Hope Trust - Ngaramtoni

Rachel Doyle April - July 2008

So many thoughts are going around in my head at the moment. It all seems a bit surreal sat here in my room listening to Ali Faka Toure on my laptop (Mali music) and typing away at my journal at 8am after breakfast and before I leave for the office. I left Arusha yesterday afternoon and took a taxi with Leonard the local man in the Mondo challenge office. We took a taxi to Ngaramtoni – a half hour ride through green fields of corn and bananas. As we drove through the village I was surprised at how busy it was with many shops and a couple of bars and cafes and lots of local activity. The village is mainly Maasai and although many of them now don’t wear the traditional red cloths there are still plenty dotted around. I met the family that I will be staying with for the next 3 months who consist of Mr David, Mama Baraka, Julius (approx 7) and Venance (approx 5). The family are Maasai but a modern Maasai family. Mr David owns the ‘New Sahara’ café in town and Mama Baraka works at the hospital as an anaesthetist. They are very welcoming and a lovely family. Mama Baraka showed me around the house, a brick built building which consists of 4 bedrooms – mine, the childrens, the housegirl and theirs, a lounge complete with sofas and a tv. The cooking is done outside in the courtyard and the toilet is also outside along with a shower cubicle. I have not sussed out the washing routine as yet – I get a bucket of hot water in the evening which is my ‘shower’ but the logistics of juggling my clothes and toiletries and trying not to get everything wet has yet to be mastered. The housegirl does all the domestic duties including the shopping, cooking, washing etc and looks after the children. My room consists of a bed, shelves a table and chair and cupboard and electricity which is a bonus. I have a surge protector that I bought yesterday as apparently the fluctuating electrics can damage your equipment. It is flickering all the time and I am making sure that I save my work regularly! Andre who is volunteering at a local primary school is staying about 5 minutes away so he came over yesterday to show me around the village and we had a sprite in the local BMW bar. I am glad that he is here as my only contact with the outside world! He has been here for about a month and will be here for another 2. I’m not quite sure how I feel about the whole thing at the moment. There is nothing that I won’t be able to handle but suddenly 3 months seems like a very long time. I am going into the Hope Trust office today where I will be working so I’m sure once I actually find out what I will be doing on a daily basis then I will feel more settled. Myself and Andre have been asked to teach English to an adult class that some of the previous volunteers have been teaching. So we have tentatively agreed with the understanding that we are not teachers but will give it a go. Apparently they are very keen students and will be grateful for anything that we can offer. I am hoping to be able to take photos around the village but at the moment I am not confident to get my camera out. The locals don’t like it and there would be a big scene and requests for money. Maybe when I am walking with Mr David or visiting with my work I will be able to take photos. However hard this may feel at the moment – I know that it is a real privilege to be living in the community with these people. This is a side of Africa that a tourist would never see and even a back packer would probably never come across. Because of this the locals pretty much ignore us – whereas in Arusha we are approached all the time by people wanting to sell us souvenirs or even just to talk. The children in town and sometimes the Maasai shout out Mzungu (whiteman). I asked Leonard what would be the appropriate response to this?? It is not meant as an offensive call but more of a hello. He couldn’t tell me so I decided that I would reply either ‘Hu Jambo’ hello or Maasai whichever seems fitting at the time. They all seem pretty good natured and like a joke. The weather is really strange. It rains a lot at night – torrential rain all of last night which woke me up in the night. Then in the morning it is either very cloudy or rainy then as the day goes on it gets nicer and the sun comes out in the afternoon and it gets quite hot for a few hours. Anything that I do outside of the house has to be done during daylight – it is not safe for us Mzungus to walk around at night.

Mr David took me down to introduce me to ‘Hope Trust’ who I will be working with for my time here. It consists of an office with files and a computer with printer. Daniphord is the only full-time employee and I will be working with him mostly. He is a lovely Tanzanian man 32 years old, who speaks very good English. We got on very well today and I think we will enjoy working together over the next few months. Hope Trust has 4 board members 2 of which are Mr David and Mama Baraka. Then there are 6 community volunteers who are paid a small amount. I hadn’t really been given a clear idea of what exactly I would be doing so I was interested to find out all about the organisation and exactly what was going on at the moment. It seems that Hope Trust do some training of Women’s groups educating them about HIV and health matters and the other side is to give small business grants to people suffering with HIV. Then they receive visits from the Community Volunteers who record their weekly profit/loss etc and offer advice on how they can improve the business. The gap that I can see is that although the CV’s have a huge thick folder of information on HIV training they have nothing apart from one sheet of paper on business skills, ideas or advice. So I think I have found what my first job will be. Just to give you an insight into a day at the office Africa style here are some of the problems that I encountered today. The office has a budget of 22,000 Tanzanian shillings per month to buy stationary/sundries etc (about £11).One black printer cartridge is 35,000 Tsh.One hour on the internet at a café is 1,600 Tsh.They are not backing up their work on the computer and the CD drive is not working so I have backed everything up on a ‘Make your Mark’ memory stick (sorry for those of you that have no idea what MYM is!!) that I bought with me which has solved the problem temporarily. They have internet at the office but it is a dial up connection, pay as you go. So this is only used very sparingly due to cost. So today Daniphord wanted to update the virus protection but to download via dial up is very expensive and takes along time so we decide to go to the internet café and put it on a stick and bring it back to the office. So it is half an hours (beautiful) walk to the internet café and we are busy downloading when half an hour later the power goes off and we loose everything…………..welcome to Africa. Nothing can be done in a hurry so I am not even going to try!
I pondered for a while on my 24/7 wireless super fast internet connection that costs the same as a few beers for a month. I am dealing with a time rich but cash poor society whereas I am from a world that is totally opposite.

