Janelle Gibson – Aussies for Orphans – Tanzania 10-3-08
Salama, Week eight….It feels like an eternity since I have been here and sometimes home feels very far away. Not that I am homesick this time it’s just that things are so different in Africa than at home, obviously and it is sometimes hard to find a familiar feeling to sit with and without familiar support it is sometimes a challenge. Not that everyone here at food,water,shelter is not fabulous and I love being here with them its just that Africa is sometimes, well, Africa.
So, with this whinge aside, what’s been happening? All here at fws project have been working hard to get the main building of the children’s village built as much as money and resources will allow. The volunteers and local workers have managed to get several sections of the roof on so that now when it rains we are able to collect some water up at the site. There are currently 16 tanks installed that need water. The project is desperately in need of some volunteer carpenters or skilled trades assistants to get the project finished. We have sent out numerous emails, put it on the website and any other site that may be appropriate but we are struggling to get people who can commit to any amount of time and who have building skills. The local workers are great but are mostly lacking in building skills and need constant supervision. They will end up very skilled after finishing this project which is a great bonus for them. FWS was hoping the mamas and children would be in the new building by June but sadly they have had to put this back till September. So…..if you know anyone who can help, is keen to have an amazing adventure in Tanzania and make a huge difference to many people’s lives then please flick me an email…Asante sana
A group of us including our volunteer nurse, early childhood teacher and burser run four afternoon meetings a week with our first ten employed mamas, their children and a few local kids who emerge out of the bushes each day to join in (we affectionately call them our bush babies). The mamas meetings at this stage consist of classes in health, living at the Kesho Leo children’s village and what to expect, childcare and play, budgeting/business classes and English classes. While the mamas are having classes the kids have play/English introductory classes with the volunteers and local African childcare assistants. I run the introductory English classes with the mamas. It’s all a bit of a laugh but I am sure they are learning some English (I am certainly improving my Kiswahili but I am not sure that all they are teaching me is fit for polite conversation). The classes start off well each time and in the daily revision they seem to be catching on which is great. They are so keen to learn but it is inevitable that each class turns into a “lets ask Janelle questions (some highly inappropriate) about her life”. These conversations are done through one of the mamas interpreting to god knows what they are actually getting told. We usually end up with a song or a joke and a good laugh. I am loving it and I know they are as they are asking for more classes per week and whether I could stay in Tanzania. The kids groups are fun, hysterical, chaotic and exhausting. The youngest is 7mths and I think I told you last time about her weeing down my back when I strapped her on with a kanga. She is getting a bit more used to us now and doesn’t drop the lip every time she sees a white face. The kids love the group and the mamas are getting more used to playing with them and being a bit silly. We have some amazing moments and I have a soft spot for every one of those kids. I feel that we (the mamas and kids) have built up a lovely relationship and I will miss them so much when I leave. We have made a couple of concessions to not introducing too much western stuff to the kids. I must write a letter to the Wiggles to let them know how much the kids go crazy when I bring out the Ipod and speakers. I am building up my repertoire of African songs as well and I mangle those daily when we sing. They think it is pretty funny when the mzungu gets it wrong but they love that you try. Don’t ever think of coming to Africa to work with kids if you are not prepared to do a bit of daggy dancing and being silly…I am sure that some of these kid’s hips are not attached to their bodies the way they get down and shake it. Elvis had nothing on some of these guys. We also provide a snack and water each day for them. This consists of chopped up raw vegetables and fruit. Not all of them were keen on it at first, especially the mamas because mostly they eat their vegetable stewed (which without clean water to wash them in is better) but since they have been doing the health classes they are keener and are getting the kids more used to eating raw foods. Yep, it is universal, getting kids to eat their vegetables. We are starting to get bits and pieces of rain. Most afternoons it storms up with thunder and the whole bit but then only rains in town and doesn’t make it the 7km out to us. This is because most of the rain hangs around Mt Meru, closer to town so you have the comparison of us on one road with lots of greenery and then the next road across is dust. When it rains it pours though. A week ago we got stuck in the church where we hold our mamas meetings when 70mm of rain fell in 1.5hrs. We had to walk back to the volunteer house (about 