Just outside Dar es Salaam, behind the large airport, lies the district of Kitunda. Latifa K. comes from Iringa, Mbigili, and now lives and works here in Dar es Salaam. I like to change my surroundings, she told me later. She was born in Iringa, grew up in the children's village of Mbigili, and also attended university in Iringa. “I don't want to go back to Iringa, my time there is over” (translated from Kiswahili).
She is one of many former children's village children who have made the transition to an independent life. Latifa is a kindergarten teacher at Lavender Day Care. Every day, she teaches 22 four-year-old children the alphabet and numbers. One of her little pupils was still on the kindergarten grounds at the time and proudly announced that she had learned the letter “n” and the number “four” that day.
In Tanzania, children start reading and writing much earlier, as early as kindergarten. A total of 60 children attend day care from Monday to Friday. Latifa has been working here for two years, but she has been in this profession since 2019, after completing her studies. She reports that she feels very comfortable here in Dar es Salaam, but unfortunately her son is very far away. He lives with his paternal grandmother and attends a boarding school in Mwanza. Her son is only eight years old and is in third grade. The school fees in Dar es Salaam were too high for her and the child's father, so he had to move to northern Tanzania.
“My family is the children's village,” she says, and when asked who she is still in contact with, she replies, “We have a WhatsApp group with all the former residents and we write to each other from time to time.” She came to the children's village in 2008 after both her parents died and there was no one to look after her. She had a very good time at the children's village, living in the blue house and remembering the house mothers who cared for her. Hearing that most of them still work there made her very happy. She called the children's village community a big family.
Karla L.