There are so many things to report back it’s hard to know what to talk about first. I’m sure as time goes on I won’t find so many things to tell you about but at the moment everything is an experience! Last night I sat and chatted to Mr David over a glass or 2 of red wine. Most of the discussions here end up being about comparisons between here and the UK. Last night Mr David wanted to know about why people get divorced in the UK. They have divorce here but it is not very common and I think you will realise why later………… Mr David only has one wife but it is common in Maasai culture for the men to have more than one and up to five. So the pattern of things seems to be that you marry the first wife and have some children. Then when the wife gets tired as she is working in the field all day and looking after young children he takes the opportunity to ask her if its ok if he gets a new wife as she is too tired for sex. Hence wife number 2 appears and the pattern continues. So who needs divorce? It rained all night really heavily and kept me awake. Earplugs are essential here but even so sometimes not enough. There is constant noise here in the house, either from the TV or radio, the children, dogs, rain etc. I am getting to know the routine of things in the house. Its hard not being in control of things that I take for granted at home. For example: Making a cup of tea – Amena the house girl puts a flask on the table when tea is up, having a shower – one of the boys knocks on my door and announces ‘Rachel ready water’. The hardest thing for me (and I knew it would be) is having very little control over what I eat and no control over when. The food is nice, mostly vegetables, rice, beans, lentils or chapatti. But I am finding myself only eating to stop the hunger and not for pleasure like I do at home. I am looking forward to getting to Arusha at the weekend where I will be eating a lot of chicken! My brain is being challenged in ways I didn’t expect. Dan speaks English very well and I managed to convince him today that he is fluent – although he thinks he has to be perfect to be described as fluent. He asks me such questions as….What is the difference between certain and definite?Explain the difference between indigenous, native and origin – and what is the opposite of indigenous? By the way if anyone knows this one please help as my pathetic reply was ‘not indigenous’. What is the definition of hindsight? (We had a lot of fun with this one and it was my fault for using the word in the first place!) - well as they say hindsight is a wonderful thing. We had this chat while walking about an hour to a school where the CV’s were teaching HIV awareness to the school children. When I entered the classroom I felt pure fear and was glad that I wasn’t out here as a teacher. I don’t know what it is about a class full (I counted 55) of teenagers that has such an effect on me. Me and Andre have been roped in to take over the previous volunteers adult English class. So we went along tonight to see who was interested in coming and what level they were at. We explained that we are not teachers but will do our best. We tried to engage the class and get them to tell us what they had been learning and what things they wanted to learn etc. To say it was like pulling teeth was an understatement and we were a bit lost at this point. When asked what they would like to learn – 3 of the class said ‘football’ – clearly that was not going to happen! Then Andre asked if they had any questions, thanks for that Andre. Immediately hands went up and I was asked………Are you married? How old are you? What level of education have you achieved? Probably my 3 least favourite questions in the world. So not so shy after all then. They will be getting some very difficult homework as a reward for that…...I am already plotting my revenge.

On Safari…………… My first proper weekend in Tanzania and I was determined not to waste it by sitting and using the internet all day! Some of the volunteers head into Arusha at the weekend to stay in a hotel and meet up to do stuff. We had a volunteers meeting on Friday night followed by dinner. It is nice when we all get to meet up and chat as it gets quite lonely during the week. Saturday was spent doing internet stuff, lunch and a bit of shopping for supplies that I can’t get in the village. On Saturday night I was ready for a bit of a night out so I dragged some of the others to the ‘Maasai camp’ which is a campsite bar, restaurant and disco that I went to in 1995 (thanks Owen for the reminder of the date). It had changed a bit and was a bit more sophisticated than it was back then. It was empty when we got there but by the time we had finished dinner it was heaving. We had a good dance and a few drinks. It was full of Prince William look-alikes – gap year students I think, maybe doing volunteer projects also. It was a really good night and I’m glad that we have found somewhere here with a bit of atmosphere as most places are quiet. But note to self on lessons learnt was don’t go to the Maasai camp the night before a walking safari…………………… The top man Anthony Lunch has been out here this week overseeing a corporate sponsored project that Mondo challenge have undertaken – setting up an internet learning centre in Longido which is a very remote village. So we all decide to go to Arusha National Park for the day. We did a 3 hour walking safari and a drive around the park. It was a really hot day and no rain for a change. It has rained everyday since I have been here, mostly at night and in the morning but sometimes all day and really heavily. It is getting cold in the evenings and will start to get colder – which is not good as they don’t have any heating. My hands are freezing as I’m typing here with my fleece on. Anyway hope you enjoy the safari photos.

