February Field Report

OLASITI ORPHANS PROJECT
February 2006 field report
Zenan Gasper
zenan

Left: Arusha Maasai women’s folk visited the Peterson brothers asking for contributions to conduct a traditional mass.

“Engai yai aomoni ngera!” (Oh Lord, give us children, meaning good weather) The Arusha Maasai elders met today at the ‘Olasiti’ tree with offerings and prayers to God. Women sang beautifully with tears on their faces. In their prayers they talked about all evil things happening in the village because of drought issues. The rainy season should have started already. A week before they passed to each villager’s home asking for contributions for purchasing offerings like a sheep, ochre, hides, oil, milk, etc., to be used in a traditional mass under the neglected sacred grove. The village was named for this tree, ‘Olasiti.’

Right: a weakened cow due to hunger

A couple of weeks after these prayers, the weather was still bad and all the people thought this is a bad and a deadly year. Most of the people in agriculture and related sectors were jobless. Theft in the village increased, children who needed money quit school to find odd jobs, and women engaged in petty urban business. There was not enough water in the village, and livestock were dying day to day. Some livestock that survived were still very weak and walked awkwardly. The animals’ price dropped by 85%. Although the birth rate is 40%, calf mortality is 38%, and 30% of mature livestock died and are still growing weaker.

I visited some of the orphans who had quit school to engage in petty businesses at Mbauda market. I met four orphans and talked to them. They said they live with a mother who is sick/jobless/trying petty business which cannot sustain daily food and so they try to help themselves. I met six more kids who had both parents alive but needed money and therefore are not going to school. The kids know that their decision can affect them either positively or negatively. They say they do this till the rains come.

Lastly I found a widow, Mama Laizer, mother of five children, whose husband died due to unknown disease. She was selling ripe bananas in a bucket. She had a small capital worth Tsh 800. That is less than one U.S. dollar. On good days she can get a maximum profit of 500 Tsh per day, which can help her buy 1kg of flour. On bad days her family goes to bed without a meal, or the two boys, Laizer and Longida, try raiding different gardens so that they can feed the family. Mama Laizer talked in tears about family health and drought problems and she said she didn’t believe she could survive the next two months without rain. I decided to plan how to help her, when the strong warm wind started to blow. Mama Laizer was still weeping and mourning. Suddenly Mama Laizer interrupted, “The huge, dark clouds fill the sky, this is the good sign, and it will rain today!”

Right: Land erosion. This was recently a farm field.

Everybody in the village was praying for rain after a long time of drought and sufferings. All people in the market, particularly farmers and livestock keepers, couldn’t hide their happiness after seeing the huge, dark clouds. The rain fell for one and a half hours. Early next morning, most villagers were out. Each was seen with a hoe hanging from the shoulder with a panga, seeds of maize, beans, peas, cajanas, and a sisal string for planting.

“Today we got a huge rain. We are not sure of tomorrow, but we just plant the good seeds. Anyway! This is part of our culture!” said Sambeke, a village farmer. All the farmers prepared their farms and planted carefully and seeds have germinated very well, but nobody is sure about rains in the next week or next month. Because we had a long dry season all the grass stalks are dead. The sudden big rain brings rapid water runoff and washes away the layer of weathered soil. Soil nutrients are washed out from the farmlands, but that is better than missing the rains.

orphan eating termites

Winged termites come out of their burrows in the rainy season. Orphans collect termites as a source of protein.

WHAT YOUR DONATIONS PROVIDED IN FEBRUARY:

We have supported 10 trained mentors
Purchasing food and cooking utensils for the centre
Purchasing 3 bicycles to be used by secondary school orphans and for the birding club
Purchasing seeds for the orphans organic garden
Paying school fees and others school payments & supplies to secondary school orphans
We have added 2 orphans to join primary school education.

Zenan Gasper, Program Manager

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