So I've now been in Tanzania for 2 weeks and 5 hours exactly...sorry that I've been a bit out of touch, but here's a bit of a speel of what I've been up to so far!
I got picked up from Kilimanjaro Airport on the 5th - about a 45
minute drive from the hostel in Arusha. It was obviously an overnight
flight, so I slept between Jo'Burg and Dar es Salaam, but my first views
of Tanzania were the sunrise from the aeroplane as we flew from there
to Kili, then Mt Kilimanjaro as we flew past, and then Masai Warriors
wandering across the arid land as we landed.
After catching up on
sleep and settling into the hostel, I had a tour of some of the
different projects that Ujamaa supports along with another older Aussie
lady and an older Californian couple who had also arrived over the
weekend. We started at a small orphanage/nursery school - NOCET (http://www.nocettanzania.com/) - which
had just relocated and the hostel had only just begun to support, then
went to another more established school, and finally to a more
established orphanage. As well as walking, we caught daladalas along the
main roads, which are just small minivans. At one stage I counted 24
people in the one that we were in. As well as the driver there is also a
guy on board that bangs the roof when it needs to stop, and collects
the money from the passengers - anywhere between about 200-500 Tanzanian
shillings (about 15-30cents for a ride!).
I suppose because it is
less established, and didn't already have any volunteers, I decided that
I would go back to NOCET at least to begin with, as well as the other
three. The Californian couple are only here for a couple of weeks, and
decided pretty much straight away that they wanted to set up a vegetable
garden at the back of the place. I definitely agree that the idea has
great potential, but Sandy (the Aussie) and I both had a bit of a
laugh/whinge especially about the wife (Dianne) as she was so
bull-headed about it from the start. It made me cringe a lot to see such
minimal communication she attempted with the staff of the place, and
the assumptions she made all within the first half hour. And the lack of
listening to advice - Sandy tried to tell her about 5 times that
lettuce would probably not be the wisest choice considering it's not
normally part of their diet and has minimal nutritional content compared
to a lot of other possible veggies!
On the Tuesday I decided to
visit another school that a few of the girls are involved in. Susie - a
Scottish girl my age - has been here for the past 8 months, raising
money and organising the building of a new school for them on land that
she was able to buy with the raised money. Again, it was tiny but had
about 5 different classes of varying ages from about 4-9 years old. One
of the other girls from the hostel introduced me to one of the teachers,
and she suddenly decided that she had other things to do for the day
(sit under a tree??!!!) so I could take over. Thankfully another girl
who normally helps to take this class turned up at about the same time,
so I just helped her for the most part, until she left early for lunch.
At that point I had about an hour to fill in before 12pm so continued
with heads, shoulders, knees and toes, then went on to practice the
spelling of their names so I could remember them better! It was a class
of about 7 5 year olds, who each were ridiculously switched on. Call me
immature, but the highlight of my day was when they were to copy a
diagram of the body into their books and an innocent little girl brought
her's up for Sally and I to see and she had added boobies and poo. At
that point I had to leave the room to stifle my laugh! haha.
The
next morning I returned to NOCET with Sandy. There are 6 orphans that
live there - 5 of them who are older than 7 so go elsewhere for school.
During the mornings there are about 9 other children that come for
school. There is one teacher and she has all 9 children - aged between 2
and 7 - in a tiny classroom (about 2x2metres). I went into watch for a
little while, and felt so bad for her as it was obviously mission
impossible trying to teach the older children, while also having 4 2
year olds to look after/attempt to teach numbers etc. Luckily the
'director' of the organisation - Mr Samwel - was there for the day so I
was able to suggest to him and the teacher that Sandy and I use our time
to look after/run playgroup type activities for the littlies while the
teacher actually teach the older children. So that's what I've been
doing while I've been there!
