So here we are the end. Don't know how we are here, in one way it feels like yesterday that I arrived in Dar Es Salaam. Yet at the same time I feel like I have been here forever and gained so much.
There's not much to write about this week. It has been an emotional week with all our goodbyes and our debrief.
On Saturday we did an awards ceremony with me being awarded 'Dad of the Group' and 'Quintessential Brit of the Group'. Pretty happy with those to be honest.
The rest of the week followed suit with our Debrief. Really quite an emotional time as we not only analysed the programme but also savoured our time together as a group.
Following gift exchanging with our host families and a ridiculously early start we started the journey home.
Soon I will leave for the airport. I really can't wait to see my family and Friends and share my Tanzanian stories with them. However I will be back this has quite simply been the best decision of my life.
A big shout out goes to the Street Clan, Rosy Bruce- Gardener and Jack Metcalfe. You have all shared this experience with me from the UK. With Jack even calling in the Six Nations to me. The tunes of Frank Turner and words of Ken Follett have kept me going during many a storm in the night. The biggest shout out easily goes to the other 24 members of Team Wundafull. We have made it to the end.
Now time for the next challenge...
Thank you everyone for reading and joining me on my adventure.
Nakupenda Wewe.
Friday, 7 April 2017
Wednesday, 29 March 2017
A rather wet week
So as predicted the last week has been rather busy. All pretty much in the lead up to our Bonanza on Saturday. Turns out its pretty stressful to organise a bonanza. However it was a roaring success. Yes nothing was arranged till the last minute, yes we started over 2 hours late and yes there was a tropical rain storm during by set up. However despite all this over 400 people arrived and everyone seemed to love it. So all in all I think it was a success and we have had some great feedback.
It decided to rain a lot last week. Appropriate as Wednesday was world water day. I seemed to spend most of last week soaked through to the bone!! As some of you will have seen from my photos I got very involved in world water day. We played a great water really game with the college we are based at. This inevitably ended in a water fight. I took many hours to dry out!!
After the madness of the week it was incredible to have a day off on Sunday. A group of us spoilt our selves with a curry for lunch. A much needed change of cuisine not a lump of Ugali in sight!!!
This week is flying by, today I had my exit interview and this going home malarkey has really hit me now. Quite happily stay here for another few months. However it will be lovely to see everyone and not have to wash via a bucket of cold water!!
However most importantly coming here, embarking on this project and adventure is quite easily one of the best decisions I have ever made. So now on to the next challenge!
It decided to rain a lot last week. Appropriate as Wednesday was world water day. I seemed to spend most of last week soaked through to the bone!! As some of you will have seen from my photos I got very involved in world water day. We played a great water really game with the college we are based at. This inevitably ended in a water fight. I took many hours to dry out!!
After the madness of the week it was incredible to have a day off on Sunday. A group of us spoilt our selves with a curry for lunch. A much needed change of cuisine not a lump of Ugali in sight!!!
This week is flying by, today I had my exit interview and this going home malarkey has really hit me now. Quite happily stay here for another few months. However it will be lovely to see everyone and not have to wash via a bucket of cold water!!
However most importantly coming here, embarking on this project and adventure is quite easily one of the best decisions I have ever made. So now on to the next challenge!
Sunday, 19 March 2017
A rather enjoyable Saturday
As the title suggests the social was success. Everyone seemed to enjoy the social yesterday. For the first time since getting to Tanzania I think for a day we all felt as though we were on holiday. Also thankfully no one died which meant our suspect risk assessment for the day wasn't called into question.
I did however try some Tanzanian Chardonnay. As people know I worked in the drinks industry before my African adventure. My detailed tasting note for this wine was that it tasted like mouldy vinegar with a hint of rat wee. Put it this way I was glad the bottle was shared between four of us!!
The rest of my week has mainly been taken up by teaching and we ran an extra CV workshop for students which was very well attended. I find it quite surprising how little the students know about CV writing and cover letter writing.
Next weekend it is my groups turn to put on Community Action Day. So we are putting on a Bonanza for Self Confidence. Meaning I feel like this upcoming week could be rather busy!!
Also found out this week that we have to write a two page story about how we have each personally developed on our ICS journey here. Fairly cringe worthy I know!! So watch this space... Any tips are welcome.
