Long time, no write

Hi all, hope you didn't pine ni my absence! Last week Singida had no internet, possibly because we watched a truck back into a telephone pole, we're not sure!

So a two week update... My memory sucks so I've brought my diary in to get more details!

So Monday we had our fundis (builders) over for a meal which was really really great. It's a nice way to thank people for their friendship. The fundis are mostly nice, but there's a real thing about asking for gifts. There's only one funi who hasn't asked for anything from us, Salimu, so we bought him and his family some gifts for being such a good friend. He's the friendliest guy you'll ever meet and his wife is so beautiful! Their children have excellent genes! Anyway, so with 7 fundis and Mr Brown (the head fundi and our everything) there were 13 of us, luckily since we only have 13 spoons and Jen made an amazing soup! Afterwards we had a bow and arrow shooting competition which they all loved, we're all still kids really. It was dark out so we cracked out our head torches and they did quite well. However, no one can beat my average that night! I had one go, in the dark, and hit the tree dead centre straight on. I quit right away to maintain my 100% rating!

Tuesday was our last day at school so we made up a quiz with 30 questions and had 30 prizes, and exercise book, pen and ruler for each kid who got a right answer and then lollies for the rest. It went down a treat and then they sang the national anthem for us! It was incredibly moving and I'll probably force you all to watch the video!

Wednesday we went to Helima's, she's one of our chai ladies, and got served pasta!!! It was exciting because it wasn't rice and beans! The excitement for the day was when she was showing us their bee hives and disturbed the bees somehow so they went completely mental and chased us all back to the house. I got stung on the back of my neck when the poor bee got stuck in my hair, but Jane got stung on the cheek and had a really extreme reaction! She swelled up so badly! Looked like she'd gained weight on one side of her face only. Lots of "Pole sana" from the locals for days!

Thursday was very eventful! First Mike and I managed to break Jane's bike on the way to the kioski for sodas, the back wheel bent as we went over a bump so we (by which I mean Mike) had to carry the bike back to camp, luckily not far away. So he went off with Issa (our adopted 15 year old) and Mr Brown to find the repairman, who was at the pub! He said it would be a very expensive fix... 2000 shilingi. Can't do the maths? That NZ$2.50. Very expensive. It's kind of impossible to spend a lot of money here!

Thursday night was cheza cheza, which is impossible to explain really. We get called out of camp by the older women who dance for us and then dance with us, they give us their kangas to wear and the instruments and we have a good old jig! It's amazing, so much more amazing than I can describe here!

Then there's a party at camp, which is cool but also strange. Lots of people come that we don't know and some people we know only get let in because we say they were invited. It's fun, but the dancing can be dangerous, some of the local guys are a bit aggressive. Like visiting a night club but without bouncers :P Still there are some great guys who look out for us! Salimu (mentioned abave as the awesomest fundi ever) and Issa are both protective of us and there is an absolutely beautiful deaf boy here who saved me from one particularly insistent dancer. He's lovely, just so sweet!

Friday we headed to Singida for Jane and Anne Marie's last day in town. We went out for dinner with HAPA and the new volunteers. Anne Marie, who was determined not to be hung over for the bus ride, got rather drunk and decided we were all going dancing at the dodgy club here. We obediently did so, danced crazy for a good part of the night. I was sober (I had rather a big Thursday night and thought my head might not agree with more alcohol) but when everyone else is drunk you still get to dance crazy :) We taxied home around 1, a good decision it turned out. There was a peace corp group there too and one of the girls got mugged. A group of locals caught the thief and beat him up, possibly killed him. So we probably won't be going back there again.

So home to Singida with our new volunteers, Alex from England and Jordi from Holland. Both very nice, fitting in well. They got tested right away when we got a flat tire on our way in to Mvae! Very quickly fixed by our driver David and finally home for a quiet night in.

