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Hakuna Matata!: World Vision Youth Ambassadors Leave Tanzania

After singing to Naligawa and his classmates, we visited families who have renewed hope because of the help received from World Vision. The two families we visited had benefited from agricultural and water projects, received life-saving livestock, nutritious food alternatives and education for their children. It was incredible to observe and hear of the amazing transformation that has taken place. Wherever we went, it seemed like the whole village would turn out just to say “hey” and shake our hands.

Later that day we observed the alteration of so many lives through the implementation of a 50m deep-water pump that serves some 250 households. The residents in the villages had previously been endangered by bacteria ridden water, containing typhoid from their shallow and muddy water holes. The village elders explained to us how access to this clean supply of water had made a huge impact on their collective communities. We had a ton of fun sticking around for a couple of hours and pumping water for villagers ourselves, teaching the kids how to cartwheel and watching the sun go down over fields of corn.

On Sunday, we were immersed in the life of Baraka (a 2009 Tanzanian Youth Ambassador) whose family works extremely hard to make ends meet. The family demonstrated a deep strength and willpower to overcome the challenges throughout their lives. We were able to join in and experience some of their daily activities. These included the African tastes of ugali (a very thick, grainy porridge), makende (raw corn boiled in cow’s oil), mlende (a sticky vegetable paste) and chicken. We were also able to take part in a food preparation process that included beating sorghum (a type of grain) with huge sticks. You lay the grain on a base of cow manure and put all your might into whacking out the grains while the women sing a “beating” song. It is quite a long process and trying for a few short minutes, resulted in some of us getting blisters!

The next few intense and crazy days included travelling the bumpy roads from Singida to Karatu, seeing humongous wild giraffes on the side of the road, learning how to bargain in the congested Masai markets and an incredible Safari adventure in Ngorongoro Crater known as the world’s eighth natural wonder! We were lucky to experience the circle of life first-hand.

We saw an intense showdown between a poor unsuspecting warthog and a strong and muscular lioness (up-close-and-personal including sound effects!) Let’s just say that the warthog never really had a chance. We also saw hippos, which made Martha’s day, elephants, rhinos, velvet monkeys – who jumped in the jeep at one point to join Max and Jeff for a snack – and lots and lots of zebras just to name a few!

We have now left Africa, the place that all of us had dreamed to travel to for so long. Physically and emotionally exhausted, we now travel back to Canada (with a pit stop in the beautiful city of Amsterdam) and we cannot help but be excited about the prospect of raising awareness and motivating youth with our experiences and stories. Stay tuned as we’ll be updating you with how things go for each of us as we return home.

Hakuna Matata!