From the red earth of Tanzania
Dear friends,
I am writing to you from the red earth of Tanzania, where life meets me in its rawness, its beauty, and its undeniable truth.
The journey here began in the deep hours of night. After landing, I continued into the darkness on a three-hour drive toward Arusha. The rain season had left the roads in a fragile state, and at times it felt less like driving and more like navigating through the memory of a road. The driver could not find the place. We wandered through narrow paths and sleeping villages, guided only by instinct and fragments of direction.
At around 5 in the morning, I finally arrived at White House Hostel, into my small African boma house. Just in time for the rooster to announce the arrival of a new day, accompanied by the prayers from the nearby mosque. A threshold moment. Between worlds. Between night and dawn. Between what I knew, and what I am here to meet.
The following day, I met Katia, one of the founders of Mizizi Ya Mafanikio. She guided me through what one might call the essentials of life here: navigating local transportation, acquiring a SIM card, understanding negotiation, and gently introducing me to what is often referred to as āAfrican time.ā
Mizizi Ya Mafanikio, meaning Roots of Success, is a grassroots initiative rooted in empowerment, dignity, and long-term sustainability. Their work focuses on creating real, tangible change in underserved communities through access to education, clean water, and opportunity. One of their main missions is the installation and maintenance of water filters in Maasai communities, ensuring access to safe drinking water, something that is still not a given here. Clean water is not only about health, but about time, freedom, and the possibility of a different future.
We visited Maasai land to do maintenance on one of these water filters. Standing there, witnessing the direct impact of something so simple, yet so essential, I felt the quiet power of what it means to truly serve.
I am here volunteering at Right Winners College, where Mizizi Ya Mafanikio supports 18 young women. These girls have been carefully selected from across the country. They come from the most vulnerable circumstances, families surviving on less than two dollars a day, yet they carry within them a willingness to learn, to grow, to rise.
The charity provides them with housing and the opportunity to attend school. And yet, upon arriving, we were met with a sudden reality. The girls had to be moved immediately. The landlord of their previous house had attempted to take advantage of them. When they refused, he retaliated by cutting off the electricity.
Within a short time, a new house was found, and the girls were relocated. But the new conditions are challenging. The house is in poor shape. There is no running water inside. No shower. No indoor toilet. Eighteen girls share one outdoor toilet.
To witness this, it touched something very deep within me.
It brings into sharp awareness the contrast between what we consider basic human rights; dignity, safety, self-worth - and the reality here. Even within the opportunity these girls have been given, there remains a vast gap shaped by survival, tradition, and deeply rooted societal structures. For many, life is first and foremost about enduring.
In the classroom, I have begun to introduce a program I have developed. One that invites self-awareness, reflection, and inner connection. It is a gentle opening into questions they have never been asked before:
Who are you?
What do you feel?
What do you dream?
What matters to you?
Here, education has largely been about listening, copying, repeating. Receiving knowledge from the outside. The concept of turning inward, of sensing, reflecting, and articulating oneās inner world is entirely new.
At first, there was silence. They are shy, unfamiliar with the concept. Then, something begins to stir.
I am still at the very beginning of this journey, both externally and internally. I do not yet know what will unfold. But I can feel that something meaningful is being seeded.
At times, it is intense. Overwhelming. Waves of emotion moving through me as I witness, feel, and meet realities so different from my own.
And so, I practice staying present. Allowing the waves to move through me, rather than overtake me.
Softening.
Listening.
Being.
And wherever possible, offering myself as a small beacon of light.
With love,
Silje
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