Adam the angel????!

Hi all

Thought we'd give you all an update on Sarah's School.

As we mentioned in a previous entry there's a teacher called Sarah who runs a school for free every afternoon from her front room. It is her dream to set up a proper Nursery school (for 2 to 9 year olds) but without proper desks, benches and a blackboard she doesn't stand a chance. Sarah and her husband, Malchiory, both work extremely hard holding down two jobs and hardly seeing each other but still they struggle to survive on their incomes - let alone save to start a business.

After working in her school for a few weeks we decided that we would like to help this family to start a proper school. Adam helped Sarah and Malchiory to work out the costings and feasibility of the project one afternoon while I entertained 25 children in the baking sun! Armed with his business proposal Malchiory went to see their landlord. He was planning to rent another room in the derelict building they already lived in which would house Sarah's school. However, before he had a chance to voice his proposal his landlord (who is apparently an evil man who you don't argue with) told him that he was being evicted and had 10 days to get out. They had been living their for 5 years.

We arrived at the school a week last Monday ready to teach the children to find everything locked up and Malchiory sitting outside. He explained what had happened and told us that after alot of searching over the weekend they had eventually found an empty building with a room big enough to house their small school. However, they hadn't been able to find anywhere to live. He took us over to the new building which is much nicer than the one they used to occupy. Only problem is that there are no doors or shutters over the windows.

As the days went by Malchiory was having no luck finding a home that he could afford to pay rent for every month. He was getting quite desperate (understandably!). After the weeks events we wanted to help Malchiory and Sarah more than ever and so spoke to some of the volunteers here who had also been working at the school. We all decided to give some money to try and turn this building into a school. After clubbing all of our available cash together though we were still short. As a final attempt to help them we e-mailed you guys who have been amazing and donated loads of cash which is very, very much appreciated. Last Thursday we realised that we had enough money to not only secure the schoolroom but to also transform the rest of the building into a home for Sarah and her family.

On Friday morning we went to tell Sarah and Melchiory the good news. They were completely overwhelmed and described the situation they had been in as the 'darkest period in their lives'. They said that they felt that God (if you remember from our earlier church entry they are very religious!) had sent us to Tanzania - like angels into the darkness - to help them. It is definately the only time that Adam has ever been referred to as an angel!

We spent the rest of the morning with Malchiory pricing up doors and shutters for the house and deciding how much paint we needed to buy. Then on Friday afternoon 7 volunteers decended on the house to begin work. The walls were filthy and the plastering wasn't the smoothest so before any painting could be started everything needed to be sanded down. Malchiory had asked one of his friends- who also happens to be a Masia watchman - to come and help us. He decided that the sandpaper wasn't doing a good enough job so got out his Masai knife (approx 50cm long!) and started to attack the walls!

Unfortunately there have been a few days without electricity (not unusual for Tanzania) so the shutters and doors are now behind schedule as the wood needed to be machined before anything could be made. We have also had some heavy rain over the past few days which has highlighted the fact that the roof is leaking and 9 of the internal roof boards need replacing as they look as though they are going to collapse! On a more positive note though the schoolroom and one other room has now been undercoated and are ready for a final top coat.

The secondary school that we work at has exams this week so we are going to spend our time decorating Sarah's house and school. Luckily for us quite a few of the other volunteers out here are also going to give up their spare time (after they have spent a day on their own projects) to help.

Thanks again to everyine who has contributed to making this a reality for Sarah and her family. You will never know just how much this means to them. We promise to send pictures soon!

All of the volunteers that are here in Moshi live in two houses and each house has four members of Tanzanian staff; a cook, a cleaner, a gardener and a watchman. When we arrived we noticed that one of the houses was noticably dirtier than the other and our co-ordinator explained to us that this was due to the fact that the cleaner in this house, Scholastica, was very ill with Malaria. For the first three weeks we were here Schola was frequently visiting the doctors and was finally admitted to hospital. It was decided that her 7 year old daughter Eliza would stay living with the other volunteers while her Mum was in hospital as her relatives lived too far away for her to be able to continue going to school.

