Leaving camp

Playing with the kids. They are so cute!


Little kids helping me carry water.


The 'mzungu' (aka white people) trying to carry water on our heads.


Sloshing water all over myself while the ladies laughed and laughed!!!


Saying goodbye to the locals and some fellow volunteers who left early. It was a sad day but we had chocolate cake baked in our brick oven!

After we caught the 'kuku' we tried to tie her up. She kept getting out though!

Villagers dancing and singing for us.

The mzungu dancing!

Villagers that came to dance and see us off.

The lady who held my hand while we dance into the next village.

Well, today was my last day at camp in Mghumbu. I would have happily stayed for 3 more weeks if I didn't want to do so many other things. The past 3 weeks have flown by, and I have enjoyed every minute. I think the last time I wrote I was heading out to view previous HAPA projects. It was a very long day bumping around inside a jeep, but we saw 2 school sites, 2 pumps and a medical dispensary that the ngo I'm working with helped build. It is really amazing that HAPA still exists, because they lost all of their funding in 2000 and had to start again from scratch. And the work that they do is so practical and worthwhile; building pumps in strategic places so women don't have to walk 15km ONE WAY to get water! A few days ago I carried a bucket of water on my head with local women, and it is HARD! They were all laughing at how much water I sloshed on myself and that I had to hold the bucket up there with my hand. I met a lady at the water pump outside our camp and she couldn't figure out how I was going to carry back 2 full buckets of water, as I only have one head (and as big as my head is, it isn't that big!). There has been quite a bit of progress on the school in my short 3 weeks: the tin roof was put on, the outer walls have been plastered, the floors have been levelled in preparation of cementing, and all of the windows and door frames have been built. Actually, this whole past week there wasn't much for us to do except haul sand for mixing plaster, as the majority of the work has been on the woodwork (doors, windows, and desks). It is neat to see how the village is coming together and helping with this project. Rather than us just giving them a school, they are earning it in a sense.

It was sad leaving camp this morning, as I have become quite attached to some of the kids. It's no surprise, as they are waiting at the gate for us as soon as the sun rises, and follow us to school, and just want to hold my hand or carry my water bottle or pet my hair! One girl in particular that I became attached to was Veronica. She is 5 and absolutely gorgeous, but she was so shy when I first arrived she would run and hide! Gradually she began holding my hand and giving me five, and yesterday I taught her how to count to 10 in English! So when I went to the gate to say goodbye today, I was a bit choked up and I just picked her up and hugged her. I would take her home if I could, and several more, they are all so adorable and just enthralled by us.
In the last week our camp has become a zoo! We have always had dogs around, as one of our guards has 2 dogs which attract more stray ones (as does our garbage pit!) But a few days ago somebody found a tiny puppy limping in our camp, and took pity on it, so we basically adopted her and named her Wee One Junior San (long story). Then a day later another puppy showed up and we tried to draw the line, but no matter how many times we took it out of camp, it found its way back. Newly dubbed Orphan Annie is twice the size of Wee One, so we have to make sure the little dog gets its food. On top of the 2 puppies, we have a pet chicken. Some of the girls bought it last week from a local (I think for the equivalent of $4) intending to eat it, but the girls left early and nobody really wanted to kill the chicken. I offered to, but I wanted help cleaning it afterwards and nobody would, so KukuBitch (kuku=chicken in Kiswahili), or Nugget, became a pet. She came into our tent every afternoon and laid an egg behind a bed, and woke us up at absurd times in the morning with her squaking (spelling?). I'm actually very surprised nobody killed her, the number of times it was threatened!

The villagers performed some songs that they wrote to thank us for coming and building a school. It was a lot of fun, as they got us to come dance with them. Then they wanted us to dance for them, so we did the cha-cha slide. It was so much fun! We danced all the way from Mampando to Mghumbu, which took over an hour! I was wearing one ladies kanga (colourful cloth wrap) and she held my hand. Even though we couldn't communicate through words it was a great experience.

Well, tomorrow morning I'm off on the 6 am bus to Arusha, and will set out on a 5 day safari on Monday with 4 other volunteers. Kilimanjaro should be after that, followed by Zanzibar, so I will try to keep you posted!

