Volunteering – August 6-11

Nursery school kids


Primary kids

Students lined up by the flag pole but with no flay, to sing Tanzania's national anthem and school song

August 6-11, 2009 We arrived in Monduli at the secondary school where we were to work. Instead of living at a Maasai village we camped out at the school. Supposedly the accommodations at the village were not adequate for us to stay in. So we pitched our tents on prickly grass full of donkey dung. At was very windy at this location and our nights were cold and extremely loud due the intense winds that swept over the savannah! I basically slept with all my clothes on – socks, pants, long sleeve shirt, fleece and a winter hat in my sleeping bag! Our volunteer job was to help 3 other guys plaster a classroom and a new office. The brick walls were already there. We hauled buckets of sand and water to make cement by hand (mixing it with cement sand and shovels). We slapped the cement concoction on to the walls and smoothed them down with some prehistoric tools! We also made cement to put the floor down in the office. Honestly I didn’t work that much on this project as I was affected from Traveller’s Diarrhea for two days! I so wish I took a picture of our bathroom facilities. It was basically a concrete closet with a toilet on the floor. One step up from an outhouse. One had to squat – feet on either side of the toilet (this article sums it up nicely http://goafrica.about.com/od/healthandsafety/ht/squattoilet.htm There is a bucket of water in the WC – but for some reason it never seemed to have water in it when I was there. So even though I had to desperately go to the bathroom, I would have to take the bucket, get in the water line and then fill up the bucket from the large black containers which were filled with rain water during the rainy season. These containers contained 5000 liters of water – but there was no way the 3 containers would be enough water to sustain the 200 + students at the school during the dry season. (more on this later). So have the bucket of water to use to wash down “the business” in the toilet. It was important to have the bottom of your pants up so they didn’t get wet from the floor and that you have your toilet paper ready because if you don’t you can either fall over trying to get it or everything doesn’t make it in the hole…. So long story short having diarrhea when in a place you are camping and have no plumbing and no electricity is not very enjoyable!!!!

There is this English woman named Jemma who came to Tanzania ten years ago to study the plants and medicine here – she married a Maasai man and has made a significant impact and change to this Maasai community. She has started the nursery school which teaches about 30 kids – ages 4-8. This program is teaching the students in Swahili since their mother tongue is Maa. Jemma also started the primary school where there are over 300 students ages 9-14 – here it is taught in Swahili. And the secondary school which is mostly the boarding students but are a few day students (even though they walk 1-3 hours to get to school every day). Only in the secondary school do they speak English – all their subjects are in English but this is their first introduction to English. The secondary school is governed by the government.

We all took time to talk with the students at the school. Most students were boarders – and it was a pretty even split between males and females. Almost all the students were Maasai people. The boys were sent for a chance to have an education, while the majority of girls “ran away to school” to avoid the life of a Maasai woman – circumcision at the age of about 14 or 15 – and arranged marriages. These girls who left their tribes at such an early age will not be allowed to return to their homes unless they agree to live like the Maasai woman. So at this young age, they have left their families and need to work hard to get good grades and succeed in the “western lifestyle world”. Most of their tuition comes from sponsors. Their life is not easy at all – both males and females. The students have chores to do like collect fire wood, clean their own clothes, collect water and clean their “accommodations.” They must also study – there is only one room that has electricity and this is collected from solar panels. However everyone seems really happy for what they have. I brought pens for the school and was able to give them to the Form 3 and 4 students and the red pens for the teachers. Everyone was quite appreciative – yet some kids tried to take 2 pens. Something so simple is like gold to them.

Getting water from well and me mixing cement to make plaster for the walls.

However, the people from the school were very impressed with our hard work and efficiency of what we accomplished in about 2 days worth of work. We made a plaque with our names on it – making a difference as small as taking the time to chat with a student to filling up buckets of water is rewarding on both sides.

Finishing the plaque with principal.