Exciting news!

Having followed up a contact from a friend, I’m very excited to say that Raleigh International http://www.raleighinternational.org/ are coming in March to see me and the school with a view to taking on Bugando as a project.

Raleigh’s approach to project work is to usually engage with partners over a long term period in order to add to their capacity. This ensures that we are undertaking work that has already been identified by local organisations and that will have on-going governance once our volunteers leave. This usually leads to us working with local NGOs and government departments. However in the case of this work, given that the school is well established it could become the partner.

 I would be more than willing to visit the school in the coming months, with a view to seeing if the work needed is suitable for our volunteers and understand the needs of the project.

Feeling so encouraged by this. Everyone keep your fingers crossed for March!

New year, new topic

Oh I know – sorry it’s a bit late. I’d love to say I’ve been kicking up my heels and what not but actually I’ve been poorly sana for most of this month. Still, I got to experience first hand the medical care available here… Well, I’m alive and for that I am truly grateful.

Leo, ninajifunza lugha ya alama ya Tanzania

(Today, I am learning Tanzanian Sign Language)

So today I went for my first proper Tanzanian Sign Language lesson at Tunaweza (We can).

The Endless Plains

I could talk about the Tsetse flies:

Tanzatoto

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That’s the title of the Tanzanian Sign Language Dictionary I originally had copied just for my students. It’s beautifully clear, fantastic for children and my kids were desperate to take them home.

Haute Couture, Mwanza style

It was probably the only time I was ever going to be able to afford “made-to-measure, just for me only” shoes, so the route to the duka was a little underwhelming.

Beep, beep

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Yep, utter chaos are the words I’d use as well but in my defense, who knew that glue and sequins would cause such a stir with the older kids? More went on their faces than anywhere else – there was … Continue reading →

Mimi itwa kuwa na mafanikio!

(I will be successful!)

A little more thought…

“That’s what you’ll find when you’re starting a project here – one step forward 97 steps back…Perseverance is the key to living here”

It seems that there are some things that I hadn’t considered when I first started this project. The jealousy of the older students being one of those things. I honestly hadn’t thought about it being difficult for them to see me bring finger paints and crayons for the children to work with or sharing chai and mandazi because the school insisted I had to otherwise I couldn’t teach the kids. Clearly I had done no thinking at all…

Nyegezi

It’s nice to be able to get away for the weekends. Mwanza is beautiful but there’s not a lot to do – lots of bars and restaurants and places to shop,  but if you just want to admire the scenery and what a beautiful place you’ve managed to land yourself in then getting outside of the city is the best way.