It must have taken a lot of gumption to set up an orphanage in Mererani, one of Tanzania’s most dangerous places.
When God asked me to go there I thought, “There is no way! I won’t last! I’m white – they will sell me for an albino! I can’t do that.” For a week I pleaded with God not to send me to Mererani and asked him to send me to China, or the Seychelles, but not Mererani. After a week, I told God that if he wanted me to go there he had to provide me with a car, (a) for a quick getaway and (b) to take a sick child to hospital. Soon after that a couple popped in who had heard about Light In Africa and the man said: “I don’t see any vehicles here!” I said, “That’s because we don‘t have any.” He asked me how we do our work then. I told him that we walk, or we catch local transport. He looked at his wife and said, “I think the church and us can buy you a vehicle!” I was blown away and I knew that was the car for Mererani. I still didn’t want to go though.

Have things changed for the better during your 15 years here in Africa?
Attitudes have changed, yes indeed. When I first came here everything was painted cream and blue. That was the standard colour for all of the houses. Now you can see purple houses, orange houses, lime green houses – there is a mental change.So people are allowed to make their own choices a little more now, in some small way?Yes. That’s the spirit that I see. People want to be more individual. There were also very few modern cars here when I first came. Now you see women driving cars – it’s amazing. They are all new cars too because they can now get loans from the bank and everything has been made a lot easier. People want nice clothes now.Are they looking to be more westernized?Yes. The old tribal practices are starting to die out. That increased when people realised what the witchdoctors are doing with the albinos. For the first time it’s there in front of them. The witchdoctors are killing for these body parts and people have to ask themselves, “Do we want to be a part of that tradition? That’s where our parents and ancestors come from.” When I was living on the mountain (Kilimanjaro) I saw a lot of it.

Tell us about the case of Margaret, the albino girl currently in your care.
She never saw the light of day for three years. Her mother gave birth to her and kept her hidden away and she never came out. By this time it was public knowledge that gangs were coming – they don’t do it on their own they do it in gangs. Her mother was very clever. She must have thought an awful lot that the gang might come. What she did was she had a compartment made under her bed and trained the child to go in and be quiet when she went in there. As happened, they came to the door late at night banging saying, “Open the door! We know you have an albino child in there!” She just had time to go into her bedroom, put the child in and close the compartment, as they broke through the door. They looked around and can’t find it, breaking into the bedroom and looking around and unable to find it. She knew then it was too dangerous to keep her. She put her daughter on her back in the middle of the night and arrived here at four in the morning.How did she know to come and see you?We’re so well known. I have other albinos as well. I have another, who is in school at the moment, who came from Mererani. She had a price on her head. They had a reward for anyone who would get her and take her to the witchdoctor.Is she safe staying with you, or still at risk?We never let the children out unless they are escorted, especially in Mererani. If there are any holidays or anything like that it’s the Mererani children that get them, not here. The children here get visitors and get treated with sweets and balloons and people are always bringing them something, but not at Mererani. What people are staggered by is that Tanzanite is found there, which is a government mine, run by De Beers. That is bringing $300-400m every single year, yet you will go just three kilometres down the road and see such poverty. You think, “Where is the corporate responsibility?” I never had anything to do with the Tanzanite mine and when I was faced with having to close the food kitchen down, I thought I would go and see them. It was the miners’ children who were starving after all. The miners had worked there and then moved on and left these children, so they have to have a corporate responsibility, but I haven’t seen it.

What did you do exactly?
I went and knocked on their gate and was welcomed by a very nice gentleman who said to me, “Why has it taken you so long, Mama Lynn, to call and see me?” I said, “Can I have an appointment to come and meet with you? I never ask for money, so don’t worry about that. I just think you should know what is happening.” When I went for the appointment…(pause)…I wasn’t seen.No one would come to see you?(Shakes her head) I went to the gate and was told by security that they are not available. That was very sad. That was in September, 2014. When I first met him I thought, “What a nice man!”

Did you think about contacting De Beers and putting some pressure on them or getting a pressure group to do it for you?
I’m not the person to do it. I have had film crews approach me and ask me if they could stay with us at our children’s homes and take films. I said no. The work I do in Mererani is so delicate that if I take a step wrong, or cause any problems, they will deport me out of that area. That means two orphanages will suffer and all the children of the food kitchen. I’ve worked there for 11 years and I’m the only white woman who’s worked there. When I first opened the food kitchen I had children knocking on our children’s homes because they were so hungry. I thought, “I must do something!” It’s been going now ever since. I have been told that I can work here and help the children and they will be very appreciative of it but don’t make waves. That’s why I say no to film crews. Other people can do that but I can’t as part of Light In Africa. (Pensively) It’s all about money.

