On Saturday morning we got up bright and early to head out to Mairowa for our first visit. We were with a team of 12 others and several of them had been to Mairowa previously. But for a few of this it would be our first trip and we were anxious for our first taste. We had a 2 hour drive each way to the community which we thought would be awful and actually almost prevented us for going on the trip because we wanted to stay in the community where we were serving. However, it ended up being a blessing because it's when we really got to know the people we were serving with because we spent all of our time with the locals when we were in community. In addition, we got to see giraffe, zebras and other native species running free, as well as locals going about their day as we made our commute. I do have to say that some of those rides "home" at the end of the day were pretty brutal after a full day working. And let's just say the roads in Tanzania are not the smoothest (see attached video!).
When we finally arrived at the village, there was a hoard of children waiting for us. Saturday is one of the days when the sponsored children have a meal, so most of them and many of their siblings and mothers were around. They literally surrounded our vehicles and grabbed onto us as we piled out. For the rest of the day it was a rare site to see one of the muzungu (Swahili for white person) walking around without little Maasai children hanging from most body parts! They would literally stroke our arms, look at our fingernails and they especially loved getting to touch our hair! Most of them have their head shaved, both male and female.
This first day was a fun day to just hangout with the community members. Of course we didn't speak the same language, but we managed to get by with lots of hugs and gestures. It's true that love and smiles are universal languages!
The highlight for us was a time when all the children were gathered in a circle and singing the songs they learn through the sponsorship program. They were in Swahali and just beautiful. At one point, they had all of us stand in the middle of the circle to get the full experience, which in itself was awesome. Then, Anthony got my attention and pointed out one of the little faces looking back at us from the circle and it was our sponsored child, Samweli! It was so amazing to see this face from our refrigerator transformed into a real life little boy right in front of our eyes! We'd been praying for this little guy for years and were now literally standing there looking at him. It's hard to describe.
After the singing we eventually found him again and were able to communicate with him that we were his sponsors. He's pretty shy, but his smile is contagious and we knew he understood who we were. So that was really cool and part of a great first day in the community.
Sunday we went to church in Arusha and it was great to worship with our brothers and sisters on the other side of the world. We then did some souvenir shopping and tried to track down our still missing luggage. On Monday we would begin the health assessment!
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