Hello fromTanzania!

Hello from Tanzania!! This is the first time i've had internet since getting here a week ago and already so much has happened.

Saturday 16th April

This last week has been crazy, lots has happened since setting off from Heathrow this time last week. The flight over to Dubai was long about 7hrs in total and I didn’t sleep at all so was very tired by the time we had to fly to Nairobi which was an extra 5hrs and again didn’t sleep at all so I was finding it hard to stay awake especially when having to queue through Nairobi immigration for over an hour. After that once we’d all got our  luggage we then had to get some Kenyan money for our overnight stay in the ACK guesthouse. At that point we met Lucy who had just flown in from South Africa and then went through customs which was really easy as the person on the desk just waved us through which was in great contrast to the other airports we went through in terms of security!

Once through the airport we met Peterson who then drove us to the ACK. African roads are VERY different to ones in UK. No seat belts and somewhat crazy/dangerous driving and a lot of pollution lent itself towards a fun journey. Once we got to ACK, Graham met us and we settled in and had dinner which was chicken and potato so not too far from what I’m used to in  the UK. Early get up on Monday morning as we had to get a bus from Nairobi to the Tanzanian border. Again travelling through Nairobi felt equally precarious as the day before and got to the bus. As we went through Nairobi into the surrounding countryside there were a lot of shanty towns with rubbish everywhere which was hard to see for the fist time. Out of Nairobi travelled through the East African Rift Valley which was super cool. However the bus was very slow and constantly had to slow down for every single speed bump which was basically mud mixed with stones. The Kenyan countryside was really interesting and every village we went past had a market with all sorts of fruit and clothes. We finally got to the Tanzanian border at about 18:30 having set off from Nairobi at 8:30am and spent another hour plus going through Tanzanian immigration. After that another hour and a half and finally got to Musoma. The house is great and both the 6 month team and us 3 month team are already good friends.

Tuesday was really interesting with house orientation and then going round the local villages which was really hard to see. We visited Boki and Moshi whom the other team had built a house for them. We also visited Esther and her brother Samwhelli who’s story was pretty heartbreaking as she had been sexually abused when  she was 12 and was responsible for the rest of her family even though she was only 16 herself as both her parent had died of HIV/AIDS. We then saw the water source that some of the villagers had to use which was a filthy pond which Graham said would contain at least 6 different diseases. This really moved me to see how important water tanks are in providing free clean water and I felt convicted about how much we take water for granted back home. The rest of the week has been pretty varied but we have started building our first goat shed for the Rafiki farming cooperative which has been a steep learning curve but also really fun. The goat sheds are super important to stop goats getting bitten by snakes and ticks and can breeding and selling a goat can provide a family with a years income. This area of Africa is so special and the people are ridiculously friendly and have spent over 2 minutes just shaking hands with some of  the locals in the market in Musoma. Any way off to lunch now with at Rehema for rice, beans, goat and possibly some water melon. I shall try and upload pictures of my team's projects on the next blog posts, if the internet out here can cope!