Only 19 days to go.... AHHHHHHHH
I did however try some Tanzanian Chardonnay. As people know I worked in the drinks industry before my African adventure. My detailed tasting note for this wine was that it tasted like mouldy vinegar with a hint of rat wee. Put it this way I was glad the bottle was shared between four of us!!
The rest of my week has mainly been taken up by teaching and we ran an extra CV workshop for students which was very well attended. I find it quite surprising how little the students know about CV writing and cover letter writing.
Next weekend it is my groups turn to put on Community Action Day. So we are putting on a Bonanza for Self Confidence. Meaning I feel like this upcoming week could be rather busy!!
Also found out this week that we have to write a two page story about how we have each personally developed on our ICS journey here. Fairly cringe worthy I know!! So watch this space... Any tips are welcome.
Only 19 days to go.... AHHHHHHHH
Sunday, 12 March 2017
Mikindani, Lindi and a Career Fair
As the title suggests this week has been incredibly busy. I am in the group which is organising the next social. In the next village (Mikindani) there is a hotel called the Old Boma. It is an old converted German colonial fort. The hotel is very pleasant, has an incredible swimming pool and is certainly set up to accommodate westerners. So we have decided on here as the location for Saturday's social. Obviously a risk assessment is needed... so Sam, Albany, Saraa and I took it on ourselves to go on a investigative field trip on Wednesday afternoon. This was my first trip on a public bus in Tanzania (all the other buses have been private). It really is amazing how many people you can squeeze in, and even when there is no room more people will get on and just sit on top of you. Been gentleman Sam and I let the girls sit in the front with the driver. However, we did manage to bag ourselves what we thought were some fairly good seats... however, we ended up having a little girl fall asleep on our knees and then slip down the gap between our legs. The mother really didn't seem bothered or impressed when I tried to inform her that her daughter was asleep and about to fall... Hey ho that aside we made it to Mikindani. The risk assessment continued we tried out some mocktails at the hotel, negotiated some lunch at a good price for next Saturday and went and splashed out on some Calamari for lunch. All in all a successful trip out.
The following day was Thursday and the turn of Mtwara's career fair. Thankfully this time there wasn't a 4am start only a 6am start. The fair went fairly well however the students in Mtwara didn't quite seem as enthusiastic as in Lindi. Something we need to feed back to VETA to try and discover why.
This weekend was our MPR (Mid Phase Review). For this we travelled to Lindi and stayed in the luxury of a hotel which had, running water, hot water and AC (crazy I know!!). We also got the added luxury of our own rooms! Sam and I had volunteered a while a go to be the chairman and Secretary of the weekend, without realising how much we were meant to do. This quickly became apparent in Lindi when our project officer told us the weekend was now ours and every question was been fired at us. This was despite there been another 8 people on the MPR team. However we managed to convince everyone we knew what we were doing. The sessions went well, we looked at our own personal development and progress of the project. Both topics bought out some great ideas and interesting thoughts. Including one person who described me as charming and down to earth. Maybe I should move to Tanzania I'd that's people's perception me!? After the sessions we had some great food and 2 nights of great party's followed. Much Gin was consumed and much singing and dancing happened.
We spent this morning nursing our hangovers on a beautiful beach. Our Tanzanian volunteers then arrived by Bjaji still singing and dancing as they had been the night before.
The pArty really
The following day was Thursday and the turn of Mtwara's career fair. Thankfully this time there wasn't a 4am start only a 6am start. The fair went fairly well however the students in Mtwara didn't quite seem as enthusiastic as in Lindi. Something we need to feed back to VETA to try and discover why.
This weekend was our MPR (Mid Phase Review). For this we travelled to Lindi and stayed in the luxury of a hotel which had, running water, hot water and AC (crazy I know!!). We also got the added luxury of our own rooms! Sam and I had volunteered a while a go to be the chairman and Secretary of the weekend, without realising how much we were meant to do. This quickly became apparent in Lindi when our project officer told us the weekend was now ours and every question was been fired at us. This was despite there been another 8 people on the MPR team. However we managed to convince everyone we knew what we were doing. The sessions went well, we looked at our own personal development and progress of the project. Both topics bought out some great ideas and interesting thoughts. Including one person who described me as charming and down to earth. Maybe I should move to Tanzania I'd that's people's perception me!? After the sessions we had some great food and 2 nights of great party's followed. Much Gin was consumed and much singing and dancing happened.
