During the evenings and weekends, the volunteers have free time to do what they please. Many of the volunteers used the weekends to get away and go to Zanzibar or on a Safari. I don’t had that luxury as I am on a strict budget here in Tanzania. So on my first weekend I went to the beach with the orphans from a local orphanage called Imuma (ee-moo-muh). A few volunteers who didn’t go on a safari (trip/journey) and I rented a daladala and picked the kids up and trooped them to the beach. This was such an amazing adventure in itself. Imagine driving through a village with children playing in the roads and people doing there chores and daily business on the “sidewalk” or on the patios of their homes. The road is very bumpy, but we finally get through to the end of the village, everyone staring at the daladala that only contains 3 mzungus inside. The people and children are wild-eyed, curious about this massive vehicle bouncing down their street, through their community. We drive up to an edifice no bigger than the size of a large living room. The children of the orphanage are cheering, already knowing what is to come. They wait for this bus to come every weekend; a bus that is their escape from daily life in the orphanage out to an excursion of fun and play on the beach.
The other volunteers and I try to get out of the bus, but as soon as the doors open, the children try to rush in. We tell them hapana (no) and acha (stop), because we need to talk to Sherif, the director of the orphanage first. We just want to make sure that it is okay to take the young people and that we’ll be back within two and a half hours.
After a head count of thirty children we open the doors to the daladala and let the rug rats flood in. Funny thing is that the daladala only seats about 15 to 17 adults comfortably. But who cares about comfort when the first thing that the children do when the bus starts to move is sing “If you’re happy and you know it…” These kids were so happy to go off for a while and enjoy themselves. Of course a tear came to my eye. It was a really special moment.
The first thing the kids do when we arrive at the beach is find a space to strip down, some completely naked, and run into the water and attempt to swim. This definitely took me by surprise, but after a micro second I realized, “they don’t have any swim suits, duh!!!” Some of the older girls watched after the younger kids, which is the way of things here.
It was really great to hang out with these kids. The joy on their faces was priceless. At one point I had to break up a fight between two of the kids. They were both about 7 to 10 years old. Here I come, big ole me, grabbing each kid under an arm and stomping out of the ocean to put them on a “time-out”. Here in Tanzania, “corporal punishment” is favored, but of course I wasn’t going to lay a hand on these kids. Time-out is a very mzungu thing to do and they didn’t know what it was. Anyway, after about 7 minutes I let them go back into the water. I remember telling them “HAPANA!” and “ACHA!” One of them was trying to escape from me by creeping closer and closer to the ocean. I called him out on it and moved him further away from the ocean. A Rasta man named Solomon was watching the whole scenario occur. He spoke some English, so I asked him how to say stop fighting. He told me “Acha gombana”. He proceeded to tell me that the one that was trying to creep away from me is a “matatizo” (problem). Solomon is an interesting character of whom I will discuss later.
After about an hour or so, Steph (from Pittsburg), Megan (from Seattle), and Robbie (from Connecticut) decided that they should take the kids back to the orphanage. Savannah (Northern Cali.), Shannon (Edmonton, Canada), Steph and Mitzi (U. of West Washington), and I started to escort them back to the daladala when Shiabu and Hans from the Umoja (Unity) Arts Group showed up. Previous to going to the beach, I had invited them to come to the beach to dance and hang out. McCoy, who lives next door to the Annex of the Main House had accompanied Shiabu and Hans. BTW, Shiabu likes to be called Chocolate Baby, which I refused to do. His idea is that he wants to marry a mzungu woman and have babies with her. A chocolate baby is a person that is half African, like Barack Obama or Sade. (Later on in my trip I was asked if I was a “chocolate baby”. I’ll elaborate when I get to that. LOL) I told the guys from Umoja that we'll be at the beach by 2pm. We were told that they had something to, but that they’ll meet us there later if we were still around. I completely forgot they were coming until they appeared walking down the beach with their drums as we were leaving.Hans and Shiabu start to play the drums while McCoy teaches me a couple of steps of traditional dance. A short movement phrase if you will. All the kids crowded around us and danced with us as well, trying to learn the steps as I was. Luckily, Steph (UWW) had a camera with video. She took an incredible mini movie of me taking this dance lesson on the beach with the beautiful Indian Ocean behind me surrounded by these beautiful children. One of the kids actually said something to the affect of “Wow, the mzungu could really dance!” I’ll never forget my first dance lesson alongside the Indian Ocean surrounded by the most amazing people. After dancing with the drummers for a good 45 minutes, I started to teach the kids the Electric Slide. They loved it.
