Photograph courtesy of Sally McLeod
Lean on Me: Darrell McLeod and Godlisten Marandu spent four days together this fall when McLeod went to Tanzania and visited with the man his "son" became.
WG couple reunites with lost 'son'
McLeods still think of man from Tanzania as member of the family
By Kate Carter
When Willow Glen resident Sally McLeod went online, she never expected to find the boy who touched her life 32 years ago and 10,000 miles away. For the ceramics craftswoman and her husband Darrell, a retired teacher, the Internet, combined with their love and continuing interest, helped them re-establish contact with a boy, now a man, who they continue to think of as their son.
The couple welcomed an African infant into their family for three months while living in Tanzania more than 30 years ago. After they left the country in 1970, however, they lost touch with the boy because they couldn't communicate with his family, who did not have an address or a phone.
Earlier this year, however, a woman, who was planning to visit the place where they had first found the boy, contacted Sally over the Internet, and Sally asked her to try to find the boy again.
The woman found him, and this fall Darrell returned to the place he and his family had lived many years ago, to see for himself the man whose life they saved.
In August 1968, Sally and Darrell, then 27 and 29 years old, respectively, and their two daughters Mollie, 3, and Diana, almost 2, left their home in the South Bay for two years in Africa.
"That experience of those two years has colored how we live and who we are," Darrell says.
Darrell had signed on for a two-year stint as an expatriate teacher with the U.S. Agency for International Development's Teacher Education in East Africa program. He had been a science and math teacher at Blackbird Elementary and Andrew Hill High School, and he was applying for a job at Canada Community College when he was accepted into the program.
"It was one thing to make the decision to go," Darrell says. "It was another when they said yes. "
Sally and Darrell decided that, if they were ever going to have an experience like this, they had to take this opportunity.
"It was a chance to be off and on our own and know that we had the capacity to take care of ourselves and our family," Sally says.
So they packed up their young family and flew first to New York City for 10 summer weeks of training. "The hardest part of the trip," they say. Then, on Aug. 10, 1968, Sally's and Darrell's fifth wedding anniversary, they headed on to Marring, a small village on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro and 26 miles from the nearest town of Moshi.
Darrell taught at a teacher training college and they lived in a house on campus. They had electricity from 6 p.m. to midnight, when the generator worked, and they boiled their water and ironed their daughter's diapers to prevent larvae from growing in the fibers. They were glad to have an indoor toilet.
But they say that it wasn't too hard for them. They had neighbors, other expatriate families, with whom they established helpful friendships that they keep to this day. And they had enough that they could afford to give.
Photograph courtesy of Sally McLeod
Say Cheese: Godlisten thrived under the McLeods care and returned to his own family much healthier and happier. Godlisten's family says that the McLeods saved his life.
In 1969, Sally was accompanying a nurse friend who was looking for a volunteer opportunity at the hospital in Marangu when she came across an unsupervised infant lying in a crib in what served as the hospital's maternity ward. He was wrapped tightly to keep him warm, she says, but he wasn't able to move and wasn't receiving any stimulation at all.
"That's not the environment to keep a child in," Sally says. "It seemed natural that my volunteering could be to take this child home. The reality was that we could offer an environment that would be better for a young baby."
Sally found out that the child was between three and four months old, but weighed only nine pounds. His twin sibling had died during childbirth and his mother had died two weeks later from labor-related complications. His father, with seven other children to care for, had asked the child's aunt and uncle to take him. But they both worked at the hospital and had to leave the baby alone for much of the day, so they welcomed Sally's offer to take him home and give him the attention he needed.
"It was incredible; they just let me take him," she said.
The baby, named Godlisten (pronounced "Godleeshen") C. Marandu, had skinny little legs and a distended belly, indications that he was malnourished, Sally says. She says she was careful to feed him only foods native to his home, and they were able to burn wood to keep the home warm enough for him to wear less clothes and move around.
He became another member of the family, and Diana and Mollie treated him like a little brother, Sally and Darrell say.
"I think we learned by opening our hearts to Godlisten and providing an environment that was appropriate for a young child," Sally says. "He taught us that our family could expand. It opened doors for us."
Welcoming Godlisten into their lives, the McLeods themselves were welcomed into the local community. Their family was able to visit Godlisten's extended family and they learned more about the way the people of Marangu really lived.
"I wanted to see how people live," Sally says. "Godlisten gave us a glimpse of that."
For three months Godlisten lived with them, until he grew well enough to return to his aunt and uncle. In exchange for their loving care, the McLeods received valuable gifts of a chicken and a bag of fresh eggs.
Soon after, the McLeods returned from Africa and bought their house in Willow Glen. Darrell returned to teaching at Andrew Hill High School, and Sally became a skilled potter.
And while they had no way of contacting Godlisten or his family, who didn't have an address or phone, the McLeods didn't forget their time in Tanzania and the little boy they left behind.
