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!