Community Service Day 1

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(Sorry about the lack of animals but I think this will be interesting to at least some people regardless)



I got up before six so that I was up and out of the tent by five past. I then went with binoculars, bird book and camera for some exploration around the camp to do a bit of before-breakfast birding. I had a look around the camp and settled on one site that was the best for birding; this was the pond that I talked about in the first part of my first post in Tanzania (post #13 of this thread). I decided on this area because it was absolutely fabulous for birds! There were three black crakes that were around the pond 24/7 along with six or seven pairs of taveta golden weavers, thick-billed weavers and black-headed weavers as well as red-eyed doves and common fiscals. These species were there all the time but there were a few species such as malachite kingfishers, speckled mousebirds and black-headed herons that were at the pond almost all the time and of course a few species that I only saw once. In fact, I saw at least three new species around the pond every day (this was with spending an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening every day). One very interesting thing that I saw that morning was the group of helmeted guinea fowl roosting in a tree. Thinking about it now, it must be obvious that they roost in trees, but I had never seen or heard of guinea fowls sitting in trees so I found this very interesting. The group of seven guinea fowls soon got up from the branches of the tree and got down to the ground with pathetic, ungainly flaps of their wings. The group which consisted of about seven birds then proceeded to walk onto the nearby football pitch and peck in the grass. After about ten minutes of looking around, taking pictures and looking through binoculars, one of the masai guards came over to see what I was doing.



The camp that I was staying in was guarded by apparently more than 20 Masai people. They all wore the traditional red robes and carried around a stick that they would stand on one leg and rest against while they were standing guard over the camp. I really did think that this was completely unnecessary due to the fact that there were two high voltage electric fences and gates but after living surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by soldiers with machine guns from the Saudi National Guard for eight years in Saudi Arabia, I didn’t find this as strange as I am sure other people from the group did. Anyway, as I was saying, one of the Masai guards came over to have a look at what I was doing. My Swahili hadn’t progressed much beyond the basic greeting of ‘jambo’ by this point so communication was somewhat difficult, but I later learnt that the Masai didn’t speak Swahili anyway but instead had their own Masai language so my lack of Swahili wouldn’t have made much difference. The guard was very friendly and interested in what I was doing. He seemed to like looking through the binoculars and was very interested in looking through my pictures. The guard then pointed out a pair of crowned hornbills in a tree, they were very nice looking birds which stayed in the tree for a few minutes then flew off. I thanked the guard in Swahili which took us both near to our Swahili limits and then he headed off to another part of the camp. I saw this guard again a few more times when I was around the pond in the mornings before leaving Tanzania.



At about ten to seven (breakfast being at seven), I went back to my tent to put my things in and have a very quick morning shower. There was no hot water (actually, to be fair, there was hot water but it was heated from a wood-fired boiler that was far, far too small for the number of people showering so it almost always had run out by the time I got there) so I didn’t take very long and I was up at breakfast with my rucksack with things that I would need for the day by the seven o’ clock breakfast. As with all of the meals that I would have on the camp, breakfast was fantastic, especially the fresh fruit and fresh fruit juices that were grown on the camp. After breakfast, the group gathered in the relaxation tent which was next to the dining tent (the whole camp was made up of very large permanent tents, though canvas they had electricity) for a briefing before heading out on the first of two days of a service project. Before coming to Tanzania (and on the day when we first arrived) we were told of the basics of the project. The large group was divided into groups of around six and each group was constructing a goat shed for a very poor family. All of the families were in a remote village and the similarities between them were that none of the families had any source of income and all of them were one parent or grandparent supporting multiple children by themselves. The idea of building this goat shed was that a goat shed was built and a milking goat put into each shed. We had raised all of the money needed to pay for the materials used to build the shed and to buy the female goat before going to Tanzania. The charity that was organising the project had a stud male goat that would be loaned to each of the families whom a goat shed was being built for and this would allow goats to be bred and the female goat to be milked. The whole idea of the project was to provide an income to the families that would hopefully be sustainable in the future with the milk and eventually the kid goats providing the family’s income.



After a brief run-through that morning of how to build the goat sheds we all piled into jeeps and headed to the village. The roads were not what you would call roads but more like places where the grass had been worn away by tyres skidding through the dirt. The village was very near to the camp so despite the snail’s pace that the cars had to travel at to get over the roads and two significant whacks of large, sharp rocks onto the bottom of the car, the drive only took about fifteen minutes. We drove to the place that would be the base of operations for the service projects and this was an orphanage that was run by a small charity that was hosting our service project. This was where we picked up the materials and importantly, the plans to build the goat sheds with the lengths that the wood would need to be cut to and holes need to be dug listed. We also saw our goats there but the ‘installation’ of the goats was not to be until the afternoon of the next day (this was a two day construction project). After going through the plans to make sure everyone was clear on the construction, each group was assigned with a local handyman to make sure we didn’t completely mess up the construction or kill ourselves with the machetes, hammers, saws and pick axes that we had been given. We then carried the tools and materials down to our goat shed construction site ready to start building. We were building on a slightly sloping patch of land next to the house of the family who we were building it for. The hut was small and bare bricks, it had two rooms and an outdoor wood fired oven and this was the entirety of it.



We then looked down at the plans and started. First we dug four holes to place the support poles in. This was quite difficult due to the depth that the poles had to be inserted to, but we soon got the hang of the machetes and pick axes and it was soon done. While some of the group was working on digging the holes, the other people started to cut the main support poles that would go into the holes down to size. Soon the four supporting posts were in their holes and packed down tightly with small rocks and dirt. Then a frame was put up around the poles for the floor and planks were put across the frame. Of course these all had to be cut and measured and nailed together in a manner that would hold up a goat, but by lunchtime we had done up to this point. We went back up to the orphanage for lunch which was beans with rice, although not the favourite dish of most people, everyone was very hungry after a morning sweating in the hot, hot sun. You cannot image how hot it is standing in the full sun doing manual labour for several hours, so the soft drink that we were able to have with lunch was appreciated by all.



After lunch we all went back down to the sheds to continue working. It was even hotter than the morning and I was drinking more than a litre of water every hour but sweating it all out. By the end of the first day of work, the walls and frame was done completely, this left the roof, ramp, food box and the door (this proved very complicated) for the next day. We were all exhausted so were pleased to get back to the camp after the hard, hot day of work. Everyone went straight for a shower and then we had an hour or so to relax before dinner. I went for a bit of a look around the pond where I got some nice views of the common birds such as taveta golden weavers along with malachite kingfishers and others. Then was dinner which was fantastic as with all of the meals and then had an early night. I had no problem getting to sleep even though it wasn’t even 9 o’ clock yet because I was exhausted and knew there was another day of hard work to come.

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