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STORIES
These are just a few of the students that attend Shepherds Junior School and their incredible stories:
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Glory
9-year-old Glory is an orphan who’s been raised for years by her sister, aunt and grandmother, switching houses intermittently when the situation becomes too crowded or uncomfortable. She currently lives with her sisters in a house made of mud and sticks that has a patch of banana trees in front where their outhouse is located and both their parents are buried. During our last visit, Glory, who is consistently ranked near the top of her class and aspires to be a teacher, mysteriously missed three days of school. We later learned it was because she’d lost the sole on one of her shoes, the only pair she had to walk the mile or more to school. This is the same little girl who wrote to us in crayon on a construction paper thank you card a note that simply said: “I am so lucky.” There’s more about Glory’s story on our blog here.
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Gideon
When we asked 9-year-old Gideon to draw a picture of what makes him happy, he drew a picture of himself playing in the rain, and on Thanksgiving he cheerfully shared that he was grateful “because Christmas is coming and I’m going to eat!” When we interviewed his father, a welder who’s volunteering his skills to help build the new school and is also a minister, Mr. Gidori wondered aloud how they could have the same God as the people he once visited in Australia, why they would have so much while his people have so little. He went on to say, “if you tell a man he is weak, he will be weak, if you tell a man he is poor, he will be poor,” illustrating perfectly the reasoning behind the Epic Change model: we treat our partners not as recipients of charity but rather as leaders who possess the strength and resources (i.e., their stories) to improve their own communities - and even to improve other communities in need elsewhere on the globe. Gideon is also a budding photographer who, after taking a class from a photographer we brought to their classroom, took several amazing photos of elephants at Tarangire National Park that we plan to use in a line of Epic Change post cards. Learn more about Gideon on our blog here.
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Naomi
3-year-old Naomi, who appeared as a snowflake on our 2007 “Let it Snow!” holiday card, loves school; her Babu (i.e., grandfather) told us that even when she was recently sick with fever, little Naomi cried and begged to return to her class. Babu is an elderly man with a constant grin that bares few teeth and much joy. He cares for his granddaughter as she’s lost both her parents; her father due to an illness he contracted from his work in the local Tanzanite mine and her mother to lung disease. Babu raises several of his grandchildren in a home that was recently built by his son when their former mud hut collapsed under the weight of a heavy rain. He feeds them by selling the bananas that grow in their backyard from the soil where Naomi’s parents are also buried.
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Teivin
12-year-old Teivin’s parents live in Nairobi, but he moved to Arusha a few years ago to live with his grandmother. I asked him why, and he replied that, in Nairobi, there is too much fighting, not with hands, he said, but with guns. He said that he was scared. Teivin’s favorite subject is math, and when he grows up he wants to be a pilot. He’s also the artist behind the globe that appeared on the front of the “Peace on Earth” holiday greeting cards we produced last year.
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Sayuni
6-year-old Sayuni, who appears on our “Peace on Earth” holiday card, is an orphan who lives in an orphanage a few blocks away from Shepherds Junior. When we visited there, we met Mama Ana, a woman who couldn’t be older than about 20, who single-handedly - and without any pay - cares full-time for Sayuni and 10 other orphans, ages 3-15. While we asked for some details about where Sayuni came from, and what happened to her parents, Mama Ana knew very little, except that she was brought to the orphanage by someone who attended her mother’s funeral. Like over 1 million orphans in Tanzania, Sayuni has lost both of her parents. At Shepherds Junior, though, she attends school in an environment that doesn’t brand her with a mark of poverty or shame, in a uniform that is washed regularly by her teacher, Rachel, to ensure that little Sayuni fits in with her peers.
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Leah
During our last visit, we went on a field trip with the children and our safari bus broke down stranding us in a wild game park for nearly 8 hours with the children. 9-year-old Leah helped us pass the time by sharing the story of a little girl who wanted to touch the stars in the sky, and tried to convince butterflies to carry her up to see them. As the evening wore on, we switched to a new topic, and the children wanted to know more about us and about America. Leah asked questions so insightful you can’t imagine them from a third grader in a third world country: “What motivated you to return to Tanzania?” “Do you love your president?” she asked and continued “Were you happy when Saddam Hussein was killed?” I responded hoping, likely in vain, that my answers were nearly as intelligent as her questions. When we asked what she’d do if she were granted omnipotence, she replied that she would cure HIV and help street children. When she grows up, she wants to be a pediatrician, or the president. I have no doubt.
Leah’s beautiful photograph of a giraffe at Tarangire National Park is featured on our first line of postcards available later this year at select hotels and safari companies in Arusha.
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Pius
Pius is a shy, happy 4-year old boy who loves to skip rope and draw pictures. He is raised by his mother Anna, who has HIV, the same disease led to the death of Pius’ father a few years ago. Because of the stigma associated with her disease, Anna has been abandoned by most of her family and is shunned by many people in her community. Despite this fate, and the possibility that she contracted the virus from her late husband, this remarkable woman respectfully refuses to accuse him unnecessarily and says she may also have contracted the disease from a medical injection or during childbirth. She’s a courageous, outspoken activist who in a country where the stigma associated with the disease forces many to hide their status and even refuses treatment. Currently Mama Anna receives free ARVs, but she mentioned that if she were to contract an opportunistic infection, medicines to treat her would be very expensive and difficult for her to afford using the minimal income she receives selling her small handicrafts. Anna also participates in a local HIV+ choir that sings in her village to raise awareness about their disease; she and one of her friends from the group sang us a haunting song pleading for love and acceptance from their community despite their disease. Mama Anna has had Pius tested several times, and, fortunately, he has not contracted the virus. Learn more about Pius and Anna on our blog here.
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