On the positive side, one of your “children”, Penny, has returned from studying and doing a year of dedicated unpaid work for Light In Africa as her way of “giving back”. Is this another success story for you?
Yes. Penny was eight when she was brought to us. She was living in the mountains and her father and mother were poor peasants. In their house they made a fire. The fire had gone down and they had all gone to bed. She was wearing a long kanga, which you see ladies and girls wearing, and got up in the night and stood in front of the fire where there were still hot embers. She caught fire and was badly burnt all down her back and her arms. The family rushed her to hospital, but after a couple of days had no more money left, so they had to take her out of hospital and brought her back. The only other opportunity to try to access medical treatment is through the traditional medicine man. So they took her to him. He got charcoal and ground it all up into a powder and got coffee leaves and pounded it all up. He made a paste and they covered all her back with this. Then it started to get infected and as everyone knows when meat smells it’s going bad. When she actually arrived to see me it was all highly infected and she was in such pain. I took her to the hospital. They had to peel everything off her and start again. I said to the man, “If I take your daughter it will cost a lot of money to heal these wounds. If I take her I am going to educate her!” because I could see it happening again.So you took her in?That’s what I did. She went back to her family every holiday time and last year her father died. She was very upset about that but one of the things I always remember is he came to see me to thank me. All he was wearing was a pair of worn-out flip-flops. As he stood in front of me, I remembered I had a donation of a pair of trainers (sneakers) and wondered if he would like that. I went to the store and got them out and handed them over. The look on that man’s face and the tears started to come down. He had never ever owned a pair of shoes. That’s what I always remember – I gave her father a pair of shoes because he was so poor. She has now turned out to be this beautiful girl who has been in charge of one of our homes because she was so able. Now she is finished and here she is ready to start her life. She wants to be an accountant so we will help with that.Are there more of these success stories coming through?Yes. Not many people see the fruit of what they have done, but I have been blessed. I really thank God that I have been able to see this.

You have a long term plan?
Yes, it’s not a sticky plaster over a little wound. I tried to bring it to its full conclusion. For the next five to ten years I can see I will be going to many weddings and many baptisms because they are all in their 20s now. The big issue I have to consider is about the dowry.
Why so?I am still the matriarch of all these children. We had this issue when my granddaughter was getting married to a Tanzanian. We had a big family meeting about how we were going to solve this problem. I said, “My granddaughter cannot be bought because she is well-educated and will be a good mother!” We came to the conclusion that the family would make a donation to Light In Africa. They brought us rice and sugar and things like that for the children. That was a good solution, but I could be worth a fortune with all these girls (laughs heartily).

Maybe you will be your own best philanthropist?
I don’t think so. I don’t have a penny. I am the poorest person you will ever meet. I have nothing.
Because you give everything you have to others?Yes, that’s true. Because I am a white woman with all this mass of children, Tanzanians think I must be so wealthy. All I get is my small government pension and my work pension. That goes straight into the coffers of Light In Africa. As a volunteer, and I am a volunteer although I founded all this, all I receive is my meals and a place to sleep. Often that is in a tent. When we are all fully booked up, I have to reconvene into a tent. That’s how I live.What about when you leave Tanzania as on your recent book tour around the world?It’s quite amazing that when I leave Tanzania I am so blessed by other people. People are so kind to me. They host me in their homes and take me to places I have never been. They took me to the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and I was even taken backstage.So although poor in possessions, rich in experiences?Absolutely. I don’t have to worry about anything.And you get to see the fruits of your labour.It’s the circle of life, which is from The Lion King, and how true that is. That’s what the Maasai believe in very strongly – the circle of life. We work closely with the Maasai and our chairman of Light In Africa is a Maasai. I had only lived on the mountain for three or four months when I had this party of Maasai elders come to visit me. They asked me if I would build a children’s home in their village. I said, “No, I can’t do that!” They said, “But we have suffering children”. I told them that what I could offer them was that every month I would come with a doctor and help the children and the mothers. That is what has happened for all these years. The man I dealt with then, who always wore his Maasai shuka (clothing), now 14 years later wears western clothes when he comes to see me. He wears his shuka when he is back in the village because he is not only the chairman of Light In Africa but also chairman of his village and chairman of the local government party. Through him we have been able to change a lot of bad things.Such as?The drumbeat of FGM – female genital mutilation. We’ve had so many severely crippled children through that. When I was in Mererani on one occasion I was just waiting for the car to come and pick me up and take me to the airport to go to America. A social worker told me they had something I needed to deal with. She had a 12-year-old Maasai girl who has just been circumsised and was lying there bleeding and had heard her father sell her to an 80-year-old man to be his eighth wife. It’s terrible what these girls go through.How can you change the scourge of FGM in this region?I try to get in there early and talk to the boys. We do a drama so they can see. I use volunteers. I have the mother and father dragging the girl away who is screaming, “I want to be a doctor! I don’t want to get married!” We do everything we can to impact and change this mindset because it is the Maasai in this region who demand that the woman be cut before she gets married.That’s quite a hideous tradition.That’s why I go in for the younger ones. That’s what I do.It’s good that you do it.(Smiles beatifically)

