Weekend at the City Center

After an exhausting, but nonetheless amazing week at the school, we are leaving for the City Center to spend the weekend there. Again, this meant a two hours walk from the school to the next village where the van would pick us up for another two hours drive to Dar-Es-Salaam. The walk from the school to the village under the burning sun was a challenge for everyone. Moreover, we were impressed by the girl that went with us to the city. She has been ill and couldn't eat for the last three days and had to go to the City to receive medical treatment at the hospital. For her, the walk must have been even more distraughting. The Shamba Center has limited medical resources and usually, if a students gets sick, he or she has to go all the way back to Dar-Es-Salaam. There they would stay at the City Center unless their worsening condition requires hospital treatment. On Friday evening, we finally arrive at the City Center where we met the younger kids for the first time (some of them we already met at the concert in the church). The City Center is basically a flat in a poorer area of Dar-Es-Salaam where Hezekia (Baba) lives with his family. It consists of one living room, an outside kitchen area at the back (they cook with charcoal), the office from where Baba runs the Orphanage and several sleeping rooms. The first thing that everyone of us thought was that this was not "an orphanage" but a big family. Indeed, when we later got to know that Nandula, a cute two-year-old girl, was Babas daughter, we all were surprised and impressed. We could not in any way see through the way he or his wife (called Mama) treated her that she was their own daughter, all the children are now their children, it seems, as they all already call them Baba (=father) and Mama (=mother).

Back to Shamba

Today we are going to return to Shamba with cement, rice, ceiling boards and other materials. We will start building the foundation for the kitchen as well as continue painting the buildings. The weekend at the City Center with the kids was lovely, we will put articles about the past week at Shamba and the weekend at the City online very soon!

2nd Day in Shamba

As early as 5 am in the morning, we could hear the bell ringing, signalizing the start of the day for the students. Acknowledging our long journey, we allowed ourself to stay in beds until 7 am. In the following days, we would often once more credit the impressive schedule that each student has to cope with . It starts with what they call "worship" in the morning. The students would asemble in the classroom where they sing different spirituals together. Afterwards, each student would pray on his own. After worship, the students clean theit room or study and exercise before the school starts. Around 70 students and 6 staff members are staying at the Shamba Center, although we did not meet all the students as some of them were in the city (Dar-Es-Salaam) to receive medical treatment. All the students stay in two classrooms (each one for the boys and the girls) where bunk beds have been put in and where at least two students share a bed. The Shamba Center has three main buildings, the biggest one with three classrooms (with two of them being used for the students to sleep in) and the other buildings with two classrooms each. During our stay, the girls occupied one classroom of one building with bunk beds while he boys joined the other classroom with the staff. The last building consist of the office and one classroom. This building is exactly the one that the project member from the tanzania Project 07 built last summer. There was also another house with two big rooms, funded by an organisation that sends volunteers to the Shamba Center and where three girls from the States were staying in. However, they left for the week we were staying; we only met Chris and Scott, both students from Florida who were helping at the Shamba Center for the last three months.
To be officially registered as a school, the Shamba Center needs to fulfill certain requirement set by the Tanzanian government, among which it is said that the school needs to be painted. Therefore, our first task was to paint the rooms and building as well as the ceiling.

Arrival in Shamba

Monday, the day we would leave for the Shamba Center. We packed enough clothes for about one week (meaning one T-Shirt and one pair of trousers as there were no showers anyways) and the rest was stored at Babas house. At 10 am, so the plan, the van we hired (here called "Dalla-Dalla") was going to pick us up and bring us to the Shamba Center. We eventually left at 1 pm when the van finally arrived. A truck with paint, cement, rice and other necessities and materials left for Shamba earlier. Knowing that we would have to walk another 2 hours from where the Dalla-Dalla would drop us, we decided to have lunch before leaving. Ordering and Paying the food took us another two hours. One thing that everyone had to acustom to was that here, everything works in its own pace (means: incredibly slow!).
After a very bumpy about 2 hours ride on the van, we eventually started our walk around 6 pm. Just in time for the sunset. Trying to reach Shamba as soon as possible, the walk rather turned into a run to the school.
We arrived in the dark but all our tiredness was forgotten when the students came to welcome us. "Karibu Sana!" - We welcome you! from everywhere. We were brought to the office, where we could leave our luggage and rest. Our first meal that was served consisted of rice and beans. Something that we would get use to very quickly in the following week. After the meal, students and staff introduced themselves through speeches, songs, and dances. Again, we were overwhelmed by the friendliness of everyone. We went to bed early that night, exhausted from the long journey but very excited for what was to come in the following days.
The Shamba Center in daylight.

