Blogs from Dodoma, Centre, Tanzania, Africa - page 6

January blog On December 28 Gerry and I joined eight other people from Dodoma and flew to Nairobi, Kenya, to attend the Brackenhurst Conference. This conference is held each year for four days in late December/early January at the Brackenhurst International Conference Centre near Limuru, a town roughly 45 minutes by car north of Nairobi. This is an interdenominational conference the purpose of which is to provide an opportunity for people engaged in Christian mission work of all kinds in east Africa to gather for rest, recreation, fellowship and study. The setting of the conference is very beautiful indeed. While only 60 km south of the equator, the conference centre is at an elevation of 7400 ft. The mornings and evenings were very cool, requiring fleeces and sweatshirts to be comfortable, and while the days were ... read more

For this blog entry we thought we would focus on our school, but first, a little background. Geographically, the Anglican Diocese of Central Tanganyika covers the Dodoma Region, which includes both urban and rural parts. The region has a population of over 1.2 million people of which 500,000 are Anglicans. As both rural and urban districts of Dodoma are some of the least developed in the country and government secondary schools are very few in this area, the Diocese is heavily engaged in education, from kindergarten through to primary (up to Grade 7 equivalent) and secondary. The Diocese operates several schools of which the Canon Andrea Mwaka School (CAMS) where Gerry and I teach is one. The other diocesan schools teach the Tanzanian curriculum and follow the Tanzanian school year, which begins in January. The CAMS ... read more

Gerry and I thought in this blog entry, we would feature our home here in Dodoma. We are living very comfortably in a one-bedroom unit with kitchen, a sitting room and a small study. Our unit is one of six in a compound owned by the Diocese of Central Tanganyika, our employer. Our neighbours in the compound are other diocesan employees, mostly other teachers at CAMS. The people living here come from New Zealand, Australia and England. The compound has a 24-hour guard to keep an eye on things. We often have people wanting to sell us crafts and the like so one of the functions of the guard is to ask those people to set up their wares outside the gate rather than knocking on doors. As well as preventing vandalism in the area, the ... read more

greetings from dodoma where i access the internet in two consecutive days! i only have some minutes so i will just write a little from the journal i carry: I love cheap hotels with verandas. It feels like a very noble place for only 6,000 shillings ($5.50) and now im settling in for a few days. my morning walk yestyerday was nice though most everything was closed except for the fabulous fabric shops none of which even tried to overchardge me. I had run out of shillings so I went to a fancier hotel to do some exchange since banks arent open. I saw 1 mzungu there and then a big group of them on the street, but i realize now i havent said more than hi to a white person in over a week. i ... read more

Hey everyone! So here is email number one. I have arrived safely and completed my first couple days in Tanzania. Yes the flight was very long….I'm glad to be here finally. I think I will be sending out an email every week or so - if that's too often feel free to delete it and if it's not often enough I might be adding additional entries to a blog which I will send out the address later (maybe). So far I have spent a night in Dar Es Salaam, the commercial center of Tanzania, met my family and moved into my room. Dar is an expansive but rather short city (in terms of buildings). My window for the night was on the seventh story of a hotel, which was probably the tallest building around. I had ... read more