Usually when I am talking to people they want to hear my story and there are two questions that I am always asked. The first one is whether I get any government help because I am doing the government’s job. No, I don’t. I have been a guest of the President and the Prime Minister of Tanzania who have told me, “Keep up the good work, Mama Lynn”, but I don’t get any funding.What’s the second question you are always asked?The personal one – “You walked out on your husband and your marriage, have you ever seen him?” No, I haven’t. He was a man of his word and he said that if I walked through the door that would be it. And that is it.
And you walked into your new life.Yes, not knowing if I had made the biggest mistake ever. Everyone was telling me how crazy I was. “How can you go to a culture where you don’t speak the language?” I still don’t speak the language.But you had a gut instinct to go, right?Yes, I did. It was a calling. I was living in the north of England. I stopped the car intending to go and get some brochures to find a house in the country near Grantham. All of a sudden I heard this voice in my head saying: “Go. To. Africa.” I stopped and thought, “Where did that come from?” I had been thinking about whether to buy pork chops, pork sausages, or a pork pie for tea. I totally ignored it. I walked down the street a bit further and then this voice in my head said: “Go. To. Africa.” That totally stopped me. I looked around for Candid Camera or someone who was trying to make a fool of me. The rest, as they say, is history. I stopped in the middle of the pavement and couldn’t move. The voice said to me: “Go into the travel agency and book a ticket to Africa”. Where I had stopped was in front of a travel agency. People were passing me by on both sides and I couldn’t move – I thought I was having a stroke. As I stood there I thought, “Don’t panic! Has anyone else you know had this happen to them?” I had been going to church for 40 odd years and wondered if there was someone else who thought they had heard God speak to them.
What came into your mind?There is a guy called Gideon in the Old Testament, who was the youngest in his family. He couldn’t believe it when he was asked to lead the Israelites Army and he literally put God to the test. He laid down a sheepskin and said, “Ok God, this is the deal. I have to know for sure about you calling me. I put this sheepskin down and I want it full of dew and the ground dry.” God did that and he was able to wring out a bucket of water. The next day he asked for the sheepskin dry and the ground wet with dew. God did that too. So he went off and won a war with just 300 soldiers. All this is going through my mind and I said to the voice in my head: “Okay, if you are God and you are speaking to me, and I can’t understand why you would want to speak to me, but if I can go into that travel agency and book a ticket in ten minutes I will go to Africa.”And if not?If no ticket then I will believe that I am going crazy and I will shout for help, call for an ambulance and go and see a psychiatrist.So what actually happened?My feet were released. I walked into the travel agency and sat down. A nice lady said: “Yes, madam, how may I help you?” I said, “I’d like to go to Africa please!” Her next question was: “Africa is a large continent – where exactly would you like to go?” What came into my mind was that I had written to a Pastor in a place called Moshi in Tanzania for six years. I told her: “Take me to the nearest airport to a place called Moshi in Tanzania!” The lady told me she had a very cheap ticket going in one month and should she book it now. I said: “Yes, please.” I walked out and suddenly had a reality hit. “What is my family going to say?” I don’t even know where it was on the map.