Sunday was mass and then chicken killing time! I killed me a rooster named Alex (named before we knew the volunteer, it was purely coincidental). Unfortunately for Alex I was a bit hesitant and it took me about 15 second to kill him, Jordi took about 5 with Harvey so it was a drawn out death for my poor victim. Still, they tasted really good fried with chips! And soup the next day... it's nice to have some meat :)

Tuesday was sadly eventful for the village. A child died in the morning, some kind of illness but we don't know what. He was four and they took him to Singida hospital but he didn't recover. Then that night we were sitting playing cards and we heard whistles blowing but thought nothing of it. It turned out to be the form of alarm they use in Mvae. A man killed himself not far from our camp, we don't know why. That was bad enough, but it turned out they had to leave him until the next day for the police to come from Singida so the poor man was left hanging all night. Not a good day for us or the villagers.

The next day was very subdued, most fundis had gone to visit the family of the man who killed himself so we just worked on our own. That night we had the teachers, Aedhan and Justin, the Chairman and the two vice-chairmen, Emmanuel and Rama over for dinner. The chairmen's english isn't good so we had a quiet meal but it was nice to be able to thank them. This week we'll invite the chai ladies for dinner and consider all our debts paid.

Thursday we installed ceilings in the house which was hard work but worth it, hammering above one's head is a complicated business but I'm starting to get the hang of it! That evening we went to a football match between our local primary and the nearby town of Ghata. It was a good game, although we lost 4-2. But it wasn't really fair - all our boys were 12, 13 and about half their team was 15 or older! Very tall boys! Still, our lads kept up well and fought hard! It was a really exciting game to watch, I got very involved.

Friday we painted our ceilings and finished installing the rest of the house. The really interesting thing Friday was visiting the Mosque! Our guard, Mr Jumanne, is Islamic and he said we could attend the Friday service. So Mike, Alex and I went, rather nervously! I have some lovely photos of me in a headscark and kanga - other than skin colour I looked like a proper Mvae Muslim girl! We were worried they wouldn't appreciate our visit or that we'd embarrass ourselves but it all went very well. Mr Jumanne's sister took me into the women's room and nudged me when to stand etc. It was actually quite relaxing and interesting, although I killed my foot sitting on it and almost fell over when it came time to stand!

So that's it. Two weeks news. If you made it to the end in one go then either you're a true friend our you have no life... possibly both. Love you anyway :)

Photos!

I love help desks :) Computer is being slow so only a few. I'm trying to email some too and it hates me so I might just try again next week on the other computer.





So this photo is our July 28 group, minus Sam who was a bit sick. Back row is Tom, Benjamin (our teacher), Rachel, Roisin, Charlene, Lianne. Front is Rachel, Lydia, Mama Zo (our other teacher), me and Jennifer. The others went to the new site while Jen and I are in Mvae. We're at the dinner the day before we went to our villages. We all got a bit dressed up since we new it was really our last chance! I vaguely remember those days when I had clean fingernails and no permanent orange sheen. Every day I get back from work with my wash off tan!

Ah the locals take great pictures! This is in a nearby village which has a Sunday market. The Tanzanian man is just a random who wanted a photo, lots of them do! But I like the picture anyway. That's Jane, Anne Marie, Mike and me. The building behind is the kioski. All the buildings are just mud bricks with mud cement but they do seem to stay up quite well!

This is our building, we're about to plaster the top there, but it needs wetting to stick so that is me up on that OSH happy scaffolding! Basically they are tree trunks stuck into a triangle of wood wedged into the ground against the wall and then with planks on top to stand on. Exactly where I'm standing the support is about ten centimetres lower than the others so it was a bit bouncy! Plastering is fun but the fundis (the proffesional builders) did the top because they're a lot faster! That's Paulo, he's 22 and my first marriage proposal. I didn't get too excited since he proposed to Jen first and me when she said no!




Mike shooting his arrow. Cooking tent in the middle with Jane watching him shoot. You can see behind the tree is the cooking area, where Anne Marie will be sitting in about twenty minutes! If you looking closely you can actually see the arrow in mid-air! Very clever photography.

Night time entertainment. I lose most of the time, but I beat Jen in this case. My most embarrassing loss? The fifteen year old boy, Issa, who hangs out at the site. He wants to be a fundi and he's really good! He spends a fair bit of time at our camp, he's learning english and he gets on well with Mike, who I think is grateful for the male company! Anyway, Issa looks twelve and is tiny, and he beat me in less than a minute. Still... I beat Jen so I'm not the weakest in camp :)









Right, that's all for now folks. It's taken me an hour and a half to manage this so enjoy! See you the same time next week.