Photograph courtesy of Sally McLeod
Doll Face: Diana, left, and Mollie McLeod, right, treated Godlisten, center, like a brother when he entered their lives in 1969.
It was through Sally's participation in an Internet mailing list for ceramics craftspeople that she heard from a Pennsylvania woman, Jean Lehman, who was taking a trip to Tanzania and wanted to know more about the crafts in the region.
Sally wrote back and mentioned that she had cared for a young boy when she had lived Marangu. She asked Lehman, if she and her husband made it there, to look Godlisten up and see if he was still around.
Lehman replied that she would try, and the McLeods sent her some pictures of Godlisten when he was at most seven months old.
When the Lehmans returned from their month in Tanzania at the end of March, they sent the McLeods an email: "We FOUND Godlisten, with lots of good luck and help from nice people!"
The couple had only about a day in Marangu to look for Godlisten, and their only resources were his name and a photo that was 32 years old.
They returned to the hospital where Sally first found Godlisten and enlisted the help of their taxi driver to translate with the staff there. No one at the hospital could remember Godlisten, but someone remembered a doctor who had since retired and lived away from the village.
On the chance that he would be there, the Lehmans and a growing entourage trekked into the banana fields, found the doctor at home and showed him Godlisten's photo.
"He looked at the picture a long time, and then turned to me and said, 'I know this boy, and I know him well,'" Jean Lehman wrote in her email to Sally.
The Lehmans were leaving the next morning at 9 a.m., so the doctor told them he would try to bring Godlisten to them before then.
At 8 a.m., an hour before they were leaving Marangu, a man arrived at the place where the Lehmans were staying and pulled a crumpled picture of his family from his pocket. Lehman wrote that they knew it was Godlisten because the woman in the picture was wearing the same dress as the woman in the picture she had received from Sally McLeod.
Lehman wrote, "Our search for Godlisten became one of the most meaningful parts of the trip. Everyone we told of our quest got very excited and wanted to help. The staff at the lodge were ecstatic when he showed up! This was a lot of fun for us. It was pretty easy in an area where people pretty much stay where they are born."
Through Lehman, the McLeods began a correspondence with Godlisten, exchanging information, photos and lots of excitement.
Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
A Picture of the Past: Sally and Darryl McCleod show a photo of the baby boy whose life they helped save while living in Tanzania in 1969. The baby, Godlisten, had a twin who was stillborn and his mother died a few days after giving birth.
Sally and Darrell wanted to send gifts to their long-lost son, but there was no way to be sure the items would make their way to Godlisten, and the duty he would have to pay on such a package would likely be more than he could afford.
And so the McLeods began thinking of going back to Africa to see their little boy who was now a man.
"One night I just turned to Darrell and said, 'You're just going to have to go to Africa,'" Sally says.
Sally couldn't make the trip because of health problems. Instead, it was decided that Darrell would go and bring their 12-year-old grandson, Diana's son Christopher, so he could see where his grandparents, mom and aunt spent two years of their lives and meet people he's never known who are like a part of the family.
"My mom thinks of him (Godlisten) as her brother, so I guess that makes him my uncle," Christopher said. "I didn't even know what he looked like, I just saw some pictures. He looks a lot like the pictures."
Darrell and Christopher spent two weeks in Tanzania this fall, and four days with Godlisten and his family. They brought him gifts of a Walkman and a camera, shoes and clothes and other gifts for his large extended family. Godlisten doesn't speak much English, and Darrell's skills in Swahili aren't perfect, so they communicated through Godlisten's brother Rogers who is an engineer and was educated in England.
They learned Godlisten had been educated through the seventh grade and now works as a laborer. He isn't married and he says that's because he can't afford to be; he says he only earns $40 a month.
The McLeods say they wanted to help him in a way that would be most beneficial. Godlisten told them he would like to pursue his education, but in Tanzania there aren't resources for adult education. Instead, the McLeods were able to raise $1,500 from their family, friends and their own money to give to him to use as he wishes. They would like him to use it to buy tools of his own.
"With good tools, he doesn't have to be just a laborer," Darrell said.
Sally and Darrell hope to continue their relationship with their child in Africa, maybe even through email, which Godlisten's family hopes to get.
"I would hope that we could keep in contact," Sally says. "Some very positive things can come about (through the Internet), not only with the wealth of information, but the connection that allowed us to get in touch with the baby we cared for 30-some years ago."
Technology, combined with continuing love, helped to reconnect this cross-cultural and transatlantic family.
"It is a great pleasure after so many years when you left me in an infant stage to search for me again," Godlisten wrote to his parents in America. "To me it is a miracle as I cannot recall you but through God's miracles you have taken all the troubles to search for me. Please don't forget me. I am still your beloved son."
Willow Glen, California Since 1992
