6 MONTHS!!!!!

Since being out here in Tanzania I feel that I have grown and matured in ways that I never thought I would get to. I have found an inner happiness and peace that has filled the whole that was never possible before. Teaching in Africa has given me an opportunity to experience another culture and develop my teaching and understanding of the way children learn. The school is still in its first year of opening and there is still much that needs to be done to set a firm foundation for the school to expand and grow. I have built relationships with the Tanzanian children and have seen them grow and start to use English. There is still a lot of work to do in setting up the school to reach its full potential and I feel that I want to be apart of making this happen. Therefore I have signed on for another year contract to teach here. I am coming home in the summer and will be back on the 28th June and will be leaving at the end of August. 

6 months of:

Teaching the most amazing class of children, there is never a dull moment and I look forward to going in everyday.

-Showering with friends, not people friends, but lizard friends, ants, bugs and now my kitten.

-Seeing one of my students (who could not speak a word of English in September) dancing around singing in English, speaking in English and sometimes shouting in English

-Eating my cooked school lunch with a spoon, thankfully I haven’t forgotten how to use a knife and fork

-Walking to work seeing the sunrise and Mount Kilimanjaro.

-New experiences, driving a piki piki (scooter) on the dirt roads in Tanzania,

-Dropping from a tree 20ft in the air

-Eating my food without always looking at each mouthful in detail, that is unless I wanted to find the little dead bugs in it.

-Building up my leg muscles with all the squatting I do on the public toilets (well lets be honest, holes in the ground)

-Boiling the cows milk before I can drink it, and peeling off the creamy skin that is left on top

-Making new amazing friends.

My friend Megan and I enjoying an Avocado milkshake

My friend Melissa and I on a hike. (yes a hike)

At a village church.

6 months without:

-My family, cuddling them, talking to them as much as I like (well unless my Dad has the news on that is)

-Bread (well gluten free) toast with peanut butter and jam on.

-That feeling of being really cold and getting all snuggly with a cuppa tea

-Watching TV (I actually like that I haven’t in a way)

-Straightening my hair (I could so this, we DO have electricity in Africa, but I wanted to look after my hair)

-Make up (same as above, no point applying it, as it would probably just melt off anyways)

I really have had the time of my life since being here and besides doing my dream job and having the most beautiful class in the whole world I have learnt so much about myself, I have found that peace, and although I have always known God I now find my self walking in a relationship with him. I feel on top of the world and although times can be hard, missing home, the pressure of teaching children who do not speak English and limited resources I feel so happy with my life.

Just a side not, i thought i would introduce my gorgeous little African baby Mowgly. (lets just hope he doesn't have rabies)

My crazy, boyfriendless, waffles instead of pancake, lice riddled week.

Oh my days what a week.

So lets start with Monday (seen as I am talking about my week and a week starts with Monday) So I know I am like 12 years late but a friend brought back the TV series 24! Literally Oh my days what an intense action packed show, and Jack Bauer (okay so I think I am in love a little bit) We somehow were able to watch the first season in just 10 days (committed fans or what) and soon after started watching the second season. This brings me to Monday, we currently had 7 episodes left until we finished season 2 (each episode is an hour) We then decided that seen as Lent was coming up we would give up something, unfortunately that happened to be 24. We then therefore had to cram in the 7 episodes in that night (bearing in mind it was 6.00, we had to watch them back to back, making sure we used the toilet in the opening credits) We later found out that lent doesn’t start until Wednesday, hand over eyes, shaking head)

Tuesday came round and I felt surprisingly energetic even after the intense night before. It was PANCAKE DAY! Whoop. Miss Becky’s 1^st and 2^nd grade joined my class to celebrate the day with some pancakes and fun Pancake Day activities. The children then came up with ideas of what they could give up for lent. (We failed to mention that we had given up a TV show in which killing people was a common occurrence Some of the children came up with obscure things, one of the missionary kids from America said she would give In and Out burgers, I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I don’t think that counts.

Yummy

Pancake day meal, waffles instead of pancakes, I could get use to waffle day. (gluten free)

Wednesday came and so did the lice in my hair. I had been itchy for a while but thought it was just (dandruff, nice) but after my friend checking it and finding eggs, it was time to take action. Now in England forgive me I am mistaken but when one has lice they can leisurely go their local Sainsbury’s as buy a nice shiny Lice comb, Lice shampoo, Lice spray and maybe a snickers bar for good measure) Here in Africa we take a slightly different approach. So after having my head dunked in Vinegar for 20 minutes and smelling like a fish and chip shop gone bad. I was then sent home and used shampoo, lice shampoo you may ask, oh how funny you are. In Africa we use dog flea shampoo, yes dog shampoo, but it seems to have actually worked, (I am getting a few odd looks from the stray dogs I pass on my way to work, should I be worried?)

Valentines day. Now thinking about last year and being with a guy that I was in love with made me a little nervous of how I would cope this year. I was pleasantly surprised at the love I got, and yes not from a boy but from my lovely children and new friends here. I am not going to lie and say I didn’t cry or long to be with my past love but its made me realise I don’t need a guy to make me feel loved. And hey I got more chocolate this year than I did last year.

I did better than I thought this Valentines Day.

Friday I got the day off school completely with 2 of the other teachers (sorry for infesting you guys) and spent the day picking lice out of each other’s hair. It was must exhilarating but was made all the better by starting the first season of Downton Abbey, which I must say I am loving, that is up until the power went and then we were left to find candles (may I just add they didn’t even have to do that in Downton Abbey)

Sorting through Becky's hair and brading each section we have done.

