Digging for Gold in Grim Circumstances
Starting an orphanage
One of the private orphanages I visited while living in Dar es Salaam provided shelter for 120 children, ages two to twenty, Christians and Muslims alike. It was started by a Tanzanian woman who’d lost seven brothers and sisters to AIDS or malaria and was left with 19 nieces and nephews to raise. Her partner had also inherited six children from deceased relatives, so the two of them decided to start an orphanage together. When the government recognized it as an NGO in 2001, they rented a house in Dar and raised support from donor groups to take in more orphans.
Adding buildings
A medical doctor from Oregon visited the orphanage soon after it was established, and he was so impressed that he bought a plot of land for them. The Canadian High Commission funded construction of an administration building on the site, and the Japanese Government gave money to build a dormitory. When funds for the dorm ran out, the Corona Women’s Society donated enough funds to finish it and build a second dorm so that boys and girls could live in separate buildings.
Other individuals pitched in to help Winnie and her orphans over the years. Peter Jensen, a permaculture and intensive gardening specialist with Peace Corps, wanted to help HIV-affected families grow gardens and empower them to feed themselves. He taught the older children at the orphanage how to build a terraced hillside garden to trap the abundant rains, and how to dig trenches around the base of trees to plant mini gardens beneath them.
Growing gardens
With Peter’s help, the children planted aloe vera, papaya, and vetiver grass to prevent soil erosion on the hillsides, and they sowed corn, spinach, coco yams, lemon grass and bananas in a vegetable garden. Most of the work was reclamation that involved digging and planting on bare hillsides that had been cleared for buildings.
The doctor-benefactor from Portland later purchased twenty acres of adjacent land for the orphanage, half of it arable bottom land suitable for agriculture. He also established a trust fund to provide food and school fees for the orphans. Winnie hoped to build a school on the new property someday so the children wouldn’t have to commute from the orphanage into town each day. Under her guidance and care, children who had suffered enormous losses in their lives were learning how to tend the land as well as each other.