Full circle

Well I've finished with my placement. We had our community festival on Sunday and the finals of our sports league. It was a stressful affair because the day before everything looked like it was going to fail miserably but luckily on the day things seemed to mostly work themselves out. We had a guest speaker from VCT who spoke really well about AIDS and the importance of testing and unfortunately we couldnt get the mobile testing like they'd promised because they just told us that day that its not possible (TIT!!). We also had most of the village leaders and important village people turn up and although the villagers turned up when the festival was supposed to end (so we started about 4hrs late and everything was stressful) it went ok and then we all ate and headed down to the sports field for our sports finals which went really well and we had a lot of spectators and the games were awesome to watch. The netballers turned up too and played which was good! We had the presentations of the prizes and the head of the AIDS committee for our district (her name is Deograsia and she is amazing - young, smart, great role model for the girls!) presented the prizes and spoke about condoms and it was awesome! So then I just spent a couple of days tying up loose ends and filling in forms and then headed to Njombe for a couple of days of relaxation

I'm in Iringa now and today was the second day of our debrief and we have our stakeholders party on monday and then everything is over and im off travelling with Guzzy. It is a really strange feeling to be finished. There were days when I wanted it badly, days when I never wanted to leave and now I have left and I miss the people SO much. I made some amazing friends in my village and I really became part of the community and part of the family I was living with (so much so that they renamed me Sadha Mtitu - their last name which means black person) and I am so sad that I wont have these people in my lives everyday. I'm taking Hannah back to visit my village in October and I just found out one of my best friends is having a wedding while we'll be there so I'll finally get to experience a Tanzanian wedding!!

Although the work is the most important part of this program for the village, for me the most important part was that I found people to love and who loved me back! Sometimes here it feels like people are just your friends because your an mzungu, a novelty, or so they can get things out of you but the other day my wallet was stolen and I lost $120 and my travellex card. I had nothing and when my Tanzanian mama found out she was so distraught and worried that she offered to take me to the bank and see how much money she could give me. I was so touched, it really hit me that they consider me a daughter now and the fact they would give me their money when they have nothing and need every shilling they have is just so amazing.

Anyway now the hectic travelling begins. I plan on coming back to Tanzania, maybe even to live again one day and I have plans for Iringa (working with street kids because there are lots in Iringa but not too many so I feel like something really could be done for them) and my village so this isn't the last they've seen of me!!!Tanzania really feels like home now, I can't possibly imagine never coming back. God I love it here!!!!!!!!!

p.s. I tried uploading photos but in the hour i was on I only managed 1 so..karibu me milking a cow! haha
xxx

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