Getting down to business. We went to visit two grant recipients today. The first was a couple – both living with HIV and have 3 children. The husband used to work as a stone mason but this work is too hard now he is sick and also was not a regular income. With the grant from Hope Trust him and his wife now sell vegetables everyday in the village. He told me that the grant has enabled him to have a regular income. The second one was a lady who lost her husband to Aids – she is living with HIV and has 2 children to support. With the help of Hope Trust and a grant of 75,000 shillings (about £40) she has set up a business cooking and selling chips and tea at lunchtime next to the school - she works out of her back yard. With the profits from this business she bought a chicken and a cockerel so she can breed chickens and have enough eggs to sell. I asked her what difference the business has made to her life and she said that before sometimes her and her children would go all day without food. Now they eat everyday. There was also pressure on her from her in-laws to remarry and go onto have more children. She does not want to do this – now she has a choice. She was in really good spirits when we spoke to her and she gave us a bowl of the best tasting chips I think I’ve ever had. Another of the recipients that I have met was a man in his late 60’s and also living with HIV. He is a retired policeman but because he is now sick he does not get his full pension (work that one out!). I asked him what difference the 70,000 shillings had made to him. Wait for this…………he said that now he can afford the bus fare into Arusha to pick up his free HIV medication. Before the grant he had to beg for the return fare (about 40p). He runs a business from his house, setting up a stall on market days selling sodas etc. I am getting out to as many of the grant recipients as possible so I can learn about what kind of businesses people are running here and what problems they may face in order to help me write the manual. As I am finding out more and more about these people and their situations the task is becoming more and more challenging. Not only are these people restricted by lack of money but also by their traditions and cultural dos and don’ts. In the UK in the area of business support that I was working in there was often a lot of discussion about ‘What the motivations are to start a business’ and there was always a number of different answers. The only reason here is to generate income in the only way they can as they don’t have any other option.

Tanzania Capital Boosting Association (TCBA) - Arusha

James Miller April-May 2008

I moved in to my new home on Thursday. It is about 30 minutes walk outside of Arusha in a place call Sinoni. There is tarmac half the way there and the rest is a mud track with some occasional rubble thrown into the bigger holes. Not dissimilar to something you would find at Brick Kiln Farm. I live with an extended family around a small court yard used for washing and cooking. There is mama and baba, and their too sons Boneface and Allen. Then there is Francis who is an orphan and has been with my family for some time. 2 other girls that don’t speak English but I gather are some kind if house maids. There are also three young children, but am not sure to whom they belong.
The home is very basic - no hot water, a squat toilet, all cooking on coals outside and a tin roof, but also very friendly indeed.

It has almost been a week with TCBA. They are a small micro-finance organisation run by a Mr Sauni. There are about 450 clients, who are small entrepreneurs from in or around Arusha. To qualify for a loan each individual must form a group of 5, to which the loan is provided. This reduces the risk of defaulters as the group is jointly responsible for repayments. Loans begin at 100,000 Tanzanian Shillings which is about £50, with at maximum of £250.
The types of business that we lend to varies but could be street food vendors, small tailors, charcoal collectors really any small scale enterprise.
There are 4 permanent members of staff: in addition to Mr Sauni, there is Julius the accountant, Emmanuel who vets the clients and Lightness who assists him. The offices are in the centre of Arusha, this is where clients will come on a Monday and Wednesday to make repayments.

They say that the simple things in life are the best. When I have a spare hour or two I tend to ask the guys at home what they want to do; the answer is always the same… “can we go for uji?”. So we walk half an hour into the town sit outside a shop on the side of the street and get half a pint of very hot porridge from and thermos flask. There we will sit for a while watching the world go by. If we are lucky we can wash the uji down with a plate of chips.

Apparently Arusha is the gateway for Tanzanian safari, so naturally I thought I should give it a go at the weekend. So along with the other volunteers, I took the short trip to the Arusha National Park, although it is one of the smallest parks it is supposed to be the one with the most varied terrain and includes the not insignificant mount Meru which at 4500 meters is bloody big - but somehow overlooked by Kilimanjaro. I thoroughly recommend the safari. We took a 4×4 on a game drive in the morning seeing buffalo, warthogs, zebra, buffoons among other things - then a walk with an armed ranger. We walked through forest and marshes finding more water buffalo and loads of giraffe which were only a few yards away, also 3 types of monkey all in the trees. When in the forest with the monkeys we heard what sounded like gun shots in the distance, it wasn’t though – the guide told us it was a bush-buck warning the monkeys of some danger. They then all went crazy, making a very loud grunting/barking sort of noise – this, in turn was a warning to other animals further away. I don’t know if we were the cause of the commotion, or if we should have been worried about some other imminent danger. I guide didn’t seem bothered so we continued our stroll. Unfortunately no lions and no elephants, for these I need to take a longer trip to one of the bigger parks which I hope to do soon.

As we all know, nothing happens fast in Africa. Well until today that is; I was a bit annoyed because my camera suddenly decided to stop taking pictures. Not really believing I would be able to get it fixed I went to a small photo studio, who asked me to leave it with them. Within 45minutes I had a text with a quote, and after agreeing in 2 hours I collected it in full working order with a new fuse in one of the circuit boards controlling the lenses. How about that for service?!

I had a bit of a shot in the arm earlier this week. I was beginning to get a bit frustrated with the management of the micro-finance I’m working with. There are a number of things that I am not keen on. Anyway, I got out of the office for a client visit – traveling about 30 minutes by bus from the office. There I met a lady who has had 5 loans from TCBA. Her business is very simple… twice a week she travels from Arusha to the border with Kenya to buy salt, she takes about a ton and a half, which she sells wholesale to shops in Arusha. It seems somehow the salt is cheaper in Kenya. She uses the capital from TCBA to buy the stock, of which over the years she has been able to increase the amount considerably. The effect is that she has been able to save enough to build a house and send her daughter to school. It was a perfect example of both the need for credit and the power of micro-finance — and by the way, she had never missed a repayment in 5 years!

Kighare Secondary - Usangi

John Reed - April-May 2008

I am a maths teacher, aged 61, recently retired from an independent school in the UK. I have had pretty varied experience of the English education system for teaching in inner city Manchester to being the Vice Principal of a very large sixth form college.

My volunteer work is in Usangi, a quite remote town in the North Pare mountains. The location is beautiful by any standards, lush vegetation, banana trees, tall grass, many crops, incredible variety of flowers, wonderful views. The local people are about as welcoming as it is possible to be and the town is completely hassle free. I have been asked for money only once since I arrived.

