Our Year is almost over – we fly back to Australia tomorrow!

We are spending these last few days in Dar es Salaam tidying up the last administrative details with the VSO Tanzania office and completing all the necessary end of placement reports.  It is a time to reflect on the last 12 months – Did we achieve what we wanted to achieve? Where do we go from here?

Steve and I entered the volunteering realm with what we thought were realistic expectations – we knew we would not redress centuries of injustice in one year.  We hoped to show the people with whom we would live and work that Australians knew about their circumstance and cared.  We also hoped to learn more about ourselves.  Our Year has given us so much more than that!

We have so many wonderful memories – sights, sounds, smells and experiences that cannot be adequately described.  Bukoba District - its people, its schools, its streetscapes and landscapes will be forever in our hearts.

Regular readers will know all we have done.  It just remains to say that we were farewelled in style and that we have promised to return. 

Kwaherini na asanteni sana!

I will do a ‘summary post’ in the next week or so and then move on to the next adventure!

Here are some pictures of the children at Kanazi PS and Kabale PS with the picture books for children in kiSwahili that we delivered last week.  We felt like Fairy Godmothers transforming lives!

I was also pleased to see these Arithmagons on the classroom wall – not put there especially for us as teachers did not know we were coming.  They are one of the activities from “Teaching Aids & Resources”.

We have just one week to go before we return to Dar es Salaam and then to Melbourne.  Our Year in Africa is going very quickly!

Another of our projects is now near to completion.  It is astounding how much time and effort it has taken to buy children’s picture books in kiSwahili but with the help of local author Johansen Machume and local publisher Ebrahim Sokwala we have bought 15 copies each of 40 books, written by local authors, in kiSwahili.  Most of the authors and many of the books have been awarded prizes in Tanzania’s Mradi wa Vitabu vya Watoto (Children’s Book Project).  
These 600 books will go into 15 government schools in Bukoba District which are striving despite disadvantage to educate the children in their community.  We expect to deliver them to the schools in Katerero, Karabagaine and Nyakato Wards this week.  We hope these picture books will foster the love of reading that we and our children have.

Thank you to everyone who has supported this project particularly my sister  and brother-in-law Lyn & Paul Duhig, Rev. Peter Cook & Hamilton Uniting Church, the Social Club at Department of Primary Industries Hamilton and Mr Rob Drummond’s tutor group at The Hamilton & Alexandra College.

Kagera Reading Program

The Roll-out of the Kagera Reading Program is continuing with schools in Karabagaine Ward getting their copies last week and Maruku and Nyakato Wards this week.

Pupils again were totally engrossed with this new way of learning and the teachers and Ward Education Co-ordinators were won over.

Pupils quickly grasped what they had to do.  Teachers also learned quickly how easily work could be marked and how to keep records on student progress.

Sixteen sets have been put into schools and a further 15 will be placed soon.  If feedback is positive it is a project that I hope can be on-going.

A tale of two snacks.

These precious little things are in the preschool class at Maiga PS.  They are patiently waiting for their morning porridge – possibly their first meal for the day.

 Steve and I had a beer with friends at the Bukoba Club on Sunday night. These senene (grasshoppers) are deep fried and salted like any good bar room snack!

 I know the porridge would be better for me but I do enjoy a glass of Serengeti and a handful of senene  before dinner.

This week we began the task of introducing the Kagera Reading Programme into schools.  We started on Wednesday in Izimbya village, meeting at Igoma PS with english teachers from each school in Izimbya ward for a ‘demonstration lesson’ in the use of the programme.  We received the usual 'Rock Star' reception!

As we’d had no time to give one of the local teachers experience with the programme it fell to Josiah to conduct the lesson!  He had not lost any of his teacherly skills!

The teachers were at first sceptical but the children loved it.  The pictures tell the story!  More reports on this after the rest of the demonstration lessons from teachers in Karabagaine, Maruku and Nyakato Wards.

Later in the day we visited Kikomero Secondary School in the far south west corner of Bukoba District.  There 75 students, three permanent teachers and a couple of part-timers struggle against the apathy, even antipathy, of the local community towards secondary education.  The Head Master showed us around the school - currently four useable classrooms of which one does double duty as staff room and Form IV class room – and a relatively new teacher accommodation house.  The site has infertile soil – little chance of starting a shamba here – and is exposed and windswept.  The school is the first we have seen with rubbish bins – scattered around the campus they proclaim “Keep Kikomero Clean”.

Luckily the school has the support of the District Office and the pupils proudly sang us their school song about how they love their school and value the education they gain there.