From Tanzania to Sun Prairie
In his village in Tanzania, they would say that 17-year-old Nickson Mzigaba is "amepata bahati." That's Swahili for very lucky.
"Oh yes, my life is good -- so good," Mzigaba acknowledges with a wide smile while munching on apple slices in Lena Mayfield's 6th grade reading class at Prairie View Middle School in Sun Prairie.
Just don't ask him to explain his recent good fortune, because he can't.
Neither can Mayfield, who first encountered the disarming young man during a church mission to northern Tanzania last summer, and whose family is now serving as co-hosts for Mzigaba during his monthlong visit here.
"For some reason our paths crossed, and we feel there's a reason for that," says Mayfield, one of 26 people who participated in the mission sponsored by Living Water Lutheran Church in Sun Prairie. "We don't know what the reason is right now, but the fact that he was able to come here is almost a miracle."
Well, miracle might be an overstatement. But the fact that a poor kid from Tanzania was provided with a $2,200 round trip plane ticket and treated to a whirlwind tour of Wisconsin from people he met just nine months ago is pretty amazing, to say the least.
"My students absolutely adore him," Mayfield says. "When he walks down the hall, it's like he's a movie star."
As Mayfield explains it, the church group had flown to the city of Arusha (pop. 270,000) last July to take part in a school-building project organized by the New Life Band, a Tanzanian music group that tours the world and is dedicated to improving the lives of its countrymen.
The first morning there, she says, her son Ryan spotted Mzigaba selling necklaces on the street and struck up a conservation with him. From that day on, "Nickson just seemed to show up every time we needed someone to help us," says Mayfield, who notes that Mzigaba's mother, a member of the Maasai tribe, lives in a mud hut with his two younger brothers.
"He spoke such good English compared to everybody else who came up to us on the street," she says. "So we just kind of befriended him and asked if he wanted to hang out with us. And, of course, he said yes."
When Mayfield returned to school in September, she told her students about Mzigaba and encouraged them to email him. (He has access to a computer at an Internet cafe in Arusha.) She also had them read "Ryan and Jimmy: And the Well in Africa that Brought Them Together," a book based on a Canadian youth who connects with a boy from Uganda.
"It inspired them," Mayfield says, "and they decided to do something special for Nickson."
What they did was hold a bake sale and other events that succeeded in raising $700 -- enough to pay for tuition and supplies so that Mzigaba could attend the New Life Band school that the mission participants had helped build in the village of Kisongo. They also extended an invitation to Mzigaba to visit Sun Prairie some day.
Mayfield loved the idea but figured it would take a year or two for Mzigaba to secure a passport and visa. But Sun Prairie residents Rick and Kathy Klemp, whose nonprofit ministry "Hope 2 Others" had helped organize the school-building mission, didn't want to wait.
They flew to Arusha early this year. And thanks to their guidance and persistence, Mzigaba somehow managed to obtain both documents in about a month -- although his initial attempt to get a visa was turned down.
So after receiving the blessing of his mother -- and enduring a 28-hour plane adventure -- Mzigaba arrived in Madison on a cold, sunny day in late March.
"His first question after getting off the plane was, 'Why is it cold if the sun is out?'" Mayfield says with a laugh. "He couldn't understand how that works."
Since that moment, Mzigaba has been given a crash course in American culture. Besides the educational component of his visit -- his last two weeks will be spent at Sun Prairie High School and the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater -- he's been to the Milwaukee Zoo, East Towne Mall and an assortment of restaurants. And two weeks ago, the Mayfields took him to St. Louis, where he rode to the top of the Gateway Arch and spent a wild afternoon at Six Flags St. Louis amusement park.
"He loved the roller coaster," Mayfield says, "but after a few of the big, scarier rides, he was done."
Is America pretty much what he expected?
"Oh no. Everything is different," says Mzigaba, who learned English by talking to tourists and looking up words in the dictionary. "So many roads, so many traffic lights. And everyone has a car -- not like Tanzania, where everybody walks.
"And the people here are bigger."
Mzigaba says he hopes to absorb as much as he can during his stay and use that knowledge to help improve living conditions for his family and friends upon returning home. And while he'd like to come back one day and perhaps even attend college here, his ultimate goal is to become a top official in the Tanzanian Army.
"My uncle was in the Army," he explains, "and when he was dying, he told me, 'One day you can be like me."'
The Klemps say Mzigaba's visit represents the first step in their admittedly ambitious plan for an educational exchange program between schools in Tanzania and Wisconsin.
"Nickson's positive experience hopefully will pave the way for others," says Karen Klemp, who is a registered nurse at Meriter Hospital.
Whatever the future holds, Mayfield says it's been fascinating to watch Mzigaba interact with her students and that the educational value of his visit has far exceeded her expectations. She had told her students many times that even a small group can change someone's life for the better, she says.
"Now they believe it."
Submitted photo
After arriving in Sun Prairie, Nickson Mzigaba sees snow for the first time in his life...and makes a snowball.
