A day in the life

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When the rest of the world is probably still asleep us CCS volunteers rise bright and early due to the calming sounds of ROOSTERS crowing in the morning. And by 'calming' I mean the opposite of that. Do roosters even crow? I'm not up on my poultry trivia. I apologize. Along with the roosters we also wake up to the sounds of call to prayer. About 45% of the population here in Moshi is Muslim and there are numerous calls to prayer each day. It's actually really interesting to hear all of these sounds during the day. But maybe the best sounds come at night when you're trying to go to bed. Those would be the sounds of wild dogs barking like and most likely trying to rip those rooster apart. Hakuna Matata my friends. It's the circle of life.

So, I wake up around 6...but lets be honest, I don't crawl out of bed for at least a good 45 minutes. With shower and breakfast out of the way we're in the car on the way to our placement by 7:30am. And lets be honest, that is an achievement in itself. My placement is at Shaurimoyo school for children with disabilities. I'm working with about 18 kids (from ages 10-18) with various conditions and mental/physical abilities. It's challenging, but rewarding at the same time. Many of them don't have the motor skills to even hold a pencil, but it's a pleasure to see them succeed, even if its one small step at a time.
Today I was teaching a boy how to do simply math. 1 + 4. The language barrier is something I'm slowly getting adjusted to, but I can already count to 1000 in Swahili so I figure I'm not doing too bad. I get picked up from my placement and head back to the CCS home base for lunch at 1pm. And a little side note-
the food at the house is unreal. And I mean unreal in the good form. I thought for sure I'd be on the procelaine throne with a little somethin' somethin' by now, but knock on wood because all my pipes seems to be properly aligned.

In the afternoon CCS brings is local volunteers to teach us Swahili. Some afternoons we go on cultural excursions to different villages (like our visit to the Chagga tribe...pics to come), waterfalls, and markets. It's really great to get to know the locals and what life is really like here in Tanzania. Some of our afternoons are free. On those days we usually end up doing laundry. Why would we do laundry all afternoon you ask? Well, we don't have machines like you lucky kids in North America. We are hand washing our clothes in buckets, hanging them on the line to dry, and then ironing them to kill the little bugs that potentially crawl into the fibres of your clothes while they are drying on the line. I'm just going to put it out there...doing laundry is a sport. I don't think I've ever sweat so much. It takes such a long time to get all the clothes clean. Especially with the amount of dirt/dust here. It takes about 5 minutes to make your white shirts turn brown. Thank God for Maytag appliances!

Night time is usually low key. And since we're getting up at the crack of dawn...our light lives don't really exist. I would be willing to bet that most of us are in bed before grandma even finishes her warm milk.

And that's a day in the life of a CCS volunteer in Tanzania.

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Photos

Chagga Hut
This is a traditional Chagga tribe hut. Very large inside. Can fit a family of 5 or 6 along with their two cows. They kepts the cows inside so that rival tribes couldn't take them away from their fields at night.

Comments

[lisa at mylittletravelbug]

family volunteering
Hi, Have you come across any families that are volunteering? I write about travel opportunities for families and think this sounds like a great experience for children as well. Thanks

[Natalie Gareau]

Tim !! I LOVE READING YOUR BLOG ! Keep them stories coming... and your pic's are SO nice ! Stay safe and keep up the good work.