I live in the volunteer house about 30 min walk from the school. It is simple but nice and run by the incredible kind Mr Ishmaeli. It is only £15 per month plus £1.50 a day for breakfast and dinner. Mama Fatuma is a great cook and evening meals are a highlight when you are on your own. There is a squat toilet (WC that you flush yourself) and a kettle for hot water. No problem to keep clothes and yourself clean but you have to keep doing small washes as the electric can go off for 12 odd hours.

So far I haven’t found being the only Mzungu (European) in town a problem. Mr Ishmaeli’s grandsons are always coming in to do their homework and have taken me up the mountain. Nice boys. Mr I’s son Saidi, always comes to see me about 7.30 pm after his very long days work. I have brought some books, pocket chess and a DVD player (sorry). I allow myself one hour a night! Sleeping has caused some difficulties as the mosque kicks in at 5 am for an hour. So I have moved to the other side of the house. There also appears to be parties on Friday and Saturday night till 3 am to which I wasn’t invited.

Red dust is everywhere damped down by the rains in April/May. Everywhere is up or down with big plusses on the mossie front as there are only small ones and appears to be no malaria. Its only 100m below the limit for them. I hate them.

The walk to school is outstanding, down the hill, past little shops, fields, staggering views, flowers and the local heavy drinkers area. Although my wine has run out I have never been tempted. I arrive at the school around 7.45, the children have been there for half an hour. The girls are sweeping and mopping the classrooms free of dust, boys clearing weeds and scrub and hoeing. It’s quite a site as the school is cut into the side of a hill. Hens and even the odd goat wander through the school. The kitchen is a small building in the middle, wood powered. There is no glass, no electricity and one standpipe.

No previous experience prepares you for the school although being a teacher has helped me in the classroom. There are a few books. Those that there were written by torturers for genii. The classes range from 55 to 70. Yes each class. Individual help is a challenge but the behaviour of the children helps. They are polite and helpful but love nothing more than a laugh. Most of the children are older than you think. There are 15 year olds in Form one. The marking is colossal and recording marks is not helped by the fact that the names on the register are different to the names they use on their books. I cannot tell you the problems this has caused me. Attendance is varied and new kids seem to appear every week. The children work hard and have more ability than one might think.

The schools use corporal punishment which I detest. There’s no getting away from this. You see things that can seriously upset you. Some staff use it more than others. On the whole the staff are very young, in some cases not much older than the oldest students. The staff talk to each other in Kiswahili which mean there isn’t much conversation with them.

One wonderful highlight is the singing. I had a low moment one Friday when the school finishes early. The girls and some of the boys congregated in one classroom and started to sing. You would have paid and travelled a distance to hear it. It lifted me.

If you picked up an exercise book, you would be impressed but much is copied and not understood. They will write down information on scientific instruments they have never seen. I was stunned by the maths on graphs until I realised many could not plot coordinates.

After only a couple of weeks in Usangi I have had enough for a bucketful of memories. Maybe the best was telling Idi and Ali (about 13) about the slave trade using a globe in the volunteer house. They had no idea why there are Africans in the USA, West Indies and UK. They were horrified by the conditions and sat open mouthed while I tried to explain.

I have now been asked to teach English to the local ladies group. I am a bit anxious but they are lovely. Oh yes, I met a scorpion in the bathroom last night. I am afraid it was him or me.

Returning to Africa

Vicky Harris - Timbolo Primary School - September-December 2007

For as long as I can remember I’ve wanted to go back to Africa. My parents were both English teachers who met in Kenya and got married in Nairobi Cathedral. I spent my first few years there and, even after returning to England, grew up surrounded by all things African. I loved the occasional evenings that my dad would get his boxes of slides down from the attic and we’d all sit round as a family and reminisce.
So when I finally got round to contacting Mondo Challenge in early 2007, I had just assumed that I would go back to Kenya. But when I looked at the countries where their projects were based, for some reason Tanzania was the one that appealed to me.

On arrival, I was introduced to Kate, the country manager, who told me that my placement would be at Timbolo Primary School, situated in the foothills of Mount Meru, and my family for the next three months would be the Kinisis. I would be sharing them with another volunteer, Lindsay, who was American and who had already been living there for two weeks. Their home was in a village called Ngaramtoni where Mr David, the father, ran the New Sahara Café. Mama Baraka worked at the local hospital and they had three boys: Baraka (17), Lowassa (15), and Julius (7). They also took care of Mama Baraka’s nephew, Venance (5). I realised the first day I met Mr David that his was no ordinary family. He had a cheeky grin, an infectious laugh and a mischievous sense of humour. He told me his motto was ‘Be free’. I loved him immediately.


With Mr David under a Maasai shuka.

My walk to school took about an hour. Most of it was uphill through thick dust and for the first two weeks I had painful blisters on the soles of my feet. It sounds like a nightmare but it was the highlight of my day. The scenery was stunning, the views across the plains were breathtaking and at every turn there were little groups of children just waiting to grab your hand and walk with you for as long as they could. Every single day I did that walk I noticed something different about the landscape.

Part of my walk to school.

My first few days at the school were challenging. I have been teaching English for almost seven years now and was used to a certain way of working. I soon realised that if I tried to apply my usual teaching methods to my classes of over 100 Tanzanian kids, I would get nowhere fast. You have to alter your expectations and focus on what you think is important for them. Songs were extremely popular and I used to love listening to the whole class launch into ‘If You’re Happy And You Know It’ with huge smiles on their faces and impromptu dance moves. They enjoyed coming up to write things on the board and anything visual (flashcards or pictures) was greeted with appreciative gasps and murmurs.
The other teachers were a joy to work with. They were all relatively young and not particularly experienced but they did the best they could with what was available and had a great rapport with the kids. Ten o’clock was ‘chai’ time when we would all sit around and chat over cups of hot, sweet tea. Within a couple of weeks everyone had nicknames and I felt like I’d been there for years. I remember sending a text message to one of my friends saying, “I can’t believe I’ve only got seven weeks left.”

