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Finding Wholeness in Tanzania

By: Ama T. Opare

Growing Up in Hyde Park

I grew up in the 60’s and 70’s in the hippie liberal Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago as a “mixed race” child in a family where interracial, biracial, multiracial is the norm. So much so that my 1st husband said, only half jokingly, “How does your family feel about that?” when my white half-brother, who had for years, dated first an Asian woman and then a Latina woman, married an Iowa white woman. My family gathering photos look like Jesse Jackson’s “Rainbow Coalition.”

A Dream to Change Education

When I was in high school in the early 70s I came to the realization that something wasn’t right with how schools were set up. It felt like the experience I was having wasn’t set up for kids like me to succeed. School made me feel stupid because I couldn’t focus on the books and lessons we were given. I decided then that one day I would run a different kind of school where all kids could discover their genius and gifts.

When my daughter was born, I discovered that I can learn whatever I want to when it is important to me. I realized that indeed I AM smart. I discovered the power we all have within us when we trust ourselves and follow our inner knowing. That school I dreamed of creating became the day care home I ran for 12 years with the motto of “Freedom in Education” to honor that philosophy.

Unraveling the Lies

Over the years since then, I discovered just how deep the rabbit hole of lies and deception that life in the United States is built on, goes. The lies that encompass not just education but also:

  • Medicine
  • Nutrition
  • Religion
  • Nature
  • Africa
  • Europe and “the West”
  • World history
  • The economy
  • The rightful order of things

Really “kila kitu” Everything!

The Longing to Leave

In early 2001 I traveled to Europe with my daughters and their father. There I felt how different it was to be OUT of the USA. That is when I realized I wanted, no, I NEEDED to live somewhere else. I had no idea when, where, or how but the longing was deep.

At the same time I was searching for what felt true to me. I had always felt like I didn’t quite fit in wherever I was. Even in my own family.

I was searching for:

  • A connection to spirit that felt true and right
  • A place that felt like a nurturing home, a place where I belong
  • My people
  • Knowledge about my African roots, African Spirituality, and African history

Although I had a hard time finding authentic information in the Eurocentric environment around me. Looking in the yellow pages (remember that!?) revealed nothing. The internet and YouTube was in its infancy.

Finding the Breadcrumbs

Little by little, step by step the pieces began to fall into place:

  • A book recommendation from a co-worker
  • A worship service led by several of the black youth I was working with
  • My inner voice, that kept encouraging me one step at a time

Eventually, the breadcrumbs led me to a community that had the connections that I was looking for.

In 2007, when I moved to Atlanta, GA, a new world opened up to me. I met people who looked like me AND thought like me, something I had had a hard time finding in Michigan, where I raised my family. I discovered that the rich world of Traditional African Spirituality resonated deeply with me. I began to fill in the missing pieces of who we are as African people. And I discovered that I wasn’t at the mercy of my genes and the passing of the years. I actually could do something to keep myself healthy for years to come. The lies began to unravel.

The Journey to Tanzania

While all of these things were nurturing and enriching, it also showed even more what I knew in my gut back in the 70s. The USA was not a healthy or safe place for me to live. I wanted out.

My second husband had long wanted to move to the continent of Africa after his trip to Ghana years before. I was intrigued and agreed to visit and see if it resonated with me as well. In 2014 we traveled to Ghana and Tanzania to explore. It was an amazing experience. I could feel just how much American life and society was warped and not a healthy place for me much more so than when I had visited Europe. While I enjoyed my time in Accra and Cape Coast in Ghana, it was Tanzania that captured my heart.

I didn’t know anything about Tanzania before planning this trip. I discovered a peaceful, welcoming and beautiful country everywhere I went. When I visited Arusha, I knew I had found home.

“I still have that ‘I’m home’ feeling everytime I return to Arusha, whether I’m returning from traveling to other parts of TZ, or returning from the US. I breathe a great sigh of relief as I approach the area and soak in the beauty of the mountain and the nurturing energy around me. Stepping out of the plane and into the fresh air always makes me feel wrapped in the protective arms of Spirit.”

