This past weekend was very eventful!Saturday during the day a few volunteers and I went to the Masai Craft Market.Masai is a local tribe here in Arusha they are nomads who believe all the cows belong to them, and the more wives, cows, and kids the men have, the more wealthy they are considered.The Masai Market has many homemade goods made by the tribe.When you pull up to the market the women are sitting outside in the front making beaded bowls, necklaces, bracelets, etc.Its fun going to the market, but only for a short time, each shop you walk by the owner welcomes you to come in, and if you don’t they literally beg you to come in, it can get old very fast.
After the market we meet up with one of the teachers at the school we work at, and he showed us his nursery school that he owns, and talked with us about his plans to open up his own school.When we asked him how soon he wanted to open up his school he said that he hopes within five years!He is still collection money to start the building.The building process can take a long time to complete.Most people here pay as they go, so a building can sit for six months without making progress if the person building it hasn’t got money to pay.Pole pole is the motto here, it means slowly, slowly, and it applies to just about everything…no hurry in Africa.
After meeting with teacher Peter, my roommate Anna, and another volunteer Lisa from Germany went to this volunteer network meeting in downtown Arusha.I had met the leader of the group through a friend a couple of weeks ago. It is basically a way for volunteers to meet other volunteers, and learn about other places that people volunteer at. I actually knew someone who Erin and I met on our first trip to Tanzania. His name is Stu, he is from Australia and volunteers at a secondary school in town. He also started his own group for single mothers in Arusha, which I will blog about later, it’s a great group I just meet all the ladies yesterday. The meeting mostly consisted of people from Australia, there was another girl from the US, who is from Nashville, but goes to school in Boston. It was nice to meet other volunteers and learn about other places around the town, and always fun meeting people from different countries…..I learned that the Queen has her pictures on Australian money…who knew(we consistently end up talking about the Queen...the one from England not Oprah :)!?
Saturday night was my roommates birthday, so all the volunteers went out to a local club.It’s always fun where locals and volunteers go and dance to a mix of local music and the same music you would hear from a club at home. A good time was had by all. Sunday morning was a very early morning for me I was invited by Diane, (not sure if I have mentioned her yet, she works for the family I stay with, but is originally from Canada, and now lives and is married to a Tanzanian) to go to her husband’s(Malik) village. I was excited for two reasons, one I hadn’t yet met Malik, two I was excited to go to a village outside of Arusha. The name of the village is Maruvango. We left around 8:30 and didn’t get to the village until about 10:30. Half of the ride is on a paved road, and the second half is on a horrible dirt road, where you have to go pole, pole. The weather was pretty chilly and misting all day, but the village was so pretty. The trees are and small plants are a very deep green there are many Acacia trees, and some of them have green trunks to them. Scattered throughout the green leaves are beautiful bright tropical flowers. The first thing we did was go to Malik mother’s house. Malik built his mom a nice brick house and his also in the process of building his own house not to far from his mothers. We sat in his house where we were offered coffee, and hard boiled eggs(which tasted amazing)! After meeting family members and neighbors we went to the church where the village was having a ceremony for a couple joining the congregation. It was a nice ceremony, which I understood nothing of because it was all in Swhalli. Diane explained a few things that went on, my favorite part is the music. They sing and dance around the church and the music sounds so beautiful. There is also a part where the couple joining the church brings a goat in to present to the church as a gift. The goat is later auctioned off in a auction ran by the church, where people bring eggs, beans, corn, fruits to donate and the church has an auction to make money. After the auction the whole village is invited to the couples house where a meal and been prepared for lunch. We had a brown rice with cooked goat, white rice, veggies, fruit, cooked banana(traditionally cooked in most Tanzanian meals and sooooo good), and roasted goat. Everything was good except for some of the goat. I pretended in my head that I was on survivor so I could eat it, I literally swallowed chunks whole it was not as good as the last goat I had, and you can’t leave any food on your plate, everyone joins the clean plate club! Overall the day was an amazing day, the people in the village were so friendly and very excited to talk to the Wazungus(white people).
This week is the first week of holiday for the kids. I have really been enjoying it because I get to plan my own lessons with the kids. Monday I did reading assessments with the new kids.I assessed the kids when I was here in February but there are 12 new kids since I was here last. I like doing the assessments because I get to work one on one with the kids and it’s a good way to get to know them. Yesterday I worked with the younger ones, I brought up different colored balloons and we learned colors, and played different games to learn the colors. I also played some music from The Lion King and the kids tapped the balloons through the air making sure it didn’t hit the ground. After that we worked on alphabet sounds, which are a little tricky because they pronounce some of the letters a little differently then we do here, but we managed! While I was working with the younger kids another volunteer who arrived over the weekend, was working on math with the older kids. This afternoon we had a party for the kids. We went to the market in the morning to buy fruits and veggies, and had a big cookout at the center where the kids live. It was a fun afternoon of playing games, eating good food, shaving some kid’s heads and having a dance party!
Early this morning my roommate for the past 3 ½ weeks left with her traveling friend Tom. They are going on a 40 day safari all over East and South Africa. It was sad to say goodbye and it is very weird to have a room all to myself. Although we all have plans to come back to Tanzania and climb Mountain Kilimanjaro!A new group of volunteers arrived last night, they are Americans who grew up together but now live in various cities.Two of the girls have been here and stayed with the family before, the rest are new to LWCC.
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