Update: Mama Teddy and the girls

Mama Teddy and her girls

If this is your first time reading about Mama Teddy please visit our first blog about her and her family, Meet Mama Teddy. It was a little over a year ago when we first met Mama Teddy and we are so thankful 

 to Leah Rogers for sponsoring this wonderful little family for the last year. Mama Teddy is still healthy and working, in fact, she just got a contract to make mandazi for the local school. If the girls had been taken to the orphanage that day I think Mama Teddy would have just died from a broken heart. 

Rehema and Kelsey went to Karatu, which is a 2 hour bus ride from Arusha, last Friday to visit Mama Teddy, Teddy and Irenei. When a woman has her first baby in Tanzania they become Mama "name of their first born".  This is whey we call Mama Teddy, Mama Teddy instead of Alfonsia. Women prefer to be called this instead of their given names. They are very proud to be Mamas. 

Mama Teddy trying on the new clothing we sent for Irene.

Mama Teddy trying on the new clothing we sent for Teddy

As you can see from the picture above, the house they currently live in is falling apart. They have moved all their belongings into a neighbors house. We have contacted our friends at The House That Zac built and we are hoping they can visit Mama Teddy and possibly build her a house! It would be so amazing but like we are not even sure if Mama Teddy and her girls will qualify but we are keeping our fingers crossed!

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Now that Teddy is 4 and Irene is 3 we are looking at preschools in the area for them to attend. They go to work with there mom everyday and I am sure this is getting to be a lot for Mama Teddy and the girls. The sooner we can get them into a good preschool the better their chances are for a staying in school and getting a good education. We will be visiting possible preschools next month!

We also decided to give Mama Teddy some clothing to sell as a side business.

Here are some pictures of Mama Teddy at the market buying supplies for her mandazi business and food for the month.

Rehema told me about a neighbor of Mama Teddy's that was also in a very bad situation. She is a single mother of 3 boys and recently lost all use of her legs. We do not know what caused this to happened but we decided we wanted to give her the help we could at this time. We gave her enough clothing to sell to make enough money for at least the next month. We are going to visit her and her family next month as well to see how we can help this woman and her children.

Thank you all for your support! Please contact me if you would be interested in sponsoring Teddy or Irene in preschool, if you would like to help us raise funds for a new house for Mama Teddy or if you are interested in sponsoring Mama Teddy's neighbor.

Please contact me at walkinlovetanzania@gmail.com

Thank you all for your support and a huge thank you to Leah for sponsoring Mama Teddy and allowing her to continue to be there for her girls everyday.