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A HOME FOR HADIJA
By Jann Mitchell
The
13-year-old girl breezes in from school and carefully changes
out of her green and white uniform. She dons an orange T-shirt
and long, dotted skirt - ready for an afternoon of homework
and helping around the house.
Hadija
could be any girl, anywhere. But she is an orphan, having
lost both her parents and her grandparents to AIDS in 2003.
Homeless, with no one to care for her, she strayed from
neighbor to neighbor, seeking a meal, a friend, a place
on the floor to curl up for the night.
One
afternoon last May after two days without food, she rang
the bell at the big blue gate of an Mbagala pre-school south
of Dar. "I want to live with you because I hear you
save orphans," the desperate girl told school owner
Fatuma Gwao.
As
co-director of the Bibi Jann Children's Care Trust, Mama
Fatuma does just that. Orphans comprise a fifth of the children
attending her nursery and first grade school, where children
learn English, math, reading and writing and get what may
be their only two meals of the day. Orphans are why the
grandmothers raising them meet at the school for GRANDMA-2-GRANDMA,
a project which matches the older women with sponsors around
the world. And orphans touch Fatuma's tender heart.
Hadija
moved into Fatuma's modest house next to the school. Her
new roommate and friend, 6-year-old Ashura - also orphaned
-taught Hadija to read and write with Fatuma's assistance.
The young girl attends fourth grade and likes English best.
She works hard to catch up with her class.
Happy
to finally belong somewhere, Hadija sticks close to her
new home. She helps wash, cook, and sweep, and plays big
sister to the pre-schoolers. When a visitor brings a bag
of donated clothing, she eagerly selects and models a denim
dress. But she needs so much more.
When
Mama Fatuma is sick, both Hadija and Ashura cry. "Don't
die!" they plead. "Where can we go if you die?"
Hadija
is happy now, and her smile comes more readily. "I
like to be to school and want to find my way to future,"
she says in Kiswahili. She hopes to become a police secretary.
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