Three weeks to go and time is evaporating rapidly. This post is a reminder that I am actually here working!
First staff meeting back after the safari with Liz and Sophie the head of the centre said she’d like the carpentry and masonry trainers to visit Arusha Technical College to see how they do things there. Easily done, I thought! You’d think by now I’d know better. Emails to ATC went unanswered. Three visits to the public relations office eventually gave the ruling that only the Rector could give permission. I really didn’t think he’d want to be bothered with what I considered a trivial request, he runs a residential college for 4,500 students, but I was WRONG. I finally had an interview with the Rector three weeks later and he professed himself delighted to meet with me and insisted on going out to the carpark to meet Steve who was waiting patiently in the car. We have since had the visit by the acting head of our centre and the two trainers and I’m hoping the relationship will continue as I think it is beneficial to both organisations.
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| I really liked this art work on a wall at ATC! |
I’ve been chasing materials in Swahili about sexual and reproductive health for months and have been passed (by email) from one organisation to the next, to the next, until I was in despair of ever finding what I wanted. Finally, on the same day as the ATC breakthrough, I met with the team from EngenderHealth who gave me fistfuls of brochures and posters on all the things I needed - enough for us at OCPH and the Olkokola RC Clinic as well! I also picked up the brochures about the centre that I’d renewed with up to date information and had printed AND visited ECHO East Africa to organise some training for our AgriVet trainees in tree grafting. Four successes in one day was nearly too much to bear! And the lesson is this, it is only by actually visiting in person that you’re likely to have success!
When I was working at Baimbridge College I spent wasted energy lamenting teaching and learning time lost to excursions (other people’s!) and events but here the last month has been chockers with such disruptions.
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| Concentrating hard on her question |
Comfy Care 12 is a local social enterprise organisation that has benefitted from Australian Volunteers’ support - grants and in-country and remote volunteer assignments. Their team came to talk to our girls and women about sexual and reproductive health and menstrual hygiene. This is such an important discussion to have openly - taboos around talking about it are a big problem - as girls are missing out so much on education, sometimes a week every month and often leave school early. I hope ComfyCare12’s enterprise is a huge success! Our girls were certainly happy with the information and discussion.
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| Lots of notes being taken |
Then the next week it was Inherit Your Rights who came to visit. Their Director, Winnie Manyanga, is such an impressive speaker - she had the trainees spellbound! Inheritance is another area of life where women miss out in Tanzania. Inherit Your Rights is doing wonderful work in this field.
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| Me with the team from Inherit Your Rights |
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| Marilyn Hokororo from Afrika Wear and Design |
Then we had International Women’s Day and another really impressive woman, Marilyn Hokororo, who kept the trainees entranced with her story. We had some visitors from a local women’s cooperative who have a chicken raising enterprise. They were really interested to hear what Marilyn had to say about the trials and tribulations of entrepreneurship as a widowed supporting parent and I think another mutually beneficial relationship has started!
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| The cake was especially good! |
We had a special morning tea with cake and sodas and that made everyone happy.
In the week just finished the masonry, carpentry and agrivet trainees and trainers had a visit to Twende, another local social enterprise with a connection to Australian Volunteers. The trainees learned about innovation and appropriate technology and will have a chance to do some innovating and invention themselves if they wish.
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| The Twende workshop at Nane Nane |
Our trainers were by now wondering when they’d ever get a chance to do some training and so was I but the visit by Connects Autism Tanzania was scheduled for Friday and it was a whole day event. This time the focus was on life skills and entrepreneurship and there was lively discussion and lots of questions. This is another connection with the NGO community and one that I hope will continue.
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| Talk on financial record keeping - very important |
And then we’ve had all the visitors to the centre! Showing people around and spruiking about our program has somehow found its way into my job description. We had a group of Tropical Medicine experts come to visit on Tuesday. Their tour was interrupted by a wonderful shower of rain - the first we’ve had in weeks! - and I couldn’t wish it away. But it meant we were stranded in the masonry classroom during the heaviest of it and again teaching was interrupted!
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| Such a lovely gift! |
On Friday as well as Connects Autism we had a visit from a delightful (just turned) 18 year old who wanted to share her birthday and her cake with others less fortunate than she is. She and her family arrived not just with cake but also many of the staple foods we rely on - oil, rice, flour and beans - and some luxuries - biscuits and juice boxes. Such a lovely gesture especially as she was sharing her precious time at home with us before returning to her studies in the United States.
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| Nai's first quiche |
And I’ve still been doing some training of my own. Our new cook at the mission main house is an expert in local cooking but not so au fait with the foods that westerners are used to so together she and I have been working on that. Nai is so keen and such a quick learner. We started with bread, which she is now making weekly, then carrot cake and pizza. We have done salad, quiche, cauliflower au gratin and zucchini slice and next week we tackle pumpkin pie. It has been such fun!
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| We put pineapple on pizza here! |
We also had a trip to Tarangire NP last weekend, our first and only for this block of time in Tz. Look at Steve’s blog for lovely pics and lists of what we saw.
I’ll just put this one pic in - taken with my phone - of lions resting in the trees after a successful night of hunting.
My next post should be the last from here before we travel to Britain, thanks always for your interest and encouragement,
Love from Jenny
