Mtama Secondary School.

Our secondary school is small but very cute. It is made up of a collection of one story buildings around a little courtyard and the staffroom/ head teacher’s office. It was interesting to see the differences to a Western school – they have no glass at the windows, the rooms are scarcely filled with wooden furniture and each form has a classroom like in primary school where the teachers move around, not the students.

The students were really excited to see us all arrive, in our READ T-shirts, and seemed to be fascinated by us. They were pretty shy, almost embarrassed to speak their English to us.
We were shown our room, an old classroom with large cracks in the walls inside and out. The floor had some horrible large potholes in it, and the ceiling has the occasional hole. It was a lot more work than we anticipated but it was still doable!

We had a meeting with the head mistress, who told us how she saw the renovation and gave us ideas for colours and what not. It was great to see the teachers really keen for the project and excited about the books coming. 

Firefly

3rd August. 

Tonight we had pasta for tea and I saw my first real life firefly! It was actually a lot more exciting than most of you might think. I was walking back to the guesthouse from the cooking hut, and I saw this thing flashing luminous green in the grass. It was flickering like an LED from a TV but when I looked closer it was this tiny little insect! 
When it flew off it left momentary streaks of light like a shooting star.

It was so cool.

Mtama Town.

Mtama town is a small area of shops and a pub/restaurant situated either side of the main road. The shops are very basic, selling toilet paper, soap, vegetables and things like flip flops and tea leaves. There didn’t seem to be any shampoo… that will have to wait until a big town! I had a dinner of ugali, beans, vegetables and chicken which was really nice! Ugali is a big ball of maize in a porridge consistency that you eat with your hands. It kind of tastes like over-boiled rice and isn’t as bad as it is described!

We bought kanga’s at a small shop. These are brightly coloured rectangles of starched/waxed cloth that Tanzanian women wrap around their bodies to make skirts or dresses. Some are just patterned, for example I got a bright yellow, blue and pink starry one, and some have mottos emblazoned on in Swahili. My other simpler blue kanga has something about keeping a clean heart for God on it.

The town is a 10 min walk downhill from the guesthouse, and 20 mins from the school. As with most towns in rural Tanzania there were no paths, instead you walk on the road and get beeped by traffic coming behind you if it needs you to move aside. Not sure I’d like to do this after night fall!

Views from/ of Phaisha Guesthouse

My bedroom is large in comparison to some in the group. I have plentiful floor space and a double bed with box mosquito net. The bathroom is very small. Let me put it plainly - you can hold onto the sink while going for a wee, and when you shower you have to move carefully so as not to fall down the squat toilet. It's easier than it sounds, and I haven't had any problems. In a British kind of way I wish I wasn't showering on top of where I go to the toilet, and I cannot wait for warm water back in the UK! The shower is FREEZING, even if you use it during the day when you are hot. You adjust to the cold eventually, and it actually starts to feel lukewarm. 

My (messy) room!

Lindi

It was a horrible 4am wake up on the 1^st August to catch our 6am bus to Lindi. The bus took 7 hours on mostly asphalt road (although we took some crazy dust-strip detours!) with two stops – one for three minutes where all the men and only three of us women, jumped off to pee behind a tree. The next stop was for 10 mins, and had proper toilets, although very dirty and smelly. Sleeping wasn’t really an option as the seats were very small. One side had two, the other three seats, separated by a small aisle not even big enough for a person to walk down. You end up getting cramp in your legs and back from sitting at a funny angle, but apart from that it was a fairly comfortable trip.

We were met in Lindi by the Headmaster from Mchinga school, the other Lindi group. He told us that the accommodation we had ‘booked’ for our first night was gone, and half of the group spent the best part of an hour looking for rooms for the 13 of us in the two groups.

Steff, Eseelle, Viki, Grace, Emanuela, Hana (from the other group) and myself stayed in a bright blue guesthouse called New Fadilah Guest House, with shared toilets and cold showers accessed through a large courtyard. It was very comfortable but our first taste of a more basic Tanzanian life.

Lindi town itself is very chilled out and peaceful. The shops are little huts where the goods sprawl out onto the street, and the people were very friendly. Instead of the cries of “Mazungu! Buy my <insert item here>” that can be heard in Zanzibar and Dar, we just had curious stares from the locals at our arrival. They have all the usual – post office, lots of banks, dala dala stand, but also a great beach and some nice food places.

We ate a dinner of rice, chicken, with a red tomato sauce and beans. And it was delicious! I had a cup of lemon-flavoured water with a nice tea bag, but declined the milk. Not sure how nice lemon and milk would go together! We had an early night, sharing the double bed with our chums to save money.

We took a bajaj up to the Regional Educational Office to meet the REO for Lindi, and then to the District Educational Office to meet the DEO. Here we also met our lovely Headmistress and arranged to meet her the next morning (Sat) for a meeting.

