Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
It's been an eventful six weeks and feels like significantly longer in a very good way. We've suggested a restructure to the way in which the charity runs itself, we've secured a permanent job for the girl who was the secretary in the local NGO office and who hadn't been paid any money for three months and we've designed a better process to monitor the businesses after the grants are given. We've taught the kids club too. If all of that has you currently finding yourself just completing a big yawn that's not all we've been up to:
We've been woken up by chickens and hungry cows minutes before 5am calls from the mosque. We've boiled our bathwater in a kettle every morning, had the same thing to eat for breakfast every day and been arrested for over seven hours by the Tanzanian immigration and police.
We've been to a local club in Arusha until 5 in the morning that was only accessible via a small lift and paid bouncers to escort an 18 year old out to a taxi after he threw up on someone. We've come home to find another volunteer had his computer stolen and woken up to find the police have arrested all of the hotel staff. We've been driven up a mountain in the dark on the back of a motorbike by a crazy and drunk, albeit friendly, driver. We've watched the world cup in local Tanzanian drinking dens. We've walked into the middle of nowhere to twelve different women's houses to count how many fish and tomatoes they have left. We've been for lunch at local houses and admired cows kept in huts. We've presented presentations on HIV to over six hundred kids and given a business presentation in the middle of a three hour muslim prayer meeting. We've laughed at Americans who don't believe they are American. We've got to know some of the locals, heard stories of witch doctors and been given tea in all sorts of places. We've been crammed onto buses and completed 2 hour journeys in 5 hours. I've been to London for five days and returned to my mountain home. On top of all of that, we've been hosted by a man that looks and sounds like Yoda from Start Wars and have even tried writing a book…42,000 words down…
Now, we're sitting in what has become our home. It's 9.22pm and that means we're well past our bed time but we're sad to be leaving our little retreat in the mountains. We've written a goodbye message on the blackboard we have here and our lounge is full of piles of our clothes to be packed up for our departure tomorrow. For the last night I'm tapping away at the computer while listening to music and we even treated ourselves to a beer tonight - a rare occurrence in the mountains.
It's been great, it's opened our eyes to the shortcomings and the benefits of how aid operates in Africa and we do actually think we've done something worthwhile as the charity (firmly in the 'shortcomings' definition) has already begun to change the way in which it operates and the types of business it will support. The kids we've been teaching have improved and more importantly seemed to love their after school 'club'.
We have found yet another place to add to the list of places to come to when the world becomes a little too much…so, goodbye Usangi, Mr Ishmaeli & Mama Fatuma, Suma, Abu and Saidi. Cheerio Mama Halima, Mwajabu and Junior. Thanks for your hospitality and the memories.
Next week we're on Safari before leaving the mainland for good to go to our final stop, Zanzibar where we'll be working as Divemasters in a Stone Town dive centre for our last month.
- comments
Sharon and Brendan We also spent 8 weeks in lovely Usangi. Yes, what a great place. We have just heard that Mama Halima did not pay the rent so the local NGO has been evicted from their local office (which we spent 2 days decorating). We miss the kids and the Ishmaelis.