Chris and Paula’s World

It all started out so well. We left Moshi for the hour drive to Kilimanjaro airport at 9am, got on the plane and arrived in Dar-Es-Salaam on time (11am). Then it started getting not so good. Our flight from Dar, Tanzania to Johannesburg was delayed ‘2 and 1/2 hours’. This turned into 6 hours by the time the engineers fixed whatever was wrong with one of Zambian Airways 4 planes, flew the plane from Lusaka, Zambia to pick us up in Dar. So we got on the plane around 8pm. The plane flew to Lusaka where it was supposed to stop on the way to Jburg. When we arrived (midnight), we were told the plane was not going to Jburg tonight. We have to go thru Zambia immigration and they want us to purchase a $50USD visa for a 6 hour stay. We refused and after a whole bunch of some African language being spoken between the airline girls and the immigration guy (I think they were brother and sister), the airline purchased our visas. Next we are in the parking lot and they are trying to figure out how to get us to the hotel they are putting us in. Eventually we end up in the staff van with all the other Zambian airways workers and two very ass-like eastern Europeans who were too cheap to get a taxi into town. One of them had a shovel. Next thing we are driving at very high speeds through the tiny dirt roads dropping off staff members at their houses. Lots of Bemba being spoken, or what I think is Bemba (popular language in Zambia). We get to our hotel shortly after 1am, i bum a few bottles of water off the receptionist and tip the nice guy who carried our bags with the last of our Tanzanian shillings as we had no Zambian currency to speak of. A few hours go by and next thing it is 5:40AM and the same driver is outside to pick us up (was supposed to get us at 6:30). We rush off to the airport and struggle to get them to remember who we were and get us on the plane in time for Jburg. Amazingly it works and we get on the plane! After a beef pastrami sandwich for breakfast and some sleep we finally arrive in Jburg at 12:50. Short break there and back on a plane for Cape Town. After all was said and done we arrived at the very super Cape Town Backpackers Hostel at around 4pm. It’s cold here.

First of all, I wanted to say a BIG thank you to Jo and Damian and Henry VIII Pub in Etobicoke!!! They volunteered to raise some money and send it here for a good cause. With the money that they raised, Kilimehewa school is going to get their first classroom set of textbooks for at least two subjects (subjects to be determined). The school will be having a one year anniversary party toward the middle of September and the books will be “unveiled” at the event. The students are going to freak out!!!! It will be great for them to have text books. THANKS GUYS!!!! I have been assured that you will receive a photo once the kids have the books in hand!

Yesterday was a happy and sad day. It was our last days of placement. My last day actually started on Thursday with a Kilimehewa community meeting. The village chairman had a short speech prepared that was really sweet, and the ladies gave me a beaded bracelet and ring before singing and dancing. It was really sweet. Another volunteer, Helen was also saying good bye to Kilimehewa after a three week placement with the Womens Group. They had us both up dancing with them. We had the Ladies for tutoring in the afternoon and it was really sad to say goodbye. One of my favorites, Lucy, started bawling… it was such an awkward moment!!! She started Teodora, who started Mama Hediya… it was quite the moment! Really unexpected, and so damn awkward that all I could do was giggle uncomfortably and pat them on the back saying “pole” - “sorry”. Mama Lucy gave me a beaded necklace and bracelet that she made and also a picture that she drew of her and I. Mama Tina made me a hot plate out of rolled up banana leaves and tied with kanga fabric. Not sure how that is going to travel as it is really fresh and damp… I’ll have to tie it to the outside of my bag!

On Friday I planned a fun day so we played “Jeopardy”, ate chocolate, and took some photos in each class. The classes had drawn pictures and wrote letters to me, which was awesome. They came up one by one and gave me their pictures and their hugs. Saying thank you and goodbye to them was tough. Managed to get through it ok with just a few tears, no waterworks. A couple of the kids were really sad too, but for the most part the chocolate and the camera was so appealing that they forgot about me!

I feel that being a part of this community has changed me, but I’m not exactly sure how yet. I think that in returning to travelling and eventually in returning home those changes will become more obvious. It has given me a lot to think about in terms of the way that I want to live my life, the way that Chris and I will live our lives together, the things that I value, how to make changes at home and far away. It has been such a positive experience and I feel really fortunate to have been here and met the people that I have met. I won’t forget a moment, and in my heart I know that I’ll be back one day. I encourage anyone who is considering doing volunteering whether local or international to DO IT!!!!