Tragically however Schola never came out of hospital. On 25th October she died, leaving behind her 7 year old daughter. Although she officially died of Malaria it is widely thought that she was suffering from HIV / AIDS. Apparently there is still such prejudice here associated with HIV that no one ever admits to suffering from the disease. Even to the extent that some people refuse treatment as they will not admit that they have it. Over 1500 people attended her funeral.

Eliza has continued to live in the volunteer house. Her family is having meeting to decide who she should live with and when school finishes in two weeks she will leave the town where she has lived all of her life and her friends and go to live with relatives in a small village.

Last week we popped round to the other volunteer house and found Eliza holding an identity photo (it had been on the wall in the i-to-i house) of her mum. She was just looking at it and crying. It made us realise just how fragile life out here is. Unfortunately Eliza's story is not a rare one.

In an attempt to cheer her up we decided to take Eliza swimming. The cook from our house asked if she could come too so yesterday we all met at the pool and had a great time pushing each other in and trying to teach Eliza to swim. Swimsuits are rare in Tanzania so both Emmy and Eliza came in in just their underwear.

So good to see her smiling and laughing.

Can you cut with scissors?

Hi!

I didn't have time to update the blog with all of the things that had happened last time so here is the next instalment!

After several weeks (8) of hair growth I finally bit the bullet and went and got my hair cut. There are lots of places to get your hair cut here, however there are several complications. 1 They are all little wooden shaks that are on the side of the road. 2 They never have Mzungu men in so they are not sure how to cut straight hair. 3 there is a chance that you will get scabies from the hair cutting equipment. All said my head was getting too hot and it had to be done!

I found a small "salon" that looked clean and went for it. All of the equipment was disinfected prior to the hair cut, so no scabbies (how kind!). The "hairdresser" got the clippers and went to shave a bald line down the middle of my head. I was on my toes and managed to thwart his attempt. I managed to comunicate that I wanted my hair cut with scissors. He routed around in a draw and came back with a rusty pair (they will have to do!). I should have known better!! He walked behind me with them and just took a random hack at my hair twice, that was enough for me to realise that I was about to be scalped! So I played it safe and got him to shave my head all over grade 4. Much safer and cooler for me.

It was a hair raising experience! (BOOM BOOM!)

Sleeping at school and our church experience!

A couple of weekends ago Sarah and Melchiory asked us to go to church with them. As we happened to be in Moshi that weekend we decided that it would fun to go so we arranged to meet at 08.00 at Sarah's home. New volunteers arrived on the Saturday so we had quite a big night out. Our alarm went off and as we had only been in bed for 3 and a half hours church didn't seem quite so appealing but we'd promised to go so we got up and made our way over to Sarah's.

When we arrived the family was waiting for us dressed in their sunday best. Sarah walked with us to church and on the way explained that church didn't actually start till half past 10 but she ran a Sunday school class and she wanted us to see it! Sunday school in Swahili - not really Adam's thing - especially after little sleep and lots of beers!

After what seemed like an eternity Sunday School finished and people started to arrive. We all sat in rows and the singing started as you would expect. We attempted to sing along in swahili - haven't got a clue what we were saying but never mind!

Then the pastor started to speak, obviously in swahili so we didn't understand a word. After a while he paused and the organist stood up and explained in English that the pastor had been welcoming us to the church - we were sitting about half way back so looked around at everyone and said thank you ( or asante sana) and smiled. The organist then said 'now it's your turn - please come to the front'. With that Adam and I had to walk to the front of the church and give a speech about who we were, why were we here and then thank everyone for welcoming us to their church.

