Life> Kaleidoscope

Tanzanian resort gives street kids a new life

By Eva Krafczyk (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-11-18 09:20

Baracka smiles as he brings the savory vegetable soup to the table. He glances to make sure the table decoration is placed correctly and that the candles are not dripping in the evening breeze.

"Enjoy your meal!" the 18-year-old waiter says, then walks over to Lucas, the cook, who is leaning on the kitchen counter and trying to discern whether the guests are pleased with his soup.

The two young men work at Kiboko Lodge, an unusual resort hotel on the edge of Arusha National Park in northern Tanzania. With the exception of the manager, all 11 employees are former street children.

Life on the street ended for Lucas in 2003, when he was among the first five children admitted to the Watoto Foundation's vocational training school. Set up by Dutchmen Thomas Greeftmeier, a one-time missionary, and Noud van Hout, a businessman who emigrated to Tanzania, the school plucks street children from the downward and often deadly spiral of poverty, drugs and crime, giving them a future.

Greeftmeier, 77, is one of the guests enjoying a meal of soup, meatballs and cheese souffle on this evening. Having left Tanzania three years earlier owing to serious health problems, he is now back again in the country where he lived for 28 years and has long felt most at home. His eyes shine as he watches Baracka, who clears the table with sure-handed movements.

"It's nice to see how the boys have turned out," remarks Greeftmeier, their former mentor. "After so many years, they're like your own children." They even call him "Baba" (Father).

All of the young men working at Kiboko Lodge earned a school-leaving certificate through the Watoto Foundation. With months of chaotic street life behind them, they have become accustomed to a structured daily routine.

Many other former street children have completed apprenticeships as carpenters, electricians, masons or welders at the vocational training school. They helped to build the round huts in which the lodge's guests sleep as well as the furniture in its safari-style bar.

"In the long term we want to be independent of donors and fund the foundation's work with our own income," says van Hout, who is 62. An important factor in the equation is Kiboko Lodge, which officially opened in October after a trial run of several months. Almost all of its 19 rooms have been booked for the Christmas holidays, van Hout notes.

He acknowledges that the lodge, which has a good view of Mount Meru and is located on the fringe of a swamp frequented by hippos, needed to become widely known. "Local tour operators already know us, though, and bring guests when their usual hotels are full," van Hout says.

Established lodges with no vacancies sometimes refer people to Kiboko Lodge, too, because they know that its employees are qualified. Baracka, Lucas and their colleagues have all undergone at least 18 months of training.

"Hotels are glad to take our young men, particularly since they don't have to pay them a salary during the training period," van Hout says. The hotel trainees receive an allowance from the foundation.

Quite a few of the young men are now permanently employed by hotels in or near Arusha. Some even prefer them to Kiboko Lodge.

"Here they always point out that I was once a street child," one young man says. "In the hotel where I did my training, none of the guests knew anything about my past and the boss was only interested in my doing a good job."

German Press Agency