This weekend has been an eyeopening experience for me. We left the Spring Lands Hotel in Moshi to go on a safari. During the journey we made a stop at St. Jude School, a new primary school catering to the very poorest of children. This was the first of three instances which really effected me this weekend. Seeing the kids at the St. Jude school and the children in the orphanages was the most influential on how I saw this weekend. Our safari was very rewarding, but I think personally seeing the children at St. Jude, and the school which Zara [View Full Entry]

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Today was a LONG day! I had some really crazy dreams and I felt weird when I woke up, so I didn't eat much for breakfast. We walked a short way down te road to Zainab's orphanage that she startd, the Shalom Center,home to about 40 kids (almost all orphans and some with AIDS). I felt kind of awkward there at first because it isn't a school, at least not formally, so I didn't know if English was okay or not and it was kind of unclear what we were supposed to be doing and whether or not we should [View Full Entry]

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Friday morning we went to St. Jude's School (I can't remember the proper name for it, most everyone just calls it St. Jude's I think) in the nearby town of Arusha. St. Jude's is a school for the poorest of the poor children, and it is free for them to board and gain an education. They do background checks to make sure that the students they enroll really are poverty-stricken, and they have turned many kids away because they were too "rich" by the standards. It's truly an amazing place. We took a tour of the school and the facilities are [View Full Entry]

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Prior to returning to Moshi from the safari on Sunday, we had the opportunity to meet the kids at the Shalom Orphanage Centre, which was just down the street from the hotel in which we were staying. Upon meeting the kids, we got to play games, sing songs, and run around. When I walked into the orphanage, one kid ran up to me and grabbed my hand. This was obviously normal. The young children we have met have almost always been extremely excited to see and play with us. But what I found interesting was that the little boy who grabbed [View Full Entry]

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Hutujambo! Today is day three in Africa. Beautiful. That is about all I can say for this country. The backdrop of the setting of our hotel is unimaginable. Unfortunately, yesterday was the first day we were actually able to see the ice cap on top of Mt. Kilimanjaro, but even the bottom of the mountain alongside the rice patties does enough justice. The children are also beautiful. The first day here, we went to the old school to meet the children and have them walk us over to the new school. We were greeted by about 100 kids in North Shore [View Full Entry]

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Dear Rafiki, Today was our first full day in Tanzania. It began with a wake up call to Muslim worship around 4 in the morning. It sound of the muezzin (not sure how it is spelled) seemed like it was coming from right out of my window. I fell back to sleep on and off throughout the early morning. When it was actually time to get up around seven forty, surprisingly I jumped right out of bed. Cindy Taylor and I dressed ourselves, snagged a malaria pill and headed out the door for breakfast. I had a Spanish omelette, fried potatoes, [View Full Entry]

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Jambo, So, I don't have too much internet time, but I'll try to make the best of it. We're here, in Tanania. Tanzania, dude! Ahhh. We got in last night, and the first thing that struck me, as we were taking our wonderful smushed bus to the hotel, was the dark, and the quiet. They actually exist here. It's so simple, but so profound, and beautiful. It's simply a whole different perspective here--and African perspective. Example--last night at the airport, in the passport-check line, the woman in the box at the front of our line simply got up and left. So [View Full Entry]

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Sometimes it's the little things that really matter. We went to the kids' old school today and walked with them to the new one. The roads are incredibly mudy and slippery, and of course by the time we arrived at the new school the majority of us were incredibly mud-splattered. My shoes were mudy, of course, but somehow my bag was muddy too, but I was going to clean it off when we got back to the hotel. One of the little schoolgirls I was with, however, saw my muddy shoes and then bent down to try and clean them off [View Full Entry]

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Two years ago, our junior class at North Shore Country Day School read the book Three Cups of Tea, the story of Greg Mortenson—an incredible man who has dedicated his life to the fight for the basic human right of education. It was the type of book that did not allow for an idle reading—after hearing this man’s mission and accomplishments, we were each irresistibly drawn to the thought, “Well…we have to do something now.” We became excited to shoulder the responsibility every human has to make a difference in the world—we just weren’t sure whe [View Full Entry]

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History of the Kilimanjaro Nursery School The Kilimanjaro English Nursery School is the brainchild of Edward Lazaro, a ZARA Kilimanjaro guide, who in the Moshi area is generally known as “Teacher”. In 1994 “Teacher” started using his leisure time to give free education to children aged three to eight, preparing them for secondary school. The school also provides education to older children whose families can not afford to send their children to the government primary schools. Even though the public school system is generally free, Tanzanian public schools expect cer [View Full Entry]

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