Greetings once again!
Haven't got long so will type what I can. We've now moved to a totally different place, a school on the slopes of Kilamanjaro! It's pretty strange seeing the mountain top every day. It's in the middle of no-where with no internet, so I'm now in a town near(ish)by.
It's been a surreal week - we've eaten manure by mistake, Ryan's been hacked on the fottball pitch and has many cuts and grazes, we've learnt to never again play consequences with Tanzanians and we've taught and planned more classes than I care to remember.
The highlight for me has to be Tuesday, when we were told we were doing "Bible-Club" for the students and had literally 5 minutes to prepare a 40 minute long "service" thingy, complete with songs and talk. It came off OK though (I hope).
We weren't sure what we'd be doing before we got here, but we're teaching English and RE. Some lessons have gone down a treat, others like a lead baloon. But it's fun (if not tiring).
Everyone here is really friendly and we're all enjoying the weekend (we can get up at 7.15am rather than 6am...).
That's all for now, hope you're all well, hopefully update again in a week or so.
J
(PS - Karen - can you e-mail me to update me on GTTR if there's anything to report).
The view from the pitch aint too shabby
Friday, July 23, 2004
Habari! It's James here again (the others all voted me in to write this - sorry!).
Tanzanian greetings to you all from Dar es Salaam. It's Friday here at 3.30 in the afternoon - perhaps less hot than last time but more humid. All having a WONDERFUL time here, Africa and Tanzania is amazing.
Yesterday we had our first Swahili lesson - Ryan, Rozzy and Rhona are all practically fluent by now and I can just about buy a mango and a cooking banana and stop the bus (an essential skill). We went to visit a guy called George who lives in Bugaruni (said Boogarooni), which is one of the poorest areas in Dar es Salaam. It's a pretty shocking place - 4 families (and families here are MUCH bigger than in the UK) to a very small house, glass-strewn dirt streets, kids playing football with a ball of rags tied together...
However, George and his family were amazing, and we all had a fantastic day. Never experienced such generosity and hospitality. He gave us a Swahili lesson and then told us we could now teach his kids... SO I had to come up with a quick history lesson. I decided to tell them the Legend of Troy. However, having studied Ancient History and not Classics I've never actually read it, but I managed to describe the film pretty well... Ryan taught them to play Hangman and the girls taught them Scottish dancing and the Moose song. We all sang and laughed and played til pretty late with his amazinbg family, it was amazing. Such fantastic food too - really nice.
George live and works in Bugaruni, trying to help the people there. It's pretty inspiring, espcially since he's one of the few who don't have to live there, yet he chooses too.
Todaywe went across town to buy bus tickets and walked through the biggest market ever - there were huge holes in the road and Ryan was a bit scared of them but I managed to steer himclear of falling in any or being hit by a bus (which is surprisingly easy to do).
Have fairly bathed in DEET so no mosquito bites as yet (unlike Ryan) although I've surely cursed myself by saying that.
Have rambled on long enough and said little of use, but I hope you feel a bit more informed. For the guys coming, we all HIGHLY recommend Merril type trianers (mine are "OutdoorScene" brand and were about 1/3 of the price and do as well) - they are absolutely amazing and get some if you can. Also, heat and mosquitos not a big prob at all, and look forward to sharing the amazing time we're having already.
Take care all,
J
Tanzanian greetings to you all from Dar es Salaam. It's Friday here at 3.30 in the afternoon - perhaps less hot than last time but more humid. All having a WONDERFUL time here, Africa and Tanzania is amazing.
Yesterday we had our first Swahili lesson - Ryan, Rozzy and Rhona are all practically fluent by now and I can just about buy a mango and a cooking banana and stop the bus (an essential skill). We went to visit a guy called George who lives in Bugaruni (said Boogarooni), which is one of the poorest areas in Dar es Salaam. It's a pretty shocking place - 4 families (and families here are MUCH bigger than in the UK) to a very small house, glass-strewn dirt streets, kids playing football with a ball of rags tied together...
However, George and his family were amazing, and we all had a fantastic day. Never experienced such generosity and hospitality. He gave us a Swahili lesson and then told us we could now teach his kids... SO I had to come up with a quick history lesson. I decided to tell them the Legend of Troy. However, having studied Ancient History and not Classics I've never actually read it, but I managed to describe the film pretty well... Ryan taught them to play Hangman and the girls taught them Scottish dancing and the Moose song. We all sang and laughed and played til pretty late with his amazinbg family, it was amazing. Such fantastic food too - really nice.
George live and works in Bugaruni, trying to help the people there. It's pretty inspiring, espcially since he's one of the few who don't have to live there, yet he chooses too.
Todaywe went across town to buy bus tickets and walked through the biggest market ever - there were huge holes in the road and Ryan was a bit scared of them but I managed to steer himclear of falling in any or being hit by a bus (which is surprisingly easy to do).