Vumbi, tembea, udungu na watoto

So I survived another seven days, who said Africa was dangerous? Today I'm going to try to figure out how to put some pictures up. I've gotten one huge step closer in that my pictures are now on the computer (well, 22 out of about 300) but I'm still a while away from actually showing anyone anything!

This week has been good, Sunday we went to mass. The longest mass I've ever been to! Three hours, they baptised 20 kids and collected tithes in the form of harvest from all the farmers. Interesting but also exhausting, and their pews are even worse than standard ones! After that we visited the head teacherIda's house for lunch. It's nice because he speaks excellent English and we can ask lots of questions about Tanzania and so on.

Tuesdays we visit the school in the afternoons and teach English, this week the kids prepared questions for us to answer. I went expecting things like "What animals are in your country?" and instead got "How many countries are in Europe?" and "What country used land reclamation to get more land?" I crashed and burn on question two... Apparently it's the Netherlands, which makes sense I guess with the whole underwater thing. I said something about countries claiming land from Germany after World War Two. My small way of improving the kids' world knowledge. We also taught them Heads Shoulder Knees and Toes, which was so much fun! We told them to memorise it and sing it to us next week.

Wednesday we visited a woman named Joyce. Every day at work we break at about 10am for tea and chapattis, Joyce is one of the chai ladies. She has a bunch of kids and they have a bunch of kids but I don't know how because there didn't seem to be any men about the place! Lovely lunch of rice and beans. That's what we get served every time we go somewhere, which is fine because we never make it in camp! I can barely cook rice on a proper stove, imagine trying with a charcoal fire.

Excitement of the week was the near killing of Anne Marie. She was cooking dinner aroung the corner of the tent while Mike, Jane and I practised with his bow and arrows. Mike and Jane are pretty good. I have good aim but bad techinique, so if I get it off the string then it goes towards what I'm aiming at but not very fast and not very far. Anyway, Mike managed to bounce his arrow off the tree, which was funny for five seconds until he took off running and we realised that it had ricocheted at high speed towards Anne Marie. It actually did hit her but it was spinning not going straight so it was just the shaft. She said she wasn't worried about something hitting her until she looking down and saw the arrow!

I've had some questions so here are some answers for you all:

Volunteers in my camp: Anne Marie is 28, from Ireland and is a nurse. She's on the ten week programme but started 7 weeks before me so she's only got one week left. Jane is... 27? 20-something , from Australia. She's on the same programme as Anne Marie. Mike is 22, from Ireland. HE's doing ten weeks but started three weeks before me so we finish at the same time. Jen is 33, from England. She's doing the seven weeks with me so we're all safariing together at the end.

Food: We eat so well. Almost all the volunteers reckon they've put on weight because we eat so many potatoes! It's all bread, potatoes and pasta with fresh veges, canned meat and sauces.

Camp: We have a big ex-army tent which is our sleeping area and a rigged up tent for our dining room. The dining tent is open at both ends but it's still sheltered from the sun and wind. We cook beside that tent on two charcoal stoves. If you imagine an oval then put the entry at one of the long ends and the sleeping tent across the other end to the right hand side. The cooking tent runs through the middle, with trees and an open area in front of that (towards the door) and the cooking area to the left. The toilet is at the back to the right (opposite the tent but downwind) and the "shower" is in front of that. Can't picture it? I'll try to put up photos.

Toilet: A hole in the ground basically. Skip the rest if you've got a weak stomach. It's a really deep and wide hole with a slab of concrete on top and a hole the size of a shoebox to squat over. It's really not as bad as it sounds, we bleach it every day so it's clean, but no bleach down the hole because there's a wee eco-system going on down there. It's pretty interesting. There are these giant grubs and we can't figure out if they're going to turn into something or if they've finished as weird grub things. If you read Animorphs then these look like the things that crawled in ears.

Shower: It's just a sheltered space where you can wash yourself with a bucket of usually cold water.

