Still with concrete on my boots

36 hours later...home

Arrived back in York at 5.30pm. met at the station by my family.

The last working week

Saturday 25^th 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 3^rd 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!

Week 10

Sunday 19^th 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.

Pictures

Location

Week 9... I think

Monday 13^th 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! 

Week 8

Saturday 4^th June

This blog post has yet again come a bit late but I’ll try and catch up with everything that’s happened since the last update. Its crazy how its been 8 weeks since I left the UK, it just doesn’t feel like its been that length of time at all. I’ve found it funny/strange how I haven’t really missed that much from normal life back in the UK like wifi and social media, TV etc not even pasties, which I have to say I probably got too used to eating after about 7 months working in a bakery! Life is definitely a lot more simple out here and there isn’t the constant culture of time pressure that seems to pervade all aspects of life back in UK. This is so refreshing although sometimes African time can get a little frustrating especially when locals say they’ll meet you at 9am and then don’t get there until 4 hours later, that’s not a joke by the way!

Last Thursday was yet again more block laying but now we’re getting pretty good at it and the walls are well on their way to being finished now after several weeks and multiple bags of cement mix. It’s very satisfying being able to see exactly where your effort goes after a days work and knowing that the project is genuinely going to help Mikirira school and the whole community as it’s so important to stop the spread of disease. In the afternoon we went to the Lepers community in Bweri (the name of the area in which we live) where we met the community that Go MAD has worked closely with for several years now and a lot of them actually no longer have the disease but are living with the after effects with is often missing hands or feet and incredibly raw patches of skin that can extend down entire limbs. Despite this though they are such an inspiring community and are always welcoming and friendly, while we were there we also played some frisbee and football with the children who live in the community. The football was good fun but it tends to be anything goes when it come to rules and it was funny how all the kids were calling each other the names of famous footballers, Juma, who had renamed himself Messi was particularly good!

On Friday we went to the blind and albino school in Musoma where they have 40 blind students and 64 albino students who all board there. When we got there we met Susan who is the headteacher there who showed us how they teach the children and account for their disabilities but the school is government funded and often doesn’t receive the funding it needs which means that it is really under-resourced which is sad considering the great work that the school is doing. The incidence of being Albino is much higher in Tanzania than a lot of other African countries and they are often rejected by their families as there is a real social stigma surrounding them and so the school is the only way offering them any chance at an education.

Last Saturday was brilliant with it being Rob’s birthday we had a mocked up fry up in the morning and then a Go MAD sports day in the afternoon which had classics like the egg and spoon race, sack race and relay as well as slightly more unconvential assault courses and five a side football and frisbee. It was crazy but very entertaining with competitions over which team had the best team chant, which my team, The Block Slayers, won.

Sunday was Andrew preaching at Mikiringo Church after it was announced during the last weeks service that someone from Go MAD would do the sermon this week, without first telling anyone before it was announced. The end of services is so different to that in the UK as often there is an auction where some of the locals sell things like passion fruit or soap etc but we always go out and shake everyone’s hand who went to the service.

This last week started with going to the blind and albino school where this time we taught them parachute games and songs, including the now famous malaria song and the Hokey Cokey which the kids really enjoyed and hopefully also got a bit of education on how to prevent malaria. The afternoon was our trip to the Lepers where we took medical supplies this time to dress some of the open wounds that many in that community have. They were so grateful for us for doing this for them as they are a group of people often forgotten by the rest of their society and just someone turning up to help them means they feel like they haven’t been abandoned.  It was Joseph’s last night on Monday which was sad but he had finished his water tank and he was such a great addition to the community in the house and he said that he felt like he fitted in so easily and felt like he had a second home now in Tanzania.

Tuesday was making trusses for our pit latrine, which will support the roof whilst trying to stop the dogs (Haggis and Pudding) from getting on the work bench, which is definitely easier said than done. The afternoon was even block laying which we’re now in the final stages of, Bwana Safiwe (Praise the Lord)! It has to be said that block laying can get a bit tedious and mildly frustrating especially when you have to use blocks that are not consistent even in the loosest sense of the term.

Wednesday was one of Hezbon’s community health days in which the malaria song was done again and there was some real quality teaching by the nurse who works at Kamajoje health centre that Go MAD built, particularly on Malaria. Hezbon had organised mosquito nets to be given away and there was also entertainment in between the health talks which took the form of traditional dancers and us Go MADers doing loads of different games for the kids. I was on Tug of War which was pretty chaotic to put it mildly with 70 kids all grabbing a 20 metre rope and limited Swahili made for a cazy afternoon! It was also Freddie’s birthday, which aren’t really celebrated out here but we made him a surprise cake anyway and sang him happy birthday which he very much appreciated.

