Bragging on Fatuma!

This pretty young woman with the striped shirt just turned 17 years old in August. She is going to school to be a teacher, so she is temporarily living in the UK. The cool thing about her being in the UK is that we can have daily contact via e-mail!! I can't keep up with the e-mails daily, but we usually chat several times a week. Jaden and Morgan (my biological children- for those who do not know), also e-mail her. She has been a real joy in our lives! It is amazing how well you can get to know a person when you can e-mail back and forth constantly (as opposed to the snail mail system that takes months to hear back from a sponsor child).

The one thing that I will miss when she goes back to Tanzania will be the e-mails. Once she returns to her homeland of Tanzania to work, we will be back to the snail mail system =(

Fatuma is doing well in school and in her teacher training. She even returned to Tanzania for a week or two to practice some of her skills there. These photos are pictures of her teaching her class. I just had to show off her pictures and tell everyone what a great teenager she is!! I have not been sharing her e-mails like I do with the letters from sponsor children because with her being so grown up, it would not be appropriate. I know some of you with older children may know what I mean. The younger kids write about silly things and such. The older kids write things that are more personal.

Anyway, I am hoping to get to Zambia within a year or two, and would like to take a road trip on to northern Tanzania to visit with Fatuma. She is such an awesome young woman!

A Letter from Fatuma! Part 2

I received another letter from Fatuma! This was very exciting for me, since I had, also, already been corresponding with her via e-mail as well. She is such a sweet young lady! You can see her in the picture above in the red shirt on the right.

She wrote me a sweet letter and included 2 photos of herself (which Jaden and Morgan have already taken possession of!!) She had filled out my questionnaire, too. Here is what her questionnaire said:

I am proud to announce that I accomplished the following goals:

*I have finished primary school and I passed it. I got 133 marks out of 250.

*I have finished Unit 1, and 2 assignments and I got an A in Unit 3 and C in Unit 1. Now I am doing Unit 2, 5, 4, and 11 to complete the first year of college.

*I have finished ESO English and I passed, now I am in Level one.

*I have finished Unit 3 and 4 diary tasks and I got a 9 out of 10 marks in Unit 3, and 14 out of 15 in Unit 4. So I have left 2 diary tasks to complete the first year at college.

Here e-mails have been great! Jaden and Morgan have both wanted to talk with her as well, so they add their portion to the end of my e-mail and she responds. They are so excited that she is e-mailing them and answering their questions.

A Letter from Fatuma!

I got my first letter from Fatuma!! She is from Tanzania (The Bethany Project), but she is currently in the UK going to university. As you can see from the pictures above, she loves children, so she is studying to be a teacher. She filled out the short questionnaire I sent her:

Grade:Child Care and Education Year One

My favorites:

Food: Chips and chicken

Music: Christian music and R&B

Sport: Netball and football

Color: Blue

Movie: High School Musical

Book: The Silver Chair

Place: USA
Subject: Math

My nickname is: Fatii

My hobbies are: Playing games, reading books, and dancing

If you could choose an animal that best represents your character, which would it be and why?

A rabbit because I'm kind and I'm helpful.

Write about what you would like to do or become in the future: In the future, I would like to be a teacher.

She, also, wrote a very sweet letter! I could just hug her through the computer screen when I look at her beautiful pictures! She reminds me of myself at her age. I still like helping with kids, but now that I have my own it's a little different. I am sure they gave her plenty of hands-on training with the babies at Bethany.

My Tanzanian Girls

Rusia is 14 years old. She is one of 7 children, and she is the only girl in her family. Both of her parents died almost a decade ago of HIV/AIDS. Her grandmother and aunt found it hard to take care of all 7 children. They asked Bethany to take care of the youngest 3, and Bethany took them in. Rusia has been in the orphanage since January 2007.

Fatuma is 16 years old, and one of 6 children. Both of her parent died of HIV/AIDS in 2001. They were left to the care of her father's relatives. Because their mother was a Christian and their father a Muslim, the family that was left to care for them instead took everything the children were left with (house, car, and all possessions). The children were considered illegitimate because their mother was not Muslim, so they were not allowed to inherit anything. The grandmother (mother's mother) took Fatuma to Bethany, seeing no way to take care of her. Fatuma is now in England studying child care in the university!

Esther is 9 years old. Esther has been living at Bethany since she was 6 years old. Her sister lives at Bethany, too. She came to Bethany because her father did not want a daughter (he wanted a son). Her father refused to help her mother care for Esther, and Esther's mother found it difficult to care for the 2 girls on her own. What made the situation worse is that the mother has a very sick son who must be cared for constantly and taken to the hospital every month. Her mother was overwhelmed with trying to care for a very sick son, and 2 healthy daughters. She asked Bethany for help, and they immediately stepped in.

Maria is 10 years old. Her father passed away of AIDS in 2003, when Maria was only 3 years old. Two years later, at the tender age of 5, Maria and her sister Naomi found themselves alone and not knowing how to fend for themselves, when their mother left the house and never came home! They walked to their grandmother's house, and stayed with her for a couple of years. However, the girls found themselves in the same situation they were in when they were at their mother's house because their grandmother was never home but out getting drunk. Maria's sister Naomi was 15 in 2007, and so it was decided she was too old to be taken into to Bethany. Maria was only 7, so she was taken in and care for by the orphanage.

Susana is only 7 years old, but she has been an orphan since she was 2! Her parents both died in 2005. Susana's aunt took her and her brother into her home and was raising the 2 children as her own. However, her aunt's husband was an angry alcoholic and did not want the children in his home. The uncle forced them out of the home, and they were taken in by the village leader until 2007. In 2007, they arrived at Bethany orphanage, and were taken in with open arms.

These are the 5 girls I chose to write to at the Bethany orphanage in Tanzania. They all have stories to tell of a hard life before coming to Bethany. It makes the letters and correspondance all that more important.