Security: We have a guard all the time at camp, mostly just to keep people from visiting too often. We're a novelty so he makes sure that camp is our space where we can relax without heaps of people. He chases away all the kids who want bottles. "Tupa! Tupa!" They want to carry water in them. We do give away our bottles, but they have to come with their parents.

I think that's it :) If there are more questions let me know for next week!

Week One in camp

I can't really remember what I last wrote, I think it was Friday so I'll just go from there. Of the ten volunteers who started with me on the 28th, eight went to start a new camp while myself and Jennifer (from the UK) headed to Mvae, a camp which had been going since May and is almost set to pack up. We join the remaining three volunteers there, so it's a small camp with only five of us. Nice though, everyone gets there own space and we still have lots of fun, and always plenty to eat! It's a big change for the other three since ten volunteers left the Saturday we arrived, they're revelling in the space but I think it's also a bit quiet and the volleyball matches are much smaller!

The houses we're building are almost done. Mvae village has 500 families, and most would have 8-10 children, but the nearest medical centre is 14km away and most can't afford it. The last volunteers built a dispensary so we're making a house for the doctors who get assigned here. It's a really fantastic set up, my respect for HAPA (the organisation working here) has grown astronomically. Each family puts forward tsh5000 (about $NZ6, it's reasonably high for the average family in Mvae, but certainly reachable for almost all) and then they get unlimited care from the dispensary. All the work HAPA does is exactly how a charitable organisation should work. They examine the village, it's strengths and weaknesses and possibilities and carefully consider which things should be priorities (water sources) and which things can wait a while. Very well run, really impressive.

The work we're doing is mostly plastering at the moment but because cement is expensive while sand and water are cheap the method of plastering is to throw the mixture at the wall really hard until it sticks and then smooth the whole thing over and put a lime/cement whitewash over the top. Very messy but fun. Today was my dirtiest day yet actually. They'd already dug and mostly bricked up the sewage pit for the houses but we have to fill in around the side of the bricks and in the wind more dirty was on me than in the hole! My skin was a phenomenal shade of orange and my hair looks like I recently dyed it, complete with orange scalp. Many villagers stopped by to laugh at me and I learned the Swahili word for dirty. A good day all around.

Camp is great, I really like all the people there and we have lots of fun. I've learned to eat cabbage and drink beer, staples of the Tanzanian diet. Kilamanjaro is the preferred brand of beer, tea and water.

I don't think there's much to add really, it'll all be the same next week too!

Last day in Singida

Tomorrow I head out to Mvae to finish off a couple of staff houses so it will be at least a week, maybe two, before I can write again. Today we learned to cook and it was about ten times nicer than anything we've been able to buy. All the food in restaurants is greasy and surprisingly lacking veges considering there are so many available!

Swahili is fun. We got sent out with 10 questions to ask at least two locals and had a great time trying to understand people. One guy told us he had ten kids, but apparently thats a really really funny Tanzanian joke. Which is a pity because I actually understood what he said.

There's way less to report today than last time since our days are quite repetitive and so far we've really just had Swahili lessons and practice. That's been good though, I got sent to the market to buy sunflower oil (we each had a thing to buy to cook with today). "Ninaomba mafuta ya kupikia nusu lita alizeti?" It worked too, they understood me and I got it at the real price not the "mzungu" price.

Ha, one funny anecdote. "Mzungu" means white person or European and it gets shouted at us a lot, it's not rude, just a way of getting attention. Yesterday we wanted to order some wine, vinyo, and as we figured out how to ask for white wine one of the Irish girls said "vnyo mzungu?" Which in no way means white wine, it really means white person's wine. We laughed ourselves silly for ages and the poor waitress was so confused by these wazungu chizi (crazy white people).

Mvae has three volunteers there already but the houses just need plastering and painting so maybe we will finish in a couple of weeks and move to Mughumbu (I think I spelt that wrong) with the other volunteers. I plan to work really hard so that we can meet up with the others, I'd like to have a couple weeks with them.

By the way, Gmail is really unreliable here, it only works on Firefox and very few computers have that so if you need to make contact try the hotmail account for now.

Baadaye! (Later)