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
Monday, 27 February 2017
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
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)