In January 2006 and in 2005, Samite and his manager Maria Mallon took trips to Africa to carry out the mission of Musicians for World Harmony, which Samite founded. They went to perform for children in orphanages, hospitals, and refugee camps. They went to offer hope. Here are a few brief journal entries from their trips.


Entry One

We are in Arusha, Tanzania. As a start, today Samite took our participants to Maija ya chai, an orphanage on the outskirts of Arusha, Tanzania in Usa River. Usa River is a large village of 24,000 people. The orphanage has collected up about 100 children directly from the streets of Arusha. Most of the children do not have AIDS or HIV, but they come from seriously neglected, abusive or extremely poor families called LABOR FAMILIES. I met with a little girl yesterday. Her name is Mahati. She told me that she was taken from her family and brought to Maji ya chai because her family didn’t love her anymore and cast her to the streets because they were too poor to feed her. She entered the streets of Arusha at 10 years old. She has been at Maji ya chai for 5 years. She is only 15 years old. Other stories include children collected from the streets who were too young when they got to the streets, that they don’t even know who their parents are. Some of them were 4 years old when they were forced to the streets. These stories are never ending. In any event, you can see that this experience has been stunning and daunting for me and all who have joined us on this trip. Today the entourage will take all the children from the orphanage to the markets of Arusha to buy them shoes. THEY HAVE NO SHOES! Every child I have met has asked me if I have children. I’ve been asked that question about 100 times since I’ve been to Africa. This question usually stumps me into tears, however I’ve accumulated a callus at this time. When I was at the AIDS orphanage in Nairobi, Kenya called Nyumbani, 3 young ladies and 1 little boy (Grace, Christine, Laura and Paul) asked me if I had children. I said that I didn’t. When asked why I didn’t have children, I told them that God has chosen others to bear his children. They spoke amongst themselves, then told me that I might be wrong. That God had brought me to them and that they had agreed that they were now my children. I have many children here in Africa. About 400 to date. – Maria


Entry Two

It is amazing to see how music affects these children we’ve visited. Here in Maji ya chai, most of the children do not speak English, unlike those children from the orphanages in Nairobi. I have to rely heavily on sing-song, hand clapping sorts of songs just to communicate with the children. I never expected that the songs like the “Hokey Pokey” and “Duck Duck Goose,” along with hand games could be so powerful. I will never look upon these simple games quite the same ever. I showed the children how to play “Duck Duck Goose”. Once we finished playing that game, they taught me the game they play quite similar to “Duck Duck Goose”. I spent hours with these children playing games from my childhood that I thought I would never play again. “DO THE HOKEY POKEY AND TURN YOURSELF AROUND, THAT’S WHAT IT’S ALL ABOUT!!” – Maria


Entry Three

I am in Kampala Uganda for a few days before I return to the US. I am spending these last few days in Uganda contacting and meeting with people and organizations that Musicians for World Harmony will be working with in the future. I have had many stories and magical moments with people in refugee camps and children in the orphanages, but I have had a hard time sharing the stories with the public. These children share their stories with me after I play flute or play the Kalimba for them and only then do they let their guard down and bring me into their lives. I do not want to betray their trust. – Samite


Entry Four

I played for three young women former child soldiers. These girls are now being taken care of by an organization called AACAN, Action Against Child Abuse and Neglect in the Eastern part of Uganda known as Soroti. When I met these women, they were very sad and didn't look comfortable talking to me. Men had caused so much pain to them. They were kidnapped from their parents when they were only 8 years old. Now in their early teenage years, they had just escaped form the war-lords that had kidnapped them. They had been used as sex slaves. After I played a flute song for them which encouraged them to sing for me, we were able to talk. The one question they had for me was "Samite, can you help us to get tested for AIDS so we can know how long we are going to live?" These were only 15 year old girls and here they were wondering if they were going to be dying from AIDS. We made arrangements for them to be tested. And it ended up being that 130 girls had to be tested.


Entry Five

We are in Kenya at an orphanage known as Shangali watoto wa mungu, which means house for God's children. A young 13 year old girl came to me and asked me if I play music for a living and then asked me to play the flute for her. After I played for a while, she asked me why I had cut off my dreads. She had seen me last year with dreads. When I told her that I had grown the dreads the day I was told that my wife had a brain tumor and now my wife has been dead for 3 years. She opened up and started to tell me how she does not know who her father is but she remembered how her mother committed suicide with a knife in front of her. She stabbed herself with a knife and she was two months pregnant. She told me the whole story in detail. When she was done, she gave me a hug and said “I am sorry about your wife.”

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Journal Entries from Africa

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