About one month ago, anyone who googled “Toloha” would get nothing from the search engine related to Toloha, Tanzania – not even on Google maps. And now, this www.TolohaPartnership.org is the first or second link leading to the village of Toloha, and our Facebook page is the next – gotta love the world wide web!
Our team would like to take this opportunity to introduce the world to Toloha and share why we love the people there so much.
It all started with Daniel. Daniel’s story is amazing, and there is so much to share that we are going to break it up into parts. Part 1 is all about Daniel’s childhood.
Daniel Makoko was born and raised in Toloha, Tanzania. Toloha is a rural village in the Kilimanjaro region of Tanzania (near the border of TZ and Kenya). Daniel was the last born in his family with 2 older brothers and an older sister. Daniel’s family raised cattle and crops for a living however when Daniel was very young all 50 of his family’s head of cattle were stolen and never returned. Daniel’s father had no money to replace the cattle so they resorted to farming as their sole livelihood.
By the time Daniel reached the age of 4 or 5, his siblings had all left the village of Toloha for various reasons (education, jobs, etc). Daniel’s mother often left the village for months at a time to visit with his sister in the city, leaving Daniel and his father alone in the village. Daniel was left with responsibilities such as gathering firewood, cooking meals, farming and fetching water all while trying to attend primary school.
“It was difficult to manage school because of food – sometimes I did not get to go to school because of other things I had to do…” commented Daniel. “I grew up a very destitute life, a life where you don’t know if you will get a meal or if you will have a better future or if you will even see tomorrow.”
Daniel knows what it means to be hungry, thirsty, hopeless and without Christ.
Once Daniel completed primary school his brother invited him to move to the city to continue his education. Daniel’s brother paid his school fees but soon Daniel’s brother was transferred to another city for his work. Daniel then had to be enrolled in a boarding school, which was much more expensive. Daniel’s brother continued to pay his school fees although there were times when Daniel was expelled from school because of lack of money. Daniel’s brother always found a way to help Daniel return to school and after overcoming much adversity Daniel completed his secondary education in 1991!
Please look for Part 2 of Daniel’s story soon!