5:24am and morning prayers ring through the streets, and through the windows of our rented apartment in the center of Arusha. He sings, joined in turns by believers from their homes whose voices, when lifted in unison, surely must be heard in heaven. I wonder for what they pray.

Just a few miles away, I’m sure many of the Masai have just gone to bed with their cattle after a night full of elder storytelling ’round a fire, singing and jump-dancing.

Neither the singing of morning prayers nor the distant dancing of the Masai woke me, but instead some combination of jet lag coupled with the constant refrain that is sung in my own head, a prayer in its own right, that I might somehow find help and weave together enough of it to not only help Mama Lucy build her school here, but to do the same for many more people like her whose prayers to improve the lives of those around them are not simply words, nor songs, but impassioned hard work, sweat and tears poured out endlessly to create miracles.

Morning prayers ended, a mysterious goose-honking begins which will be followed soon by the sounds of roosters wakened by the sun rising over Mt. Meru, birds singing, dogs barking and second-hand trucks handed down for profit from the West whose brakes sound like fingernails scraped along chalkboards and which spew black clouds of smoke into the air and the windows of local homes. Today is a public holiday, though, so the sounds of human bustling may come a little later than usual. Normally, it comes early, the old women crouched on broken sidewalks selling mangos they’ve cultivated likely on small patches of land behind their huts, the throngs of young men with no hopes of employment who instead hustle toward tourists to showcase art they’ve fashioned from banana leaves, and women dressed in vibrantly colored khangas shelling peanuts they’ll roast over personal fires to sell to passersby.

As I wait for them to arrive in town, I flip on the television, greeted by Britney Spears shaking her bon-bon to what I believe was her most recent chart-topper, Gimme More – how fitting. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve a warm place in my heart for the former mouseketeer, but her voice (and jiggling tush) cut through this place like the giant rusted machete the toothless man on the corner uses to peel his oranges.

There are many such strange juxtapositions of local traditions and foreign influences here. Chickens wander outside the front doors of internet cafes. Masai warriors travel into town from their bomas to charge their cell phones at sidewalk booths that supply electrical outlets. A blue, mirrored high-rise built for westerners towers above a bus stop where rickety dala dalas meant for 12 passengers are packed with 30 or more locals who pay a dime for the privilege. Huts of mud and sticks lay next door to brand-new stucco homes. Pristine Land Rovers full of safari tourists barrel past wooden banana carts pulled miraculously by the body weight of children. Land that has for generations belonged to tribal ancestors is being purchased by speculators, developers and investors.

A local school has been evicted to make way for a new hotel.

Tanzania is in the midst of transformation. Who will lead these changes, who will benefit, and what will remain of her rich cultural heritage remains to be seen. My hope is that the impassioned hard work of Mama Lucy and many like her will harness these changes for the good of Tanzania’s children.