Camp update

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Hi everyone,

Sorry I've been so useless at updating this site but I only get internet access once a week and the connection is so slow I only just have time to check emails etc.

So we've been in our camp in the village of Mvae for 2 weeks now. When I say village it's more of a large rural area. There is a small village centre consisting of a few mud hut shops...one of which doubles as a bar big enough for 4 people, I kid you not. Suz, Ed and myself tested it out after getting a bit lost on a walk the other day! Very bizarre experience sitting in the tiniest 'pub' in the world drinking beer mid-afternoon with one of the local schoolteachers on his lunchbreak while half the village peered in at us through the door and window!!

The camp itself is part of a field which has been fenced off with dried sunflower stalks. It is comfortable enough for the 8 volunteers, though for the first week and a half we were under constant surveillance from the villagers peering in at us through the gate and all around the fence...very Big Brother-esque! I'm sure much to many people's surprise Suzanna and myself have taken to roughing it like ducks to water and I barely even notice that we are missing electricity or running water anymore.

Mvae really is the most remote place I have ever been in my life, our view stretches for miles and miles across fields and floodplains. The skies here are incredible, especially at sunset, I'm wishing I had a camera good enough to capture it. Speaking of cameras my battery has just died so I can't upload any at the moment but hopefully next weekend I'll be able to stick some up.

So many crazy things have happened since we arrived in Tanzania, from drinking in our hostel room in Singida with a local MP who just wandered in to being offered a cow's leg for sale at our camp from the back of a bicycle. It's funny but after a while you just start to take these things in your stride.

The building of the health dispensary is going well but slowly as lack of water and tools hamper our progress considerably. However we have the foundations dug and hopfelly there will be some bricks laid by the time we leave Mvae next weekend! It is incredible to think this part of the journey is nearly over, after which Suzanna and I will be heading North to Kilimanjaro (which we spotted on the plane over!) I will be sad to leave the village as I feel we are starting to build up relationships with various people in the village and on the building site. The kids here are amazing and Suzanna has used her singing skills to teach them some English songs, including YMCA! We visited a school last week at which there are 840 pupils and only 10 teachers. It's amazing, these people have so little and yet they are never anything but smiling and laughing, it certainly gives one something to think about.

It's so hard to remember everything but will hopefully update again in a week or so. In the meantime it's back to the camp for our last week. Hope everything is well with everyone, wherever you are!

Marie x

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