in Africa, for me, it is the people, in the midst of extreme poverty, sharing themselves with us.
We left from Arusha, stopping to get supplies, and running a few errands, which included as short stop to see Mwasiti. Mwasiti is the oldest of the children from the orphanage, and is the young woman a group of teenagers from St. Paul’s helped give scholarship money so she could attend college and law school Mwasiti is currently working at an internship at a law office. The drive to her office was some of our first close up experiences of the level of poverty of which we are totally sheltered from in the United States. We drive through a collection of brick shacks and Meredith explains that this is considered a nicer neighborhood since the houses are made from brick, and not mud or dung. (We experience those villages later in the day out in the country on our way to the orphanage.) Mwasiti comes to greet us, and she is everything and more that Meredith describes. She is gentle, smart, warm, articulate, and has a smile that makes you immediately feel welcome.
I will soon come to know that this welcoming nature, Karibu!, defines much of the spirit of hospitality of the people in Tanzania.
Our visit with Mwasiti is too short, but she is at work. I hope some day that the teenagers from St. Paul’s who have supported her in her education can experience the gift of meeting her in person.
From Arusha, we head out on a 3 hour trip into the countryside to the town-sized village of Karatu. We pass many Massai mud huts on the way, and a HUGE elephant (I guess they are all huge, but man, it was a surprise) only about 15 feet from the roadside.
We stop for lunch in Karatu. While we are far from any city, its remarkable the number of people we see all along the way, simply walking to some unknown destination. Most are heading to some market, or to school, or some work if they can find it. At lunch, people are recognizing Meredith, and greeting her with hugs and kisses. Dr. Frank, an American doctor who serves this area and the orphanage through a non-profit medical clinic, walks into our open air café’. We had already heard about him from Meredith, and it was neat to bump into him. We will help him one day on “clinic day”.
The road from Arusha to Karatu is newly paved. We are very grateful for that. It was long and mountainous. But from Karatu up the mountain to the orphanage is a rough mountain dirt road, and only 4 wheel drive Land Rover type vehicles can make the drive.
It is this area that we begin to pass some of the roughest villages, and certainly the most extreme poverty conditions I have ever seen. Full families living in one room, mud floor huts. No electricity, no running water, little access to medical care, (other than Dr. Frank).
Children come running from every hut as they hear the car coming. Most are wearing rags for clothing. My first reaction is that they must all be coming to beg for money, and very few do. In fact , if they are calling out for anything, it is for pencils, or candy. But most are just coming out to yell "Jambo! Karibu!" (“Hello! Welcome!”). All of us in the car are simply trying to hold it together and not dissolve into tears. The scenery and the children are so beautiful, set in extreme poverty unlike anything one can imagine.
These are the people living on less than $1/day. They don’t own land, or the houses they live in. These are all worker’s camps, owned by the surrounding coffee plantation. Many do work picking coffee by hand and are “allowed” to live in the deplorable housing conditions, or they are squatters and the village leaders let them stay. There are few water sources, and all are contaminated. We see young girls, 8 or 9 years old carry plastic buckets, ¼ their body size, balanced on top of their heads, full of water for their homes.
We drive by the elementary school. Its hard to find words to describe the set of building. They are brick, no electricity. There are over 400 students who attend this school, with only 8 teachers, who have minimal training. Because of the remote location, its hard to find teachers. They are huts surrounding the school for the teachers to live in, and a shack that serves as a kitchen to make school lunch, usually a simple plate of rice.
Arriving at the orphanage, it all seems surreal. I am so tired, I don’t quite remember what day it is. The setting and buildings are lovely. The orphanage provides a whole micro economy for the surrounding villagers. They employ house mamas to care for the children, cooks for volunteers, they take in young adults as student teachers who are waiting to find sponsors to go off to secondary (all boarding) school. There is a couple of social workers, night guards (Askari Massai men), and other day laborers who do landscaping, cleaning, maintainance, ect. It is an impressive, warm, yet tightly run, operation.
Quite dazed from our trip, staff help carry our bags to our rooms, but we can see and hear the children out in the compound anzxiously awaiting the new volunteers. When we take our first step in their direction, they came RUNNING, FULL STEAM AT US! They jump into all of our arms and give us big hugs. The young man (8 years old) who reaches me first, cups my face into his hands and says “Jambo! What is your name? Mine is Nicola.” Of course I reply “My name is Sam.” Nicola smiles a huge, beautiful, heart warming smile at me, and says, “Welcome Sam. Do you want to come and play with me?”
Nicola was born Feb 25, 1998 in Arusha, and is the 3rd of four children. In 2000, his mother died of an “unknown disease”, which is the common way to say, “most likely HIV/AIDS.” In 2002, his father died in a car accident. They all went to live with their aunt, who passed away from a heart attack shortly after Nicola’s arrival. And now Nicola, along with his two sisters, Happiness and Coletha, live here at the orphanage with him. His older brother, Leandri, is away at secondary school, but currently here visiting as well.
And so, this 9 year old boy who has experienced so much loss, in the face of unbearable poverty, holds my face in his hands and fills my soul with joy, with healing, with refreshment, after a long journey.
I am here now.
By experiencing the sacred, the real is becoming known to me, little by little, as a gift from a child, an orphan.
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