This blog is going to take on a little different feel, but it is the most important blog that I will write during my time I am over here. The reason that I have not blogged for such a long time is because I wanted this blog to be done well. A lot of these blogs have been just thrown together at the last minute, but I wanted to think about this one a little bit. The German fellow that I went to Katavi National Park with, some might be wondering why he was in Tanzania in the first place. For those of you that are wondering, even those that are not, I will tell you. He was here to help out a woman named Marianna. Now the million dollar question is who is Marianna? the rest of this blog is going to tell you. This blog is dedicated to her and I hope it will help her somehow. On Thursdays I do not teach any classes, so I decided to quit sitting around and start to help out at the orphanage that is about two miles from where I am living. It is quite fun, the orphanage is full of little children about 40-50 children that range in age from babies to 8 years old, mostly victims of AIDS. I say victims of AIDS, because these children are the real victims, their mothers and fathers might have suffered from AIDS and even if the children don’t have AIDS, this disease has robbed these children of so much. It has robbed them of their parents, the most important thing in the world, I was lucky enough to have a great pair of parents, a house, attention and most of all love. There are 40-50 children in this orphanage and 3-5 women to take care of them all. So, the children are mostly left to fend for themselves. Some of the stories of these children are amazing, absolutely amazing. One is named Polisi, because his parents left him and he was brought to the orphanage by the police. One is named Flora, a darling little girl, who always shows you what is in her mouth when you see her with her giant smile. She was left by her parents to fend for herself, no one knows how long, but she survived in a house all alone for a time, but they think it was a year. She is about 5 years old and has been in the orphanage for some time. Amazing. I go there and just play with the children, because they need the love and attention, any love and attention. I probably get as much joy out of it as the children do. This orphanage is called Sister Agripina There was a woman who was a psychologist in Germany, she is an older woman, only a year or two away from her pension, but she has a dream of going to Africa. So, after she is fed up with all the bureaucratic BS, she decides to take a vacation to Africa and help out in this particular orphanage. So she comes to Subawanga and starts to help out the orphans at Sister Agripina. She only has a three month visa and she goes to the orphanage and helps there for only a week. A man has recently died. His wife had died bringing his daughter into this world and now he is dying of Tuberculosis. His little daughter, a daughter that he had to trade his wife for, is now dying of tuberculosis. She is a year and a half and only 4 kilos. This is about 8.8 lbs, which is what I almost weighted at birth. He is from a very poor village in the Lake Rukwa region, so he travels to Subawanga for help. He ends up at the hospital that is run by the same nuns who run Sister Agripina. He dies, but his daughter lives and has caught tuberculosis. His little daughter is slowly dying and will not eat anything. This German woman sees this little girl named Christina. In her own words, “I can not explain what happened, but I fell in love with her and I could not leave her.” She decided to focus her energy on this one little child. She moved to a place called Mvimwa and lived in the abbey there in order to help this child. Help she did, she nursed little Christina back to health, which meant getting up in the middle of the night and forcing this little child to eat some porage. Christina made an amazing recovery, one that she would not have made if it was not for this German woman, the doctors did not think that Christina would make it, but a little love and care changed that. This women then checked how she could take this child home with her, her visa was going to expire, but she did not want to return to Germany without little Christina. It turns out that Germany would not let her take this child back with her, so she would have to leave this child or leave her entire life. She had to go back to Germany for six weeks to wrap up her affairs and leave everything behind, including a biological daughter, friends and her flat. It was a decision she would have to live with her entire life, a decision that was made weeks before the first time that she had laid eyes on Christina. After having spent time with this little girl I know why she made this decision so easily. She built a new home. She was leased land by the Mvimwa abbey and spent the last of her money on building a house. She adopted eight more orphans and they lived in Mvimwa for a about ten months in this house. Then a series of unfortunate events happened. These events forced her from her home in Mvimwa and forced her to Subawanga. Since these events transpired, she was forced from her home and forced to move into a hotel with her nine children. They survived and eventually found a place to live in very close to Sister Agripina in a suburb of Subawanga called Katandala. She is renting this house and it is very little. The events that forced her out of Mvimwa, also has made some people in Germany cut off their support of her project. As we all know money makes the world go round. These children need food, they need clothes, they need an education and they need educational toys. What these children do not need anymore is love, a home full of happiness and a mother who loves them, all these have been filled by one woman named Marianna. She is a very strong and capable woman, an amazing woman with an amazingly big heart that has allowed her to love nine children. An amazing energy that allows her to keep up with these children. The youngest is Christina, kily, is what she is called because she is to little to actually say her name. She is about 3. She has a smile that could make Stalin’s miniscule heart melt and a laugh that I will haunt only the happiest of my dreams. I was at Marianna’s house last saturaday with the other Germans and Kily was sleeping on the couch, but she started to slip off, Marianna of course grabbed for her, but young kily wasn’t going anywhere and she reached down with her hand and met my hand. I held hands with this young child for maybe a half an hour until she adjusted herself and my assistance was no longer necessary. Ima is the same age as kily. But boy is he different. Before he came to Marianna’s house he was called Little Buddha, other then the physical characteristics, a pot belly, he never smiled. I have never seen this side of him. He loves to make noises and scream when he is happy, so the house is constantly filled with his screams. I must admit that he is probably my favorite. He will run to me and put his head in between my legs and push on my legs with his arms until I pick him up and throw him over my shoulders, this is always accompanied by a scream of pleasure. Then, there is Gastoly. He is maybe five and he is the smartest little kid I have ever met. He already knows Swahili and has some English and German vocabulary. Marianna will speak to him in German and he will answer in German, its crazy. He has a wide face, that grows when he smiles. He resembles Muhammad Ali, but I don’t think he has it in him to be a professional fighter, he is just too nice. Then there is Marta. She might be seven and all she wants for Christmas is her two front teeth. She is always showing the gap in her teeth during her prolonged smile sessions. She is always laughing and you would think that she has never known what a problem is. These children are amazing. I only talked about the youngest four, because they are the cutest and will get the heart jerking reaction that I am hoping for. This woman has nine children to take care of, obviously this is a full time job, so she can not work. If you would like to verify if this is a full time job or not just ask my mom how hard it was to raise one angel and one devil when me and Collette were growing up. As far as who was the devil and who was the angel, you will have to ask Collette. The long and the short of it is that she needs financial help. She is doing all the work a human can possibly do, so she needs your help. I don’t expect you all to send huge contributions, but little ones would be appreciated, ask for donations at your local churches, ask your parents, ask oprah, I don’t really care, but in know all of you are good people and will do what you can. Here is her website where you can send donations www.christianashope.wordpress.com. All we can do is what we are able. I love you all and hope this finds you well.