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Fern in Tanzania
This past week has been the last week of term for Orkeeswa Secondary School, being in the souther hemisphere, schools here are just about to start their summer holidays and so it is now a break until the 4th January. The very last end of term exams finished on Tuesday, though most of the students were already finished by Monday.
As exams had finished but students were still coming in, an activity week was held. As I am the activity and athletics coordinator at the school, I had to come up with a program for the students for the week. This mostly went to plan! I split the students into four teams and they spent the morning carrying out activities that included watching films, art, reading, getting the school garden ready for Christmas, dancing and playing board games. In the afternoons the activities changed everyday. On Monday they competed in basketball, softball, netball and volleyball. Tuesday saw the students going round four stations that included word games, relay and egg and spoon races, constructing models out of newspaper and getting their team through a bicycle tyre without letting go of each others hands. Wednesday, a visitor came to the school to talk about entrepreneurship and Thursday are youngest students had their first football game with the school watching.
For most of the week I was at school making sure that the activities ran as smoothly as possible and trying to come up with solutions to problems before they arose. As it was the last week of term, quite a few students didn't show up, especially at the beginning of the week due to sports weekend last weekend. Some teachers also did not turn up which meant some change around of activities. However somehow we made it to the end of the week and everything worked out alright. I have written on my wall next to my desk at school, ' If plan A doesn't work, just remember the alphabet has another 25 letters', I don't think we had to go beyond plan D!
Wednesday, I and Lisa, who is a staff member at Orkeeswa travelled to the far side of Arusha to attend a meeting of the Northern Tanzanian Athletic Association (NTAA). We had a bit of an adventure getting there! The directions sent to us weren't entirely correct and we found ourselves crossing a river where the bridge had yet to be built and going along an extremely bumpy road. However, after a phone call and a change in direction we eventually made it to the school where the meeting was to be held. I really felt like I had stepped into another world. The school was an international private primary school that was very nice with a swimming pool, fully equipped since labs and very colourful classrooms. The meeting was interesting, there are 8 schools who are part of the NTAA all of them, except two, are international private schools, the remaining ones are us and a school called St Judes which has a similar ethos to Orkeeswa. The topics discussed while being relevant to the international schools often had no relevance to us at all. At Orkeeswa we don't have security to get through our gates (our gates also only exist in the figurative not literal sense), we don't have international shipping orders for sports equipment and we can't justify buying sports banners to hang up in the school. We had to leave the meeting a bit early as it went on a lot longer than planned and the speaker was at the school in the afternoon.
Friday of this week was the final day of school in 2015. To close the school, parents were invited in with their students in the morning. They got to look round a science fair that the Form Two students have been involved in (each student has worked in a group to carry out an experiment and report their findings that were judged by outside judges) and also see the students artwork. Later in the morning, there was an assembly were awards were given out and students performed songs and dances. Unfortunately one of the other volunteers was really unwell and so I missed the assembly part of the day to go with her to Arusha. We headed for the hospital but got an appointment on route to say that we should meet the doctor at a school in Arusha as he had to go to give an award there. We ended up therefore in the medical room of a school! He was able to see the volunteer who is now on quite a lot of medicine but hopefully better soon. It turned out that it was the same doctor that I had spoken to on the phone when I got sick not long after arriving. He spoke to me again as well because I was there. He thinks that I need to go back on medication again and so that is how I shall begin the start of my holidays! He was really helpful though and wouldn't charge us because we are here as volunteers.
I made it back in the afternoon to attend the school party for Form Fours for finishing that stage of secondary school. They got goat, pilau, cooked bananas and watermelon and there were speeches from teachers, parents and students. After the party for the students finished, there was a meeting of all of the Orkeeswa staff including teachers, cooks and guards. We took some photos at the end and then people started to go home. Emilie who is one of my best friends here left for Belgium as she has finished her time here, it was definitely very sad to see her go. Today more of the volunteers left for their Christmas break.
While I don't fly home until tomorrow I have started the holidays in style. Last night in our house, we watched 'Elf' and today I travelled in to Arusha with Angela. We are staying at a guest house over night which has meant I have had my first warm shower since November. I am planning on another two showers before I leave.
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