First Impressions of UAACC

My first time in Arusha, driving up the lava encrusted, jarring road to visit The United African Alliance Community Center (UAACC) and Pete and Charlotte O’neal’s home in the foothills of Mt Meru, reminded me of driving up the ridiculously bumpy roads in the Big Horn Mountains near Sheridan, Wyoming when I visited my grandparents’ home when I was a kid. It was dark when we arrived in Imbaseni Village. I couldn’t wait to see my surroundings in the daylight.

I was not disappointed when I stepped outside our room the next morning:

  • The lush green landscape
  • The colorful murals that covered the buildings
  • The warm embrace of everyone I met at UAACC

“It wasn’t a fancy place. But it was home. It was safe. It was in alignment with nature. I felt (and still feel) closer to the divine here surrounded by the energy of Mt Meru than I have ever felt before!”

Every day felt like an adventure and I felt like a wide-eyed child discovering a wondrous world. It’s the place I lived for 6 months when we relocated here two years later. UAAC was a soft landing place while I found my footing and adjusted to this way of life.

A Sense of Wonder That Endures

I still feel that sense of wonder and adventure today, almost 9 years later! Just yesterday, as I was walking through my yard marveling at the beauty of my view of the mountain, I was stopped in my tracks as I witnessed the wide variety of birds in the tree in front of my house:

  • Hartlaubs’s Turaco – a multicolored beauty of green, blue and red
  • Variable Sunbirds – shimmering turquoise and tiny
  • Mouse birds – scruffy looking, resembling mice as they scramble up and down the branches
  • Cape Robin Chat – whose call reminds me of the morning sound of the Robins back in the states

“As I stood there in awe, I marveled at the divine’s amazing diversity. And guess what?! I’m part of that diversity too!”

Almost nine years on, I still say to myself regularly as I am looking out the car window on the drive to and from town, “Can you believe it!? I live in AFRICA!!!!”

Finding Community

Here I have connected to warm and wonderful people:

  • Mama Elinuru – my next door neighbor, an herbalist and organic gardener who freely shares her wisdom about traditional remedies and cuttings from her garden with me
  • Godlove – who is like my Tanzanian son. He has been a huge blessing, helping me navigate as a now single woman in a foreign country and culture

They, along with many others, as well as my fellow Diasporans have taught me what community really means.

Challenges and Growth

It hasn’t always been easy, but I’ve never regretted my decision for a moment:

  • It has tested my courage
  • It’s forced me to reach deep down and see what I’m made of
  • It’s made me realize my own blind spots and “ugly American” ways
  • It continues to show me the wealth and the health that comes from reaching back to the natural and original ways that our people have and many still do live

“It’s been a Sankofa experience. I have discovered the real Roots Of Wellness. And it doesn’t come in a bottle or package. It comes gift wrapped by Mother Nature, by God, by the Divine and the important people in my life.”

I don’t ever see myself moving back. While I love to spend time with my daughters and grandchildren, every time I go back to visit my family I can feel the toll it takes on me spiritually, mentally and physically and it gets harder to do. I pray that one day they will come and visit me here and see and feel it for themselves. So that they will know that if they ever want to get away from that crazy, unhealthy society in the USA, I’m here and they have a place with me.

A Call to Heal

Through the deep pain of divorce, through the anger that some of my family back in the states feel about me leaving the US and abandoning them, through financial uncertainty, etc., I KNOW that I am in the right place.

I still don’t feel like I “fit in,” but I am discovering:

  • The gift of bringing the uniqueness of who I am everywhere I go
  • That people accept me anyway

“Maybe I am not supposed to fit in. I’m born to be a changemaker. A healer.”

Each struggle I work my way through leads me to grow, to get stronger, and to find my way to what I have long been called to do – to use my gifts and skills to help open the way, for those who are ready, to become who they are meant to be. It may sound corny but all I know is that I can’t NOT do it.

Right now that looks like doing my part for Abibifahodie, African Liberation. Right now I am leading the effort to build and support the growth of a strong and healthy Warejiaji (those who have returned), or diaspora, or repatriate community here in the Arusha area of Tanzania. A community of “misfits” who are creating home by leaving home and finding our way back to our roots.

The Journey Continues

Through it all I have deepened my faith in the unfolding of life, of the wisdom of my ancestors and spirit. Each day I open myself to divine guidance to show me where my next step is.

And so, … the journey continues.