Doolah

On my second night here i was invited to a wedding. One of the volunteers, a lady from the US who had been volunteering here for a month, met a local, fell in love and was getting married! So on Friday night i found myself at a wedding reception. It was held outside in the open air theatre of the music college in town. Loads of people were there and lots of the locals did amazing drum and dance performances, everyone had an amazing time. The other volunteers and i we sitting together throughout and we were accompanyed by locals aswell, but one boy in particular caught our attention as he didn't seem to be with an adult, we didn't think too much as it is quite common for children to move about an event like that without a parent as it is a community atmosphere. When it came time to go we were the last ones to leave and we noticed that he was still with us, we asked around everyone that was left but nobody knew who's he was. After we got someone to translate for us it turned out he was a street kid and had been homeless for a month! Now this boy was no older than 8 and he was all by himself for 4 weeks fending for himself and sleeping outside. It broke my heart, he was such a sweet kid aswell he was just standing there blowing bubbles (left over from the wedding) and playing with balloons. He explained to us that he was there as he has learned it is safest to be where there are lots of people and he knew there would be food for him there. Some of the men said they have seen him at a few beach party's as he likes to be around people, but they didn't know he was homeless. We started asking him questions and he said his mum was on Zanzibar and his dad is in Dar Es Salaam but neither of them want him and he was supposed to be living with his uncle but he lost him. He gave a few different stories to people about his mum and dad all slightly different, but it all came down to the fact that he had no where to stay. It was the saddest thing, i knew we couldn't leave him so we tried to figure out what we could do, we needed a place for him to stay then we had to try and locate, his mum, dad or uncle. We tried to bring him back to the house but when we asked we were told we couldn't, so we were going to pay for a room for the night, but in the end one of the local guys said he could stay at his and we would go to the police station in the morning. We all talked that night and decided only 2 people should go with him to the police station and Amy (from PEI) and a lady called Vicky(from the US) went with him. After two days of police stations and visits to his mum and dads, Doolah's story goes like this. His mum kicked him out when she got re-married, he went to his dads, his dad beats him so severely he has permanent scars on his face, so he ran away. Doolah is 8 years old and his own mother put him on the street. His story is so heartbreaking and he is just the sweetest child. Apparently when they located the mother she wouldn't even look at him or acknowledge he was there, when they went to the fathers house he was so scared, when they got back in the car with him to leave(after he thought they would just drop him off and leave)he said "if you left me there he would have killed me". This boy has done nothing to deserve this kind of life and you think he would be lucky as he has a mum and dad, which so many children here don't, but the two people that are supposed to protect him from the world have abandoned him. Thanks to Amy and Vicky the ball is now rolling to get Dollah into a home and into school. The parents have happily given up their rights and now it is a slow process but we are all helping any way we can. You should have seen his face when he got given some clothes by some of the volunteers, it was so heartbreaking as you could tell he is not used to kindness and he doesn't no how to react. He is living in Amy and Vickys room for now and we are feeding him, but we are not allowed to have him there. so it is a strange vibe at the house, as if the program coordinators come we will get in trouble. Amy feels that it is fate and Dollah is the reason she came here so she is happy to leave the program if need be and get a room where thay both can stay till it is sorted so i will keep you posted! Again