Camping in the middle of nowhere!

Our tent at camp.


The shower with solar bags. They get really hot, but don't hang high enough for the water to fall on my head so I usually just wash with a bucket of cold water! Refreshing, but hard to wash my hair.


The bathroom. Need I say more??


Our kitchen tent. We cook with small coal burners and have an oven made out of bricks and mud. It gets really hot!


The school as it looked when I arrived.


Two of the cutest kids ever: Selena and Veronica (pronounced Vero-neeka).


At the large outdoor market we went to. School kids gathered around to stare at us! In some places they had never seen a white person!


Kids crowding around us at the school we went to teach at. They just want to look and touch us because we are so different. It's really cute!


Kids watching our every move.


71 kids crammed into a tiny class to learn English from us. They start learning English in elementary school, and knew more English than we knew Swahili!

Village kids in Mghumbu looking at us when our land rover stopped.

Dancing and singing for me.

I would puff up my cheeks and make noise as I poked my fingers into each cheek, so whenever the kids saw me they would puff their cheeks up!

Veronica. Adorable.

Some kids and I in front of the school.

Greetings from Singida! A lot has happened since I last posted, so I will try to summarize it all. Last weekend Saturday, 6 of our original group of 15 (including myself) drove out to our camp, which is 1.5 hours from Singida. It is supposedly in the village of Mghumbu, which is a sub-village of Mampando. In Mampando there are 4 buildings...there's nothing in Mghumbu except our camp and a few random mud huts. It's great! Our camp is surrounded by a 9 foot tall fence made out of grass and branches. There is a little shower stall where we hang our solar shower bags (which get very hot, you actually have to mix cold water in), and a bathroom stall that is a hole in the ground. Once I learned how to not pee on myself, it took me a few days before I could go # 2! Cooking for ourselves has been grand, we've been eating like kings on veggies, rice, potatoes and bread. We have a large tent with 12 beds in it, and we've hung all our belongings in baskets from the tent poles as we have a pet rat. The school is already half finished; the walls are up and the roof is framed, so this past week we have been carrying dirt to level out the floors so they can be cemented. It is very slow-going as we can only fit 2 shovels-full of dirt onto one of the five dishes that we carry it in. We were quite shocked when after 2 hours of working on our first day the foreman told us we were finished for the day! Its too hot to work after lunch, and we were waiting for a lot of materials (namely cement and tin for the roof) so apparently he was trying to stretch out the work for us. We have had quite a few interesting afternoon adventures, including hikes to 2 large rocks that we climbed for amazing views. The sunsets here are amazing, and the stars at night are even better. One afternoon we walked to a big outdoor market, and another afternoon I went to a school where 2 guys from my group taught some English. It was crazy there. When they saw 6 wazungu walk up (white people) somebody hit a gong and the classrooms emptied. Hundreds of kids swarmed around us...it might be something like being famous! It was nuts! Over 70 kids crammed into a tiny classroom to learn some English. I love playing with the kids. There are always a bunch of them at the gate to our camp, so I go over and speak broken Swahili to them. I play with them using their little rag balls, or else the frisbees and soccer balls we brought. They sing a little song about Mampando, so I taught them to say Canada instead! The words are "Mampando safi, Mampando poa" which means Mampando is cool, Mampando is fresh! They are so cute when they say Canada, it sounds like 'ka-NA-duh'. The kids are soooooo cute, I love playing with them. Some really young kids are carrying their baby brother or sister around on their backs. They love petting my hair, especially after I took my cornrows out! I'd better post right away as the internet has been out for the last 20 minutes.

Habari za leo? Nzuri!