Hoping that the power and internet will be operational tonight at the home base (the power has been out all day today and the internet has been painfully slow or non existent for 3 days)
so we can upload the rest of our volunteering pictures before moving on. Stay tuned for photos!!

On our way to South Africa tomorrow!! Can’t wait to get there now that the goodbyes are done!!

Anyhow, while having a great time here, I continue to be very homesick and miss everyone badly. Hope that all is well, and hope to hear from some of you soon.

xoxox
Paula

The week is going quickly. It just hit me today that goodbyes are just around the corner. Already I can see that the week will fly. Six weeks has been great, but I feel that I have only just gotten into a groove with these kids. I won’t miss all of the planning of the lessons, but I will definitely miss the laughs at the school, the giggly girls, the class standing and saying “Good Morning Teacher”, the ladies high fiving each other, and the daily feeling of being so impressed by them all. It sucks, I feel like I am finally learning most of their names. I’m sad for them… when I go they won’t have an English teacher for at least a week… the lack of continuity doesn’t help them at all. This week there is a community meeting planned for a goodbye which will be nice, as well as a fun day in the classroom on Friday. Tomorrow I am going to Chawamaki with Chris to say goodbye to the ladies. They love him so much and I think that they will be very sad to see him go. He has been adopted by an African Mama named Mama Judith who calls him her son, and me her daughter in law. She is a lovely and cuddly 50+ year old who lives with HIV. Chris has done some really good work with their group and I’m sure they will remember him forever.

Regardless of feeling sad about leaving placements, I am looking forward to being back in travelling mode with Chris. No doubt there will be some tears and sadness giving 70+ hugs goodbye at the school, but there will be happiness too when we get on the plane to Dar > Joburg on Sunday.

More later, we are on our way to tutor the ladies now…

bye for now

Paula

We are heading into our final days at CCS Rau. Life outside of here is going to be very different. Having a bed and every meal provided for us has been a real treat after travelling for so long. We are in planning mode once again for our next steps and we are in the middle of figuring out how to get to Cape Town from here. So far we know that we are flying to Dar Es Salaam on Sunday Sept 2, then on to Johannesburg the same day. We will have an overnight there and head to Cape Town on the 3rd of Spetember. Not sure yet if it will be by rail or flying. Cheapest option remains to be seen, so we will keep you posted. We are both looking forward to getting back on the road, but it will be hard to leave the friends that we have made here. Saying goodbye to the kids and women at Kilimehewa will be hard. Gladly I don’t have to do that yet.

We got our new passports, which is a big relief. They are so freaking thick that our money belts are going to be a lot more uncomfortable to wear. I am already not a fan of the money belt, but I guess it serves its purpose. There is no chance of running out of pages with our new passports, so getting visa stamps will again be a thrilling experience!

I had a nice long chat this morning with Morag, who waited up til 12:15 a.m. on a work night to call me here in Tanzania at 7:15 a.m. It was nice to hear the news from home and chat with my pal. Sometimes I feel so far away from everyone all the way over here in Africa or wherever.

Placement this morning went well, the seemingly endless pronoun reviews seem to be paying off with the beginners, and the advanced kids seem to be having fun reasoning things out in English. Our topic today “Why are there so many vehicle accidents in Tanzania?”. I have decided that if I ever was to pursue a career in teaching, it would have to be with older kids. They are so much more interesting, and it is fun to see the ideas that they come up with. Interesting to hear the things that these kids come up with. Culturally, economically, etc they are so different from kids at home. When asked what they would do with a pile of money, all but one said that they would pay for their own education and the education of their families. The other one had an itemized account of the food she would buy in addition to paying for education and books. When asked what is most important to them, “getting a good education so I can have a better life” was the answer. Today a group of kids asked me to check over their grammar practice that they had done yesterday after school. Another question was “what is your favorite holiday and why?”. One boy who lives alone (he is 17) said that his favorite holiday is “every Sunday, because it is time to pray and spend time with God”, a girl said “Christmas because we celebrate Jesus’ birthday”. Me, cynic that I am, expected that one would get snickers from the class… nope… many of them had the same or similar answer. So kids are crazy serious about school, have strong belief systems, and don’t have a shred of materialism. They don’t have the opportunity that other kids have, to sit in front of the tv and get steeped in media. The stuff that matters seems to be the stuff that matters. That being said, some of the girls met Chris at our conversation class earlier this week, and since they learned that he is my “mchumbwa” or fiancee, they giggle every time they see me. Today after class one of the girls told me to say hello to Christopher, and ran away giggling, back to the group of girls who were all in stitches. Teenagers. Strage thing is that some of them will likely be married in a year or two. People get married a lot earlier here. They all find it fascinating that I am 34 and have no babies. It just doesn’t compute here.

