March 20, 2008
Tanzania 2008 Wrap-Up
“It is dry here but with your donation of water both the kids and plants are full of life.”
Damas Urenge - Headmaster of Mwereni 16th March 2008
This year we returned to Mwereni to help install a clean water project. As well as water we managed to make sure that every boarder had a mosquito net and new uniform. Money was raised for the water project through the PTA Winter Benefit (£19,000). Secret Bridesmaids Business – a play put on and performed by staff members, cracker sale, individual donations and bake sales (another £4,000) paid for various other items for the school such as paint, clothing and boxes etc.
March 10, 2008
Up Date
With water flowing, students have started to plant the first crop of Maize. This year, with constant irrigation, there should be several harvests.
February 16, 2008
The Departure
It'll be with great sadness that we depart Tanzania. Hard work, new friends, combined with enormous melancholy for those we had to say goodbye to... have all led to tears. Nothing has had time to sink in - but everyone knows we've shared an quite extraordinary experience and we'll be talking about it forever. Asante.
update 0845 Nairobi:
Good progress so far... Flight delayed by 40 minutes... looking forward to getting back home.
... "Today is the day. Anyone who say's it's tomorrow is a liar" ...
February 15, 2008
The Water
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The moment we'd all been waiting for. Months of planning, hours of fund raising from the entire community... all came together in one moment...Download the Videocast here ...
February 14, 2008
The Lesson
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Sarah and Daisy write:Nothing could prepare us for the teaching experience at Mwereni Primary School. Arriving at the school and immediately heading into the classroom we had to adjust quickly to the size of the classes, there were often more than 50 children per class and two classes to teach per day. Keeping track of all the names was extremely hard. There was an obvious difficulty with the language barrier as English is their second language. Some students were more fluent than others and frequently acted as translators to us.
It was incredibly daunting teaching for the first time but we found the students eager to learn, friendly and responsive. Walking from classroom to classroom kids would walk up to us asking our names or how our day had been. By the time we reached our next class we would arrive with an entourage of kids of all ages wanting to join our class. What was most striking was that when their break arrived they would want to stay in the classroom to learn more, trying not to pick favourites was the hardest of all.
Download the Videocast here...
February 13, 2008
The Street Children
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Download the Videocast here...
February 12, 2008
The Clothes
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Mc Clancy writes: Monday afternoon and the bus suddenly is filled with forty seven excited visually impaired children, going into Moshi, who are about to be fitted with new clothes. For the majority of these children they have never been to a shop to buy anything new let alone be fitted for clothing. Seldom do they get away from school on a bus trip and the excitement is palpable.
When we arrive in the town, one of the teachers tries different tailors to see which will give us the best price and then they are taken into the shop -eight of the children in order to cover all size options.
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February 11, 2008
The Trench
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Sam writes:
The students have all been working extremely hard in the classroom teaching and then in various jobs around the school. They have become a well oiled machine of grit and determination seeing all too clearly how much needs to be done in such a brief amount of time. Yesterday was particularly grueling with most students having a turn in the trench, digging down to one meter and half a meter in width. The task was made even more challenging by the oppressive heat, but the faces of the students observing kept them going as did the encouraging words of Mr Clarke who spent a lot of time leaning on his shovel in true foreman style!
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February 10, 2008
The Game
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full match report by Matthew
February 10th, 2008. Sunday – Match day. But this was no Ford Super Sunday Match, this was Tanzanian Massai football. The night before we had been given instructions to enjoy the match and have a little kick around, with intense focus on not injuring any players from either team. Although these instructions were adhered to for the most part, any ideas of a little kick around went out of the window from the first whistle. All of a sudden we Southbankers found ourselves in the middle of a massai village, on a dirt pitch, in the baking sun playing in a serious match of football.
read the full story:
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February 9, 2008
The Crater
Ida and Veronica write: Looking down on the crater from the Tanzanian hills was like something out of a movie, and yet it seemed so real. They say the crater used to be taller than Mt Kilimanjaro before it was formed by a natural disaster; it is truly a vision. Driving downwards, the clouds were below us and a massive field of green awaited us. We didn't expect the fauna to be so diverse, not knowing what lied ahead of us. The Crater looked so empty from above, but we found there just about any creature imaginable. The spectra ranged from flamingos, ostriches, baboons, monkeys, hippos, hyenas, zebras, wilder beasts, alive and dead elephants, warthogs, both female and male lions, and one very distinguished rhino in the distance. It was crazy to think that in the next generation might not ever have the opportunity to see a rhino, as it is on the road to extinction.