How did your family react to this news about your impending African trip?
I got home and gave them the good news. I heard things like “Are you crazy woman? Cancel it. You can’t go to Africa by yourself. You’ve done some crazy things in your life but this one really takes the biscuit!” I told them that I couldn’t cancel because I honestly believed that God had spoken to me. They told me I was being ridiculous. Then when my three adult children arrived it was a case of: “You talk to your mother because she’s not listening to me!”When was this exactly?1999. I caught the plane and landed here and booked myself into the YMCA. Lots of things happened in that month. Two things stand out. One was that I was spiritually directed to a place that said “HIV/AIDS Information Centre”. At this point I knew nothing about AIDS. The only thing I knew was that Princess Diana never wore gloves and the Queen always did. Here I was being pushed into this doorway where there were these people who were dying of AIDS. There were just platforms and platforms of skeletal people looking at me.So that was your first introduction to what you would be doing?All these people were sick with sunken eyes. From there I was asked if I would like to go on some field trips to Mount Kilimanjaro with an NGO and that’s where God showed me all the children suffering. There were no anti-retroviral drugs here and I asked the social worker what was going to happen to all these sick children. What she said became my guiding instinct after this: “A percentage of the children here you see today will die of malnutrition because there is no one here who will feed them. Their parents have already died. The second percentage will also die of opportunistic infections because their parents have also died. The third percentage will have treatable diseases like malaria but because no one will buy the drugs for them they too will die. Only a small percentage you see here today will actually grow up to adulthood.” That impacted me so much. I went back to the UK, around Christmas 1999, and my family thought I had gotten over this crazy African experience.Little did they know!(Laughs heartily again) I thought I would just write letters to people and let them know what was going on and how those children were suffering. I never thought I could do any more. In January I was in the kitchen doing something menial and I had a vision and saw Jesus stand in front of me. He was so big. My eyes look up at this figure dressed in white and he had his arms out. From the second position I saw myself very small and in my arms I was holding a dead child. Jesus said to me: “Delivery these children safely into my arms!” Then I was filled with such exquisite feeling that I cannot describe it. It flooded through y veins and all through my body. I stood there in this precious moment and then I did not want to be with people at all. I wanted isolation. For the first time in my life I could understand why monks lived away from the world in monasteries. My family was very concerned about my mental stability with lots of whispering going on when I came down the stairs. I can look back and see that this was my preparation time for this adjustment that was going to take place. After a time of meditating and prayer I made the decision that I was going back. I had raised my children and they were all independent and grown-up. I had fostered children and helped them. Now I was going to come back and help these children.How did your family react?There were lots of critical remarks, which was quite natural given the circumstances, but on June 2nd I arrived at Mount Kilimanjaro Airport. I sold everything I owned. I used to collect china tea services. I slept in a bed that was over 100 years old, but I sold everything or gave it away.People must have also had something to say about your calling being to children and people with AIDS with the stigma attached to that disease.That’s right. “You will die!” they said. “If you don’t die of malaria you will die of AIDS.” I was adamant. God showed me his children and this is what my life had to be. Within six weeks I had found a derelict orphanage then I heard the drums starting one day and that freaked me out.Did you know what the drums represented?No. I wondered if they were telling another village that there was a white woman in the village. I asked the security guard, who spoke English, what it was. He said: “There is a mass of people outside the gate!” I said, “What do they want?” He said: “They want you to help them. Mama, you have to understand, it’s not only children you are dying of hunger, but old people too. If old people have no one to care for them they are expected to lay down and die.” I was shocked at this. I had to see it for myself. That is how the first food kitchen started. People also asked me to help them with their medical treatments. I had sweets to give children so they wouldn’t be afraid of me - the first white woman many had seen. A little girl would always run down the path for her sweet and then one day she was not there. I asked the father where she was. He said: “I buried her two days ago. She had malaria and I didn’t have the money for the drug.” We are talking 40 pence, which would have saved a child’s life. That’s what started the first outreach medical. From the death of that little girl I made an arrangement with a Lutheran Dispensary that I would pay the bill for these people and that’s how a lot of people had their lives saved. After that the children started to arrive.And from humble beginnings…(Laughs) Those humble and desperate beginnings 14 and a half years later…And now you are working on setting up a Lavender Plantation and a Butterfly Farm.That is what the next project has to be to help these children who would otherwise go back on the streets. It’s a downward spiral. A man in Arusha can be hungry and steal a loaf of bread and be stoned by those people for stealing a loaf of bread, but politicians can steal millions from this country and nothing happens. That’s the bit I don’t understand and what we have to deal with.

Are you a saint?
No, I’m just a regular person. There is nothing special about me whatsoever at all. I’m not a psychic either (laughs).But you have made a difference.I have responded to every problem that has been put in front of me. When a problem is there I have responded in the only way I know how to – I get something done – but we have had many miracles too. For more go to www.lightinafrica.org. Lynn Kaziah Gissing’s 242-page book A Light In Africa: My Journey to Mt. Kilimanjaro and the people and children who have touched my life is available through Motivational Press