Anyhow, that is all I have for now. Must get ready for tutoring the ladies this afternoon.

I hope that all is well at home. I miss everyone and hope to hear from you soon!

xoxo
Paula

Can’t believe it is the end of another week in Rau. The individual days seem to last forever, but the weeks zip by.

This week the new volunteers started with us. It is an odd dynamic that has formed between the Art Therapy group and the rest of the volunteers. They have their own agenda, and it is hard to really feel positive about it after being here a while. Agendas go out the window quickly when you see what the people deal with daily. You really have to go with the flow and work according to what the daily needs are. Two new volunteers had a serious discussion about file folders and how they need to find them. They agreed that they are doing the children a serious injustice if they are not organizing their art well into folders. Others panicked because they didn’t have glue sticks. It is difficult to sympathize with them. Soon after arriving here something that strikes everyone is the resourcefulness of the kids and adults here. There are kids that have never owned a crayon… somehow I don’t think they will miss the damn folders. It will be interesting to see how it goes.

The week at Kilimehewa was up and down. We had a vocabulary test on parts of the body and the kids cheated so much that I didn’t even mark them. One kid Godwin, was looking on his neighbour’s paper, and after I busted him and gave him a warning I busted him again big time. He was wearing a white button down shirt and had written all of the words on the inside of the bottom of the front of his shirt!! I had Dismas, the local volunteer teacher translate a scolding to the class. It was all very dramatic, but I am hoping it did the trick!!! I learned my lesson… it was too soon for a test and I should have known it. Oh well, live and learn.

A few kids from the advanced class asked if we could have debates, which was a surprise to me. They suggested “city vs. rural” as a possible debate topic and were really excited when I agreed to do it. I’m nervous about how this will go, but hey, if they are interested in trying it out, I’ll do it. Today we did some practice sentences “I believe that…because…”; “I think that…because”; “I prefer…because…” etc. They all want to jump to the debate but really struggle reasoning in English. We agreed today that we would spend next week working on it and the great debate will be on next Friday. I am bringing a bunch of volunteers with me for a special “conversation class” on Monday evening. The class will come and we will break into small groups and have conversations about the debate topics. They seriously need practice talking, so hopefully it will work well. They are excited to come, so crossing my fingers that it will work out.

The base is quite empty this weekend as everyone is on safari. Chris and I are going to a “fancy” hotel with a pool in Moshi tomorrow to get away from here for a night. Looking forward to it.

Other than that, not a lot of news. Missing you all and feel very very far away.

xoxoxoxo
Paula

3 weeks of volunteering have come and gone. The 1st group we were with left yesterday and a new group has arrived. A cumbersome amount of goodbyes and hellos and other introduction type conversations. There is a group of about 8 of us who have remained from previous groups. The majority of the new people are from 2 schools around New York who are doing post graduate work in Art Therapy. Some skepticism from us about how effective art therapy can be if many of the people here lack the most basic of requrirements - food, sanitation, primary education, etc. We will see how it goes.

One thing that seems to be non-optimal, is that many of the placements that people have previously been at are now vacant, leaving a gap in the support they are getting. None of the primary schools that previously had some very good volunteers at them now have anyone. It seems that because the volunteers get to pick they type of volunteer work they do, this leaves gaps in the program some time.

My 1st placement - Moshi Disabled Network, will get one new volunteer, and art therapist. The 2nd placement, Chawamaki does not get anyone, but I will be at each for another 3 weeks. I plan to start making my afternoons more busy, as there are plenty of places to go. Paula is tutoring and going to Juvenile Detention in the afteroons. I might do some of that and in addition try to teach some computer skills to some school kids. I will let you know how that all goes.

Enough for now, time to do something else.