Shamba Center

On Saturday, we bought painting materials and cement and a van brought the materials to the Shamba Center. Today, we will leave for the Center at around 1 pm to escape the heat during midday since we will have to hike with all our stuff around 1-2 hours until we reach the Center. There we will stay until the end of the week and spend time with the children. The Shamba Center does not have electricity nor is it connected to a water pipe. Getting water from the river every morning will be one of the new experiences we will face very soon. As you might have already noticed, we will hence not be able to update our blog for the next week but promise to send articles and pictures very soon after we will have internet access again. Again, thank you all for your support! :)

Church on Sunday

Some of the children of the Hananasif Orphanage Center gave a concert in a Lutherian church near Dar-Es-Salaam today. We went to meet the children and "Baba" for the first time. Baba means "father" in Swahili as Hezekia, the founder of the Hananasif Orphanage Center, is called like this by all the children. It was a real experience to join the mass.

The children from the HOCET performing during the mass.

It started around 10 am, with a group of people singing a very lively song/spiritual at the front while people were still arriving. Big speakers filled the church with the rhythmical sound of the song and people were dancing and singing on. In the rows, men, women, children were also dancing and clapping to the rhythms. We were warm heartedly invited to "clap and dance" if we feel like and after a while, we joined in. During the mass (which lasted until 12.30 am) several songs were performed/played trough playback. Each time, there would be a group of people dancing in the front and sometimes, other people would walk to the front and join the dance.

With the children at the church.

For lunch, we were invited by the very friendly locals, who greeted us with a big smile and a charismatic "Karibu!" (=welcome). In the afternoon (around 2 pm) the concert started with songs similar to the ones sung during the mass. It was very clear to us that the church plays a very important role in the life of the people, Everyone was very fine dressed for church and it seemed to us that the whole village attended church. Also it was very obvious that everyone enjoyed their time in church with songs, dance and prayers.
We stayed there until 5 pm before we drove back to our hostel, very tired but amazed by this new experience.

Tired but happy on the way back.

2nd day in Tanzania

Even though we only arrived yesterday, it feels like much longer. Today we visited a local festival which was rather a big shopping show. Local companies introduced themselves as well as fairtrade organisations who try to promote and sell goods from local producers. Excitement arose when Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete, the president of Tanzania, came for a visit. In the afternoon, we visited the National Museum in Dar-Es-Salaam. It was truely interesting to get to know more about the history and the culture of the country. Tanganyika was a German colony until the First World War, afte which it became British. In 1964 it united with Zanzibar and became the independent United Republic of Tanzania.

Visiting the National History Museum in Dar-Es-Salaam.

Donation from MG Jever

A very big THANK YOU to the very dedicated students from the high school 'Mariengymnasium Jever' in Jever, Germany. They organised a cake sell in their school and raised 13,70 Euros for our project. Thank you! :)

Arrival

Except for two people, who will join us later today, we all arrived and are tired but happy to be in Dar-Es-Salaam. Olivia and Sarah, two Ex-AC-students (third-years) joined our project as they are doing their gapyear at the moment. For our stay in Dar-Es-Salaam, we are living at a hostel near the city. Hostel does not describe it very well, it is rather a complex of many small buildings/houses consisting of a bedroom (with three beds) and a toilet. Today, we took an adventuous one and a half hour drive with the van into the city in order to exchange money and to have a first look around. There we also met two other Third-Years, Lea and Ivy, who are studying Swahili at the University in Dar-Es-Salaam through a programme of their own University.



Arriving at the Airport in Dar-Es-Salaam.

The first meal we enjoyed in Dar-Es-Salaam, Tanzania, Afrika, consisted of .... Spaghetti and Pizza! Following the advice of our Third-Years, we ordered something that we will definitely miss in the next few weeks, as during our stay at the orphanage, rice and beans will be our main dish.

Our houses at the hostel complex and street in Dar-Es-Salaam.