We spent this morning nursing our hangovers on a beautiful beach. Our Tanzanian volunteers then arrived by Bjaji still singing and dancing as they had been the night before.
The pArty really
Sunday, 5 March 2017
Halfway House
Wow, how are we at the halfway point already. Terrifies me to think that a month today will be our very last day in Mtwara. The last six weeks have been challenging but so rewarding. It's strange to think that in a months time our team will probably never all be together again. Anyways rather than dreading the future let's live for the present....
My hair cut from Monday evening got a whole range of reactions, the being from Lydia who just didn't recognise me. Many people are now saying I look like a US Marine so are calling me Sergant Street, not sure if that is better than been described as an arms dealer?!? As I previously said the haircut was probably the most terrifying moment of my trip so far. It somehow took an hour, involved three different people trying to cut my hair, many locals filming it and an argument over the price. I now genuinely look like a goat in my opinion.
Tuesday and Wednesday were packed full of teaching with us covering the topics of Good and Bad work habits and also personal development and understanding your characteristics. With the language barrier teaching can be challenging as it's safe to say my Swahili is not quite fluent yet. However, with Musa and Evaline's help Jess and I manage to battle through. However Musa did have to bollock a class on Wednesday as they really weren't paying attention.
On Thursday we headed to Lindi for a career fair. Lindi was a good 3 hours bus ride away so it was a 4am start, because what journey here wouldn't involve many hours waiting around. Many people took the opportunity to sleep on the bus, not sure how as I was more concerned in checking we weren't about to crash. Anyways we survived, the Career fair was a success and it was great to catch up with the Lindi Volunteers. At the Career fair Jess, Irene and myself ran a Graduate Masterclass for the students to ask former graduates questions about careers. This went very well and was very popular. However as ever many areas for improvement for this weeks career fair in Mtwara.
On Saturday we held a Community Action Day at a local school. The topic was Early Pregnancy. Amazingly this day was attended by 140 people. Such a great way to spread a vital message. Following this we celebrated Asedi's birthday at a bar called Mantaray, had lunch at our new favourite restaurant Ginger and Garlic ( I had rice and beans for the equivalent of 70p) and then spent the afternoon chilling on the beach planning many UK reunions when we are back.
Basically right now life is pretty damn sweet!!
My hair cut from Monday evening got a whole range of reactions, the being from Lydia who just didn't recognise me. Many people are now saying I look like a US Marine so are calling me Sergant Street, not sure if that is better than been described as an arms dealer?!? As I previously said the haircut was probably the most terrifying moment of my trip so far. It somehow took an hour, involved three different people trying to cut my hair, many locals filming it and an argument over the price. I now genuinely look like a goat in my opinion.
Tuesday and Wednesday were packed full of teaching with us covering the topics of Good and Bad work habits and also personal development and understanding your characteristics. With the language barrier teaching can be challenging as it's safe to say my Swahili is not quite fluent yet. However, with Musa and Evaline's help Jess and I manage to battle through. However Musa did have to bollock a class on Wednesday as they really weren't paying attention.
On Thursday we headed to Lindi for a career fair. Lindi was a good 3 hours bus ride away so it was a 4am start, because what journey here wouldn't involve many hours waiting around. Many people took the opportunity to sleep on the bus, not sure how as I was more concerned in checking we weren't about to crash. Anyways we survived, the Career fair was a success and it was great to catch up with the Lindi Volunteers. At the Career fair Jess, Irene and myself ran a Graduate Masterclass for the students to ask former graduates questions about careers. This went very well and was very popular. However as ever many areas for improvement for this weeks career fair in Mtwara.
On Saturday we held a Community Action Day at a local school. The topic was Early Pregnancy. Amazingly this day was attended by 140 people. Such a great way to spread a vital message. Following this we celebrated Asedi's birthday at a bar called Mantaray, had lunch at our new favourite restaurant Ginger and Garlic ( I had rice and beans for the equivalent of 70p) and then spent the afternoon chilling on the beach planning many UK reunions when we are back.
Basically right now life is pretty damn sweet!!
