The Duttons: Day 5

I would love to be able to put into words all that we did today, but it would seem like a laundry list of activities. I know this because I just wrote 5 paragraphs and re-reading it was torturous!! So, I am not going to bore you with the details, but instead let the pictures do the talking. Today was our wrap up day at the school and the children/faculty of Mbahe and N’garoni sent us away in the most loving and touching ceremony I have ever been a part of.

We then headed to Light in Africa, an orphanage run by Mama Lynne, an amazing woman from the UK who has dedicated her life to caring for abandoned children (often disabled in some way). Visiting these children was very eye opening and a lot to take in. I felt as if I was in sensory overload, trying to process the stories that accompanied some of these children (a $4,000 bounty on an albino girls head; a newborn dumped into a pit toilet; a 13 year old arriving in the middle of the night bleeding after having unwillingly gone through female circumscision) taking in the sounds smells and knowledge that these are not orphans waiting to be adopted, but rather children that will likely never know a different life.

In Tanzania it is frowned upon to adopt a child, (although some families, if financially supported, will be willing to support a relatives child) and unheard of to keep a disabled child alive. Mothers that have albino children often have to keep them hidden from society due to the amount of money witch doctors are willing to pay for their limbs ($4,000 US dollars). Knowing all of this, and seeing all of these children that have been, in one way or another, abandoned from society just broke my heart. The Tanzanian government (which is run heavily on bribes) also recently changed their rules on adoption and now a foreigner must live in TZ for 4 years before they can be considered for adoption.

Margaret and her first doll

After leaving LIA, I cannot stop thinking about how these little itty bitty babies that I held this morning will be living in the care of Mama Lynn for the rest of their lives because no one in TZ will likely be willing to care for them. What happens to them if something were to happen to Mamma Lynne? How will the orphanage survive if Mama Lynn is unable to return to the states once a year to speak to people about LIA (which brings in almost all of the money necessary to run the orphanage). My little heart is broken just a little…