The Orphanage

Tammy shared with us the story behind starting the orphanage...

She and Jerry had actually moved to Tanzania in 2009 because he was a pastor and they felt inspired to start a bible school and preach Christianity. They were living in Arusha when a life changing event happened. It was evening and they were at home when they head a loud commotion outside. Tammy said she ran to the front door where they witnessed a young girl being drug and beaten in the street. Alarmed, she ran over to ask what was going on. She was told that this girl was being sold as a wife, but she didn't want to be. Apparently, she was resisting the arrangement so she was being beaten and subdued. Tammy wanted to help her and offered to open her backyard gate and take her in. She was told that the crowd would literally burn down her house if she tried to intervene. Defeated, she went back inside, mourning the fate of this young girl and the fact that there was nothing she could do to help her. It was from this incident that they determined that if they couldn't save this particular girl, they would do whatever they could to help other girls in bad situations. This idea started out as a children's home for orphaned girls and eventually grew to include boys. 

Of the 42 million people in Tanzania, 2.5 million are orphans under the age of 15. When a family is too burdened to care for a child they often sell them. Children as young as 4 or 5 are sold for sex. Or they are simply abandoned or neglected. 

 Tammy and Jerry petitioned the government with no luck, but were given this land for free by a neighboring village. The village just asked that they build a school for them to use in return. Tammy and Jerry are doing that, but also dug a well and have supplied this village with 25,000 liters of water a week. An immense blessing for a community that relied solely on rainwater before this.  

 Jerry travels around the United States, telling their story and asking for donations. Using money he's raised, Falco's Children's Village has slowly been built. It currently houses 80 children, but they'd like to expand it to be able to hold 250. Their ultimate goal is to be self- sustainable. They have acres of maize that they grow to sell and have a coop of 500 chickens to sell the eggs.

For safety, the orphanage and surrounding area is enclosed by an electric fence and guarded at the gate. 

This was our first sight, coming through the gates. 

This is a view, standing inside the orphanage grounds, looking out towards the surrounding village. 

The guard.

Here's Tammy! She fashioned a little gift shop next to the guard station for visitors.

Coming up the short driveway is a place to park. Looking back from here, towards the gate is where the sun set and it was the most beautiful sight each evening. 

An arial view of the children's homes. Each house has room for 14 children and 2-3 adults who care for them like they are part of a family.

In the center they have a playground area with two slides, two sets of swings and two merry go rounds. 

The vegetable garden..

where we were nonchalantly told the toilets emptied.

You know... to fertilize it.

(This would be when I died a little inside. 

As if I don't already have intestinal issues. )

This was the house I stayed in. Praise the heavens, it had real toilets and intermittent wifi!

Down that hallway were 3 bedrooms and the bathroom. The bathroom had two small rooms with toilets and one small room with a shower head and drain. Our shower head was just a pipe sticking out of the wall. They used solar panels to heat the water so you had your best chance at a warm shower during the day. But that was when we were the busiest. We couldn't waste water so you basically got wet, turned off the water to lather, then turned it on again to rinse off. I got one semi-warm shower and one bitter cold shower that scared me away for several days. Baby wipes were my friend. On the last night I braved one more shower and got a few minutes of non-freezing water at the end. I tell you what... the stories of missionaries bathing out of buckets for two years has taken on whole new meaning for me. I can't even fathom it. 

There was one sink per house. The bedroom I stayed in had 4 sets of bunk beds lining the walls and a portion of a wall with built in shelves. I CANNOT BELIEVE I didn't take any pictures of the rooms!!!!!

This was the toilet situation in most of the other houses so everyone came to our house to use the bathroom. That made our two toilets really gross really fast. 

There is a more regular kitchen in one of the houses, but this is a sort of back up kitchen where our food was prepared. They hired a cook for the week just for our group because we were so large. 

I will say this... I was pleasantly surprised by the food. I was truly expecting bland porridge or rice for the week. Instead, there was always quite the variety of foods to choose from. Usually a type of soup, some sort of bread, maybe vegetables or some sort of rice with meat. We learned that meat is a GREAT luxury, but the orphanage prides themselves on giving the kids meat at least twice a week. Now, that usually means a type of sardine (there wasn't an English equivalent) but that's still something. We were told that if we ate the food the natives ate, we would be ill. So while all of this food was from Tanzania... it was prepared as close to American standards as possible. Pretty much what I gathered was that we were being fed like kings...comparatively speaking. Which made me feel even worse for not being able to eat it after several days. 

 It wasn't that it was bad, it was just different. The flavors, the textures... I don't know. Plus the smells were starting to get to me. And they had these mangy dogs that always came in and pawed around our legs. I mean the grossest, flea bitten dogs you can imagine. And remember that we're in a tent on dirt. The dishes were washed girl's camp style in big basins of soapy water that very quickly became dirty. I just gradually lost my appetite. So I ate a lot of protein bars and trail mix and the occasional crepe or something more normal that was provided. 

The older kids get to go to a school in town. Public education is poor and unreliable, so they use donations to send the older kids to private school. A bus comes to get them each morning and brings them home each evening. The younger kids have their own school in one of the houses. I sat in on a lesson one day and it was so, so primitive. But, I loved the brightly colored walls and rugs and marveled at the children's good behavior doing such mundane tasks.