With that done we sat back down and the pastor exclaimed 'now it is time to praise the Lord!' With that everyone stood up, put all of their song books down and the organist started to play. The person sitting right at the front of the church turned round and started to improvise - singing words about loving Jesus and praying etc. Everyone else was clapping and whooping and repeating every line that was sung. After a while it was the next persons turn, then the next and the next. Adam and I glanced at each other - we were both clearly thinking the same thing. What on earth were we going to sing when it was our turn! We were both panicking. Before we knew it it was Sarah's turn and I was sitting next to her - it would be my turn next - arghh!! Luckily just as I was about to launch into singing asante sana Jesus (thank you Jesus) over and over the organist stopped playing and everyone sat down. I have never been so relieved!

After several hours the ceremony ended in a maize auction (gambling in the house of the lord!). All in all church lasted for just over 5 hours! Not great considering the night before!

Last weekend a few of us went to the Pare Mountains to do some hiking. The Lonely Planet said that we should arrive at the village in the mountains and ask for Ferdinand - he should be at the local secondary school. We followed the advice dubiously and were surprised when people at the school knew exactly what we meant.

We explained to Ferdinand that we wanted to climb Mount Kinderoko the next day and after arranging to meet us 'hapa' (here) he introduced us to the headteacher. She was very apologetic that there were no beds made up for us but offered to sort some out and then cook us some food. We were slightly confused as were planning to stay in a hostel we had passed but she insited that she would be able to sort things out for us. Some of the pupils of the school then showed us the way to our accomadation which was in a small boarding house within the school! Later that evening the headteacher came to fetch us and took us back to her house to eat dinner which she had prepared when she finshed her school duties!

Had a brilliant weekend hiking during the day and drinking in the teachers on site bar in the evenings.

Fights in the classroom!

Hello again!

Well it's been another week since the last update so it's time to let you know what has been happening in the life of Adam and Ellie.

I have managed to annoy most of teachers at the secondary school El and I teach at this week. We found out last Monday that the children have to pay 145,000 tzs (2500 =1 fine British pound!) for their first year at school and 20,000 every year after. This covers their uniform, teachers wages and lunch etc. However as the school only opened in May all of the students are new and therefore all of them are paying 145k. I was so shocked to learn this as 145k is a huge amount of money in Tanzania and so it was no surprise that over half the school has at some point been sent home for non payment of fees! My shock kind of turned to anger considering the "can't be bothered attitude" of most of the teachers who don't teach their lessons and just get a child in the class to write something on the board.
We decided to confront the teachers that weren't teaching when they were supposed to in an attempt to bully them into their classes. This was partially successful and some of the teachers appreciated what we were saying. The situation detriated further on Wednesday when I had to leave my lesson, run into the other class, fight my way through a chanting crowd to stop two lads beating each others brains in (during a history lesson!). The reason for the fight is not important but it happened because there was yet again no teacher in the classroom. As you can imagine given our recent conversations this incensed both of us and we ended up having a heated discussion with the teacher concerned. This seems to have done the trick as all of the teachers went to their classes today when they we supposed to be there without any hassling from us. Success at last!!!!!

On a positive note about school, the English lessons are going really well and the children are getting better at actually interacting with each other during the lesson. It has been difficult to get them to do anything that isn't just copying off the board as this is all that they are used to. They are enjoying the lessons so much that we are going to run lessons at the school during the Christmas holiday (all of December) and it looks like the majority of the school is going to come.

Masai Madness!

Yesterday a group of us visited a remote Masai village - we had an amazing day!

We arrived near some Masai bomas and began to walk towards a group of Masia men in the distance who were standing under a tree. I wasn't really sure what we were going to see, maybe some dancing or a medicine man? I would never have imagined what actually happened!