The dala dala to Mtama Secondary School was not as bad as we were expecting. We had heard about dala dalas being mini buses that seat 16 but that are crammed with 30 people, so we were a little concerned about this long 2 hour journey with all of our bags! But it was okay. We all got seats as we were getting on in the bus station, and they managed to fit our bags into a small space in the back, and tie the back door shut. It only took about an hour and it dropped us right outside the school, where we were met by the school kids who ran towards us and carried our bags.

Our guesthouse is lovely as well. Some of us are sharing rooms, but I have one to myself. They are all ensuite long-drop bathrooms with cold showers, and double beds. It is so clean and the owners, although not speaking a word of English, are super friendly. It’s a nice place to be staying for 3 weeks!

Time for Training!

The notice in Dar es Salaam Safari Inn! Worrying!

YES! I FOUND THEM HERE! :D

We started training on the Mon 29^th July at CEFA Hotel in Mikocheni B (20 mins outside of Dar), not too far from the Passionist Fathers hotel where I was staying. CEFA hotel is really clean and lovely, and hosted a group of learning and physically disabled Tanzanians every morning who craft bags and jewellery out of Kangas, as well as make different cheeses, to earn a living.

It felt really nice to meet up with everyone again, and meet some new faces. The days were long and we were bombarded by lots of important information about health and safety, budgeting, monitoring and evaluation, book referencing and sorting, and basic Swahili. But it was all interesting and in some parts very fun!

We also got to look at some previous library renovations, and what sorts of things are important to include in ours. It was overwhelming to see the amount of work we had to do in just 3 short weeks, and we were all a little unsure of how much we could actually achieve. We each assigned ourselves a role within the library to enable effective use of time and delegation – I am in charge of books and the reference system, so lots of colour co-ordinating from this art student!

I found it hard to find a wealth of food choices in Mikocheni. For the first two nights we had chips and meat or chicken, with a small splash of chopped tomatoes. I am a little sick of roadside chips to be honest; where is the ugali or the rice? On the third evening we stayed to eat dinner at CEFA which was an amazing aubergine parmesan bake, with vegetables and what seemed liked rice. It was incredible, and very large! On the last evening we went in search of a Lebanese restaurant that we had seen from our bajaj (more of that later!) but decided on a pizzeria instead. It was a pretty good Hawaiian considering Tanzania is not famed for its pizzas.

 So… Bajaj’s. Well these are Tanzania’s version of Tuk Tuks; little three wheel motorised cars that are driven like motorbikes. You can squeeeeeze three in the back and one can even share a bum cheek with the driver in the front, although this is not the best idea considering the speed of these things! We took one to the local supermarket, and they drive around the traffic, on the other side of the road, on ‘paths’ in the path of oncoming traffic which they narrowly avoid… It’s definitely an experience! 




Pics of Steff, Eseelle and myself in the back of a bajaj. Milan in the front with the driver!

To Dar!

The boat ride from Zanzibar to Dar es Salaam was the worst boat I have EVER been on. I have never felt so sick on a boat journey! Such a bumpy little catamaran. 
The ticket for 'Kilimanjaro 3' was $35 for economy, and I had the choice to sit inside or outside. I chose inside so I could have a comfier seat. This probably turned out to be a bad idea, and I ended up spending the majority of the hour and a half sat outside at the back of the boat, getting splashed from the sea water and curled up. Nasty. 

Arriving at the ferry terminal in Dar was my first proper taste of hectic Tanzanian life. The taxi drivers barely left you any room to move about, and I'd already picked up a taxi driver inside the terminal. 
Stayed one night in Safari Inn, which was nice. It felt very secure and was in a good area of the city, the Indian quarter as it is known, and the rooms were clean (single bed, ensuite with western toilet for 25,000tzh) I met up with another READ volunteer here and we spent the rest of Saturday and Sunday exploring. We found a great place to have dinner, a vegetarian Indian place with great curry, and we visited Kariakoo market... that was definitely an experience I am not too keen to replicate!

We eventually made our way up to Mikocheni B where we were staying for training; a couple of nice places (popular amongst the Italian community) 3 mins walk from each other. I stayed in a place called Passionist Fathers which was run by monks and had it's own prayer room. 

First nights dinner was not what I'd call great. We walked and found a place that, according to one of our 20 people group, did 'good chicken and chips'. Except they didn't have any chicken, the beef was like leather, the chips were cold when it all finally arrived an hour or so later, and they tried to overcharge us by about $30. Ha. Unfortunately chips are quite a common part of Tanzanian street food, so I guess I'll have to start enjoying the carbs!

Stars.

The stars here are beautiful. Its lovely to be out here and  see them, rather than being on the outskirts of London and not. 
I can see the Southern Cross, or Cruz from the beach on Zanzibar - this makes me happy. It's so good to see it again after so long! Reminds me of Australia. 
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