Monday, 27 February 2017
A beach clean, a boarding school and a hair cut
As the title suggests this last week has been fairly busy. Last week we started planning our mid phase review, which is a weekend away in Lindi. Working in teams in any setting provides challenges. Let alone when you are working with people you socialise with, live with and do everything with. Then just to top it off we come from different working cultures and have our own agendas. However despite these differences and the challenges of the last week I really feel like the Mid Phase Review is looking great and will be a success. The weekend revolves around group and personal reflection on the development of the project and on our own personal development.
Unfortunately not much teaching happened last week, this was due to the school elections which managed to somehow take 2 full days. Our involvement in the election for some reason was counting students and then supervising the counting of votes. However Sam and I did realise that one of the vote counters was in fact also a candidate. All very bizarre.
On Saturday we all participated in a beach clean which was great fun. However immensely hot. The level of rubbish on the beaches here is insane. In Tanzania in the beaches there is an average of 7 discarded plastic bottles every metre!!! Anyways the beach clean certainly gave me food for thought for my action at home. How well would a clean on the banks of the severn go down?? Post the beach clean we had a very chilled day at Southern Cross followed by a lovely long walk down the beach.
Sunday certainly goes down as the day of the week however. A trip to the tailors in the morning was an experience. The tailor really couldn't grasp that Maria and I weren't married. However I do now own a great new shirt. In the afternoon a few of us sceptically went with Sam and Santos to visit a boarding school and entertain the children. It turned out the kids were lovely and loved us making fools of our selves. They were also very keen to show us their songs as well. All must have gone down well as we have been invited back next week.
Today I risked a hair cut and I am still alive and have even had some compliments.
Thanks as ever gl
Unfortunately not much teaching happened last week, this was due to the school elections which managed to somehow take 2 full days. Our involvement in the election for some reason was counting students and then supervising the counting of votes. However Sam and I did realise that one of the vote counters was in fact also a candidate. All very bizarre.
On Saturday we all participated in a beach clean which was great fun. However immensely hot. The level of rubbish on the beaches here is insane. In Tanzania in the beaches there is an average of 7 discarded plastic bottles every metre!!! Anyways the beach clean certainly gave me food for thought for my action at home. How well would a clean on the banks of the severn go down?? Post the beach clean we had a very chilled day at Southern Cross followed by a lovely long walk down the beach.
Sunday certainly goes down as the day of the week however. A trip to the tailors in the morning was an experience. The tailor really couldn't grasp that Maria and I weren't married. However I do now own a great new shirt. In the afternoon a few of us sceptically went with Sam and Santos to visit a boarding school and entertain the children. It turned out the kids were lovely and loved us making fools of our selves. They were also very keen to show us their songs as well. All must have gone down well as we have been invited back next week.
Today I risked a hair cut and I am still alive and have even had some compliments.
Thanks as ever gl
Monday, 20 February 2017
Today I almost killed someone
Today I almost killed someone. Well... I maybe been I little bit dramatic here. During Fabian, Helluthu and Evelyn's ACD (Active citizen day) it started raining and became windy. So I thought I would be useful and thread the curtains through the horizontal glass windows slats to stop the curtains blowing. As I did this I managed to knock the window pane out of the window and it bounced off a ledge and smashed to the ground two stories below. I have a feeling it did come quite close to hitting someone...whoops.
Anyways back to last week- we started attending the school assemblies for the first time. They start them off by singing a very beautiful Swahili song. However this is followed by much talking in Swahili. However it is nice to see the whole college together.
My group taught three sessions this week and realised how hard teaching is when you have an unresponsive class who don't speak English!! Aside from this the rest of the working week was filled with getting lots of our baseline surveys completed and then working out the best data analysis methods for these surveys.
On Friday night I played Scrabble with Sam, Maria and Stella. Despite Maria and Stella not having English as their first language they still manages to resoundingly beat me. On the plus side I have discovered a new favourite beer out here.
This week is already starting to look packed, and will be rounded off with a beach clean on Saturday. Now to attempt not to get eaten alive by bugs as I was last night.
Anyways back to last week- we started attending the school assemblies for the first time. They start them off by singing a very beautiful Swahili song. However this is followed by much talking in Swahili. However it is nice to see the whole college together.
