Easter holidays… May 19, 2009

Ok, this is somewhat belated, but due to internet problems, it’s the first chance I’ve had to tell my loyal readers what I did in my Easter holidays (4 weeks ago).

As you may or may not know from facebook, I went on a 3 day safari to Tarangire and Manyara national parks. I went by myself, which was kind of weird, but my driver kept me well-entertained. The safari was great fun, I got to see a lot of beautiful Tanzanian scenery, traditional Massai villages, marvel at the greenness of the national parks and sample some interesting food cooked by my ‘chef’, such as a watery gruel-like substance he called ‘porridge’ and grated-carrot sandwiches –yummy!

I saw plenty of giraffe, monkeys, elephants, zebra, hippos and impala whilst there. Sadly I didn’t see any of the big cats and was especially disappointed to not see any of Manyara’s famous tree-climbing lions (the only place in Tanzania where lions sit in trees – apparently it’s because cats don’t like water and the ground at Manyara is very wet so they have to climb trees to stay dry!)

After my safari, I returned to Arusha, before jetting off to Zanzibar for 5 days! I travelled alone again, but made many new friends whilst in Zanzibar, most of which were young men that seemed to want me to be their wife. I went to Stone Town first, where I kept getting lost on the Arabic-style narrow, twisty streets and stumbled across a fun sunset BBQ on the sea-front (where you can eat ‘Zanzibar pizza’ and banana and chocolate pancakes). I then went over to Bwejuu on the East coast of the island to a beautiful, yet very sea-weedy beach.

Zanzibar really is amazing, with it’s ‘picture-perfect’ beaches, dolphins, red monkeys, mangrove trees and streets that take you round in endless circles. It’s so different to anywhere else I’ve ever been (and probably hotter than anywhere else I’ve ever been too…!) I returned to Arusha to find it had rained in my absence and the parched, brown land I’d left behind had turned lush and green. Africa really is amazing like that, where else do you see a little rain causing such a dramatic transformation?!

To the ends of the earth…? March 16, 2009

After 10 weeks in Tanzania, I finally got the chance to leave Arusha! This came in the invitation/requirement to go on a school trip to Morogoro for a swimming and football competition, with 28 children/young people, aged from 10-16.

We left school at 9.15am on Friday morning and drove for 11 hours in a south-easterly direction until we reached our destination. I really enjoyed the chance to see some of the Tanzanian scenery (lots of mountains and little villages) on the way down. The kids were very rowdy after being cooped up in a bus for so long though – I don’t think the heat (about 35°C in places), the excitement or the sodas helped either!

The journey shouldn’t really have taken that long, but the drivers were given a speed limit by the chief administrator, which was over-ruled, after a while, by Jo (the headmaster’s wife). When we started going a bit faster, one of the buses was pulled over by the police for speeding – how typical! The driver got out of paying the full fine and getting a ticket though, thanks to some sweet talking…

At least our journey wasn’t as long as the school travelling from Mwanza (a town near Lake Victoria in north-west Tanzania), who’s bus broke down twice on the way! Pole (this word means “sorry” and is pronounced like “poorly”, rather than how we’d pronounce “pole” in English. The Tanzanian’s say it a lot, in situations where we just wouldn’t in England, it’s quite sweet really).

We had dinner in a nice restaurant in Morogoro as soon as we arrived (we were kind of hungry by 8.30pm), then went to the school where we were staying. It wasn’t exactly luxurious staying in a classroom, but it was still quite exciting. We were all squashed in on foam mats, with sleeping bags, like a sleepover. I should add here that the boys were sleeping in the hall, and had put up tents –how adventurous of them! Before going to bed, the girls had the choice of teeth-brushing in the boy’s bathroom that was completely flooded, due to rain coming through a leaky roof. Or of teeth-brushing in the girl’s bathroom, that was dry but very dark (as the lights were broken). The boys went elsewhere for teeth-brushing (if indeed at all…)

The competitions took place on Saturday, with football in the morning and the swimming in the afternoon. The children were completely exhausted at the end of the day – especially those that had competed in both activities. Braeburn did well, winning the girls’ football, coming second in some of the boy’s football competitions and coming overall first in the swimming! Whoop, whoop! The school in Morogoro had organised a disco in the evening, where the Braeburn kids sat sleepily, watching the kids from other schools dancing –so it was a strange disco in that sense!

