Hi, This is the second attempt at a blog after the internet failed on me last time so I hope the surprisingly long time it takes for me to type a few paragraphs is not in vein.
Chris, Mel, Andrew and I have been here for just over two weeks now, whilst Kat has been here just over one, so quite a lot has happened. The kids have gone back to school so have restarted afterschool tuition, whilst work on the building has increased in preparation for the children moving in.
The kids are healthy and happy, with their English improving every time we come back. With this in mind, and as a method of further improvement, they have become our Kiswahili tutors, as unfortunately our ability at speaking it has not progressed at the same rate as their English, often to their annoyance and/or amusement. As well as this we have a few different group projects planned that will include standing up and presenting work to a group of people, a slight change from the standard dictation that the kids get in school. The results of said projects may be made available if the children are happy enough with their work, although to be fair they probably won’t care that much as long as we take pictures.
As we do not start teaching until 4.30, we have plenty of time to get work done on the building or on other endeavours. Chris and Mel are both teaching at a pre-school called ‘under-umbrella’ for two days a week, the experiences from which will be put into a blog post soon as such a placement becomes a more common thing for our volunteers to do after Tanya first went there in October.
At site we have set out a rough schedule for the next 2-3 months, with us aiming to move into the building halfway through February. At the moment we are well on track, with painting and land clearance being done by our day labourers (the volunteers) and the ceiling boards being done by the same carpenters we have worked with throughout construction. In the next few days we shall start trying to tile the toilets and bathrooms ourselves, with the fence hopefully going up in the next few weeks, depending on whether negotiations with contractors go considerably better than they did last time. I do not speak much Swahili but I do know enough to realise when we are getting done over for a concrete fence post.
Aside from working at site and with the kids, we have been settling into a new volunteer house in a new part of the village, part of which has involved a competition to see who can find out the most names and general information about people. I’m winning but I do have the advantage of knowing how to ask someone’s name and having been here numerous times before. The house itself is great, despite the water problems that seem to plague us wherever we go. The girls shower is working though and we’re happy to wash out of buckets.
We’ll hopefully be providing regular updates on our progress as we move closer to moving in to the new building, with other posts coming from myself and the volunteers as we try and focus our interests and engage with some of the issues involved with working here, as well as some of the wider positives and negatives surrounding Tanzania and the continent as a whole. By doing so we hope to promote further interest in African culture, society and development, perhaps even discussion, whilst showing that the charity work in Africa is not as simple as Westerners helping those in need.
And on that inspiring note, I’m going to go outside into the 35 degree heat to work on my flip flop tan/dirt line.
Cheers,
James x