Kilimanjaro Kids Care

For those interested in the daily operations of an orphanage in Tanzania:

At Kilimanjaro Kids Care, twenty two children ages 7-15 live at the orphanage. They have all lived there between 1-2 years and a handful of the children are siblings, but they all consider themselves to be a big, happy family. There are four bedrooms full of bunk beds with the girls claiming two rooms and the boys claiming two. In the backyard are a couple of “hole toilets” in outhouses, as well as a closed off “shower room” where the older children take “bucket showers” with stream water.

There are 3 adult house mothers who live at the home, and while the children are at school these extraordinary women clean the house, do laundry, mend clothes, prepare food, and do what you need to do to keep your sanity while you live with 22 children. The house mothers cook breakfast and dinner over an open fire in the backyard, and serve meals off the floor in a serving room in the house.

They clean and wash clothes with stream water, so every day after school the older girls walk to a nearby stream and carry water (on their heads) back to the orphanage. The older children do their own laundry, and the house mothers help the younger children keep clean.





The children help prepare meals by chopping vegetables...

or by picking rocks out of the dried corn that is used for making porridge.

All in all, these children do a lot more than my sorry lazy butt did when I was a kid. And they are smart, kind, well-behaved kids.