Blogs from Arusha, North, Tanzania, Africa - page 54

hey everyone. i just got home from school, it was a good day. our co-teacher, Douglas (he is the son of the family who runs the school) gave us a CD of his bongo flavour music. It's like swahili rap, the boys are really into music and have a small recording studio beside the school. it's nice because they work on the music and we can hear it outside so we dance with the kids. funny! i'm sitting at the little 1 computer internet shop beside our house. looking out the window i can see men working in a coffee field, and a goat that got loose and is eating the flowers outside the window!!! at our school the family owns chickens, ducks, and turkeys. there is a huge turkey they are saving for Krismas, but ... read more

Yesterday we started our volunteer placements. Another girl from Vancouver is also placed at my school. The school is very small, it is one building with 2 rooms, it's made out of cement with a tin roof. the kids sit on benches around the perimeter of the clasroom and there is a chalkboard and a desk at the front for the teacher. it's very basic, but the kids are very sweet and eager. yesterday we worked on writing and today we did math and good behaviour. there are about 25 kids, between the ages of 4-6, they are really cute. they all fight to hold our hands and be next to us. today we also went into the market, which was insane! it's very crazy, tonnes of people, selling everything, lots of vegetable stands, clothes, shoes, ... read more

On the 15-hour train ride (with our own beds!) back to Nairobi (we weren't too keen to get back on that bus) we decided to go and climb Mt Meru, the fourth highest mountain in Africa! Spending as less time as we could in Nairobi, we caught a bus the next day and headed down to Tanzania. Tanzania is really nice (nicer than Kenya), the people are so friendly, their Swahili is alot better and everything is so cheap! Even the daladalas (minibuses) were alot nicer than our matatus. We spent 3 days in a really cute town called Moshi, and by the end of our first day everyone knew who we were, and we were constantly asked "have you climbed mt meru yet?" by total strangers. We spent the first day hiking through some ... read more

Now that the dust has settled and I have well and truly integrated into the African way of life (pole pole - translated as slowly slowly); I have reached the conclusion that it will take a lot of time to make any sort of impact at my volunteer placement. On a daily basis the three volunteers at my placement (the Tumaini Positive Test Centre - www.tupo.co.tz) undertake a mixture of activities such as teaching at the day care and attending sick members at their homes. The past few weeks’ activities have been unstructured and seemingly directionless, so I called a meeting last week between our placement organisers, the three volunteers and an interpreter. I think the TUPO organisers were initially aghast at the thought of plodding through my three page agenda, but we made some ... read more

Just a quick one to let you know that we drew two all in the match yesterday. It may well have helped that we had two national Tanzanian team members playing for us! It was quite an experience. I don't think I will ever get to play in a stadium again. I played in defence so managed to last the duration! I hope you are all keeping well.... read more