Whisperers in the Jungle – A Great Organization and a Great Learning Experience

Editors note: Jennifer R. is a current participant in the HIV/AIDS Education and Prevention Program in Tanzania. She will be working with us for the next six months. We look forward to receiving more posts from her throughout her time in Tanziania! Thanks for the post Jennifer!

 

On Saturday, I was honored to attend the graduation ceremony for an HIV/AIDS training performed for a group called Whisperers in the Jungle. This is a extraordinary organization that helps support street kids here in Arusha. It was created to give kids without homes a place to call home. These children have been chased away from their childhood homes for a variety of reasons, such as an abusive parent, alcoholism, or flat-out starvation. Whisperers in the Jungle provide a safe place for them to form a new family with people of similar circumstances. It gives them a home to go to, sponsors them to receive an education when possible, English lessons, business training and money management skills, and now HIV/AIDS training. It is run by an amazing man named Cifa Chalo, who started the organization and manages it. He spoke to the kids and to us on Saturday, and I found it so moving, I wanted to share it with you.

He explained that the Jungle can be a metaphor for life. If you yell in the Jungle, it produces an echo and you can be heard. But if you whisper in the Jungle, everything must be quiet for you to be heard and it is harder to hear any one person alone. Whisperers’ kids had only learned to whisper in the jungle of their lives, so we must help, by stopping to hear them. The Jungle has many dangerous animals prowling through it, as does life. The dangerous animal that the Whisperer kids learned to conquer this week was HIV/AIDS. He went on to expand his metaphor by explaining that the Jungle can also be cities with large populations, such as Arusha. If the kids, or any one person, whispers or even shouts, they cannot be heard. So Whisperers in the Jungle helps them, gives them a voice to be heard and introduces them to each other so they can form a group and become a family, and GSC helped give them a voice to prevent themselves from contracting HIV/AIDS.

The kids then performed a drama about tough times on the streets and how HIV/AIDS affects their lives. I have heard and read the stories before, about young girls falling into prostitution or having to find an older man as a sugar-daddy to survive, about falling into IV drugs to forget the pain heaped on you by your biological family. You can hear it all, we have a wealth of information about other people’s lives at our disposal. But watching them perform skits about the actual life decisions just struck me so hard that day, I was incredibly moved watching them act out their lives for us. I am not sure I can conceptualize it for anyone, possibly not even for myself. These kids really do live in an existence where they must choose between surviving right now, today, or worrying about the unknown of life later, that may or may not happen. How do you make that decision, or do you even allow yourself to contemplate it? They have to decide…I can sleep with this man now and have enough money to buy food, or worry about HIV/AIDS that could kill me in one year or five years or who knows how long in the future. How do you worry about the dangerous animal called HIV/AIDS when starvation is knocking on your door? Some of the girls brought their small children, whom there are solely supporting. Watching a 20 year old girl with a 3rd grade education carrying around this gorgeous child who is living on the streets, it breaks my heart and gives me hope all at the same time.

Think about it, let it marinate for a while and let me know what you think.