Mr. Andrea John Njerere
Mr. Andrea came to the home on the 12th of December 2001. He is 93 years old from the Tanga region where he lived with his folks as their only child. When his parents died he decided to move to Moshi in 1971 as he did not meet any of his relatives there. There he was a domestic farm worker and lived alone. He never married nor had any children. He unfortunately developed an eye disease and it impaired his vision. Since he had no family to take care of him, he was brought to the Langoni Home.
Mr. Andrea is such a bright character, he loves to make jokes and laugh at them, he loves to ask questions too. Every time our volunteers go there he asks each of them a bunch of questions about how we are doing and always ends with a hilarious ‘kwaheri’ which is Swahili for ‘goodbye’. He is always in a great mood and have never seen him frown. Mr Andrea also loves cats. He keeps about four cats at the moment. He cares so much for those cats that he shares his food with them even though it really isn’t much. The cats don’t like to be petted by anyone except Mr Andrea – he really is the cat whisperer!
Mr. Michael Rume
Mr. Michael, 97 years old, was born in the Singida region in 1918. He moved to Moshi for work. He was a porter at the coffee plantation fields. He married but had no children. He started working as a salesman at the local Coca-Cola bottlers but unfortunately developed an eye infection that slowly impaired his vision. The company noticed this and offered to send him back home but since he had no relatives they helped him get admitted to the Langoni Home.
Mr. Michael is such a gentle character who loves to sit out under the shade in the breeze and fall asleep on hot afternoons. This is how our volunteers find him on most afternoons these days. Mr. Michael is a gentle soul who has a genuine care for people around him and is such a lovely man that he always offers to help with the garden even though he can’t see very well and comes out to play board games with the volunteers. He helps some of the elderly to go to the shop when they need to buy things and sometimes trades plastic bags with Katarina for some of her delicious vegetables.
Grace-Anna Roman Lyakurwa
She is a strong 76 year old hardworking woman from Rombo. She lived with her husband on a farm where they both worked in their fields until he passed away. They had ten children but only one is still alive. Because she was living alone and wasn’t very stable, the local Community Development Office brought her to the home in June 2014.
Grace Anna is a fascinating woman, who is always out in the farms digging, weeding, cutting firewood and sweeping the compound. She also loves to cook, and will pick up a hot metal pot with her bare hands from the fire and won’t feel a thing! She loves to wail and sing and dance every time our volunteers come with good news or gifts or just because. Grace-Anna also loves to dress up and look good. She always has an outfit planned for church and when called her out to do activities like exercise she will tell us to wait so she can find something nice to wear. She loves to look fabulous!
Mr. Inyansi Atanasi Mshingo
Mr inyansi is a 76 year old man from Kigoma. He came to the home in 2007 after suffering injuries to his spine and legs. He had a wife who passed and three children whom he lost contact with. Mr. Inyansi is the home celebrity. They all call him ‘mwenyekiti’ which is Swahili for ‘chairman’ because he likes to speak on behalf of the group when necessary. He loves politics, news, the bible and football (he’s an ex football player). He is interested in current affairs and whats going on in the world so he always listens to the news on his radio and reads any newspaper.
He also loves telling stories and sometimes tells the other elderly people stories to mess with their heads. Thomas, an African Impact volunteer from America, took a picture with each of them and printed them out, but since he knew how much Mr. Inyansi loved Obama he photoshopped Obama into the picture and gave it to him. Mr. Inyansi was so delighted and absolutely blown away by the idea of photoshop he showed the picture to the rest of the elderly and told them that Obama visited him in the night and they sat down and had tea and talked all night and that they missed Obama because they were asleep and they believed him! He loves telling that story to everyone that comes to visit!