Lucian ‘Father’ Muna

For those of you that are not familiar with Father’s story, I encourage you to follow some past blogs so you can understand the magnitude of his heart wrenching situation. In short, Father is a boy I met during my first stay at the Kahatano residence. He gets his name because his Father shares his name; similar to how we use Junior.  When I met him he was the sweetest, most intelligent, unbelievably loving and charismatic 7 year old boy I had ever met. Unfortunately, his single mother is mentally ill. For years he has endured extreme physical and mental abuse under her care. Her erratic attitude and manipulative behavior plagued all those who have tried to help him which left Father at the edge of hope. For those TEP’s volunteers who have meet Father all believe his warmth and intelligence is worth investing in.

Unfortunately, The Tanzanian Education Project must keep true to our mission of self sustainable projects. Due to my education and firsthand experience in Tanzania, I full heartedly believe this is the only way to positively impact a population for the long haul. As much as I love Father; and many other children over the past three years, I remained 100% dedicated to our mission and refused to take part in the sponsorship of school fees. Other volunteers and I have tried to support Father personally however it was not enough to keep him safe.

My greatest fear was and still is to get a call that Father has been beaten to death or something equally as awful. Last year I received word for weeks that Father’s situation was getting worse. He was suffering at school, becoming more aggressive to other children, walking around late at night and begging for food. I worked with TEP board members to try to come up with a solution without using TEP resources. As we were working on a solution, I received many calls from an unknown Tanzanian number at 2 am TZ time. It was Father crying hysterically, when I could finally get words out of his mouth all he said over and over was Cassie please, Cassie please help, help me. Amongst his cries, I heard his mother laughing. I used every ounce of energy to hold it together as I tried to pry answers out of him. Finally, I heard him scream and the phone crashed to the ground. That was it. I tried for hours to reach him but had no success.

 Being half way across the world knowing that this little boy reached out to me in a situation no child should ever endure broke my heart.  I called everyone I knew in Tanzania to get someone to check on him but being so late I knew it was a stretch.  Finally, I woke a friend and close colleague named Simoni early in the morning. He doesn’t speak a word of English so in my broken Swahili I tried to tell him the situation. He raced to Father and took him from his mother’s home. Although badly shaken with bruises and scrapes covering his body luckily there were no broken bones this time. It was this very moment that I knew TEP must use its resources to save Father from his living nightmare. My board members agreed that we could no longer sit by and allow this innocent little boy to die on our watch.

Due to TEP’s close personal and working relationship to the people of Bunju we were able to remove Father from his abusive home and get him enrolled in one of the best primary schools in Tanzania in less than a month. This quick turn around is what makes The Tanzanian Education Project so effective. Yesterday, Father proudly shared his examinations with Katie and I. With A’s and B’s, it was clear that in a safe environment his intelligence flourishes. He is currently at the top of his class and has raving reviews from his teachers.   Although the challenges with his mother continue, I know our involvement has been essential to saving his life. I am confident that those donors who wish to support his school fees directly still believe in TEP’s mission and trust we are staying to true to self sustainable projects.

-Cassie Parkhurst