Have fairly bathed in DEET so no mosquito bites as yet (unlike Ryan) although I've surely cursed myself by saying that.
Have rambled on long enough and said little of use, but I hope you feel a bit more informed. For the guys coming, we all HIGHLY recommend Merril type trianers (mine are "OutdoorScene" brand and were about 1/3 of the price and do as well) - they are absolutely amazing and get some if you can. Also, heat and mosquitos not a big prob at all, and look forward to sharing the amazing time we're having already.
Take care all,
J
Wednesday, July 21, 2004
Hi all!
It's Wednesday evening and we're (James and Ryan) in an internet cafe at the university, just rushing off an entry before heading back to the fruit man to buy a banana-potato and then running in to avoid the attack of the mosquitos at dusk.
We're all well, got here almost without incident, but we're still a bit tired and disorientated.
Africa is amazing, and I love it so far.
Layla Mathers (one of the Navs staff here) is looking after us and we've just been seeing round Dar es Salaam today. It's about 28 degrees centigrade and humidity is quite high but I'm not finding it bad at all - quite nice even.
The plane on the way was AMAZING - a TV screen in the back of every seat with a choice of about 10 films or 18 computer games. And the food was pretty good too. Thumbs up to Emirates. By the way, if any of you guys coming out here next month want to set-off your carbon emissions, you can buy trees to soak up your plane-gas at www.futureforests.com so your flight is carbon-neutral.
Food is cool - had fish and banana soup last night! Lovely fresh fruit everywhere, mangoes are lovely.
Struck by the poverty already - lots of people live in shack-style things along roads, 20% employment, 44 years life expectancy, 1 in 5 infant mortality, HIV/AIDs a big prob. At the same time, there are quite a few rich White people with HUGE houses. Weird.
That's all from me - Ryan wants a rubber suit with inbuilt air conditioned suit brought out to remain cool during football but also to bouce off any 14-year-old girls coming his way (so far he almost fell over in the bath and impaled himself on the taps but that's it). Speaking of the bath, have to wash in a bucket which is kinda fun but REALLY time consuming. Especially if your name's Rhona... :o)
The girls say "hi", they're well apart from being woken up at 4am by some guy calling Muslims to prayer.
Oh - and there's monkeys wild running about!!! They're like squirrels or rats in Britain. SO cool. No rabid dogs yet, but quite a few stray ones.
Take care y'all, will try and write again in a few days.
James (and Ryan)
It's Wednesday evening and we're (James and Ryan) in an internet cafe at the university, just rushing off an entry before heading back to the fruit man to buy a banana-potato and then running in to avoid the attack of the mosquitos at dusk.
We're all well, got here almost without incident, but we're still a bit tired and disorientated.
Africa is amazing, and I love it so far.
Layla Mathers (one of the Navs staff here) is looking after us and we've just been seeing round Dar es Salaam today. It's about 28 degrees centigrade and humidity is quite high but I'm not finding it bad at all - quite nice even.
The plane on the way was AMAZING - a TV screen in the back of every seat with a choice of about 10 films or 18 computer games. And the food was pretty good too. Thumbs up to Emirates. By the way, if any of you guys coming out here next month want to set-off your carbon emissions, you can buy trees to soak up your plane-gas at www.futureforests.com so your flight is carbon-neutral.
Food is cool - had fish and banana soup last night! Lovely fresh fruit everywhere, mangoes are lovely.
Struck by the poverty already - lots of people live in shack-style things along roads, 20% employment, 44 years life expectancy, 1 in 5 infant mortality, HIV/AIDs a big prob. At the same time, there are quite a few rich White people with HUGE houses. Weird.
That's all from me - Ryan wants a rubber suit with inbuilt air conditioned suit brought out to remain cool during football but also to bouce off any 14-year-old girls coming his way (so far he almost fell over in the bath and impaled himself on the taps but that's it). Speaking of the bath, have to wash in a bucket which is kinda fun but REALLY time consuming. Especially if your name's Rhona... :o)
The girls say "hi", they're well apart from being woken up at 4am by some guy calling Muslims to prayer.
Oh - and there's monkeys wild running about!!! They're like squirrels or rats in Britain. SO cool. No rabid dogs yet, but quite a few stray ones.
Take care y'all, will try and write again in a few days.
James (and Ryan)
Monday, July 19, 2004
Well the first 'batch' have departed! Rozzy, Ryan and James should have taken off from the airport by now and are (hopefully!) meeting up with Rhona in Dubai before travelling on to Dar-es-Salaam. The plan is to stay in Dar for a few days before going up to Uroki to do some teaching in a secondary school there. So kept checking this page to see how they are doing. The rest of the gang depart on the 12th - so please pray for their last minute arrangements, including managing to fit everything into their suitcases!!!
Karen (official blogger on behalf of the guys!)
Karen (official blogger on behalf of the guys!)
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