It is Saturday and we have just finished our third week at CCS Rau. It was a good week, not as structured as the first two weeks (which is nice), but still busy. A large group of volunteers are leaving today and tomorrow, and another group is arriving. Lots going on around the home base but Chris and I have no plans. I’m going to be planning some lessons for classes next week. The volunteers that I have been working with at the school have left, and I don’t know yet if I’ll be on my own at Kilimehewa or with new volunteers. It has been difficult working with one of my partners in particular and I wasn’t too sad to see them go to be honest. Different styles is putting it lightly.

On Tuesday and Thursday afternoons there is a tutoring class at Kilimehewa. This week I went in the afternoons with Claire, a volunteer who reminds us so much of Morgan!! She is great and we had a good time. In the afternoons, kids can come for additional tutoring and adults can come for conversational English. I didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as I am! On Tuesday we had 4 women, and on Thursday we had 6. What a group of sweet hearts. Whenever one of the ladies read out loud, or answer something correctly, the group high fives, and there is the occasional high pitched “lalalalalala” while hands wave over their heads. On Thursday we were constructing sentences “I am happy because…”, “I am worried because…” - we were talking about emotions, beyond “I am fine”. My favorite lady, Yasinta (I know I shouldn’t have favorites, but I can’t help it) was asking me how to spell “fis” - I thought she meant fish, but turns out she was saying “fisi” which means hyena. Her sentence was “I am worried because I am a hyena”. When I explained that she was saying the equivalent of “Mimi ni fisi” or “I am hyena” she and the others laughed for 5 minutes. Basically she was trying to say “I am worried because I saw a hyena” — these ladies are all farmers and hyenas are seriously bad news! She had the right idea, just the wrong words. They are a keen little group. They won’t leave for home until they have homework to work on, and they ask if they can come to school with their children as well. Its nice to see.

The week was also good with the kids. The classroom is jam packed every day and it is nice that I’m finally picking up some of their names. Its a good group and I’m learning a lot. They are super competitive and learning games get crazy loud.

We went to a fundraising concert at a local primary school trying to raise money for building a new classroom. Every kid here has such amazing rythm. The kids were adorable and I’ll post pictures soon.

Anyhow, thats all I have for now.

xoxo
Paula

I am trying to create an electronic image for use on brochures and other places and what I have now is a totally trashed sign to go on. So what I am looking for is someone who can recreate a drawing based on the attached image. What I need as a result is an electronic image in JPG or PNG format or something similar. It looks like a pretty simple drawing, and I even took a stab at it, but my drawing looks like it has been affected by years of alcohol and drug abuse. It is definitely a challenge to get something like this done here I must say. The logo is for the Moshi Disabled Network, a group of disabled people around the Kilimanjaro region who look after each other - financially and medically. We are trying to organize them a little better and help get the word out there about them. The image will initially be included in some brochures and tags that are included on goods that they sell.

Link to the Sign Image

Thanks!

Chris

Just an fyi - new pics are posted in the Volunteering album.

We just got home a few hours ago from a weekend away at Kili Lodge, about 2900 metres up Mount Kilimanjaro. A group of 16 of us went up on Friday afternoon. The view from there was spectacular. Banana plantations and small farms dot the mountainside, and small villages with lots of local colour line the road from Rau. The lodge itself was pretty basic, and being literally in the clouds, quite damp. We went on a hike through the rain forest in the rain on Saturday after breakfast. The path was very muddy, which made the uphill trip a lot more fun — uphill is a lot more fun when you go “pole pole” - slowly slowly! The trail was slippery in places, and in other places sticky deep muck that you’d lose your shoe in if you weren’t careful. A couple of people on the trip had very worn out running shoes on, which made for some good laughs watching them slip and slide. The forest reminded us of hikes around Vancouver. Amazing how similar it was - lots more vines than at home, but aside from that it all looked familiar. We hiked for about 4 hours and came back to a good hot lunch. Saturday afternoon and night was a good time with drumming, singing Swahili songs and drinking beer. We woke on Sunday to hear the most bizarre story from the night. A group of 5 girls staying in the same room had a late night visitor who had apparently been told by “the ancestors” to visit their room and warn them of the vampires. Freaked them all out, and really put a damper on the already damp weekend. The story is longer than that of course, but suffice it to say, the trip ended a little earlier than we had anticipated!

We’ve been back long enough for Chris to do some laundry and wash our shoes…what a good guy. Big week ahead. First week for me at the school without the volunteers that have been there for 8 weeks.

I don’t have anything else to report at the moment, so I’ll sign off now. Hoping that all is very good at home. Missing you all.

xoxo
Paula