Putting the Human in Humanitarian

Kelly Adlington and a group of Americans were saying goodbye to their African hosts after days of helping build mud bricks for a food pantry.

But not Anna. The small Hadzabe woman Adlington described as one of the group’s elegant leaders maintained her quiet and reserved demeanor, keeping out of the hugs, handshakes and photo ops.

The two had communicated nonverbally but never spoke due to the language barrier.

Before Adlington knew it, it happened.

“Anna took may hand firmly and said “rafiki,” which means “friend” in Swahili. The Hadzabe speak click but know a few Swahili words. Adlington becomes animated and almost emotional recounting the story.

“I was just, like, taken aback,” she said. “It was more than her arm around me. It was more than a hug.”

This was more than a humanitarian trip for the Menomonee Falls High School junior. This was an education through a firsthand experience in a world before textbooks were even invented.

Adlington, co-founder of the school’s Amnesty Club, spent about 10 days in Tanzania last month, first helping at an orphanage and then the Hadzabe. The trip was made possible through Simple Hope, a Menomonee Falls-based nonprofit organization that funds food, water and health projects in Tanzania.

One of Simple Hope’s most popular initiatives is Packathon in which people assemble fortified rice meals that are sent to the orphanage/school Adlington visited.

“I got to see the direct result of where that food goes,” she said.

The environment was quite an adjustment for the teenager told to prepare to visit people from 10,000 B.C. The Hadzabes’ homes were made of mud, sticks and palm tree leaves. The smallest was the size of a closet too small to lie down inside.

“They’re feet were probably sticking out the door,” she said.

Their attire - at least some of it - came from 2012. Adlington handed out aprons with names of sponsors who helped pay for her trip, and old visors from her workplace, Papa Murphy’s.

Within 24 hours, people donned their new digs.

“My heart just kind of skipped a beat,” Adlington said.

 Adlington got to see some traditional elements of Africa, like giraffes, baboons and zebras in the wild – “they were just chilling in the valley” – and some a little closer to home.

“I can’t even explain how many cows there were. They were everywhere,” she said.

Adlington said some of the homes looked just like the ones in the movie “District 9,” and people in Tanzania “actually say ‘kumatada.’”

Baboons would often clog roads, just going along their way as traffic waited, and Adlington witnessed a zebra stampede. It was loud, dusty and scary. But not for long.

“They ran, like, 100 yards and then stopped,” she said.

Adlington helped make several hundred mud bricks, once nearly getting stung by a scorpion which a native smashed with a brick, on the way to 7,000 for the food pantry. The Hadzabe hope to complete brick making and start building in fall.

Pending fundraising, Adlington desperately wants to see the fruits of that labor next spring.

“It was amazing,” she said. “I’m certainly doing it again.”

For more information on Simple Hope: http://www.simple-hope.org