Kwa Heri Tanzania:

April 2nd, 2007 - April 7th, 2007

Hamjumbo!

Sadly, my month here in Tanzania has come to an end. The experience at the school, time with the children, and knowledge gained from other volunteers has been amazing.

This past week has been one of mixed emotion. I have tried to get out and experience other peoples' placements during the afternoons. The first three weeks we were here, there were a lot of scheduled activities, so it was a good change to see the other opportunities available.

On Monday, I went to the orphanage with some of the girls who volunteer there. They wanted me to take some photos of the kids with my "good" camera. There were about 25 kids, all 5 years old and younger, living in the orphanage. Unfortunately, many of the children are sick and germs spread easily, but they are so cute and simply picking them up and holding for a few minutes them means the world to them.

Also this week I brought my camera to school. I took class photos of my two grade seven classes. They were excited and many of them had not seen a digital camera before. Similar to the Maasai, seeing themselves on the LCD screen of my camera was a big thrill.

I also presented one of my CFL footballs to a student in the Standard six class who had helped some of the other volunteers paint the inside of two of the classrooms last week. Moses, the student whom I gave the ball to, and some of his friends from the village were just hanging out watching us paint. I asked them why they were not playing soccer or anything since school was over. They told me they had no ball so they just wandered around looking for stuff to do. Now, they will have something to keep them occupied after school.

Anyway, after I presented the ball, the teacher agreed to let them skip class and go out onto the field and play football. I threw passes to the kids and they tried to catch the football. At first, they had trouble catching it because they had never seen something shaped like this. I accidentally knocked over one of the kids with a pass because the ball went through his hands in hit him in the chest.

On Wednesday, both Standard Seven classes got together today and gave me a gift and showered me with flowers. It was very emotional. Veronica, their teacher, called me into the classroom. I came in the door and all 70 kids were piled into the room, many of them holding flowers for me. It was hard to contain my emotions. It meant so much to me to have reached them, even in such a short time.

I spoke to the class about why I came to Tanzania and how much I had gained from being there and how important it was for them to continue to work on their English. A few of the kids were when I spoke to them.

It was also my chance to say goodbye to Veronica, because she wasn't at school on Thursday because she was taking extra time off for the Easter weekend. She had tears in her eyes, too, and had to leave the room for a few moments while I was talking to the kids.

Thursday was my last day of school and I was left on my own to teach the Standard Seven classes. So, I brought them all into one classroom and presented them with another CFL football that I brought. I then spent the next 20 minutes teaching them about football. We even did some live examples of handoffs and passes in the front of the classroom.

While I was teaching the kids, I looked out the door of the classroom and saw some of the teachers trying to throw around one of the other footballs that I brought. It was funny watching them trying to figure out exactly how to throw it.

At the start of the break, I was getting a photo taken of me and a few of my favourite kids from the Standard Seven class. All of a sudden a few more kids showed up. Then as the classrooms emptied the kids came running over and they all posed for the photo (which is attached). I would say that about half the school ended up in the photo!

Afterwards, I was presented some flowers from the Standard Six classes and I gave them a goodbye speech. I gave them each a Canada flag sticker to put in their notebooks.

I also had a chance this week to catch up with Kesuma, the Maasai Warrior whom some of our volunteers work for. He was our guide on the Maasai Cultural Safari on my second weekend here. We had lunch and I interviewed him for a couple of hours for a freelance story I am writing. It was funny watching him dressed in his traditional robes sitting at a notebook computer in a restaurant answering his cell phone just like you or I would be doing back home!

This week has been a week of partying, too. We had a big BBQ at the local bar next door to our compound. Said, the owner, and his wife Mamma Kay hosted it in honour of one of the girls in our group who was turning 19. They cooked a whole bunch of chicken up on a makeshift grill and even provided some strawberry champagne.

Earlier in the week we were up pretty late at Said's drinking and a bunch of us thought we could try and order a pizza! That is to say, we were going to hire a taxi to drive to town (12 km away) and go to a restaurant and order pizzas and then bring them back. Considering this is Africa, that plot failed miserably because it would have taken way to long.

Instead, myself and three others hopped into a taxi and went to town to Khan's, the outdoor chicken BBQ, and ended up buying seven whole chickens and brought them back to the bar for everyone to eat. It was definitely a better idea in the end!

On Friday night we went to a local bar in Tengeru Village to watch the Champions League Soccer games. We went with some of the locals whom we hang out with on a regular basis at Said's. It was a great experience sitting in the crowded bar watching the games, especially because the bar was split 50-50 between Manchester United and Roma fans.

Thursday night was my final night and a group of us went out for Ethiopian food. It was a nice place to end things, because eating Ethiopian food is a real communal experience. We wrapped up then night at a bar I had yet to visit before heading off to sleep.

My flight leaves around 8 o'clock tonight so I'm spending most of the day wrapping things up including interviews with some of the volunteers for the two articles I'm writing. I also have to run into town and buy some soccer balls for the kids at school.

I hope you enjoyed reading the e-mails and sharing part of my experience.

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