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!

Week 3 update

Monday 2^nd May

Time seems to go so fast in Tanzania, this last week has yet again flown past. This week has been varied quite a lot in terms of the different things I’ve been involved in since last Tuesday. Although I thought I’d write a bit about Musoma and other bit’s and bobs that aren’t directly to do with project work. The house that I and the rest of the teams live in is just outside of Musoma in an area called Bweri (its about a 10 minute drive). We often go into town for lunch at the Anglican hostel which usually serves rice and beans with fish or meat (Samaki or Nyama in Swahili), however sometimes we get Ugali which can only best be described as eating  Play-doh made of maize and Boga-Boga which is like a mixture of spinach and cabbage. The hostel is right beside the Anglican Cathedral, which Graham helped design and build and was supported by the Anglican diocese of Wakefield, its funny how you can travel over 4000 miles and still be reminded of somewhere that’s just down the road from you at home. Rehema is also right next to the Cathedral and its an ethical clothing scheme that Go MAD have been really involved with since its inception and is aimed at helping women in exceptionally difficult situations by training them to work in the café or in the workshop and so provides them and their families with income. We often eat there on a Saturday which is usually both team’s day off.

Getting around is always interesting, being  thrown around in the back of a Land Rover on the tracks to the villages requires a certain amount of effort to brace yourself in order to stop yourself falling onto the person sitting opposite. Dala Dala’s are the main way of getting into town when there isn’t a Land Rover to give us a lift. Dala Dala’s are essentially a hollowed out van with seats and exceptionally cramped. On Saturday there were at least 22 people crammed into the one Dala Dala, which was a rather sticky experience especially seen as how the engine was located less than a foot below the seat I was sitting on and was constantly pumping warm air into an already humid vehicle. Most of the locals either use Dala Dala’s, Piki Piki’s (which are essentially motorbike taxis) or bikes, the amount of stuff they can put on all these things never ceases to surprise me, anything from 4 people on one Piki Piki to a 6  foot stack of plastic chairs.

Project work this week has mainly been the start of our pit latrine which will be for a local school, digging the hole and making the form work which is the frame which the concrete will be put into. Its very satisfying doing the carpentry work as the results of the work you put is so tangible and I’m getting better at sawing, drilling and using an impact screwdriver. We also had do a lot of odd jobs that Graham left us with before he went back to the UK such as delivering tap heads for water tanks, cement mix,  taking Babu into hospital to treat his Elephantitus, and adjusting guttering on houses so that they work properly to make sure rainwater definitely goes into the water tanks. Helena and Fi also finally got our goat (and named her Clive) to go in the goat shed and attached the final piece of corrugated iron to complete the Goat Shed while the rest of us did work on the pit latrine on Wednesday. Thursday was more carpentry work for the latrine and whilst the rest of the team planned their teaching for Bunda Girls School, I went off to the 6 month team’s pit latrine who are further on than us to help mix the concrete and cut the steel supports for the lintels which will be the foundation of their latrine. Cutting steel with a hacksaw is ridiculously hard work but Phillipo who is employed by Go MAD as a professional carpenter made it look easy and put us all to shame considering  how much slower we were at doing it than him. Friday was Bunda for the rest of the team and so I spent the day working on the veranda for Boki and Moshi’s house with some of the other 6 month team which is now nearly finished after we mixed an awful lot of concrete with the help of Fabian and Nickols, two of the German missionaries who we play football with on a Sunday. Saturday was vet day which meant that we went round the Rafiki group (which is basically all of the subsistence agriculturalists in this area) where the vet checked all the goats health and gave them medicine to stop worms and other parasites. We also had to record all the goats tag numbers and if they were pregnant or had recently had kids, who they belonged to and if any of the owners had problems with their sheds. All this information is really useful for Go MAD, so we can fix any problems with the sheds and stop interbreeding of goats as well as making sure that the goats are healthy and producing milk. We did this in Mkiringo, Nyanbeshi, and Nyankanga and all of the Rakfiki group were so grateful to see us and were so welcoming which was really encouraging.