In the staff room with some of the teachers on my birthday.


There was a student who stood out from day one. His name was Ndobiri Sambeke and he was in my Standard 3 class. It’s not easy getting noticed in a class of 120 but he had no such problem. He always had his hand up, was desperate to answer my questions and his huge grin lit up the classroom.
Meanwhile, my walk to school became more interesting as I got to know some of the villagers and some faces became more familiar. One day a girl came out of one of the Maasai huts and greeted me by name. I asked her what she was called and how she knew me, and she said that her name was Naramatisho and that her little brother was in one of my classes. She was kind and friendly and although her English wasn’t great and my Swahili was almost non-existent we liked each other immediately and I used to look forward to seeing her on my walk home.
Ndobiri continued to work hard and began to come and chat to me at break times and loved taking photos with my digital camera. One day we walked home together and he insisted on carrying my bag. We stopped outside the hut where Naramatisho lived and he took my hand to lead me in. I realised that she was his elder sister and this was his home. I was invited in and given a banana, which I ate slowly as everyone sat round and watched.

With Ndobiri at school.


Within a month Ngaramtoni felt like home. Lindsay and I had become great friends and we were enjoying our time with the family more and more every day. We would go to Arusha at the weekends just to have a hot shower and get together with the other volunteers but we were never as happy as when we were watching badly dubbed soap operas with the kids on our laps surrounded by our family.
Sometimes I would lie down on my bed in the afternoon just listening to the laughter coming from outside and a big smile would spread across my face.
Amina took care of the house and did most of the cooking and cleaning. We would sit outside in the evenings under a blanket of stars and watch her roll out the dough for chapattis or chop up the vegetables for her special salad that Lindsay and I loved so much. Everything was uncluttered and simple and it all made perfect sense.

Lindsay and Amina making chapattis, with Juli in the background.

The weeks flew by and before we knew it we had to start thinking about saying goodbye. The kids at school had end of term exams and Ndobiri came top in all his subjects, including English. I started to think about his future and what options he had. He was obviously a very bright little boy and had the potential to go far but had none of the advantages or opportunities that the kids back in England had. I decided to ask Kate if I could sponsor him. One of the teachers, Masue, took me to Ndobiri’s home to meet his father. His name was Sambeke and he was a farmer with no wife and seven children to feed. Ndobiri was his youngest. Masue explained in Swahili that I wanted to help with Ndobiri’s education and contribute towards things like school uniform, pencils and textbooks. Sambeke just looked at me and grinned. He grabbed my hands tightly and said, “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” Then continued in Swahili. Masue laughed and I asked her to translate what he’d said. She told me that he had only ever dreamed that something like this would happen and that tonight, when he slept, he would feel fat and warm and contented as though he had a full stomach and not a care in the world.

My last day of school was awful. I knew I was going to miss the teachers terribly and saying goodbye to the kids was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. They couldn’t understand why I was crying and kept saying, “See you in January!” It didn’t occur to them that I wasn’t coming back. Ndobiri walked home with me carrying my bag and understood perfectly why I was so upset. He and his father came down to the village a few days later to say goodbye. I gave Sambeke some money to buy Ndobiri a new school uniform and promised that I would stay in touch. Mr David told me he would look out for them.

Saying goodbye to Ndobiri (with his dad and brother).

Lindsay and I threw a ‘Goodbye and Thank You’ party for our family. We bought a big chocolate cake, gave Baraka some money to buy Cokes and Fantas and blew up loads of balloons. I drew the face of a family member on each one and they all had their own catch phrases. Mr David’s said ‘Be free’. We presented them with a photo collage we’d made of all the great times we’d had and they surprised us with traditional kangas. Along the bottom the Swahili saying read, “Receive this gift and our hearts will be happy.” We ate, laughed and danced to our favourite Tanzanian tunes and it was exactly what we had wanted it to be – a night that none of us would forget.

Wearing our kangas with the family at our farewell party.


Saying goodbye the next morning was a lot more difficult than either of us had anticipated. Everyone was in floods of tears and I felt physically sick at the thought of having to drive away from them. Mr David came with us in the taxi to Arusha and all the way there Lindsay and I just sat on the back seat and sobbed.

Before you do something like volunteering for three months in a third world country, you sit and think about it. A lot. You try to run through every possible scenario and prepare yourself for every possible disappointment or disaster. You worry that you’re not going to be able to cope with what might be thrown at you, that you’ll be the first volunteer to give up on the first day, that you’re going to say or do something to offend the people who have so kindly welcomed you into their home. You don’t dare to hope that this might become the experience you’d always dreamed about, the one you’ve been waiting to have since you were ten years old. But that’s what it was: everything I’d hoped for and much, much more.

With my Standard 3 class.

Timbolo Primary & Hope Trust - Ngaramtoni

Anne & Martin Davis - January to April 2008

We have now really settled into a routine and life here seems to be completely 'normal' now.

