Buswelu Madness
Trip Start
Dec 12, 2008
1
3
7
Trip End
Jan 08, 2009
Mwanza,
Tanzania
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
I am still alive!! I'm sorry I haven't written anything, but internet is quite hard to find here!! I only have 15 minutes left of my computer time, so I better be quick!!
Travelling went pretty good! I met a guy called Hasan at Heathrow, and we realised that we were going the same place: Dar es Salaam. So we kind of travelled together. I was planning on staying at the airport in Dar since I only had about 5 hours till my flight, but when I got there I realised that that wasn't possible.. Hasan then came along and saved me. He, a friend of his and a taxidriver accompanied me to a restaurant by the Indian Ocean where we had chicken and chips and Kili (Kilimanjaro beer). Then they took me back to the airport just in time for my flight.. The flight to Mwana was pretty boring.. Slept all the way through..
I was picked up by one of the volunteer coordinators, Jaco, at the airport, and we took a taxi back to the houses..
There are two orphanages on the program, Watoto, which I am with, and Hands of Mercy. We are 6 girls in my house. Leah, who is one of the coordinators, who will be staying for two years. Nat, who is leaving next week (and sharing my room). Then there's Jill, Tegan and Sharon, who are all friends from Australia.. At the other house there's Emma, Patti, Michelle, Jaco, Alex and Fiona. Apart from Jaco and Alex, they are all Aussies, so I bet I will be coming back with a bit of a weird accent!!
Anyways, on Sunday we went to church with the Hands of Mercy kids, and they were brilliant (sorry, not much time to go into detail, I might do so later). Later we went to a baby orphanage called Forever Angels (google it!!) and played with the babies.. That was amazing!! That orphanage is run by an English couple, and the babies are getting an amazing start to their life, it was such a happy place and I wanted to take them all back home with me!! On the way to Forever Angels we got lost though, so we walked around in the Mwanzan countryside for a while, which was fun, but seriously hot!! It was a rather posh area though, so it wasn't scary or anything!
Monday I had my first day at Watoto, and it was rather amazing!! The orphanage itself is a bit of a sorry sight, but the kids... :D They are so gorgeous!! At the minute my favourites are (I shall put up photos on a later date) Maki (2), Peter (13) and Nico (little!). Maki and his brother and sister came to the orphanage only a couple of days ago, and they are a bit worse for wear to be honest. But they are so adorable!! We are planning to take the three of them to the doctors to get them checked out soon though.. And possibly see a dentist as well...
The other girls (because they are a big group) have fundraised quite a lot, so many of the basic, immediate needs are already covered. The money I've raised will most probably go on more food, more vegetables and maybe some meat.. The kids are not really eating that well at the moment, it's mainly rice, beans and ugali.. So getting some fruit and veggies in them would be good..
My days at the orphanage normally go like this:
9-10 (or a bit later, depending): I teach standard 2, 5 boys from the age 7-9. They seem to be struggling a bit to be fair.. Two of them are repeating unfortunately.. We do things such as colours, and fruits, and animals..
10-11: I teach standard 6. There are only three of them: Peter (his birth name is Marwa!), Michael and Helena.. Helena is very clever, and she's being sponsored to go to a private school. Michael is so sweet, very shy, and I can see a lot of potential, but he is struggling a bit.. Peter is very clever, but he's a bit of a rebel, a bit too cool for school. I really like him though, he's such a sweetheart, and today I got a Christmas card from him :D He's so good with the younger ones too; when I brought out the bubbles (saapebobler) the kids went completely crazy and were fighting each other for them, but Peter managed to get them to chill a bit.. He's cool!
After my classes I normally stay and play with the kids for a while, and then we head back to our house at about 12 to have lunch and chill for a bit. At 2.30 we head back and either do some more teaching (there's a girl who should be teching who hasn't been coming, so we teach her classes as well). We try to get back at about 5.30, so that we can sort out dinner and stuff before it gets too dark..
Food here is not terribly exciting.. We mainly eat carbs, bread, rice, a bit of pasta, but the girls are making an effort to eat more protein now, so sometimes we get eggs for breakfast, and we have beans with our rice etc. The fruit is amazing though, pineapples, mangoes.. And the vegetables are a lot better than at home, espeecially tomatoes.. I'm not the hugest fan of tomatoes, but the ones they have here I could eat as an apple or something! Nice!!
You might have noticed that I have written more than 15 minutes worth.. That's because we decided to do another hour! Having internet is niiiiice!! Right, I have some other things I need to sort out, so I shall finish there..
Hopefully I'll be able to come back at the weekend or something, or at least early next week. Have a good week everyone!
Malin :)