We got up early, early on Sunday to leave Morogoro at 8am – determined to get back to Arusha before dark! We ended up arriving at 5pm (ish). I think fast driving and not needing to take many toilet stops helped – the kids slept for most of the journey, so weren’t drinking as much water or soda as they had done on the way down.

All in all, it was a fun trip. Although it was a very long way to go, just for one day’s sporting events! It was even fun hanging out with secondary kids (as a break from Year 4). Some of the secondary kids that came were quite full of attitude, some were really sweet and others were just plain hilarious –eg. one yr 9 boy cracked hard-boiled eggs on his head at breakfast time before peeling the shell off (I’m sure people normally tap them on the side of a plate, with a spoon, or some other implement). What would he have done if the egg was not quite hard-boiled? He was so dim!

Anyway, the real question is: where will I go next? The Easter holidays are fast approaching…

Not quite another normal day in Arusha… February 20, 2009

Friday’s are usually unusual days, in that we only have school until 1:30 –which is particularly welcome if your class happens to be in a crazy mood (as mine were today). Today, however, brought some other extraordinary events…

The first surprise came in the form of several ‘fundis’ wandering round school this morning on a roof-fixing mission. (‘Fundi’ means ‘expert’ in Swahili, and is used here to refer to men that are experts at fixing things!) The sighting of a fundi is an exceedingly rare occurrence here as, until recently, they have all been required at Braeburn’s Early Years site to save a woodworm-infested wall. My class were very excited when they spotted a fundi climbing on the roof –they thought it was Spiderman! The fundis even made it up to the houses to fix the roofs there –this really is rare! Hopefully both my classroom and my house will stop leaking now.

Then, my less than usual afternoon was brought about by an invitation from Maaike (one of the Year 6 teachers) to cut her sons’ hair (as it was in their eyes and she didn’t feel confident with the scissors). I had not yet had the chance to play hairdressers in Arusha and enjoyed the experience –which involved sitting the 2 small boys on my kitchen worktop so I could reach their hair. Cutting in a straight line proved a challenge, as they wriggled so much! Maaike was happy with the end result though –phew!

After hairdressing, Maaike invited me to Shoprite with them –this was an experience in itself, as I usually go with Jo these days. The car journey was quite thrilling, with the 2 boys screaming and kicking each other most of the way, Meerel happily chatting away to me and Malou (in the seat behind me) wanting me to put my hand out of the window so she could hold onto it (her hand was poking out of the window too)!

In Shoprite Malou volunteered to push my trolley for me, whilst Maaike took the 2 boys around (Meerel, being quite a sensible Year 5, decided to wander around by herself). The checkout proved eventful as well, as after the cashier rang everything through, I discovered (much to my horror) that I had forgotten my purse at home –ooops!! So I had to find Maaike and borrow some money, whilst Malou guarded my shopping, and the cashiers gossiped about crazy ‘mzungus’. (‘Mzungu’ means ‘foreigner’in Swahili). Malou took offence at being called a mzungu though and informed the cashier “I’m not a mzungu, I’m Dutch!”

The saddest event of the day was when Malou dropped my watermelon on the floor and it split The cashier wouldn’t let me swap it for a nice one –boo them- they would have let me in Tescos!

Anyway, Maaike brought me back safely (unlike my poor watermelon), where I rested in my quiet, calm house for a while, before I felt ready to venture out again…

Half term fun… February 14, 2009

Today was quite a strange day. I was supposed to go camping with the Baileys, but couldn’t because I was feeling ill (with a dodgy tummy).

Instead, I ended up staying at home (whilst the Baileys went playing with animals) and playing the most bizarre game of Monopoly ever! We had no power all day, so Roy (my next-door neighbour) and I decided to play a board game to entertain ourselves. We ended up playing Monopoly by the pool and being joined by almost all of the children living on site: Daniel (10), Leyla (7), Chidee (6), Ina (2), Ella (1), Ben (8 ) and Dan (6). It was originally a three-player game, with me, Roy and Daniel –the other children just came to “help” at various points in the afternoon.

