By now, you may know that Kerri and I have arrived in Tanzania in one piece. We’ve been here for about four weeks and are getting back into the swing of things. I have to admit, I am a terrible blogger. While it was my goal to try and update this on a weekly basis, I have already failed miserably, and it’s only the first month. Hopefully in the coming weeks, I will take after Kerri and be better about updating my blog. For now, bear with me.
The bad thing about being blog-challenged is that by the time you face your procrastination, you have so much to catch up on that it’s almost overwhelming to record in words. I am taking on the challenge today, but am warning that this may be an extremely long entry. Here we go…
Since arriving, Kerri and I have been busy re-adjusting to life in Tanzania, getting our feet wet with EdPowerment work, and trying our best to brush up on our Swahili. Adjusting to life here has been surprisingly easy and it felt like home as soon as we got off of the airplane. For a detailed record of what we’ve been up to, I suggest checking out Kerri’s blog. Since I’m way behind, here’s a brief update of our trip thus far:
The bad thing about being blog-challenged is that by the time you face your procrastination, you have so much to catch up on that it’s almost overwhelming to record in words. I am taking on the challenge today, but am warning that this may be an extremely long entry. Here we go…
Since arriving, Kerri and I have been busy re-adjusting to life in Tanzania, getting our feet wet with EdPowerment work, and trying our best to brush up on our Swahili. Adjusting to life here has been surprisingly easy and it felt like home as soon as we got off of the airplane. For a detailed record of what we’ve been up to, I suggest checking out Kerri’s blog. Since I’m way behind, here’s a brief update of our trip thus far:
The Kilimahewa water project has officially been opened! The Kilimahewa community and school are now receiving clean water via solar power for the first time in the history of the community. It was amazing to attend the ribbon cutting ceremony and see the results of two years of work. Kerri and I met with the same community members two years prior to discuss the village’s need for clean water. The process came full circle when they spoke of that meeting and thanked us for keeping our word to help. As we check in with families, we’ll post more pictures and videos about how the project is progressing.
Kerri and I started our after-school program with the kids at Kilimahewa. The goal of the group is to teach students leadership skills, help students with goal planning and provide a fun after-school experience for the kids. When we told them that the group wasn’t going to be like school and that they would have fun, you could see all of the students breathe a collective sigh of relief. We’ve been meeting for about three weeks now and are having a great time. We’ve been working to get to know the kids this first month and will move into leadership skills next week. We just finished our first art project, so I’ll post more pictures soon.
We’ve been spending Mondays and Tuesdays in Arusha meeting with a variety of individuals and organizations about special needs services in the area. We’ve been able to connect with some great people and are planning to host a big teacher training for the special needs units in the area this summer. There is so much potential for growth in special needs education and we are excited to be helping with this part of the project. Updates to follow.
We moved! That’s right, we’ve moved houses already and it’s only been a month! After about two weeks in our first house, we received a letter from the owners informing us that they needed the house to board students starting in November and that we needed to move out. We did a quick search around Moshi and were able to find a great house not far from where we were previously living. Before moving in, we came to clean it up. Kerri and I started in our bathroom with a little bucket of bleach and two sponges. We soon realized that we were going about cleaning the absolute wrong way as we observed our Tanzanian friends in the other bathroom. Apparently the best way to clean a house in Tanzania is to treat it like a big car. We proceeded to throw buckets of soapy water everywhere, followed by a clean water rinse. When the whole house had been sufficiently soaked, we pushed the water out into the yard with squeegees. The result: super clean house! Kerri and I went to work in the afternoon and came home to see that all of our stuff had made it to the new house without us. Best way to move :). We have only lived here for a few nights, but already love it.
As you may have seen on Facebook, Kerri and I took a trip to Dar es Salaam for Mussa’s neice’s wedding. Check out Kerri’s blog for a re-cap of the event. The pictures really speak for themselves. We drove to Dar for the wedding, and it was great to see more of the country. We’ve always stayed around the Moshi-Arusha area for work so having the time to travel a bit has been great. Dar is insanely busy and crowded, but it has a number of beautiful beaches that make up for the insanity of the city.
We just signed up for a Swahili language course in Dar starting at the end of November. While we know the basics of the language and can get around (a little) we really want to have a better command of it to help us with work in the future. The course is a two-week intensive program that meets for about five hours each day. We are very fortunate to have a friend to stay with in the city and are really looking forward to the fact that classes meet across the street from the beach. I think we’ll be practicing by the ocean after class ;).
While much more has happened in the day-to-day, I think that is a pretty good re-cap of the first few weeks of our trip. Kerri and I feel extremely fortunate to have this opportunity and are so appreciative of all of the support we receive from people back home. We couldn’t do the work that we do without it, so thank you to everyone who have helped us along the way. I promise to update this blog more than once a month, for my sake and yours J. So check back for updates!
This mzungu is heading to the market to get supplies for the week, so I’m signing off. Thanks for reading and please keep in touch!
This mzungu is heading to the market to get supplies for the week, so I’m signing off. Thanks for reading and please keep in touch!
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