We arrived at the group to find two of the Masai men holding down a goat and another sharpening a huge blade - you've guessed it - they were about to slaughter the goat and they'd brought along the naive mzungus to watch! It was horrific / amazing - they killed the goat (with us all standing round gasping with shock!) and then proceeded to skin and carve it. Meanwhile we all stood around taking millions of photos (definitely some for the album!). Once it had been skinned they started to remove the organs - they popped out one of the kidneys and a Masai man ate it - the next one they offered to our friend who had to eat it to be polite! The raw kidney eating was swiftly followed by drinking the warm, congealed blood that had been sitting around in the sun for 20mins! Mmmm tasty!


After this traumatic start to the day things proceeded in a more expected way. We visited a Masai village and saw women and girls dancing and singing. We were shown round their tiny, round mud houses which were so dark you could hardly see. One of the Masai women took a liking to me and decided to hold my hand for most of the trip which was slightly odd.

Just when we thought the day was over we were taken back to the slaughter site of the goat to have 'a bit of a bbq!' Our guide was most disappointed (I was relieved) that the head had already been eaten! There was thankfully just a few organs (we avoided the lungs!) and legs left. We all ate a bit and I've got to admit that it was more normal tasting than we'd expected (considering it had been smoked for a couple of hours over smoldering embers rather than properly cooked).

Our day ended with a visit to the medicine man who can cure almost anything by boiling twigs in water and then drinking the mixture - reliable I'm sure!

All in all a fantastic day!

Hippos and Big Bums!

We can't believe that it has been almost 2 weeks since our last update - time is going so quickly.

Thanks for all my Birthday e-mails and texts - I had a brilliant day. My Birthday was on a National Holiday so we didn't have to work. Instead we went to a traditional African / Masai village which was fantastic - we got to look around their bomas and see how they live / work. In the evening we went out for dinner with all of the other volunteers (about 20 of us). I had an enormous chocolate Birthday cake with a normal candle wedged in the middle! All washed down with a few cold beers (60p each) and some Konyagi (a bit like gin) and tonic (45p!) - a good night was had by all!


Last Saturday Adam organised a canoe safari as a Birthday treat. We went on a short game drive on themorning and saw loads of giraffes from our truck. Then we boarded our two man canoe and set off round the lake. We saw buffalo, flamingos, giraffes and baboons on the lake shore. It was fantastic being so close to them. As we rounded a corner we heard a huge splash - there were hippos IN the lake! It was amazing - we got to canoe pretty close to them.

Our Swahili is coming along quite well. We've both mastered a few useful phrases - I can book a taxi home and ask the price of and order a cold glass of white wine and Adam has learnt how to say lower price, big bum and you must be joking! All essential phrases in everyday Tanzanian life!

School is going well. We finished reading our compulsary set text yesterday - Mabala the Farmer - about as interesting as it sounds! Now that ordeals over we'll be able to start teaching them somehting a bit more useful.

We've also started to help out at a local pre primary school. The school is run by a Tanzanian lady called Sarah. She works in a Nursery school in the morning and when that finishes she collects approx 20 children from some of the poorest neighbourhoods and takes them back to her school. She runs her school from her tiny front room. She lives with her husband and 2 year old son in part of a disused building which used to be a bar. All of the windows are smashed and her front door is made of an old beer advertisement. There is no electricity or running water. The children at her school speak fantastic English for their age - better than some of our secondary pupils. We found out last week that Sarah does not get paid for running this little school - she does it because she knows how important education is.

On a cheerier note - we had a halloween party last Tuesday. Everyone dressed up in a Tanzanian / Halloween theme. The costumes were fantastic (especially considering the lack of resources and time that went into creating them). In the fancy dress competition Adam (who was dressed as an African lady complete with taco kumbwa, big bum!) came joint first with a giant pumpkin!

This afternoon we are going swimming with children from one of our friends projects. The children live in an orphanage where they sleep 4 to a bed and conditions in general are pretty grim (1 toilet). Our friends are bringing them into town on a dalla dalla (a local mini bus that has no restrictions on the number of people it can squeeze on) which should be an experience - especially as they are all going to be extremely excited!

Hope to hear from you soon!