Mahaburu ya Watoto

Here's a little more about my summer indulgence.  I'll be teaching boys being held in the Juvenile Jail (Mahaburu ya Watoto) in Moshi, Tanzania for truancy, vagrancy or petty crimes.  From all reports of prior volunteers, these boys are more nearly ragamuffins than criminals.  Which fits in perfectly with my secret plans.

Would you like to know my secret plans?  I'll bet you would!  But then they wouldn't be secret, would they?  I will give you one hint, though. 

Moshi is less than 30 miles from Mount Kilimanjaro National Park, so there is a steady flow of foreign tourists that a well-trained band of pint-sized cutpurses could separate from their blunt, as we Victorians refer to ready cash.  (And, to those of you who think of "blunt" as referring to something else, let me say, "Shame on you!")

Now, people often underestimate the hard work that one must put into becoming a criminal mastermind, but it's like anything else--it all comes down to commitment.  And when it comes to taking what is yours and making it mine, I have that commitment.  As evidenced by my rapidly developing knowledge of the primary language of Tanzania--Swahili. "Kate mfuko wake!  Vizuri kabisa!"  (Cut her purse!  Excellent!)

And, as an added benefit besides being able to instruct my feckless footpads in separating toffs and swells from their "ready", a little knowledge of the local lingo will let me stir up mischief when Cory and I, and possibly our friend Chris, wander up Mount Kilimanjaro while our porters, cook and guide do all the real work.  I figure that, as our porters trudge up the mountain with all of their gear, all of our gear, tents for everybody, food for everybody, and probably a kitchen sink, I'll tell them in the friendliest way possible, "Mabwana, rafiki yangu anapenda kutembea upesi zaidi.  Aliniuliza, 'Mboga pole-pole hivi?  Wachukuzi wetu ni viwete au wazee?'  Na anapenda mtawalipa meta chakulani yake."  (Gentlemen, my friend wants to walk faster.  He asked me, 'Why in the world are we going so slowly?  Are our porters crippled old men?'  And he wants that you spit in his food.)  Won't that be hilarious?!  [Or perhaps the hilarious part when the porters and Cory join forces to see how far I will tumble down a 19,000 foot mountain before coming to a halt.]