The funniest of these was Chidee, the barmaid’s son, who ended up playing on behalf of Roy for half the time. Chidee was delighted at the amount of Monopoly money he was given to look after and shrieked with delight every time someone landed on his property and gave him more. I’m sure he thought it was real money… He was very confused when he had to pay us though, and counted each note as £1, so if you asked for £15, you could get given hundreds of pounds.

Leyla was the banker until she decided to go for a swim, Ina was very helpful at collecting the money that blew away in the breeze (which happened frequently), whilst Ella on the other hand just chewed it all! I think Dan and Ben enjoyed seeing how a board game is actually played, as they usually use them to make houses and things for their Star Wars toys.

It is strange how things turn out; I certainly didn’t imagine spending my half term in this way. At least I won the game –despite Daniel’s interesting take on the rules! I was sad to have missed out on camping in the bush and seeing animals though. Hopefully I’ll stay well enough to do that in the next school holidays…

Interesting facts February 13, 2009

Here are some interesting facts about me and my life here:

My class is the joint-largest in the school - I have 20 children, of which 17 speak English as an additional language (all of them have amazing English -luckily as all of my lessons are in English!)

Food in Tanzania is fairly cheap -unless it has been imported, like apples, which cost £4 for a bag!

Locally grown oranges are green in colour!

Paracetemol can be purchased in packets of 96… unlike in the UK where 16 is the limit. Clearly they are not worried about the suicide rate here.

Arusha is full of storm drains that I keep falling in.

I live in the countryside, 14km away from Arusha. Its pretty here, unlike in town…

Apparently someone stole the bins in some places in town, so the people that live there just pile their rubbish up on street corners -yuck!

Tanzanians refer to passion fruit as “passion”. This is particularly amuzing when walking through the market with stall-holders asking “do you want passion?”

Power cuts are frequent. Tanzania uses hydro-electric power, bizarrely, as it is so hot and dry here!

My school has offset it’s carbon emissions by planting lots of trees -thus making us the only official “carbon neutral” school in Tanzania!

Vodka can be purchased by the box, or in shot-sized sachets – these sachets look rather like medicine that is administered via a drip!

You can buy coca cola, sprite and fanta here, but not diet coke -how would Ruth Perrin survive?!

All photocopying at school needs to be done by a photocopying man, who often gets page numbers mixed up… He is also responsible for getting things out of the store for you, which he also muddles up. This man is needed though to guard the resources, because naughty people were stealing them before!

The average temperature at the moment seems to be 28 degrees C!

Tales of my first 6 weeks in Tanzania February 13, 2009

Well, I’ve been encouraged by Clare Miller to start a blog, in order to tell everyone exciting stories from Tanzania… so here it goes I guess. 

I’ve been in Arusha for 6 weeks already, and after starting work 1 day after stepping off the plane, I’m quite glad to have a chance to relax now its half term!

The past 6 weeks have been packed with teaching Year 4 from Monday to Friday, plus marking, planning, assessing, running or helping at 2 after school clubs, Key stage 2 play rehearsals and Geography co-ordinating.

Other exciting school events have included my first ever parents evening (which ended up being fun, after my initial nerves) and the whole-school swimming Gala -where I didn’t compete in the teacher vs. pupil race, as I knew that the pupils are better than me! (I am training for next year though….)

Outside of school, I’ve been visiting orphanages with Jo (the Year 1 teacher and headmaster’s wife), going to a Vineyard church on Sundays (one of 2 English-speaking churches in Arusha) and spending a fortune in Shoprite supermarket!

Another hobby of mine is shopping at the markets in town -there’s a Massai market (for souvenirs), a second-hand clothes market and the biggest fruit and veg market I’ve ever seen in my life (complete with open sewer)! You can get good prices at these markets, as long as you’re prepared to argue alot and insist on paying local prices, rather than tourist ones. These markets are also good for making new friends and collecting marriage proposals…

Anyway, I don’t want to write too much in my first blog, so I’ll say ‘byee’ until my next one!