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“Baboon Soup”
 Getting ready for the daily walk outside Neema House
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From our early years in Africa and today at Neema Baby Home in Arusha, Tanzania, we have had a lot of fun with the Swahili language. Thursday we had walked down to the volunteer house for dinner.
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| The Volunteer House is just fifty steps from Neema. |
Since Angel the volunteer house cook was off duty, I had made fresh tomato basil soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for the volunteers. When we returned to the baby home the night nannies wanted to know what we had eaten. Michael said we had eaten Nyani Soup. They scowled and wanted to know if it tasted good and he answered, “Yes, mmm, very good.” It created quite a heated discussion with the nannies wrinkling their noses and saying, “Hapana, (No!) Mbaya Sana (Very Bad).” The word for tomato is Nyanya not Nyani which means Baboon. Oops!
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| Nannies holding babies at Neema House. |
But it has been amazing to see how much Swahili, after 50 years, has come back to Michael. He was asked to speak at a small mountain church a few weeks ago. He
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| The small mountain church |
told the group he would start in Swahili and switch back to English when he got into trouble, but he was able to do the whole sermon in Swahili and the interpreter translated into English. The amazing thing was I understood him! I was never that good and still use a very basic “kitchen Swahili.” I’ve been known to answer a greeting of great respect “Shikamo” with the word “Maharagwe” which means “Beans” instead of the proper response of “Marahaba.”
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| Angel, Angelous, and Franky ready for school. |
Something worse than the “The Invasion of the Body Snatchers” (an old movie in case you are under 50) has struck fear and trepidation at Neema. Our little pre-school children brought home the dreaded Impetigo and we are washing hands at every turn to keep from getting it ourselves. But it is making a horrible grab for the beautiful brown skinned bodies of our babies! Dr. Smelser advised using triple antibiotic so if you are coming our way soon slip in a few tubes of that to help stop this Alien invasion.
Lest you forget while looking at our well dressed happy children above, this is still Africa. Frankie’s village has many children like the child to the right. We believe visitors to Neema House Arusha can see that funds donated
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| Baby at Frankie’s Masai village |
to Neema go to the Neema babies.
We have also had three babies in the hospital this month which has shot a huge hole in our medical budget. We don’t have insurance so we pay out of pocket for each stay in the hospital.
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| Neema Joy in the Hospital |
Our littlest baby, Neema Joy, was in the hospital for almost three weeks. Neema Joy is an abandoned baby and weighs about six pounds. Please take a moment to say a prayer for this little one.
Elesha also spent a few days in the hospital but is back home at Neema now. His hands are now grasping toys and his legs are almost straight. Dr. Swa
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| Elesha, who has Beals Syndrome |
nson says he was born with Beals Syndrome of which there are only a hundred known cases in the world. So of course all the med students here studying tropical medicine are whipping out their cameras to get a photo of him. We are believing this little one will walk and be able to use his hands someday!
Rose June, ( with Michael) is one of our abandoned babies from last summer who also spent about three weeks in t
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| Michael handing Rose June to her new mom |
he hospital as well this month. Rose June came home from the hospital and has now been adopted. Two of our babies have flown the nest this month, Michael and Rose June. We love this! That makes 12 adoptions in three y ears, not bad, since there is not even a word in Swahili for adoption. We take them to local Tanzanian churches to find homes for them and are constantly searching for couples to take these precious little “thrown away” babies into their homes.
Meet our newest baby below, Kathy, abandoned and being held here by her namesake, Kathy Strong from Nacogdoches. It is our prayer that God will find Forever
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| Volunteer Kathy holding abandoned baby Kathy |
Families for these babies and that they will never be abandoned again!
It is time to end another blog in our African Safari to save abandoned babies. Thanks for coming along with us. Stay tune for exciting news of the new building going up for the Neema babies on the next blog.
God is surely Good!
Dorris and Michael Fortson
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