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First visit to the "Area Development Programs"

At the end of last week’s blog, we had only arrived in our hotel in Tanzania on July 9th, after flying for up to 20 hours for some of us. Day 2 of our trip was July 10th, and we began our morning with a visit to World Vision Tanzania, where we learned about how child sponsorship works in small chunks of Tanzania called “Area Development Programs”. These ADPs are spread out all over Tanzania, and each consists of about 10-20 villages of 1000-5000 people.

After learning what this was, we headed out to see it for ourselves for real, for the first time. Our trip to the ADP was a real highlight for us; we drove out of the major city of Arusha, where our hotel was located, and into the off-roads which stretched out for miles and miles. As we drove into decreasing altitudes, we noticed the change in quality of crops; the lower we went, the more visible the effects of poverty became. What surprised us was how many people were living along this road which seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. We passed through three villages in total, and on all three stops we had very memorable experiences…

First we visited a former sponsored child named Agnes. She is now 17, a mother, and owns a leather tanning business. As we saw the house she lives in, we also noticed the neighbours, especially the children, watching us. They came up to us cautiously, and we gave them small gifts such as bouncy balls, marbles, gum packs and hacky sacks. Although we could tell they were very pleased by the smiles they gave us, they would never thank us; they would only look at us and the toys we gave them. It must have been the weirdest thing for several white people to come into their village for a few minutes to hand out some interesting new toys. They had probably never seen anything like this happen before. After visiting similar parts of this ADP and learning from them, we came back the city of Arusha for dinner and rest.

On July 11th, we spent eight hours driving to the town of Singida, on the long highway which was actually a narrow dirt road which also seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. On the way, we saw that several villages were placed along this road, and many people would be walking miles away from their villages carrying buckets of water, or baskets of trading materials for the market, and even sticks for firewood. It was a shock to see two overturned semi trucks on the side of the road, their supplies spilled everywhere.

On July 12, We went to mass at a church in Singida, which was a real thrill. The atmosphere was so vibrant with the energy of loud and passionate singing coming from everybody in the crowd. In the evening, we met about 20 Tanzanian youth who would be working with us for the next four days at the “Youth Forum”, which we couldn’t wait to find out more about. They seemed like great people already, but this was only the beginning of something special.

From July 13th- 15th we went to the Youth Forum – a workshop which brings together us Canadians, about 50 Tanzanian youth, and 10 Rwandese youth. Each day had a different theme, culminating with action planning. The Tanzanian and Rwandan youth were so kind and eager to learn about us, and so were we. Although we knew that we had differences, we found many good similarities. These youth had a lot to teach us as well! When looking at their lifestyle through materialistic lenses we could say that they are poor, but overall no, they are not poor. They are blessed spiritually with a unique gift of love that brings them together and trust in God which gives them great joy. This came through so well in a special time of cultural sharing on day 3 of the Youth Forum. Dancing, singing, drama, a fashion, motivational speeches and so much more! It was a thrill and very moving.

We are at the end of the youth forum now, and it’s hard to say goodbye to these great friends of ours, but tomorrow marks the beginning of another journey – we will be spending more time on the field seeing more of World Vision’s work, learning about what daily life is like for Tanzanian youth, and seeing the wildlife in the Ngorongoro Crater before we leave. Stay tuned!

To see more incredible photos visit our Flickr account.