Still with concrete on my boots

36 hours later...home

Arrived back in York at 5.30pm. met at the station by my family.

The last working week

Saturday 25^th June

This last week has been our last full working week in Tanzania and as per usual it has been pretty crazy.  Monday started off with our last visit to Jipe Moyo, the home for vulnerable children in Musoma, where some of the team did some dancing, face painting, football and parachute games. I was on football this time and it always strikes me how strong the kids are, as they always play in bare feet and are still just as fearless as if they were wearing football boots.  There were some really talented kids in particular Stefano and Juma who were 14 and 12 respectively who probably, if they had been born in the UK, would be playing for a professional team. Even though they don’t have a very good football to practice with and by football I mean a whole load of plastic bags stuffed into a ball shape with elastic bands to hold it together, they could still run circles round us.

One of the main highlights this week was adding the finishing touches to our pit latrine by moving the all the soil that was still there from when the hole was dug out which involved a lot of shovelling. While I was doing this the rest of the team were painting the doors to label them Wanawake and Wanaume along with the associated signs! In the afternoon we started our 3^rd and final Goat Shed which is also in Nyankanga for Winnefreda and her family. We expected on arrival that digging the holes for the support posts was going to be easy. How wrong we were. To dig the holes requires getting 40cm deep, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but 10cm down we basically hit a layer of clay which meant digging the holes took a lot longer than anticipated, I was told so kindly by the rest of my team that it looked like I had taken a shower due to the amount I had sweated! We did manage to get the post in eventually even though they were about the size of half a tree. Thursday and Friday were also taken up with bashing out the rest of the shed which it has to be said was much easier and more efficient than our first one which we made 10 weeks ago.

Wednesday was doing repairs in the morning which was wholesale changing the guttering on Richard’s water tank (Richard is the assistant pastor at Mikiringo church) which involved some very funny moments because of the nesting carpenter bees (which are about 4 times bigger than any bees in the UK) versus Philipo who was armed with just a branch. Wednesday was also our last Girls and Boys Group which felt really weird as we have played football with the kids and done a Bible study with them every single week so it was kind of sad leaving them for the last time. Today is Mike’s safari-themed birthday, so I have no idea what’s going on: classic!

Week 10

Sunday 19^th June

I’m sitting writing this blog post from upstairs in the house and I’m looking out over about 400 metres of swampy ground which then merges into Lake Victoria, which is so huge that it basically looks like the sea. I can only see a very small section of the lake, Mara Bay, which has lots of islands scattered through it: one of them even looks like a giant crocodile’s head. There are always fishing boats out on the lake which look so flimsy that they could capsize with only the tiniest wave. Its strange looking at the same view that I’ve seen for the last 10 weeks and thinking that this coming week is my last full week here in Tanzania which has brought up quite a few thoughts about going home and getting used to life back in the UK again. This has provoked mixed feelings of wanting to go home but also wanting to stay for longer here.

This last week has felt slightly odd in a way as we are starting to come to the end of a lot of our building work, with the doors being completed and moving an absolute pile of soil that was still there from when the original hole was dug. However we do now have a fully functioning pit latrine block at Mikirira School which will hopefully be a real blessing to that school and the immediate community. This week also seen the completion of Edwardo’s goat shed, which started with hammering all the corrugated sheeting in place round the sides and roof of the shed so that in the rainy season the goat doesn’t get pneumonia. This continued on Thursday morning where we had to get wood for the dividing section of the shed so as to separate male and female goats when they are in season. However in order to get pieces of decent enough wood we had to take apart the old platform of the old shed and salvage what we could that wasn’t rotten because Edwardo hadn’t brought anymore branches which is what we usually use for that job. But after an hour and a half of hammering and sawing we had the right amount of wood at the right size to screw in place. Friday finished our work on the shed with attaching the locks on the doors of the shed and painting the whole shed with green wood preserve to try and halt the advance of the termites. Although a funny moment of Friday was getting to shed and seeing the goat in one side and Edwardo’s grandchildren playing in the other. This was compounded Sam (one of the six monthers) having to get into the part of the shed where the goat was to paint it and the goat abruptly escaping. This required a short struggle in which we managed to grab the rope that the  goat was tied to and drag it back into the shed even though it nearly pulled Sam and the rest of us over on multiple occasions!

