Jumamosi (Saturday), Amani goes for an
outing to the Arusha Snake Park. Arusha is a jiji (city) about an hour and half bus drive away on the one-lane
Moshi-Arusha highway. It’s all the watoto
have been talking about all wiki! I
arrive at Amani around 8am. The Dutch director is there, Meindart. His energy
is great—like a big (6’3”) kid—and you can see he clearly loves the children. In
between occasionally interrupting directions from other staff with goofy
comments to make the kids laugh, he puts their arm around them, holds their hands.
I just know Amani is going to go far with a person like that at the helm.
The buses are jam packed, right to
the point where it’s almost necessary to have every other person leaning
forward slightly so shoulders don’t bump. The entire ride, kids are talking and standing up, looking
curiously outside at various things. I’m no exception because the terrain is
beautiful. Fields of maize, blue hills, herds of goats and cattle, sunflowers,
small towns with many fittingly small stores, the simple city of Arusha. I wish
I could show you what it was like, but pictures don’t capture what I want them
to.
Tunafika
(we arrive) at the Snake Park around 10:30am. It’s like a small zoo. We see
many types of nyoka (snakes), and
although I can’t understand the explanations in KiSwahili by the tour guide, it’s
still impressive. There are mambas (including the infamous black mamba, Google it),
pythons thirty feet long, cobras, and many more. There are also tortoises,
gators and crocs, lizards, birds, and a baboon, too. The watoto are intrigued, murmuring amongst each other all the time,
some calling out and pointing at things, others laughing. At one point, we try on a snake, and the kids make me do
it…! Afterwards we head into a small, dimly-lit building with many rooms and a
dirt floor. It is the Maasai museum, a
famous tribe on the border of Tanzania and Kenya. The display shows their
dwellings, practices, and lifestyle with large displays. The last activity is
camel rides for the kids, during which they shriek because suddenly they are
ten feet off the ground.
On the bus ride back, not far from
the museum, we stop at a large restaurant. The staff there are only welcoming,
all coming out to the front steps to introduce themselves. We tour the entire
complex: from how to make a cappuccino in the kitchen, to the dance club (“disco!” the kids say). Baada ya tunakula (after we eat), we
have a dance contest on stage, and a dance party to end the day. Fantastic.
The final stretch on the bus for
home is filled with excited talk of all the day’s activities, but soon dies
down as everyone slips into a food-induced slumber. I wake up at one point.
Kids are nodding off and catching themselves as their necks droop too far over
and over again. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think it was a summer
camp. But there is a sad, biting, and difficult truth: the kids have no
parents. Life’s a funny thing. The weirdest circumstances happen to some individuals
on this Earth, individuals that deserve more.
I look out the window at the terrain passing by and
think some more. I think so much about the people and the
conditions that many beautiful people live with here. Here, Amani is giving these
kids enormous hope. It makes me so happy! I know that I will come back to
Tanzania, and I have a drive to change lives.
Curiosity.
Don't tell mom.
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