Jambo!

Jambo! Karibu! Hello and welcome to Tanzania!

Well, I've been here a week, and I'm sorry there has been no blog until now! I'm afraid there have been a few technical problems mainly due to living in a small village, with no easy computer access at the Home Base, and then having very little time to go out in search of the village internet cafe! And when I did manage to track it down (using my best newly learned Kiswahili - 'Samahani, internet wapi?', which worked) it took me 15 minutes to get into my e-mails, the machine then crashed, and I had to start all over again! This time, I'm bravely attempting the blog, but I can't see me spending much time on it, not if it's going to be this tricky - I'm only here for 3 weeks and I've not come to Africa to get frustrated with computers!! And I don't seem to be able to load any photos, sorry! I really wanted to be able to show you what it's like here, without having to type too much, but I'll see what I can do ... and I'll try to add some photos later! [a few photos now added from Oxford]

It's now Friday afternoon, and this is my first real chunk of free time so far. It's been a bit of a mad whirl so far, and I reckon it'll be like this for the whole 3 weeks! And I thought the pace of life was supposed to be more laid-back here! It seems to be for the locals, but for CCS volunteers it's all go! I arrived last Saturday morning, after a really good flight to Nairobi - sat by 2 very interesting men (before you ask, Andrea, no they were not single!), who had both lived in Tanzania and knew the country really well - one runs a safari company (based in Burford!) and the other now lives in Nairobi and runs the World Vision aid programme for the whole of Sudan, and had previously worked in Rwanda - made my 3 weeks in Tanzania seem like a very tiny drop in the ocean! Then from Nairobi I took a 40-minute flight in a tiny plane to Kilimanjaro airport, with lovely clear views of both Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Meru along the way!

Kilimanjaro


Meru

We were picked up at the airport by CCS and about 40 minutes' drive later we reached the Home Base - it's in a compound on the edge of a village called Patandi in the district of Tengeru, off the main road between Moshi and Arusha, just beneath Mount Meru.

CCS Arusha Home Base

Path just outside the Home Base

Patandi is a small place, and apart from the main road running through it, comprises some dirt tracks, a collection of small shops and buildings, a very small internet cafe, and a huge amount of banana and coffee trees all around, and with small dwellings in amongst the trees around the village. There are a few bars, and handily there is one next door to CCS! There is also a massive women's community market here every Wednesday and Saturday and apparently people from as far as Nairobi and Dar es Salaam come here - it's very famous for its produce as it's one of the most fertile areas in the country - especially good for fruit and vegetables. It also has the largest collection of second-hand shoes that I have ever seen, and judging by the mud that you have to walk through here, I can see why people get through a lot of shoes! People aren't too keen on us taking photos here, but I'll try to get some before I go. I've already been to the market twice and it's a bit overwhelming, but I'm gradually getting used to the buzz!

Khanga display at the market

Market with Mount Meru behind

Market in full swing

I'm doing fine here - there's an awful lot to take in and adjust to, and as I suspected, it's a bit tougher being in a rural environment. The Home Base is nice, but I must admit I'm finding communal life a bit more of a challenge in this rural setting - it was nice in Peru to have the city to hand! And living in a small compound with about 40 people is a bit claustrophic! And I have to sleep under a mosquito net in a bunk bed and share a small room with 3 others, so that's all a bit claustrophobic too. Everyone is very nice and there's a friendly atmosphere though! I feel a bit old, as the majority of the volunteers are American students - and I'm the only British one in my group, so my accent is a great amusement! At least the bucket showers are with hot water, which is making the 6 am starts (get woken up by goats outside my window) just a little bit more civilised!! I leave for work at 7.30 trying to look professional in the obligatory long skirt - just try to imagine that!

My new 'home'

The first few days were initiation time and we started work on Tuesday. The school I started at - Vision English Training Centre - is great. It's very friendly and well organised, but there's been a bit of an issue as to whether we're really needed there as they now have teachers for each class and not many students in the nursery and primary section - about 15 in all 3 classes!! 3 of us were placed there but 2 were sent elsewhere on Wednesday, leaving me! I worked there until Thursday, getting into the swing of teaching mathematics and English to 7-year-olds, and the school wanted me to stay, also to teach French to the adults! But I felt that I really should be somewhere where there is more need and CCS agreed ...

Vision English Trainig Center

Vision primary and nursery children on my last day

So today I moved to my new placement, Moivaro Nursery School, and it's been great! I'm certainly needed more here! This is a school in a village called Moivaro, just down the road from Patandi. The village is in a very poor area, with a lot of HIV/Aids victims - Tengeru is one of the highest affected HIV/Aids areas in Tanzania. The school is for 3-6 year-olds, run by 1 young woman called Joyce who is quite shy and doesn't speak much English, but is keen to practise; it's sort of funded (in a minimal way, like supplying a room) by the church next door. There are 40 children on the books, and 28 turned up today - that was quite enough!! Joyce teaches them all together in 1 wooden room (the old church), she has 4 benches for the children to sit on, a large blackboard and 40 small ones that a volunteer donated, some chalk, a set of alphabet flashcards that she's made, and that's about it as far as I can tell! There's also a mother who comes along to make the children porridge in the morning break, and she also taught them RE in Kiswahili beforehand today.

CCS doesn't think Joyce has had a volunteer who's a trained teacher before, and I'm not sure if Joyce has had any training herself, so I'm hoping I'll be able to do some useful work with her and the children over the next few weeks! That's if I can get the children to stop hanging on to me - I must have had about 10 hanging off my arms most of this morning - they haven't had a volunteer for a while, and I reckon some of them have never held hands with a white person before - they are fascinated by the colour of my arms and also keep trying to touch my hair - and given my height, the 6-year-olds are quite good at it!

Moivaro 'classroom' - just a room, some benches and blackboard

Porridge ('uji') time

So the next couple of weeks are going to be quite a challenge I think, but I'm looking forward to it! I certainly feel like there's more I can do in the nursery school than in the private one, even though the first school was great.

And now it's the weekend, almost - I'm going to stay here and explore Arusha with a few other volunteers tomorrow, and hope to go for a walk on Sunday, if the weather is good (still rainy season here, so a bit unpredictable). Quite a lot of the volunteers have gone off on safari, so it'll be a bit calmer for a few days ...