Harry Goes MAD in Tanzania
Thursday, 30 June 2016
Saturday, 25 June 2016
The last working week
Saturday 25th
June
This last week has been our last full
working week in Tanzania
and as per usual it has been pretty crazy. Monday started off with our last visit to Jipe
Moyo, the home for vulnerable children in Musoma, where some of the team did
some dancing, face painting, football and parachute games. I was on football
this time and it always strikes me how strong the kids are, as they always play
in bare feet and are still just as fearless as if they were wearing football
boots. There were some really talented
kids in particular Stefano and Juma who were 14 and 12 respectively who
probably, if they had been born in the UK, would be playing for a
professional team. Even though they don’t have a very good football to practice
with and by football I mean a whole load of plastic bags stuffed into a ball
shape with elastic bands to hold it together, they could still run circles
round us.
One of the main highlights this week was
adding the finishing touches to our pit latrine by moving the all the soil that
was still there from when the hole was dug out which involved a lot of
shovelling. While I was doing this the rest of the team were painting the doors
to label them Wanawake and Wanaume along with the associated signs! In the
afternoon we started our 3rd and final Goat Shed which is also in
Nyankanga for Winnefreda and her family. We expected on arrival that digging
the holes for the support posts was going to be easy. How wrong we were. To dig
the holes requires getting 40cm deep, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but 10cm
down we basically hit a layer of clay which meant digging the holes took a lot
longer than anticipated, I was told so kindly by the rest of my team that it
looked like I had taken a shower due to the amount I had sweated! We did manage
to get the post in eventually even though they were about the size of half a
tree. Thursday and Friday were also taken up with bashing out the rest of the
shed which it has to be said was much easier and more efficient than our first
one which we made 10 weeks ago.
Wednesday was doing repairs in the morning
which was wholesale changing the guttering on Richard’s water tank (Richard is
the assistant pastor at Mikiringo church) which involved some very funny
moments because of the nesting carpenter bees (which are about 4 times bigger
than any bees in the UK) versus Philipo who was armed with just a branch.
Wednesday was also our last Girls and Boys Group which felt really weird as we
have played football with the kids and done a Bible study with them every
single week so it was kind of sad leaving them for the last time. Today is
Mike’s safari-themed birthday, so I have no idea what’s going on: classic!
Tuesday, 21 June 2016
Week 10
Sunday 19th June
I’m sitting writing this blog post from upstairs in the
house and I’m looking out over about 400 metres of swampy ground which then
merges into Lake Victoria , which is so huge
that it basically looks like the sea. I can only see a very small section of
the lake, Mara Bay , which has lots of islands scattered
through it: one of them even looks like a giant crocodile’s head. There are
always fishing boats out on the lake which look so flimsy that they could
capsize with only the tiniest wave. Its strange looking at the same view that
I’ve seen for the last 10 weeks and thinking that this coming week is my last
full week here in Tanzania which has brought up quite a few thoughts about
going home and getting used to life back in the UK again. This has provoked mixed
feelings of wanting to go home but also wanting to stay for longer here.
This last week has felt slightly odd in a way as we are
starting to come to the end of a lot of our building work, with the doors being
completed and moving an absolute pile of soil that was still there from when
the original hole was dug. However we do now have a fully functioning pit
latrine block at Mikirira
School which will
hopefully be a real blessing to that school and the immediate community. This
week also seen the completion of Edwardo’s goat shed, which started with
hammering all the corrugated sheeting in place round the sides and roof of the
shed so that in the rainy season the goat doesn’t get pneumonia. This continued
on Thursday morning where we had to get wood for the dividing section of the
shed so as to separate male and female goats when they are in season. However
in order to get pieces of decent enough wood we had to take apart the old
platform of the old shed and salvage what we could that wasn’t rotten because
Edwardo hadn’t brought anymore branches which is what we usually use for that
job. But after an hour and a half of hammering and sawing we had the right
amount of wood at the right size to screw in place. Friday finished our work on
the shed with attaching the locks on the doors of the shed and painting the
whole shed with green wood preserve to try and halt the advance of the
termites. Although a funny moment of Friday was getting to shed and seeing the
goat in one side and Edwardo’s grandchildren playing in the other. This was
compounded Sam (one of the six monthers) having to get into the part of the
shed where the goat was to paint it and the goat abruptly escaping. This
required a short struggle in which we managed to grab the rope that the goat was tied to and drag it back into the
shed even though it nearly pulled Sam and the rest of us over on multiple
occasions!