Later on the Wednesday afternoon I
went back to the hostel and was chatting to some of the more 'long-term'
girls who had a trip to Zanzibar planned for the weekend to go to a
music festival - Sauti Za Busara (http://www.busaramusic.org/) - and then to the beach for a couple of
days. So I headed back into town and bought a return flight for 7am the
next morning...love traveller's spontaneity! haha. I had a little bit
of a guilty conscience about it as I'd only just arrived, and had had
such a good first day at NOCET but would be already running away the
next day. But I'd read briefly about the music festival on my flight up
here, and I was super keen to go to Zanzibar at some stage anyway so I
took up the opportunity.
I was also feeling a little bit
nervous, as I'd only just met these girls and they were all pretty
close, but lucky after the first morning or so I felt pretty
comfortable. We were supposed to be at the airport to check in an hour
before our flight, we arrived exactly on time but the check-in desk
didn't open for about half an hour. Then Carley 1 of the 3 others that I
was flying across with, ticked off our names and we boarded without
even pulling out our tickets!
We flew to Stonetown - a really
intriguing Islamic city with tiny narrow winding streets - and were met
by a guy that Claire (one of 2 other Aussie girls) knew and had hooked
us up with an apartment-y place for us. We had 2 double beds and a
double mattress on the floor for the 8 of us to start with, but were
luckily able to get another mattress. It was definitely a bit of dusty
place, with cold showers etc, but suited us perfectly fine and had a
rooftop terrace (with no view except for of a random model Eiffel
Tower!). We just had a relaxing day, the other girls didn't get there
til a bit later. Then we went to an amazing seafood market for dinner,
which was a whole lot of stands full of all types of seafood on skewers
which then get barbequed in front of you. Made me so wish you could have
been there Mum! Three of us then went to the festival (the others were
already too tired after a night out the night before), we only caught
the last couple of acts - one of which was a cool latin-influenced
reggaeish band, and the other was apparently Tanzania's most popular
dance act but was sooooooooo boring! haha.
The weekend continued
in basically the same way - relaxing, lazy days and festival by night.
We went to a couple of really cool place for drinks/dinner beforehand to
watch the beautiful sunset over the Indian Ocean. Got some amazing
pictures! Was a great weekend, but I know I could go back to Stonetown
and have a much more educational time learning about the interesting
slavery history etc.
On the Sunday evening we left to go to the
beach - a village called Nungwi. We ended up moving places the second
night, but either way we were 3 minutes walk max from the beach -
beautiful white sands, and bright blue sea. There were quite a few
bigger European resorts further along but the village itself was quite
small and had a great local feel to it. Again, the days weren't full of
activities - we basically hung out at the same local pub right on the
sand the whole time, and went out for a nice dinner to a fancier
restaurant one evening (more delicious prawns and fish!) I, along with 2
others left on the Tuesday, while the other girls went off snorkelling
etc for the day. Was completely my choice to leave the day earlier - I
regretted it slightly, but at the same time I think 5 days away was
enough considering I'd had less in Arusha by that stage.
So after
arriving back on Tuesday night, I've been back to NOCET each morning,
which is still really enjoyable. I've stayed there for lunch a couple
of days too. I think Sandy and the others feel guilty to do so since
they live so minimally, but I find it's a really good time to bond with
the staff and build up relationships with them to get to know a bit more
about the background of the place... As well as the teacher there's a
matron that lives there who doesn't really speak any English, but her
daughter, granddaughter and neice (all between 16 & 23) have been
there every day helping too and they're all beautiful and kind, and make
me feel very loved! They actually invited me to their church service
yesterday, which I didn't end up going to for being a bit lazy (and
waking up with a stuffy nose), but I'm going to try to go next week for
the experience! They all walk around humming gospel music so I think it
will be quite the experience!
I've also been out a couple of
nights to different nightclubs. Nice for a bit of a Western escape, and
we also went to a little French cafe yesterday for lunch. As much as I
love to immerse myself in all the local stuff (like eating a whole meal
with my fingers), it's a bit of a comfort to have these treats
occassionally!
I've been hoping to upload some photos, I have heaps to share! But I think I must have packed the wrong cord for my camera, so I'll see if I can borrow one off someone else.
Anyway, missing you all! I hope everything is great with you all, I think of home and everything that must be going on so often! But I am having a really great time, and am already thinking it will be really difficult to leave here in a month's time.
