This past winter break, I fell in love. His name was Inosenti and he was seven years old. His stick-thin body could be found in the same dirty, torn, second-hand clothes for days on end. His house had a hole in the ground for a toilet and dirty water running through its taps. His material deprivation could have made him the perfect poster child for a World Vision commercial, where for $30 a month you could supposedly brighten his life.

But none of that mattered to him. Inosenti had the most beautiful smile I have ever seen. His dazzling white teeth seemed to burst from his little face. You couldn’t help but follow suit when you saw it. And his smiling expression, like his clothes, rarely changed.

Inosenti’s smile is just one of the many smiles I will remember from my three weeks in Tanzania. Living and working with local volunteers allowed me an inside look at this East African culture that, despite its immense poverty, has found a happiness unlike any I’ve seen in the Western world.

Everything in Tanzania, from the houses to the clothes to the people themselves, is simple. And it is this simplicity in lifestyle, I have come to realize, that allows Tanzanians to know joy from the simplest of things.

We were staying in Lole, a small coffee-producing village that stretched up a huge, densely forested hill at the base of Mount Kilimanjaro. ‘Village’ seems an inappropriate description, as it was more like an extended family of 500 people. Everybody knew each other and looked after each other as best they could.

The days would start at five in the morning with a breakfast of tea, toast and fresh mangos. From there, we would make the 30 minute trek along the dirt roads lined with banana trees up to the schools where we were working. These 30 minute walks usually took us closer to an hour because you had to greet everyone you passed on the hill.  After all, everyone is family.

Adding to this sense of family was the fact that for the Swahili, it is common to address everyone, even strangers, by the Swahili equivalents of mother, father, brother and sister. I wondered what would happen were I to go up to a random older man on the streets of Toronto and say, “Hi dad.” He would probably run away terrified.

But that’s just the nature of Tanzanians. They enjoy talking and laughing with whoever is in their company at any time. By the end of our three weeks there, I had been invited to two birthday parties and welcomed into the homes of countless others for dinner. Like a Swahili proverb states, the children’s laughter seemed to be the roofs of all the houses. And the laughs are a whole other story.

There are no chuckles or giggles in Tanzania. Each laugh that comes out is as deep and genuine as the one before. They are so powerful it often feels like they could be heard at opposite ends of the world if only the world were willing to listen. Like author Karen Blixen said of her time in Kenya, “There are few things in life as sweet as this suddenly rising, clear tide of African laughter surrounding one...You woke up in the morning and thought: Here I am, where I ought to be.”

When they were not in school, Inosenti and his friends liked to pass their time by playing soccer in the endless dirt roads. The first time I saw them playing, I noticed that what they used as a soccer ball was actually just a few plastic bags tied together with rope into a ball. I asked them if I could buy them a real soccer ball, but my offer was politely turned down. Inosenti told me that because they didn’t have shoes (and insisted they would play barefoot even if they did!), this ball was easier on their feet. Was that ever a blow to my Western mind. Here I was thinking that if only I could buy these kids more stuff – any stuff – they would be happier.

It made me think of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan’s oft-told story of when he first moved to Minnesota. Because of his refined sense of style, he vowed he would never wear earmuffs. But, after his first winter there, he rushed out and bought the first pair he could find. “Never walk into an environment and assume that you understand it better than the people who live there,” he would say in a later speech.

Globalization had yet to hit the village of Lole. There were no McDonald's or any restaurants for that matter - just the local Flamingo Bar and even that was never much alive. One family had a TV and offered it for everyone’s use, but their lives were colourful enough that few had an interest in the black box. There were no computers, let alone websites detailing 100 ways to get rich quick. There weren’t even any books about finding the Zen within you.

The houses were not equipped with any of the modern luxuries we are used to in Canada. There were no washing machines or even fridges, so all the food we ate was fresh from the market. I didn't see a single clock in Lole, which is perhaps one of the reasons why life there is so laid back. And just like their smiles light up their faces, the Swahili women wear brightly patterned kangas, wrap-arounds for both their wastes and heads.

The villagers, who all belonged to the Chagga tribe, were strict Lutherans. Most attended a two-hour mass every Sunday and choir practice bi-weekly and recited a prayer almost ten minutes long together each night. Their faith was so strong that when the priest told the congregation the reason coffee prices had fallen so much recently was because they were not praying enough, they believed it.

Preparing meals there was a long, but nonetheless savoured experience. All the food would be cooked outdoors under the beautiful, green banana trees and the hot sun. Once the meals were ready, any villagers who happened to be passing by at that time were invited in for food. We often went from eight to fifteen people gathered together to eat. And there was always singing. During everything they did, whether it was picking coffee or milking cows, they sang.

For Tanzanians, even something as small as riding a dala-dala, a converted mini-van used for local transportation, turns into a social event. The buses get so packed you’ll often find random body parts hanging out the windows and your own legs stuck between the legs of the old man inevitably sitting across from you. Strangers strike up conversations with each other and soon everyone on the bus is joining in.

After my first sobering ride in a dala-dala, I told one of the locals how if you start talking to the man next to you on a bus in Toronto, he’ll think you have some sort of mental handicap. To this, I was greeted with a look of complete shock and disbelief. It was the same reaction I had gotten when I told him that I barely knew my neighbours back home.

It was at that point that I realized just how different things really were back in Canada. The African proverb, “It takes a village to raise a child,” was ever apparent in Lole. Inosenti has grown up surrounded by hundreds of people who love him and would do anything for him. Hard work is valued, but the pace is slower because people are enjoying themselves and not racing towards any financial goals. Nobody is judging Inosenti based on his appearance and he doesn’t need TV shows or video games to amuse him. His world is one in which the greatest pleasure is simply laughing and passing the time with your friends and family.

Perhaps it’s the landscape. It’s hard to be anything but happy when you wake up everyday to the beautiful sun shining down on the lush palm trees and the sounds of roosters crowing. But perhaps it’s not. Perhaps the secret lies in the hearts and minds of children like Inosenti, who not only never wears CK and doesn’t own an Intel Pentium, but would simply never see the need to.