Weekday routine - Mama gets up at 5.30 to start heating/carrying water for indoors. Large ex-cement containers, probably holds 5 gallons. I can just about lift one when it's half empty, Mama and the girls carry them full about 50 metres. (Mama is just a polite way of referrring to any older lady, I get it quite a lot myself. Baba is an older man.) Our alarm goes off at 6 and we get up straight away. Quick wash and breakfast. This is balck tea, fruit, sliced bread and Marmite which I brought with me and have since managed to find in Tz. All the fruit is wonderful, we usually have oranges, mangoes and bananas for breakfast. The oranges are actually green outside, with very tough membranes, so you don't peel and eat them like at home, you suck a quarter orange and try to extract as much juice as possible. A bit messy and noisy. Tea and coffee always come with boiling milk as none of it is pasteurised, so we are developing a taste for tea without milk. I set off for school at about 6.50 as I like to be able to admire the scenery and get my breath back before I start work at 8. Martin quite often does some computer work at home for a while and then walks about 500m to the Hope Trust / Osotwa office for more computer work, teaching, advice sessions etc. We pass dozens of people on the way to work and are never more than a few metres from houses, kiosks or farms, although they might not be very reminiscent of home. Almost everyone makes some sort of greeting, unfortunately in any one of about 4 languages. KiSwahili is either 'Hujambo' to which I have to reply 'Sijambo', or, if they are being particularly polite, it will be Shikamoo, to which I have to reply Marahaba. In essence Shikamoo means something like, ‘I know I am only a worthless speck of dust before your great age and wisdom, but please don’t ignore me.’ The reply is roughly ‘Yes, I agree that you are only a worthless speck of dust before my great age and wisdom, but I will deign to notice you.’ The local language is Maasai. The greeting here follow a clear pattern: a) Habari b) Mzuri a) Ta Kwenya b) Eeko a) Soobeye b) Ebba (sorry, written phonetically). I think it means, How are you, fine, where are you going, work, where have you come from, home. A lot of people like to practice their English, so there are a lot of ‘Good Mornings’ and the there are the minority of children who say ‘Give me my money’ or ‘give me my pen’ as a first greeting. As far as I can find out, no-one has ever given them money or pens when demanded, but they keep trying. Most of the children are very friendly and no-one takes a refusal badly. There are also some tribal greetings but I just smile a lot for those as my head will explode if I have to retain any more information.

Martin’s days vary, some are office based and others are walking round the area to visit prospective candidates for grants or people who have already had money and are trying to make a go of running some sort of small business. Many of the ideas are carbon copies of things that already go on and they are giving themselves unnecessary competition. There have been some good and successful ideas – one lady was given enough money to buy a treadle sewing machine and is now making a profit an employs two other people. Two other ladies travel to Dar Es Salaam (10 hours by bus) to buy clothes which are unobtainable here. They can then sell them at a profit and save enough to go back to buy more. It is difficult to think of ideas which are not already in place. Many of the people in the area are subsistence farmers and so have no cash to spend on anything, so selling is a precarious occupation.

I only have 3 or 4 English lessons per day but because of the ghastly ‘system’ there is often more marking than teaching. The children get quite freaked out if you say you don’t want their books in and they must be marked in red or it’s not proper marking. The exercise books are horrible, very thin paper, and the children often cover them in newspaper, so that makes it even grubbier to mark 200 books in one go. The other staff set an exercise on the board and then leg it back to the staffroom to catch up on previous marking. It is the only way they can cope with the system; they can have 8 lessons in one day, they rarely have any free lessons and have to leave school premises at 2, so there is no alternative. Depending on the day, I usually get home at about 1pm and then have a couple of hours to myself. Washing takes quite a while – Martin leaves things in soak before he goes out and I get them washed and hanging outside. We only do some of our own washing – the bulk we leave for the weekend and then we pay one of the daughters to do most of it for us. At 2000 Tsh (80p) we think it’s a bargain and she is pleased to be making some money. Cold water washing and wringing out is not much fun.

At 4pm on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday we have our TEFL English classes. Jane (a young teacher from London) and I share the largest group which varies from 40 to 60. Martin has an advanced group of about 10. Considering none of us has ever done TEFL before, we seem to be attracting a good crowd. They would like two hours every day, but without any resources it’s a struggle to keep up. I have introduced Bingo to Tanzania and we use the dice that I brought with me. Most of the students had never seen dice before and had to check that they all had the same numbers on. Bingo went down well. I was especially glad as I had spent about four hours making 51 ‘cards’. Only 51 because I was fed up with it by then.
After English, we come home, wait for some hot water and then have our ‘shower’. This is a strip wash in our clothes washing bowl. We then relax for a bit while Mama prepares supper. This is usually cooked outside and then kept hot in very large Thermos flasks until everybody is home / ready to eat. We can’t wait beyond 7.30, but they often eat at 9.45 and then go straight to bed. The usual food is vegetable stew (they sometimes eat an extra dish of goat bones as well) with rice, pasta, Irish potatoes or chappatis followed by fresh fruit (usually mangoes, bananas, oranges and avocados, which are wonderful) and tea. It’s perfectly pleasant and healthy but we do look forward to a change at the weekends.

Last weekend we began by visiting one of Martin’s colleagues in Osotwa on Friday afternoon. This is a self-help, self administering local group which tries to promoste local developments and activities. It was Osotwa who asked us to run the adult English lessons, for which some people walk an hour. Ole Daniels is a fervent Maasai who is very keen that the old ways should not be lost, while, at the same time, trying to organise alternative ways of bringing money into the region. He has built what is known as a cultural boma (one of the wattle and daub one room houses which are the main form of accommodation in rural areas). He has built everything himself with help from his family and is now running it as a visitor centre, unfortunately rather a long way from the town. He has organised a group of local women to meet at the boma twice a week to make Maasai jewellery, cook Maasai food etc for any visitors, an opportunity for them to run their group as a collective. We spent the afternoon with them and wandered round the large smallholding, watching goats and chickens and the women demonstrating local skills and techniques. Ole speaks excellent English and spent a month living with friends in Finsbury park so it’s a bit of a contrast with here. The pictures are of the whole group with ole on the far right, and one of the women, Anna, very patiently trying to teach me to do the intricate beadwork on their collars etc. I’m not giving up the day job.