My group taught three sessions this week and realised how hard teaching is when you have an unresponsive class who don't speak English!! Aside from this the rest of the working week was filled with getting lots of our baseline surveys completed and then working out the best data analysis methods for these surveys.
On Friday night I played Scrabble with Sam, Maria and Stella. Despite Maria and Stella not having English as their first language they still manages to resoundingly beat me. On the plus side I have discovered a new favourite beer out here.
This week is already starting to look packed, and will be rounded off with a beach clean on Saturday. Now to attempt not to get eaten alive by bugs as I was last night.
Sunday, 12 February 2017
2 Coloured Mzungu
Two weeks in and still alive. Though as Jess reminded me alive in a very different sort of way. Those of you who have seen my new profile picture on Facebook will understand the title of this entry. I may have caught the sun a little bit...
Wow what a week. If I wrote everything here that I want to we would be here till.Christmas. So view this as a preview or highlights programme with the full edition to be done live on my return!
This week has been immensely frustrating in some ways and rewarding in others. Frustrating because we haven't had any teaching sessions this week due to the school needing time to prepare. Nothing happens quickly here so this really shouldn't be a surprise. However, positively we got out to see some small businesses this week to understand how we/ the government could support them. My group went to see a furniture maker and a welding workshop. Unfortunately we had to leave the furniture maker rather quickly after completing our survey as he told us he was fed up of doing surveys with VSO and never receiving support. He in fact told us if we returned with another survey he would.Chase us off his land. We fed this back to higher powers so hopefully he will get considered for some support.
On Friday Musa, Saraa and myself hosted an ACD (Active Citizens Day). The topic was.Global Gender Equality. I felt the presentation went very well, everyone got involved and everyone left having learnt something new. Including the facilitators. My host Mama came along which was lovely. She even bought treats for everyone.
On to the weekend, yesterday was our first social. We went to a new beach and played beach games and chilled out. I took the opportunity to top up my burn and truly look like a brit abroad. After this we split up and a few of us fancied going.to.try a coffee house out. So we got hold of a few Bdajis. I was in the first Bdaj with Albany, Lydia and Saraa. Of course we ended up in the wrong place. However the wrong place turned out.to be a gorgeous hotel on the edge of the Indian Ocean. A rather pleasant way to watch the sunset. All in all the best day so far.
Today Maria and I are cooking Chilli con Carne for our host family. Hopefully they will like it. We decided this was good dish as worst comes to worst they will like the rice. Pudding will be mother Street's home made Flapjack- anyone who has ever worked or lived with me will know how amazing they are.
Right until next time...
Wow what a week. If I wrote everything here that I want to we would be here till.Christmas. So view this as a preview or highlights programme with the full edition to be done live on my return!
This week has been immensely frustrating in some ways and rewarding in others. Frustrating because we haven't had any teaching sessions this week due to the school needing time to prepare. Nothing happens quickly here so this really shouldn't be a surprise. However, positively we got out to see some small businesses this week to understand how we/ the government could support them. My group went to see a furniture maker and a welding workshop. Unfortunately we had to leave the furniture maker rather quickly after completing our survey as he told us he was fed up of doing surveys with VSO and never receiving support. He in fact told us if we returned with another survey he would.Chase us off his land. We fed this back to higher powers so hopefully he will get considered for some support.
On Friday Musa, Saraa and myself hosted an ACD (Active Citizens Day). The topic was.Global Gender Equality. I felt the presentation went very well, everyone got involved and everyone left having learnt something new. Including the facilitators. My host Mama came along which was lovely. She even bought treats for everyone.
On to the weekend, yesterday was our first social. We went to a new beach and played beach games and chilled out. I took the opportunity to top up my burn and truly look like a brit abroad. After this we split up and a few of us fancied going.to.try a coffee house out. So we got hold of a few Bdajis. I was in the first Bdaj with Albany, Lydia and Saraa. Of course we ended up in the wrong place. However the wrong place turned out.to be a gorgeous hotel on the edge of the Indian Ocean. A rather pleasant way to watch the sunset. All in all the best day so far.
Today Maria and I are cooking Chilli con Carne for our host family. Hopefully they will like it. We decided this was good dish as worst comes to worst they will like the rice. Pudding will be mother Street's home made Flapjack- anyone who has ever worked or lived with me will know how amazing they are.