I shall try and upload some more pictures of projects and stuff its just last time it took about 40 minutes to upload 4 pictures so they may have to be a very select few!

Pictures of projects

Here's some pictures,if they actually upload!

The first 2 weeks

Tuesday 26th April

Yet again this week has passed pretty rapidly. Life in the house has a tendancy of flying past despite the water and electricity going off fairly intermittently- definitely all part of the experience, especially the rather chilly bucket showers. Several cockroaches have also met a swift end to their brief existences at the hand of one of my flip flops. This past week has been a bit rainy but only for very small amounts of time each day, but when it rains here, it really rains. Normally this takes the form of dramatic thunderstorms with spectacular flashes of lightening, the rain is great because it cools everything down which is nice as it makes a change form the usual 30 odd degrees it usually is here.

Last Sunday after a 2 ish hour church service with lots of readings and almost entirely in Swahili there was a small auction at the end in which a large variety of things were up for sale, everything from fertiliser, sweet potatoes to a live chicken (which had its legs tied together during the service and had been hopping around in a vain attempt to escape).  After that we headed over to the lake where Graham took us to do a bit of rock climbing/ scrambling, its quite liberating how there is no health and safety here. I also got to play football with some of the other missionaries in town who take their football fairly seriously even though it is only 5 a side.

This week’s projects have been really great, with planning day last Monday we made sure that we completed Samwhelli’s bed for him (I’ll try and upload a picture) and his two sisters so they didn’t have to sleep on the floor. I think Graham said that he was going to employ Samwhelli next year to help with the carpentry for projects at Go MAD which is great as that will provide his whole family with a really good income. The smile on his face and how thankful he was for us making him the bed was really humbling as he was so thankful for something that we in the UK take completely for granted. Also our first water tank is now underway after buying the steel mesh and wire to make the frame we then had to mix concrete using just a shovel which was really hard work in the heat as well as digging out he whole for the tank and making sure it was level. After all that was done the frame for the tank was concreted in place and the local fundee’s will finish it as it takes a fair bit of technical skill and knowledge to construct the rest.

On Thursday the whole team attended the Rafiki group meeting, which is the cooperative farming group that organise which members get goat shed’s and water tanks next. Although this seemed fairly chaotic at first with lots of members trying to loudly talk over each other in Swahili it eventually got sorted out and it was really encouraging to see the group take decisions and responsibility for their members. They also have an idea to start a small scale soap factory which will be a great source of income if they can get it off the ground. Friday was good fun as myself and some of the other guys from the 6 month team went off to Boki and Moshi’s house to build them a veranda whilst the rest of the 3 month team went off to Bunda girls school to look into the education opportunities we could do as a team there. At Boki and Moshi’s we had to put 5 trusses in and level out the ground which involved moving 5 HUGE rocks which we did by levering them out or hitting them with sledge hammers which was great fun.

Church on Sunday was again very long especially with the rain storm making so much noise on the roof that we couldn’t even here the preacher at times! There was also a small snake found in the back of the Church which was exiting, although the locals reckoned it wasn’t poisonous, but you never know with snakes. There are 12 types of venomous snake found in Africa and all of them live in the area where we are. Yesterday was Malaria awareness and we went to a big event organised by Hezbon who often works with Go MAD and is really involved with health in the Bweri area. This was such a good day as both teams doing games including parachutes, puzzles but I was on Bucket ball which was quite challenging explaining the rules with my very limited Swahili so it ended up being a lot of demonstrations of how to play and trying to stop them al just wrestling the ball off each other, but by the end it worked really well. Both teams also did a Malaria awareness song to the tune of the Cha Cha Slide which I hope the crowd got something from as it felt a little surreal doing the song in front of at least 1500 people.

I’ll try and attach as many photos as possible but with Tanzanian internet this might be a bit tricky so hopefully I can upload some!

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!