On Saturday we went to Lake Manyara and Tarangire National park to see some of the amazing wildlife and scenery in this area. Manyara is bordered by the Rift valley with vertical escarpments and dramatic scenery. We saw lions on both days, elephants, giraffes, zebra, hippos, wildebeest, water buffalo, impala, baboons, black velvet faced monkeys and wonderful birds. The three in the photos were particularly cooperative.

Kirongaya Secondary - Usangi

Mike Sayers January - February 2008

Everything's new

When you volunteer in a developing country for the first time you know things will be different, but not necessarily how they will be different. Here are a few differences that have made an impression on me.

First class travel

My experience of the buses starts with my journey with Leonard from Arusha to Usangi (the location of my teaching assignment). The moment we enter Arusha bus station, we have a couple of young men descending on us, wanting to help us find the right bus. Leonard responds to them, but strides on. Others join in and before long there are half a dozen milling around. I tuck in behind Leonard and fortunately am largely ignored. Leonard knows exactly where to find the bus and so needs no help. Before long we are on the bus, but it strikes me that this could be somewhat intimidating if you are on your own. I am also concerned that this will be very tame compared to Moshi bus station, described by my Bradt guide as 'a descent into hell ... one of the most hellish in Africa', because of all the hassling from men anxious to secure a commission by getting you to their bus. Fortunately, when I get to Moshi I find it has been cleaned up; it is well organised, with bus lanes labelled with their destinations and the hassling pretty low level.The bus leaves Arusha for its first stop, Moshi, at the advertised time (0900), which I am soon to discover is not what should be expected as the norm. The bus driver has his own technique, making liberal use of his horn and coaxing some quite impressive speeds out of a bus that must be 30-40 years old. I start to understand what the Rough Guide means when it describes the Arusha-Moshi highway as 'extremely perilous, and the antics of the average driver are enough to kick in visions of your life in flashback'. We get to Moshi safely, however, and then onto Mwanga where we get on a daladala for the final leg of the journey to Usangi. You are told that daladalas go when they are full. Well, the truth of this depends on what you understand by 'full'. In this, my first experience of a daladala, when it is full (ie all seats taken) it waits for more people ... and more. Finally, when you couldn't possibly pack in any more people, the daladala leaves ... and then stops after a few hundred yards to pick up some more people ... and then stops again to pick up some more. In the end a daladala with 12 seats carries 26 people, plus assorted plastic bags, handbags, boxes and a smallish suitcase or two. This I subsequently find is the norm for daladala travel. One my most recent trip I found myself sitting on a stool (no back) with the man behind's knees for my backrest, a young girl sitting on my lap, and, out of the window to my left, two legs dangling from a body sitting on the roof.The good thing about the daladalas is that by contrast the buses start to feel luxurious. The bus journeys I take from Usangi to Moshi in the weeks that follow I regard as a superior form of travel - positively first class!

En-suite facilities

My first taste of a volunteer's accommodation, at the Flamingo in Arusha, is basic. My second taste, at Usangi, is extremely basic. The difference is to be found in the bathroom, which, in Usangi, comprises a long-drop toilet and a bucket shower. The long-drop requires certain changes in technique which I need not go into. A bucket shower is also not quite as straight-forward as I first thought. On my first night I mix into the basin all the hot water from the kettle with a suitable amount of cold water, and soap myself with it. This leaves the water in the basin soapy, making it very difficult to rinse myself properly. On the second day I refine my technique, using only half the water from the kettle when soaping, emptying the mixture down the long-drop, and then using the remaining half for rinsing. This was an improvement, but I must remember to remove the soap from the basin before pouring the soapy water down the long drop. Fortunately I have another bar of soap.

Table manners

Lunch is provided at school. At lunch time two of the girl students arrive in the staff room to assist. Their first duty is to go round the table pouring water over each member of staff's hands for washing prior to eating. I watch carefully and manage to wash my hands using this method without embarrassing myself. On my first day the meal is ugali and some meat stew. I notice that only mine is served with a spoon. I enquire and am told that the other teachers eat with their right hand, not with cutlery. I suggest that I do the same and after a lesson from one of the teachers I proceed to eat without the spoon. I feel I am doing well, but my efforts produce much amusement. At the end of the meal the form is to walk over to the two students to get your hands washed again. Again I manage this, by observing the others and copying.

At the butcher's

One Saturday I decide to go to Moshi on my own. The landlord's son, Saidi, offers to escort me down to the bus stop. Just before we get there we see a few men with a cow. Saidi tells me to walk over with him to the group and get my camera out. It becomes apparent that they are about to slaughter the cow. I take pictures while they tie the cow's legs and get her into position. The next step is to slit the cow's throat. The blade is sharpened and the deed is done. To my surprise I stay around to the bitter end and capture the final act. Not how it is done in England, but certainly very swift and for all I know as humane as in the abatoir.

Off-putting?