One of the other highlights this week was the Sports Day we did with the kids at the Lepers community. This meant lots of face-paint, plenty of organised chaos and good times all round. Ella and Juliette were dressing wounds and helping the adults still suffering with the after effects of Leprosy whilst the rest of the team and some of the six monthers played classic sports day games with the kids such as egg and spoon, or in this case pin-pong ball and spoon, under and over, skipping etc. The afternoon ended as it always seems to with a big game of football which seems to be what the kids really want to do!

We finished the working week with starting our second water tank which was plenty of digging, bending tying wire and concrete mixing: I won’t lie, it was very sweaty. The mixing of our last few batches of concrete was definitely my highlight, even though it is really hard work is very satisfying when its done as the results are definitely tangible.

I’m exited what this next week will bring and I’m definitely going to make the most of it.

Pictures

Location

Week 9... I think

Monday 13^th June

This last week has felt really productive with lots of progress on projects, in particular the pit latrine, which we finished block laying last Monday and have now moved onto the final stages of making it a proper toilet. Tuesday was mainly taken up by more concrete mixing (which has to be said is always the highlight of any working day!) in order to set the ceramic squat plates, which I’m sure I don’t need to elaborate further on the importance of said item. Once this was done  we headed off to lunch at the hostel, as always, for rice and beans and came back in the afternoon to put the roof trusses and then the actual roof sheeting in place which is very satisfying to see how close we are getting to providing the school with a new toilet block. We carried on working on the latrine on Wednesday also which was mainly making sure the doors fit the door frames and attaching hinges which would have been a bit tricky without Phillipo helping us out and showing us what to do in his ever patient manner especially when we got it wrong.

Boys and Girls Group up at Nyanbeshi Church went well with plenty of football but also some Bible focused time on the Parable of the Sower. Often at Boys and Girls Group we have children coming up to us with medical problems and this week was a prime example of how poor access to health is out here, as one boy had what we think was scabies or some other fungal infection on his hand. As is the case with so many children who have cuts or infections they have wood preserve put on the affected area in order to keep the flies off which solves one problem to cause another as the preserve only supposed to be handled with gloves on let alone placed on raw wounds. It made me realise just how important it is the work Go MAD has done on the health centre in Kamajoje providing health care at the local level for people with no access to transport.

Thursday’s progress on the pit latrine was to hammer all the mozzie mesh in place which is vital for keeping flies and mosquito’s out of the latrine in order to stop them breeding and spreading disease. Thursday afternoon was building the platform for our new Goat Shed for Edwardo which is always good to bash it together. Ella also arrived Thursday evening who is a second year nursing student and will be with us until the end of our trip and will also be working quite closely with Hezbon on all the outreach projects that he organises. I also had a haircut which was done with a beard trimmer and a pair of scissors by two members of the team that have never cut anyone’s hair before, so if you don’t recognise me when I get home then you know why!

Friday was yet more progress on the goat shed with sheeting and supports done. This weekend was mixed really with Tommy, one of the 6 month team, going home early which brought home the reality of how little time we have left here. It was Helena’s birthday yesterday so the whole team celebrated by going up Eagle Rock and watching the sun rise. The afternoon was yet more climbing, but this time up Kamajoje rocks which is where we went in our first week 2 months ago, and the view was incredible as the first time we went. This led to a lot of discussions within the team about how much we’ve all changed since being here. I also finally got a proper application for using the Masai knife I bought in town on some of the vegetation going up Kamajoje which was very satisfying.

I am also going to try and upload at least some pictures with this post, even if the internet doesn’t agree!