Mambo all my lovelies!! Habari za Australia??? Ninapenda sana Tanzania na wiki hii ilikuwa nzuri lakini ngumu pia. This week has been good but hard too. We have been plodding on with training, practicing lots of teaching methods, getting to know the Tanzanians and eating tonnes of chocolate. Last Wednesday we had teaching practice and we returned to the school we have taught at before but this time we were in pairs with a Tanzanian partner which made it all the more interesting. I had a great time and worked really well with my partner, Tuse, and we got some good [View Full Entry]

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It rains everyday without fail now, it'll start off sunny and hot in the morning but by the afternoon a huge storm has rolled in and there is rain and lots of lightening and thunder. It definitely hasn't made me love storms any less. Yesterday afternoon we had a cooking session with all the Tanzanian volunteers and in groups we had to cook Ugali, rice, beans and vegetables on charcoal stoves out under the trees and it was a lot of fun. I definitely learnt a lot but I still feel sorry for whatever Tanzanian I get partnered with. After we [View Full Entry]

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I'm off to village in 3 weeks and im sooo nervous!!!! I've just realised what a big task this is. We've had a week of training and we've experienced the kind of misconceptions that exist in tanzania about sexual health/contraception/HIV AIDS and even just with the Tanzanian volunteers. This is going to be a challenge!! The Tanzanian volunteers (there are 15 of them - 11 girls and 4 boys) are all champs and we all get on really well. Some of them are a bit conservative so it is going to be interesting when we get to placement and will be [View Full Entry]

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It's Saturday the 3rd of March and my week long zanzibarian beach holiday is over. I've had a fantastic week, however not without the odd hiccup and strange experience. I think I idealised Zanzibar a lot and although it is beautiful and Stone Town is enchanting there are other things that are kind of annoying. Zanzibar is a big tourist destination on Tanzania and it was strange to arrive and see Wazungu everywhere!! Living in Iringa for 2 months has made us very territorial and we enjoyed being the token wazungus so we all felt a bit challenged with so many [View Full Entry]

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Today was the last day of swahili lessons and tonight is our last night living with our families. I am feeling such a mix of emotions, I'm so excited for zanzibar and to move onto placement training and to meet all the Tanzanian volunteers but at the same time I am really sad to be leaving my family and to have finished this section of the program (swahili lessons). I can not get over how quickly it has gone. February is almost over and 2 months of the 8 months will be done!! We didn't really do much swahili learning today [View Full Entry]

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Ok, where to start. It's been an action packed couple of days! We've been preparing all week for our second lesson which we taught today and it was about Gender Equality, emphasising that girls can do everything boys can do! It was a really fun lesson and even though one of our group members (Sam) was sick (diseases come in waves) Elysia and I handled the lesson pretty well on our own and even ventured from our prepared swahili. The kids were really great and got into all the activities and also asked us some cool questions and some hard ones [View Full Entry]

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So I've come to realise that im totally obsessed and in love with the African sky! Night, morning, day, dusk..it's always so beautiful. I especially love when it's about to storm and the entire sky looks like it is being swallowed into darkness. the huge black cloud moves so quickly (as Nathan pointed out it reminds you of Independence Day when the giant mothership or whatever is taking over the sky) and then the rain comes on so suddenly and so hard. The entire family runs outside trying to get all the washing in but the downpour is tremendous and you [View Full Entry]

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All this week we have been preparing to teach a lesson on HIV and AIDS in a secondary school for today. It has been really great because we have been able to learn all the swahili terms and vocab relating to AIDS and HIV and it has been wonderful practice for what we will be doing in our villages. So we got there at about 12noon and were in groups of 3, we had our lessons all planned and had everything translated in swahili. I was with an American called Elysia and a pom called Sam and we had a class [View Full Entry]

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hey this is my photo blog! enjoy :):) [View Full Entry]

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Yesterday was awesome! We had a break from the classroom and spent a day being practical and handy men and women at the SPW Youth Centre in town. We started off the day with a performance from the SPW Talents who are this fantastic singing/dancing/acting group of out of school youth and it was amazing!!! They really are extremely talented, and oh how i wish i could shake my booty like the Tanzanian women can!! After this we split up into small groups and me and some others marked out and painted the lines for a netball court, well.....i painted them [View Full Entry]

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