These are some initial impressions of mine of how life is different here. What is the volunteer to make of them? I imagine different volunteers react differently. However, if you enjoy volunteering, then it is likely that such differences will appeal. They will be the experiences that make it all so interesting - the things that teach you about the new country and the things that provide the little challenges that are sent to test you and which give satisfaction when you learn to handle them. All this is, of course, before we talk about the challenges of life in the classroom. Here too there is much satisfaction to be had, but it is not to be easily gained I have found.Notwithstanding my focus above, volunteering is not only about challenges. With most of these differences accommodated, Bela and I have now turned our attention to incorporating life's little pleasures into our existence in the remote Pare Mountains. For a little while now a bottle of wine has been a mendatory item on the shopping list for Moshi. This weekend we have refined our dining experience. We start with an aperitif (some of the wine) drunk with Bela's supply of cashew nuts. Then comes Mr Ismaeli's wonderful food, washed down with some more wine. What is missing now is a cup of coffee to round off the meal; we will buy some. In our imaginations we are re-running the colonial life style. No doubt, it is nothing like things were in those days, and perhaps we shouldn't even be thinking of aspiring to anything colonial, but it all adds to the experience.

Hope Training - Ngaramtoni

Izabela Tolowinska November 2007 - Fenruary 2008

I arrived in Arusha on 13th November 2007 and can’t believe I have been here 3 months and it is now time to leave. My volunteer project involved providing HIV/AIDS training for the 6 community volunteers of Hope Trust (there are normally 7 but one has been on maternity leave). Hope Trust is a small local HIV/AIDS community organization based in the village Ngaramtoni, 16 km outside Arusha.

Ngaramtoni village is on the slopes of Mount Meru and is about 30 minutes ride in a daladala (shared minibus taxi of questionable safety) from Arusha. It was originally a Maasai village, but is more and more becoming a dormitory village for Arusha. Consequently there has been an influx of other tribes, notably Chagga. Unlike most of Arusha and other parts of Kenya the soil is black not red and when it rains the village turns into a bit of a negotiation hazard with all the black mud!

Hope Trust provides small business grants to selected recipients so that they can start a small business thereby providing income from which they can feed, cloth and educate their children. It also provides HIV/AIDS and health training to schools and community groups in the nearby sub-villages thereby aiming to raise HIV/AIDS awareness, and hopefully dispel many of the cultural beliefs and myths of HIV/AIDS. All this is done by the 6/7 community volunteers.

The community volunteers had previously received some HIV/AIDS training back in 2005/2006 and had expressed interest to get more – so that was were I came in. All sounds very easy but when my Swahili is not very good, there is no ready access to a printer, the flip chart board is made up of a plywood board that leans against a concrete step, with two pointed sticks behind on which to hang the paper, unpredictable power cuts so you are unable to print/photocopy your training material, people do not arrive on time, it becomes quite a challenge! My first training session started on 7th December with an “Introduction to HIV/AIDS” and ended on Monday 4th February with a knowledge quiz. For two of the sessions I arranged for a local counselor and TB/HIV physician to come and do the sessions on Stigma and TB and HIV respectively, as they could be given in Swahili. The training information had to be tailored towards the “resource limited” situation as general healthcare, HIV/AIDS treatment, healthcare infrastructure is so completely different to what is available in the developed world which meant a lot of internet searches, a great deal of preparation and meetings with local HIV physicians which I found extremely interesting as I learnt so much. Unlike in Europe and US, there are very few antiretrovirals (drugs) available, two types of regimens when treatment is first started and only one regimen when that one fails. All so very sad and not surprising that HIV/AIDS care is such a difficult task. Even giving the training sessions was a learning experience and an insight into the people’s beliefs, and understanding e.g. the CVs were not aware of how the HIV/AIDS epidemic has spread and how huge a problem it is compared to the rest of the world, the belief that antiretroviral (drug) treatment is bad because people start looking healthy and so start having sex and consequently pass on the HIV virus or that HIV transmitted can by sharing sweets from mouth to mouth!

The classroom was in the open air, sitting on tree stumps. Fortunately it was under a galvanised iron roof otherwise when it rained we would have got soaked! I worked very closely with the CV coordinator called Daniphord who helped with translations during the training sessions and also when I visited some of the community training sessions with a women’s group and school. He was an invaluable help and I would have been lost without him.

Two other aspects I worked on included putting together a "training syllabus/module" of the topics to be covered for the CVs to use when they go out to the community (schools, women's and church groups) to do the HIV/AIDS training which seems a relatively easy task and one that could be done in a week. However when there is no overall overview of what training sessions where done, the topics and no coordinated planning (topics and which CVs will do the session seem to be decided 2 days beforehand), but we finally have one. I went to one of the school training sessions where class sizes are typically around 100 to see the CVs in “operation”. Even though there is a chalk board only one CV used it, instead the typical format for doing training is standing in front of the class and talking, which is very similar to how general teaching is done.

The third area I looked at was trying to establish collaborations with existing HIV/AIDS groups and/or local clinics. I had a stroke of luck when I was introduced to the District Medical Officer for the Arusha area who is also a HIV physician who was very happy to meet with me and ended up giving 2 hours of his time discussing a number of HIV/AIDS treatment issues with me. He is also in the early stages of starting an HIV clinic in the village where Hope Trust is based and very keen to work with them and help with their community training sessions. My meeting with Dr. Shungu has therefore been the highlight of my work and I feel that this collaboration with Hope Trust will be mutually beneficial.

My volunteer experience with Hope Trust and MondoChallenge has been wonderful and even though there is still so much that can be done in terms with HIV/AIDS education awareness I feel that some small steps have been done in the right direction. My last meeting with the Hope Trust group produced an unexpected surprise when all the CVs handed in their completed HIV/AIDS knowledge quiz forms, all of them got more than 20 out of 33 questions right!!! I shall miss all the kindness I have been shown and willingness to help but hope to return in the not too distant future.