The last couple of days have had some structured reflective time on the last 8 weeks worth of project work and what we want to do with our next 4 weeks. We also had time to talk about what it looks like with the reverse culture shock of going home and what has challenged us over the last 8 weeks and what we would have changed as well as our highlights. Hopefully this will help us to be even more focused and productive for the next 4 weeks.

Over half way

Wednesday 25th 

Pit latrine, pit latrine and more pit latrine. As you can probably guess the last 10 days has been a lot of work on the pit latrine. Everything from making and fitting door frames into the concrete foundation to block laying so that it now looks like an actual built structure.

There have been some real highlights this last week, one of them was going to Samson’s for lunch last Monday where we had soup and bread with him and his family. Samson works for Go MAD but had a really serious accident about 4 weeks before we came out where he fell from a trestle and caused serious damage to his spine, which meant that he had to go to Dar es Salam for surgery which Go MAD supported him through. We also did carpentry for making the doors and finishing off the door frames for our pit latrine which was very productive.

Tuesday was a fun day off as we went to Mwanza, Tanzania’s 2^nd biggest city where we went for a swim, had a walk round some of the market stalls there including one where some really nice hand carved wooden gifts were on sale. Wednesday and Thursday was more work on the pit latrine fixing door frames into the foundation and the start of block laying. Block laying is much more technical than it first appears and to get right without the whole structure falling down takes careful use of a spirit level and string line. On Thursday afternoon we went to Jipe Moyo which is a home for vulnerable and abused children in Musoma where we played football, parachute games and painted some faces. We also spent some time praying with the children, all of whom had really hard stories.  Also to celebrate Isobel’s birthday (who is one of Andrew’s friend’s from Lewis) we had another Ceilidh in the evening which was good fun just because everyone was so bad at it!

Friday and Saturday were our mid term safari, which was ridiculously awesome. On the Friday we headed over to the Serengeti Game Reserve which is just before entering the national park itself and stayed overnight at Ikoma Lodge. Upon entering the game reserve

we saw Impala, Zebra, Ostrich and Baboons at which point I got very trigger happy with my camera which set a trend to continue throughout the safari. Once we got to Ikoma we went for a bush walk where we saw Tope and some other antelope, but it was the sunset that was the coolest part of the day. The next morning we were up early to get as much time in the national park as possible and on the way there we had already seen 2 Giraffe. We got to the Serengeti ( which means endless plain in the local masai language) park which is apparently over 14,000 square kilometres. Within 10 minutes of entering the park we came across a herd of well over 1000 Wildebeest as we had arrived right at the peak of the migration in which over 300,000 Wildebeest migrate south, following the rains. We kept driving through and just kept seeing thousands of Wildebeest  and Zebra, but we also got very close to Giraffe, Lions, Hippos, and Elephants. We even got to see a Leopard which was quite far off but we were very lucky to see one at all.

We then went to the Serena hotel for food and a swim which was halfway up a hill so the view was amazing right across the plain and we could see the for miles across the plain.

Sunday was Church at Mikiringo where Joseph translated, Joseph is a really skilled translator from Marsabit  in Kenya and is training with Go MAD to make water tanks so he can take the skills he learns here back to Marsabit where he can replicate tanks to provide clean water. This is so important because Marsabit is basically desert as it is very close to the border with Ethiopia.

Monday and Tuesday this week have been mainly more block laying on the pit latrine, sometimes with varying degrees of success!  We also have started our second goat shed  this week but in order to start we had to take down Edwardo’s old goat shed that was in such disrepair, which involved hitting it with hammers and pick axes which I have to admit was very fun. We then spent the rest of the time digging the wholes for the posts and cutting the wood to size. Its soup for lunch today so had best go and grab some of that as everyone seems to be heading downstairs already.

Week 4/5

Saturday 14^th May

This update is a bit later than normal as finding the time to sit down and write a post is quite difficult as there always seems to be something else happening. The last 12 days have been really great with all the project work and there have been some comedy gold moments as well. Everything from team mates falling in pit latrine holes, playing netball in the heaviest thunderstorm ever where just looking into the wind hurt because it was raining so hard to seeing a 5ft diameter satellite dish strapped to the back of a Piki Piki. Tanzania always manages to throw up things that you’d never expect, like one of the Go MAD’s hire drivers, Hezbon, taking us to see his house buying us all a Fanta and inviting us to lunch next week with him and the rest of his family. The generosity of the people out here is so refreshing, even more so considering that they often have so little.