1.5km) in the slickest mud, with rubber thongs on, trying not to think about what we were wading through. The locals thought it was pretty funny watching the wazungus stagger home, trying not to fall in the mud. We got 500mt from home and had to cross the mferengi (local rainwater runoff irrigation chanel whose quality of water is definitely questionable and has all sorts of things in it you would prefer not to think about) which in the morning was a trickle but after the downpour was a raging torrent. Yep, two of us fell in, not me fortunately thanks to Daz’s helping hand. We got it all on video though and all had a bit of a laugh at their expense (so Australian). We then had to get them home for a thorough scrub and mouth wash. Yep it’s that bad. We need the rain so you can’t really complain but we do. The mud is incredible (matope mingi sana). I have been on my safari. Three days to Lake Manyara, Ngoro Ngoro crater and Tarangire National Park. So fantastic and definitely a must for Tanzania. Unfortunately all safaris are pretty expensive unless you want to really rough it but a lot of this is due to park fees. Our guide was excellent, very knowledgeable and a great spotter so we saw many animals and a lot of them very close. Being a huge lover of elephants I swear I almost ‘lost it’ when a male, female and their baby came so close to the jeep that I could hear them breathing. Fantastic. We also saw a cheetah mum and her cubs in Ngoro which is not so common and the lions were practically rubbing themselves up against the jeep. Apparently they do it to find any bit of shade as there are practically no trees in the Ngoro Ngoro crater. The only animal we didn’t see was a leopard but I was pretty happy with it all. I would love to get out to the Serengeti but I think what I have done will have to do for this trip. I could not have come to
Tanzania without visiting the crater. Sublimely beautiful. We did have a close encounter of the animal kind here at the volunteer village. We got up to find that one of our goats skin chairs had had the leather ripped out of it (with definite teethmarks) and there were large (well we thought they were large) animal prints around the place that were definitely larger (we thought) than a dogs. We were pretty excited and our local workers were convinced it was a chui (leopard), which have not been seen around here for many years. Other workers were convinced it was a ‘people chui’, witchdoctors who are half person half animal who are angry that we are doing good things for the people here and want to sabotage the project. All very mysterious and exciting……Turns out that when a local guy, who does safaris, came to visit he thought we were mad as this was the work of a dog (probably our dog Knuckle. Most of the dogs here are strays and are mostly very mistreated and hungry. He said that when the skin on the chair got wet it smelt a bit too tempting for the dog and he thought they would make a meal of it…So…it turns out that it was not so exciting after all but it’s a good yarn and I bet the safari driver and his mates had a good laugh at our expense.
I have been trying to keep my journal up to date so I can write something terribly creative and arty to you all but I just seem to get too busy with life…I did sit yesterday (Sunday) and take note of what I could see and hear around me. I watched two boys hoeing the shamba next door and three mamas cutting grass for their cows, kids in the jackfruit tree next door calling out hello as they climbed up to get the fruit, children calling out to each other and singing rhymes as they walked along the road past our house, a group of beautiful voices singing hymns at the local church/shed and the strange ‘yi yi yi’ sound they make with their tongues when they sing that sounds very like you would hear in the middle east, lots of roosters crowing, dogs barking, so many birds being busy…So, not so quiet here after all. We are right in the thick of village life which I love. I love that I can walk the couple of km’s down the road to buy rice or veg or to catch the dulla dulla into town greeting people I meet in Kiswahli. I l also love that when I walk or drive somewhere locally, people greet me by name (NuNu, not Janelle, its easier to say). Mind you, half of these people and children I have never met, but word gets around. So, that’s about all for now. Yes I know these are epics, pole sana (very sorry). I will write again before I leave Tanzania. AFO in Australia is also in the process of finding out when the Hot Property show regarding our fundraising house will go to air in
Australia so when we know I will email you all. I am sort of glad I will be out of the country as I know I will come across as an emotional wreck/control freak/nutter but I guess someone else has to provide the drama they so love on tv.
Warm regards,Janelle (NuNu) x PS: Just before I send this I must tell you that as I sit here emailing in our soon to be finished volunteer kitchen, a local mama Agnus is rendering the outside mud bricks with a mixture of red mud and cattle dung. Traditionally this is a job only women do as it is considered a ‘womans job’ and maybe a bit beneath the men. Our local interpreter Lucas has explained that ‘the men do not want to get their hands dirty’ (I guess that is pretty clever if you can get away with it). It smells a bit at the moment but the end effect is fantastic. Kwaheri