Blogs from Dar es Salaam, East, Tanzania, Africa - page 10

First time walking by myself to school today. There's a farm I walk by each day and the smell coming from it is so pungent, it leaves me begging for the stench of a midwestern pig farm. I arrive at school for C is for Caterpillar day. I also did C is for counting and we did some math. I read a caterpillar poem, which pretty much fell flat with the kids. They don't seem too excited to listen to stories or poems. I imagine they don't do a lot of extended listening as I haven't seen any teacher read anything to them. Most of their lessons include oral responses from the students which I've tried to incorporate that into my lessons as well. It helps to keep the children focused. At tea and scone time, ... read more

My hotel is in the Bahari Beach are outside of Dar Es Salaam. Today, T, AM and I are going to the city center with SL. Our first stop is the dala-dala at Bahari Pharmacy. A dala-dala is a very inexpensive manner of public transportation and I soon found out why. It's reminiscent of an old, dirty, beat-up, fairly smelly VW bus with four rows of seating--a bench seat for 4 skinny people in the back and 3 rows of 2 seats on one side, 1 seat on the other with a seat in the 2nd to back row that folded down so you could also sit 4 in that row. Behind the driver's seat, there was a bench with no back that sat 4ish and 2 people would sit up front with the driver. In ... read more

R is taking me to Jecaan (G-can) Mission School to be introduced this morning. I go downstairs to a breakfast of fried eggs and bread with peanut butter. Now this is no ordinary peanut butter. It's in a bucket and is thin and watery on the top and very thick on the bottom. Luckily, SK, a fellow American, warns me to stir it first. Actually tastes pretty good ,but really sticks to the roof of your mouth. SH mentions that I can start teaching today. (Guess I better go back to my room and get some resources. lol. Nothing like jumping straight in.) It's quite a ways down Tegeta Road, about 35-40 minutes, then we turn on a side "road"/path (like on of the trails off the main trail at Rock Cut) and down just a ... read more

When I moved to Tanzania 3 years ago, I knew that I wanted to become involved in the local community, and do some service activities in addition to my professional life. In my first year here, I needed to adjust to the new workplace, community, and lifestyle, so adding too many extras on top of that wasn't really feasible. When my second year began, I was determined to stay true to my goal. First I joined the Dar Animal Haven. They rescue stray dogs and cats from the streets and find them foster or permanent homes. We also began a volunteer dog training course on Friday afternoons, where we helped foster families and new owners learn some basic commands and control techniques. This group has afforded me friendships with a very diverse and intelligent group of ... read more

May 14th We all had to wake up early to make it to Stonetown and catch the ferry on time, so we were on the road by 8am. The drive to stone town is a little more than an hour, and it cost only $7 a person for a private taxi van, good deal really. After leaving my cell phone in the taxi, (I was able to get it back, whew!) we went through immigration (a formality really, Zanzibar isn’t separated from government and country of Tanzania) we jumped on the ferry. This time around we were able to get some decent seats and it made the two hour journey seem to go a lot quicker, at least until the waves and the constant up and down motion sickness got half the locals on the ferry ... read more