Journey of Purpose to Tanzania.
One of TC’s own shares her personal path to giving back.
Eight years ago, I made the decision to sacrifice my career as a travel writer for a chance at motherhood. Two failed in vitro attempts, one miscarriage, and five embryos inviable for life proved otherwise. My husband Benjamin and I were devastated.
After our unsuccessful venture to create a life, Benjamin and I made a commitment to “save” a life—in whatever form that might present itself. From rescuing animals to assisting the poor, we shifted our focus from “us” to “them” and remarkably, “they” took us halfway around the world to a remote village in Tanzania.
Through Compassion International, we found some level of healing by sponsoring six children—Bahati, Mariam, Angelina, Augustino, Nema, and Jadone—all between the ages of 5 and 8. We committed to giving each child $50 a month for their education, healthcare, and food. We commonly wrote of our dream to one day see their beautiful faces.
Through a series of circumstances, a plan began to take shape. In January of this year, my husband submitted a video application for a two-week motorbike trip to Madagascar, funded by Touratech. We agreed that if he was selected, I would meet him in Tanzania and we would visit the six children.
Benjamin won.
During our time in Tanzania, we planned to see some of the country’s attractions including the wildlife and the island of Zanzibar. A day safari to Mikumi National Park didn’t disappoint. Muddy tracks took us deep into the bush where lions, zebras, elephants, giraffes, and buffalo crossed our paths. It was everything one might expect of Africa, fulfilling visions of wild beasts roaming free where man has no purpose other than to admire.
Zanzibar’s historic town of Stone City was a page straight out of The Arabian Nights, with its labyrinth of narrow streets bustling with bartering salesmen and veiled women cloaked in silk hijabs. From our hotel rooftop, the cry of Islamic calls to prayer echoed off of rusty tin roofs, ornate mosques, and Hamamni bathhouses in the horizon.
From sightseeing to philanthropy, we caught a three-hour flight to the children’s hometown of Kigoma, on the shores of Lake Tanganyika. As the second largest lake in the world, it borders four African countries and flows into the Congo River. Most tourists visit Kigoma for the neighboring Gombe Stream National Park, famous for the chimpanzees. We checked into Kigoma Hilltop Hotel, part of the Mbali Mbali collection of Tanzanian camps and lodges.
At check-in you’re advised to lower your mosquito net at night (malaria is a risk), to avoid disturbing the grazing zebras, and to close your doors so that monkeys will not ransack your room. As Kigoma’s most upscale lodging, there’s a stillness about the place that hypnotizes you. Layers of blues stack one on top of another—clear skies pressed between storm clouds and the water. The vast lake takes on an ocean-like quality, causing one to question when the swell might arrive.
No matter how much I had mentally prepared myself for our visit with the children, I wasn’t ready for the emotional day ahead. Our Compassion International Host, Novatus, picked us up in a taxi he arranged for the day. He told us we were the first of 142 sponsors to make the journey. Justifiably, I explained it was a long trip, traveling 48 hours by plane on four different flights.
In broken English, he pointed toward my heart and said, “That IS love.”
If it was love or our desire to simply travel with purpose was yet to be determined. Less than 15 minutes from our 4-star hotel, pavement faded into sandy roads that crept into the shantytown of Kibirizi. Women wrapped in bright fabrics balanced pots, jugs, and buckets on their heads while others carried sleeping babies on their backs, oblivious to the chaos around them. Weatherworn men sat on wooden crates watching the world go by. Commotion buzzed along the shore as crowds of fishermen dragged boats and nets displaying their daily catch.
Stray goats and chickens slowed us at times, as did groups of children running car-side with smiles and outstretched hands. The air smelled of fish, corn, and burning coals, and a red powdery dust coated everything like a mist.
Feeling far from home, I looked at Benjamin. “Are you ready for this?” I asked. He smiled and nodded. Stepping out of the car, we walked into a small room, the Kibirizi headquarters for Compassion International. We were introduced to the local pastor and to our six children.
One by one, they shook our hands and timidly bowed and backed away.
We followed them into a tent where 150 kids dressed in yellow shirts sat on wooden benches. The children broke out in song, voices filled with passion as if they might never sing again.
Over the next four hours we visited the homes of the six children we sponsored, gifting each family bags of rice, beans, sugar, and flour. It seemed like an insignificant gift, but the host explained it was worth a quarter of their monthly wages. Some parents embraced us while others greeted us with the traditional handshake. The largest of the homes was 10 x 10 feet with dirt floors, mud walls, and thatched roofs.
Many of the homes we visited could only be reached by foot, meaning that we were often trailed by children mesmerized by our white skin and cameras. One child tapped my iPhone and saw his movements from seconds before. He screamed in joy and other kids came running. Too many were without shoes, stopping briefly to pull thorns from their calloused feet. “Where are your shoes little man?” I asked one. The host turned back and responded, “The families can’t afford them.”
An average income is $50 per month, an amount expected to support an entire family. Hiking from one house to another, we passed children as young as seven carrying their baby siblings, while others rung out clothes in muddy water and draped them across rocks to dry.
Of the six children we sponsored, each family had a least two children, some as many as 10. They counted those they lost to malaria. As the first child we sponsored, for Angelina’s birthday, we mailed extra money. Little did we know that those funds purchased a new house for her family.
In each home, we were asked to say a few words. “This is extremely special to us,” I said, “especially because we don’t have children of our own.” The moment my words were translated to Swahili, it became their prayer of desperation that God would give us children. I didn’t tell them we had lost a child, nor that we couldn’t have children naturally. But at that moment, our barrenness became their greatest concern.
After the visits to their huts, we were emotionally drained, tired, and hungry. My mouth hurt from hours of smiling. We gathered the six children and treated them to lunch along with our host and a second translator. It was the children’s first time in a restaurant, and their first time to see running water.
We ordered sodas and more food than I thought they could consume, but by the time we were done, those tiny bellies were bulging. Benjamin performed magic tricks at the table, telling them to blow on his hands to make a scarf disappear.
They giggled with delight, eyes wide in disbelief.
We took them for ice cream and smiled as sticky orange sickles dripped down their chins and onto their shirts. On our way back to the village, they danced in the car, hollering and waving at everyone we passed. The girls hugged me at random, holding my hand and whispering in English, “I love you.”
Back at the school tent, we stood together for one final group photo. Then the host instructed them to say “goodbye.” Smiles turned to disappointment, and then into frowns and even some tears. I too didn’t want to leave. We hugged each child, asking them to write and stay in touch. My eyes welled and puddled into tears.
There were still another 50 children in that community that needed sponsoring. We couldn’t save them all, but we would try, eventually adding four more children onto our giving plan with Compassion International.
Back at our hotel, Benjamin sat poolside, hat over eyes. I swam laps, still overwhelmed and burdened with guilt for the fortunate hand I had been dealt. We so casually live inside our first-world bubbles, deaf to the cries of those suffering in need.
Coming up for air, I clung onto the blue-tiled wall and watched as a troop of vervet monkeys jumped from trees onto lounge chairs. I thought about the prayers of those families, asking God to bless our lives (not theirs) with a child. That’s when it dawned on me that their prayer had already been answered.
We had been blessed with not one child, but with six.
Their names are Bahati, Mariam, Angelina, Augustino, Nema, and Jadone.
I couldn’t be prouder to be part of an organization who shares my commitment to Compassion International. Read how Travel Concierge donates a portion of profits to this powerful sponsorship program.