The title of this blog means "How are you today? Good!" Since I last wrote I have had the worst bus ride of my life, but also the most interesting. Hot, bumpy, sweaty, and there's nothing like having no personal space! We arrived in Singida Tuesday evening after our 10 hour bus trip turned into 12 hours. The hotel here is nicer than in Dar, although our shower doesn't work and I had to use a bucket. Oh well. The food has been good, but also a bit repetitive, same thing everyday for lunch and supper, and breakfast of bread, jam and a boiled egg. I like learning Kiswahili and then putting it to practical use. Today we went to a market and had to barter on our own, which was interesting! It was a real market with chickens and goats and fruit etc, I haven't seen a single touristy thing anyhere, which is refreshing. Anyways, this internet is sooo slow, but I thought I should try to post to say I'm ok. Hotmail is very slow here and I couldnt' actually send a message today or 3 days ago, so keep checking here or try writing on my wall on Facebook. I'm having a lot of fun, all the other volunteers are great and we get along very well. We go out to our village on Saturday, and I'm looking forward to it!

second time around...

Hello, I just lost the really long posting I had written, so this will have to be quick. I arrived yeasterday morning and was NOT met at the airport, I did find another girl from my group though. It turned out that the driver had picked up the wrong volunteers, leaving us at the airport. But eventually we were picked up and take dot the Salvationj army compound, which is tidy and safe. 2 people to a cabin that has a toilet and shower, and electricity. The shower only has one temperature thought, freezing cold! I'm in Dar right now at a cafe with slow internet. Tonight we are going to see some traditional dancing, and tomorrow we leave at 5 am for a 10+ hour bus ride to Singida where we continue the Kiswahili lessons we started today. Just wanted to let you know I'm safe and sound, and probably won't get to a computer for a while now. Thanks for the e-mail mom!
Meo

Hujambo! Greetings from Tanzania. Well, I've been here just over 24 hours and have already gotten a good taste of how African time works. The word "polepole" (slowly, slowly) refers to more than just climbing Kilimanjaro! The flight from Nairobi to Dar was beautiful, I could see the top of Kili from the plane. Hopefully I will see it again! Upon arrival in Dar I was supposed to ask for my visa exemption certificate that the NGO was to have ready for us, so we wouldn't have to buy one. But the immigration officials acted like they had never heard of it, so another girl from Volunteer Africa and I had to go to the end of the huge line eventually and pay $50 US to enter the country. Then I had a quick scare that my bag had not arrived because the conveyor belt was empty, but it was lying on the floor in a coner. Unfortunately for Nicky, a girls from England, her bags had not turned up, so while she went to ask about them I went outside to find our ride. There was nobody there! We later learned that the guy holding the Volunteer Africa sign for us had accidentally picked up two other volunteers with Global Africa or something like that, leaving us stranded. A taxi driver helped me phone the number that I had and I was promised someone was on their way in 15 minutes, but it was more like an hour. The driver then charged me 1000 shillings (1$US) for making the phne call. Nobody does anything for nothing around here! The Salvation Army compound we are staying at is tidy and there are 2 people to a cabin. There is electricity and a flush toilet and shower, which only has one temperature, freezing cold and barely drips out. I'm thinking about getting my haircut so it is easier to keep clean. Our lunch was supposed to be ready at 1, and we got it around 3:30! I ordered sweet'n'sour chicken and got curried chicken; they just substitute whatever without telling you, but so far the food has been good. We played a bit of frisbee and some kids joined us; soooooooooo cute! I can't wait to get to the village! We leave early tomorrow morning (5 am) for a 10+ hour bus ride to Singida, where we will continue our Kiswahili classes. We had our first class today, and it is easy enough to understand when spoken slowly and when I have notes in front of me, but I've already forotten most of what I've learned! Last night we walked over to a local bar with one of our teachers, and had a beer. The main brands are Serengeti, Kilimanjaro, and Tusca or something. It was fun getting to know all of the other volunteers. There are 14 of us in all, who will be split up into 2 villages next week where we will join the volunteers already there. Right now there are 4 Irish, 4 Canadians (including me), 2 Americans, and 4 English. It is fun trying to discern the Irish accents, as when they speak quickly it sounds like a different language! Right now I am in Dar es Salaam. We got here by a VERY bumpy bus ride, and it was really our first time out of the compound besides the bar last night. It is pretty much how I imagined it: dirty, crowded, and third-world. I don't know how to describe it better. It isn't really hot, just pleasant. This internet connection is way to slow to post pictures, plus I didn't bring my card reader with me today, but I will try at some point to put some up. That's it for now, we are off to see some sort of