I’ll start with last week’s planning day where we bought all the materials for the week ahead. For some reason shopping in Musoma always takes ages as there always seems to be some form of complication and last week it was that Kovoyo (who we buy all of Go MAD’s hardware from) not having the parts we needed. Andrew (another one of Go MAD’s in-country leaders) came back from Iraq where he had spent two weeks with YWAM in one of the refugee camps in Kurdistan in northern Iraq, which is about 30km away from Mosul. The whole house wanted to hear what he’d been up to and he came back with some really hard hitting stories about the 2 million IDP’s (Internally Displaced Persons) in northern Iraq who had fled ISIS and the refugee camp he was working in which had over 80,000 people, mainly Kurds but also Christians and Yazidis. He was helping in the one of the health clinic’s there giving out medicines and administering and registering those getting them. Of all the horrific stories that some of the refugees  had one of the things that stood out to me about what he was saying was actually the stories of the people there trying to help the refugees. In particular, one of the missionaries out there with YWAM, who had set up a school for about 160 of the disabled children  who are otherwise hidden from the outside world by their families because in their culture disabled children are perceived to be a curse and the way that she was giving these children hope was so encouraging despite the desperate situation that Andrew was describing.

Over the last 10ish days we have been mainly working on our pit latrine up at the school in Mikirira with carpentry on formwork and door frames as well as concreting the lintils on last Thursday. Friday 6th  I went  with 6th month team to help build a 15,000 litre water tank at Mikirira Church which will  provide clean water to the surrounding community. After we had finished the morning session the vicar came out of his house and gave us all Chai and sweet potato which was such a kind gesture. Last Saturday was once again pretty chilled, but went for a 50 minute run with Rob, Sophie (who are both doctors, Rob came with Go MAD about 7 years ago as a volunteer) and Tommy which was great as it let us explore the area a bit  more and showed even the disparity in wealth even in Tanzania. Last Sunday Rob also did the sermon at Mikirira Church which he did in both Swahili and English.

Monday morning was again more work on the pit latrine block we’re building with formwork for the foundation and cutting the steel supports that will be embedded with the concrete to strengthen it. The afternoon was then concrete mixing 8 batches for the surrounding foundation for the latrine. For a sense of scale, one cement mix bag is 50kg and this is mixed with 6 buckets full of stone and 6 buckets full of sand and then loads of water is added to make the one batch. Although while we were mixing all the concrete at Mikirira school the number of children not in lessons was alarming as a lot of them were stood round watching us work instead of being in lessons because there are so few teachers in comparison to children. Tuesday was once again planning day which was buying guttering and pipe for our water tank so it can finally start collecting water properly.

Wednesday morning involved moving our 10 lintils which each weigh about  96kg each and then putting mortar over the wire mesh that goes between the gaps of the lintils. The afternoon was taken up by fixing the guttering on the house for our water tank although we realised that we hadn’t been given the outlet piece by Kovoyo so we couldn’t finish it that day which was frustrating. Thursday morning was yet more concrete mixing for the 3.5m by 2.2 metre foundation which was really hard work as once the water is added it becomes incredibly heavy and mixing it in the African heat seems to just sap any energy very quickly. Although afterwards once of the locals came round and sold us bananas (Ndesi in Swahili) for 100 shillings each (about 3.3 pence)! The afternoon was then split as some of the team went off to Girls and Boys Group and me, Kate and Sophie headed back to the water tank to fit the outlet piece we hadn’t done the day before. The only problem was that the pipe that links the guttering to the tank itself was left at the house and so we had to wait for Freddie (another one of Go MAD’s drivers/translators) to pick it up after taking one of the girls from girls group to hospital for malaria testing. So we had to wait for quite some time before he got back, I took the opportunity to sit down and attempt to talk Swahili with Philippo which really helped and was very funny because of my ridiculously poor pronunciation. But when Freddie did get back we were able to completely finish it all and now our water tank is fully operational. Yesterday was making doors for our latrine in the morning, which was good for my slowly progressing carpentry skills and fitting the 6month team’s door frames for their latrine which involved using a very powerful drill to get through the concrete.

Today is our day off and so its been a fairly chilled morning which has been mainly taken up by washing my very mucky, concrete covered and sweaty clothes, definitely the number one thing I like doing with my Saturday morning!