One of the other highlights this week was the Sports Day we
did with the kids at the Lepers community. This meant lots of face-paint,
plenty of organised chaos and good times all round. Ella and Juliette were
dressing wounds and helping the adults still suffering with the after effects
of Leprosy whilst the rest of the team and some of the six monthers played classic
sports day games with the kids such as egg and spoon, or in this case pin-pong
ball and spoon, under and over, skipping etc. The afternoon ended as it always
seems to with a big game of football which seems to be what the kids really
want to do!
We finished the working week with starting our second water
tank which was plenty of digging, bending tying wire and concrete mixing: I
won’t lie, it was very sweaty. The mixing of our last few batches of concrete
was definitely my highlight, even though it is really hard work is very
satisfying when its done as the results are definitely tangible.
I’m exited what this next week will bring and I’m
definitely going to make the most of it.
Thursday, 16 June 2016
Week 9... I think
Monday 13th June
This last week has felt
really productive with lots of progress on projects, in particular the pit
latrine, which we finished block laying last Monday and have now moved onto the
final stages of making it a proper toilet. Tuesday was mainly taken up by more
concrete mixing (which has to be said is always the highlight of any working
day!) in order to set the ceramic squat plates, which I’m sure I don’t need to elaborate
further on the importance of said item. Once this was done we headed off to lunch at the hostel, as
always, for rice and beans and came back in the afternoon to put the roof
trusses and then the actual roof sheeting in place which is very satisfying to
see how close we are getting to providing the school with a new toilet block.
We carried on working on the latrine on Wednesday also which was mainly making
sure the doors fit the door frames and attaching hinges which would have been a
bit tricky without Phillipo helping us out and showing us what to do in his ever
patient manner especially when we got it wrong.
Boys and Girls Group up at Nyanbeshi Church went well with plenty of football
but also some Bible focused time on the Parable of the Sower. Often at Boys and
Girls Group we have children coming up to us with medical problems and this
week was a prime example of how poor access to health is out here, as one boy
had what we think was scabies or some other fungal infection on his hand. As is
the case with so many children who have cuts or infections they have wood
preserve put on the affected area in order to keep the flies off which solves
one problem to cause another as the preserve only supposed to be handled with
gloves on let alone placed on raw wounds. It made me realise just how important
it is the work Go MAD has done on the health centre in Kamajoje providing
health care at the local level for people with no access to transport.
Thursday’s progress on the
pit latrine was to hammer all the mozzie mesh in place which is vital for
keeping flies and mosquito’s out of the latrine in order to stop them breeding
and spreading disease. Thursday afternoon was building the platform for our new
Goat Shed for Edwardo which is always good to bash it together. Ella also
arrived Thursday evening who is a second year nursing student and will be with
us until the end of our trip and will also be working quite closely with Hezbon
on all the outreach projects that he organises. I also had a haircut which was
done with a beard trimmer and a pair of scissors by two members of the team
that have never cut anyone’s hair before, so if you don’t recognise me when I
get home then you know why!
Friday was yet more progress
on the goat shed with sheeting and supports done. This weekend was mixed really
with Tommy, one of the 6 month team, going home early which brought home the
reality of how little time we have left here. It was Helena ’s birthday yesterday so the whole team
celebrated by going up Eagle Rock and watching the sun rise. The afternoon was
yet more climbing, but this time up Kamajoje rocks which is where we went in
our first week 2 months ago, and the view was incredible as the first time we
went. This led to a lot of discussions within the team about how much we’ve all
changed since being here. I also finally got a proper application for using the
Masai knife I bought in town on some of the vegetation going up Kamajoje which
was very satisfying.
I am also going to try and
upload at least some pictures with this post, even if the internet doesn’t
agree!
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