Albino interviews

Posted by Ali

I finished my week of worship and it went pretty well. I finally decided to talk about God's timing and His protection. Here's a quick rundown of how the week went. Monday: I read a devotional about God's timing and told a short story about God's protection from my dad's life. Tuesday: I told a story that someone in my home church recently told for Children's Story and my mum told me. Wednesday: I asked for volunteers to tell a short story from their own lives. Muze, the accountant, told a long and uplifting story about having classes and exams on Saturday and how God helped him work through that situation in the best way for him. Thursday: I again asked for volunteers. Max told two short stories from his life. Then Samuel told a story about God protecting him from a big snake in the jungle and that story reminded me of one that I heard Jose Rojas tell for a Children's Story at the CUC Church when I was a kid (our family tells it to other people every so often so we haven't forgotten it). It was about a black mamba encounter which I thought would be appropriate to tell in East Africa. Friday: I again asked for volunteers and Rachel, a project coordinator, told a story about school and exams on Saturdays that was similar to Muze's story, but also different. It was good. Then I told them about Bryn's experience this past month and her recent answers to prayer. Then Max told some good news about his daughter. So that was my week of worship. It worked out. I survived. It was actually kinda fun (except for the getting up half an hour earlier part).

So this morning, during the post-worship ADRA-TZ-news time, Yona told me that he and Rachel and I would be going into town to listen to stories of albinos. That was the first time I had heard anything about it and so I scrambled to grab the ADRA camera (which I found out was almost out of battery) and a reporters notepad and a couple pens and was ready to go in about 10 minutes. We drove to a church in Arusha where Yona and I jointly (because of the language barrier) interviewed four albino secondary students. Their stories were very sad, especially the first two which involved a rape and an albino sibling being killed at birth.

Then we went to the home of an albino lady who is dying of skin cancer. That visit was terribly sad. She and her mother and two young children live in a mud-and-sticks hut and her cheek below her left ear is badly swollen. She goes to a hospital in Moshi (a town a couple hours from Arusha by bus) about once a month to get treatment for her cancer and also so that the doctors can do tests on the swollen tissue to figure out what it is. And what really broke my heart is that she has to borrow the money to get to her doctor appointments and back home (5,000 Tshs round trip) and she has no money to pay the rent on her house (14,000 Tshs/month) or to pay for the yearly security school fees (2,500 Tshs/child) or examination fees (1,000 Tshs/child) for her two kids. For 6,000 Tshs ($3.94 USD) her kids could have their school fees paid and not have to worry about getting kicked out. Sometimes I eat meals that cost 10-12,000 Tshs, twice the amount to keep her kids in school and almost enough for her monthly rent, which she is now three months behind on. After I left I just wanted to go to the nearest ATM, drain my account and give all the money to Sister Martha, an albino lady who is the regional secretary of the Tanzania Albino Society and takes care of many impoverished albinos in the Arusha region. And just think of all the other people, albino or non, living in poverty in this country, in the world. I just wish I could help them all. Sometimes I think that ADRA Tanzania isn't doing enough...