Right until next time...
Thursday, 2 February 2017
When the going gets tough we just keep going
So day 10 and I am still alive. I take this as a positive. I have some god awful cough but my host families Swahili medicine seems to be working even if it does make me a little tipsy!!
Things are good though, the first three weeks were always going to be difficult, cross cultural living is always going to be hard. I would like to think I am coping quite well. However, Swahili time can really push me. To get anything done here seems to take a very long time. For example before I got into a Bdaj (run-up) the other day we had to have a 20 min convo with the driver about all manner of things. I am sure soon I will adapt to this!
There have been some very scary moments though! The first one that springs to mind is on the topic of rain. As a british person I thought rain could never shock me. Oh how wrong I was. On Tuesday night we had a storm. As the lightening lit up my windowless room ( through the massive cracks in the door) and the wind was making my mosquito net look like a sailing boat sail. I lay in bed rigid absolutely terrified! I halfway through the storm I realised my house had a metal roof...
Some of the most amazing times here come when I stop and appreciate where I am. Like earlier when I had pensive moment whilst drinking a beer on Tenerife of the Indian Ocean. It is so hard to believe I am here!! Also some of the discussions Nicholaus ( my TZ counterpart) and I have where we trade ideas and stories about our culture, language and society.
Tomorrow we do our first teaching session at VETA on communication. I think this could be a difficult day for all of us because this is where we find out what is possible and also how big is that language barrier. As currently my Swahili is vertically challenged... (i.e. shit).
Most of the time I am absolutely loving this experience. However, inevitably there are some very challenging moments and I am sure there are more to come. I have an amazing network of people with me in Mtwara and in the UK making me laugh my way through. So thank you.and keep it coming. Nakupenda
Things are good though, the first three weeks were always going to be difficult, cross cultural living is always going to be hard. I would like to think I am coping quite well. However, Swahili time can really push me. To get anything done here seems to take a very long time. For example before I got into a Bdaj (run-up) the other day we had to have a 20 min convo with the driver about all manner of things. I am sure soon I will adapt to this!
There have been some very scary moments though! The first one that springs to mind is on the topic of rain. As a british person I thought rain could never shock me. Oh how wrong I was. On Tuesday night we had a storm. As the lightening lit up my windowless room ( through the massive cracks in the door) and the wind was making my mosquito net look like a sailing boat sail. I lay in bed rigid absolutely terrified! I halfway through the storm I realised my house had a metal roof...
Some of the most amazing times here come when I stop and appreciate where I am. Like earlier when I had pensive moment whilst drinking a beer on Tenerife of the Indian Ocean. It is so hard to believe I am here!! Also some of the discussions Nicholaus ( my TZ counterpart) and I have where we trade ideas and stories about our culture, language and society.
Tomorrow we do our first teaching session at VETA on communication. I think this could be a difficult day for all of us because this is where we find out what is possible and also how big is that language barrier. As currently my Swahili is vertically challenged... (i.e. shit).
Most of the time I am absolutely loving this experience. However, inevitably there are some very challenging moments and I am sure there are more to come. I have an amazing network of people with me in Mtwara and in the UK making me laugh my way through. So thank you.and keep it coming. Nakupenda
Saturday, 28 January 2017
Mambo
So here we are, I have made it, I am in Africa Baby!
I started writing this entry on the 10hrs bus journey to Mtwara but quickly decided I needed to keep my eyes on the road as.it was quite frankly the most terrifying journey of my life. So week 1-
After an immensely long flight and interesting landing we arrived in Dar Es Salaam. We got taken to the bus which was going to be taking us to our hotel, now I would describe this bus as a 15seater minibus- 25 people and suitcases later we headed off into what can only be described as organised chaos.
We did make it to the hotel in one piece to be greeted by our smiling, cheering Tanzanian counterparts. Wow what a welcome after we had settled in we got an incredible traditional welcome. This involved an awful lot of singing and dancing- something we are having to become accustomed too.
The week has involved many sessions on a variety of topics to prepare us for our time in our communities. The main thing I learnt is that my Swahili is seriously sketchy- they seem to have about 7 different words for everything. One thing which has really stuck out this week is that everything really does work on African time-i.e. very late and remaxed. Eventually I am sure I will adapt to this.
