The Mwandu Family
Caito, Terri and Justis Mwandu live at the Baobab Home and are preparing for the arrival of orphaned babies. While doing so, they conduct outreach to help sick children and people living with HIV/AIDs.
Caito is the site manager and oversees the outreach program and all repairs and construction at the Home (swingset, painting, chicken coop, etc).
Terri manages all of the administrative work, volunteer recruitment, fundraising, etc.
Justis is the “orphan guinea pig” teaching everyone how best to raise a baby in Tanzania, in Bagamoyo, at the Baobab Home. Justis also comes along for a lot of outreach work and makes sick people smile.
Muggin(Moogeen)
Muggin helps us to deliver baby food, run our new key making shop and does dozens of other odd jobs. After a recent visit by Hendrix College volunteers, Muggin was inspired to renew his commitment to improving his English.
Christina
Christina cooks and cleans at the Baobab Home. Christina’s parents died when she was very young. She and her husband have two children and raise the three children of her deceased brother.
Halima
We are so happy to have Halima as part of the Baobab family. She is a veteran police officer (27 years) and in that time was trained as a nursery school teacher(1984).
She remembers well the colonial period and also served in the war against Idi Amin’s forces in 1979, but there’s nothing militarized about her!
She’s warm, friendly and brilliant with children. She had her first of 3 children in 1959 and has raised several orphans in her family (two are still with her).
These days Halima helps us by cooking and caring for Mama Habibu, a mentally ill woman with two children. Asante Halima!
Kazi Nyingi (whose name means “a lot of work”)
Kazi’s energy and enthusiasm are unparalleled. Kazi has done a lot of maintenance for the Home.
When the water is out, which is often, it’s Kazi who delivers drums of water to put in the tank. When Caito had his food delivery bicycle stolen, it was Kazi who got it back. Kazi only works occasionally for us, but we can’t imagine how we’d get on without him.