So here I am on Saturday, the power is back, I am not feeling very itchy, and I have a good cup of tea. Got to be thankful for the little things in life.

Just another week in Africa

This week at school we are learning all about Africa, which if you think about it, is quite handy seen as we ARE in Africa. So far we have had an African cooking lesson (which the kids in my class loved, as they could show of their cooking skills to the American kids) 

Dorothy our school cook was very patient with my children and seemed rather happy at my children’s willingness to wash up (that was after I’d given them the look, the look of ‘do you think you should offer to wash up now?’ the children and I have a special understanding)

Mr. Francis then gave them a lesson on the different tribes in Africa, all the children shared the tribe that they were from, I felt left out so we decided that I come from the Masai tribe. When talking about one tribe in particular, Prince (my student, not an actual prince) questioned why this tribe valued women over men. His confusion excelled when he wanted to know who this women was. When we explained that it was all women, he just couldn’t comprehend it and kept asking who the woman was. Just when we thought we’d got over his confusion, Mr. Francis took a wrong move and started talking about how one tribe circumcise boys at 15 to show their man hood, you can guess what question came next, and luckily it as Mr. Francis teaching (not me thank goodness) and to save embarrassment he spoke something in Swahili to him, ill never know what was said, but it certainly shut Prince up.

Hassani painting his picture

We were all in for a special treat on Friday as Tinga Tinga Artist came in to teach the children and let them do some Art.

Kimambo was a really sweetie and very good with the children.

The children did so well and even my teaching assistant Steven and I got to join in the fun.

In bible time, I like it to be different every day. I mean reading the bible is good but sometimes it’s nice to change it up. After a student has prayed it can sometimes lead us to do something completely different that wasn’t in the day’s plan. For example after my student Lily prayed about people being free and happy, we started discussing how people get set free and how God can help us. One thing led to another and the whole morning was devoted to breaking those chains.

Well you’re probably wondering where one earth I fitted in maths and English and science, but I have my ways and we always like our chill time with a good book.

4 currencies, my first kiss in months and a banana split

That can only mean one thing, a long weekend to the big city Nairobi, Kenya. We had an unexpected long weekend last week due to some Tanzanian holiday that anyone I have spoken to, has no idea what it is. That is a mega bonus of working in an international school, you get all the different national holidays off, like Thanks giving, Eid, Diwali etc. (wonder if that means we will get pancake day off, I might push it) So yes we decided to make the most of this mysterious Tanzanian holiday and go visit Kenya.

Prior to even starting out travels, the currencies proved head boggling. 4 currencies! Yes 4 different currencies I had to work with here (and if you know me you’ll know I’m not the smartest tool in box) Let me explain, I needed US dollars to pay the visa to get into the country, so that’s 1. Second currency I obviously needed Kenyan shillings, which links in with the third currency, Tanzanian shillings in which I had to convert from and work out how much I was spending. Lastly this all came back to the good old GBP in which I always have to convert everything back to. I think you need a blooming degree to sort all that out. But I got there in the end. I probably could open my own bureau exchange now.

Dola Dola. A bus experience like no other. Small mini bus type transportation that somehow has the idea that the more people you cram in, the better. This was one of 3 options for travelling to Nairobi, the first was a plane which (game show buzzer noise for wrong answer) too expensive on a missionary budget. Secondly, a coach in which they don’t cram you in so much, but again (game show buzzer) too expensive. So the winner tonight Matthew (Stars in your eyes quotes) was the dola dola. A 6-½ hour journey, half of which was with no opened windows (until we realized how to open them) lets just say we were dripping and it was not water. One thing that did raise my anxiety levels right to the roof was the tiny little problem of no toilet; thankfully the wonderful driver stopped in the middle of nowhere and let me go to a random hole in the ground covered by a few planks of wood. Thankfully I am an expert at weeing in a hole and came out with a smug on my face when there was nothing wet of my feet! (Score)

We were staying in a lovely hostel and luckily it was opposite a Java house coffee shop. It was a glimpse of England what with western meals, ice creams and Wi-Fi. If it wasn’t for the cost of things I think we could have spent our whole trip just sat there eating banana splits.

We had such fun we were lucky enough to go to an elephant orphanage, where we got to see the baby elephants being fed, got to play football with them and also get sprayed with a load of mud (ruined my skirt for the rest of the day but hey, this is Africa)

Cute baby elephant had trouble getting out of the mud

Milk time and not gonna lie i was pretty jealous of it, beats powdered cream any day.

The next Beckham

This was followed by an incredible trip to the giraffe center (which I might add we got for 70% cheaper as we are now Tanzanian citizens, boom) We got to feed the giraffes, pet them and I even got a cheeky (and slightly gross) French kiss. :p

Being in a big city compared to our quiet little Tanzanian town proved somewhat overwhelming at times. We went into a 24 hour supermarket, and I’ve got to tell you it was just all too much (I know I can be dramatic but seriously) So I went in alone at first and couldn’t handle the pressure. I didn’t even get half way down the cereal isle before I had to run back and find my friend. The choices of milk, cheese, toiletries and toilet rolls were so overwhelming I eventually had to just leave. (Okay I lie; I bought a cheeky snickers bar on the way out)

On the dola dola, you travel through some rural villages, The local people target the travellers by selling  snacks and drinks through the windows. Now it can be a little risky to buy them but when your starving hungry you can't resist. This is my snack that cost the equivalent of 5p. Yummy...

Yummy banana split at Java House.Well all that’s left to say is I think I have adapted to a simple life living in Tanzania, who knows how scary going back to England’s gonna be with all the many supermarkets all over the place.