The week went very smoothly and was rounded off by a talk by the British Ambassador and a very pleasant meal out. However on the way back from the restaurant our Tanzanian friends turned our bus into a party bus, I have never seen such crazy dancing before!!! They were all stone cold sober as well...
Today we travelled 10hrs down to Mtwara, as mentioned above this was a terrifying journey but also a beautiful one, I have never seen such sights, this really is God's Garden.
I am now sat in my host home in Mtwara with my counterpart Nicholaus and ready to throw myself into this culture fully. I am fully prepared for this to put me a good mile outside of my comfort zone but you only live once. So here goes...
I started writing this entry on the 10hrs bus journey to Mtwara but quickly decided I needed to keep my eyes on the road as.it was quite frankly the most terrifying journey of my life. So week 1-
After an immensely long flight and interesting landing we arrived in Dar Es Salaam. We got taken to the bus which was going to be taking us to our hotel, now I would describe this bus as a 15seater minibus- 25 people and suitcases later we headed off into what can only be described as organised chaos.
We did make it to the hotel in one piece to be greeted by our smiling, cheering Tanzanian counterparts. Wow what a welcome after we had settled in we got an incredible traditional welcome. This involved an awful lot of singing and dancing- something we are having to become accustomed too.
The week has involved many sessions on a variety of topics to prepare us for our time in our communities. The main thing I learnt is that my Swahili is seriously sketchy- they seem to have about 7 different words for everything. One thing which has really stuck out this week is that everything really does work on African time-i.e. very late and remaxed. Eventually I am sure I will adapt to this.
The week went very smoothly and was rounded off by a talk by the British Ambassador and a very pleasant meal out. However on the way back from the restaurant our Tanzanian friends turned our bus into a party bus, I have never seen such crazy dancing before!!! They were all stone cold sober as well...
Today we travelled 10hrs down to Mtwara, as mentioned above this was a terrifying journey but also a beautiful one, I have never seen such sights, this really is God's Garden.
I am now sat in my host home in Mtwara with my counterpart Nicholaus and ready to throw myself into this culture fully. I am fully prepared for this to put me a good mile outside of my comfort zone but you only live once. So here goes...
Saturday, 21 January 2017
Here we go
So I thought I would fill you in on a few things before I go. I head in less than 24hrs. I have spent the last week frantically packing. Finding things, losing them and then finding them again. Safe to say right now adrenaline is sky high and excitement doesn't cover what I am feeling. I first applied for this 7 months ago. It has been quite a journey since then. I have been truly humbled by not only people's genouristy but also by the amazing amount of lovely cards, presents and texts I have received over the last 24hrs.
A lot of people have been asking me what am I doing out there. I will be working on a Livlihoods project, more specifically, working with two organisations called VETA and EEVT both of which focuses on vocational training.
Our mission on this project is: To ensure the provision of quality VET (vocational educational training) that meets labour market needs, through effective regulation, co-ordination, financing and promotion, in collaboration with stakeholders.
Our vision on this project is: An excellent VET system that is capable of supporting a national social economic development in a global context.
So all in all very exciting and certainly it looks as though there will be lots of opportunities to develop a lot of skills.
I fly tomorrow night from Heathrow. Next stop after that is Dar Es Salaam for four days and yen Mtwara.
I will update this when I can. Until then if you want know anymore just let me know, but I thought I would leave you with a corker of a photo.
A lot of people have been asking me what am I doing out there. I will be working on a Livlihoods project, more specifically, working with two organisations called VETA and EEVT both of which focuses on vocational training.
Our mission on this project is: To ensure the provision of quality VET (vocational educational training) that meets labour market needs, through effective regulation, co-ordination, financing and promotion, in collaboration with stakeholders.
Our vision on this project is: An excellent VET system that is capable of supporting a national social economic development in a global context.
So all in all very exciting and certainly it looks as though there will be lots of opportunities to develop a lot of skills.
I fly tomorrow night from Heathrow. Next stop after that is Dar Es Salaam for four days and yen Mtwara.
I will update this when I can. Until then if you want know anymore just let me know, but I thought I would leave you with a corker of a photo.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)