Widows & Grandmothers...

In a few weeks, the TI team will be teaming up with the Foster Group to do massive distribution of food to four areas: Maili Saba (my-lee), Kiminini, Shimo La Tewa (tay-wa) and Kolongolo. So on Tuesday, we began doing our assessments on widows and grandmothers in Maili Saba.

When we arrived at the central point where all these widows and grandmothers were to meet, we were welcomed with singing and shouting by the women. I was attacked immediately by little old women who continually hugged me, shook my hand and said Asante sana (thank you very much) in my ear. I must have hugged at least 40 women.

There were streams and streams of little children, staring at the white people. Some would turn away at the very moment of eye contact, while others would stare and when I smiled at them, came running to greet me by shaking my hand.

It took us about 4 hours to go through the assessments and pictures of over 80 widows and grandmothers. As we listened to some of the stories, I was saddened by the condition some of them looked to be in. There was one little boy who sat down with his grandmother and sibling with big tears rolling down his cheeks. I was told he had a headache.

I called him over to sit next to me on my bench. He was a little hesitant at first but after me saying, it’s okay to come here in Swahili a few times, he came and sat next to me. I felt his forehead and he was on fire. Thankfully, I had some headache/fever medication in my purse. We got water and I handed him a pill and gave him water to drink. Then I just wrapped my arms around him and hugged him. When it came time for him to leave and get the family photo taken, he didn’t want to leave. He preferred to stay seated beside me, my arms wrapped around him, him snuggled up against me.

I thoroughly enjoyed the day, meeting all of these amazing women, grandmothers who are raising their grandchildren, fighting to keep the family going, to find food to put on the table. It’s a life that most of us can never imagine having to live. And we found just a small few in a small community that day. There are so many more out there.

We visited Shimo La Tewa on Wednesday and did the same thing, doing assessments on over 40 widows and grandmothers. There was this one sweet little girl; she may have had a cute little dress on but you couldn’t tell because over the dress, she wore a Finding Nemo housecoat. I thought she was the cutest thing and she thought she was the coolest thing with her little housecoat on; it tied tightly around her waist.

I could seriously go on and on about all the little children I met over those two days of assessments but I’ll refrain….for now.

I have so much to write….but I’ll leave it…again, for now.