Well, I will start off by saying that I did meet her, but I can't remember her name.
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The day was June 17th, 2017 and I was in Mto wa Mbo, Tanzania. We were supposed to be going to visit an orphanage outside of the town, but I am glad that we made this special detour instead. The lady that was our "tour guide" to the orphanage decided that it would be better if we met someone that adopted a child from the orphanage many years back. We turned out of the town where people were selling all sorts of stuff, like this kid that was selling fish off of his bike.
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We got onto a dirt road and started driving away from the small town and out into the "bush". When people think of Africa, this is probably the landscape that they think of. We were passing the large termite mounds and some smaller Maasai villages. As we got closer to a mountain, a small mud home came into view with a worn down outhouse built next to it. When we got up to it, the cutest old lady and a young man came out of the home.
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We greeted them and our interpreter introduced us, but I cannot recall their names. I was too intrigued by her story. The young man was in his mid 20s and we were told that the older woman had adopted him from the orphanage when he was a young boy. We were told that his parents had abandoned him because he had a small deformity on his hand and that he was HIV positive. Many young children in Africa that have HIV/AIDS are abandoned by their parents or their parents die when they are very young and they are left to fend for themselves or if they are lucky, they are brought to an orphanage.
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The older woman's husband had died many years ago, and she had been living by herself, so when she found out that his child was in the orphanage and most likely would never be adopted and cared for, she took him into her home and loved him as her own. I found out that she was almost 90 years old and that she had gotten married to her husband prior to Tanzania gaining its independence. It was times like this that I wish that I was fluent in Swahili so that I could have just sat with them in their home for hours and had conversations about life with them.
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This was the view from their outhouse when I was using the bathroom. It was quite a surreal feeling to be out in the middle of Africa using the bathroom and looking out at the amazing scenery. I think we stayed there for about an hour and a half meeting with her and her son and before we left, we gave her a small donation of money that we were told would feed them for a few months. It's crazy to think that the some of the money that I had planned on spending on little trinkets and souvenirs could feed this small family for months. It really put things in perspective for me.
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Being in Africa living among the Maasai people for a month really had an impact on me, and this experience is one of my favorite that I had during my time there. There are many other experiences from my adventures that I plan on sharing, so be sure to follow me @derangedvisions if you aren't already.
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Africa is a magical place and the people there are some of the most loving people I have ever met in the world.
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