Random sampling of pictures from different projects

Hello Everyone!
Below is a random sampling of pictures from a few of the different projects i've worked on here. I have many more to share with you, but they will have to come in other blogs as it is a very long process of uploading pictures and computer time is expensive :) Please tell me how you like the pics and if you have questions or want to know more about things!!

This is me and some fine folks of the Tanga Rotary Club. We are in Pongwe, at a school for the blind, hanging mosquito nets. The Tanga Rotary was part of a project distributing and assembling the mosquito nets to area boarding schools and I was lucky enough to participate ;)

Ahhh...Bagamoyo boys! These are 2 artists from Bagamoyo- there is a group of about 20 guys that are all artists from Bagamoyo (where the only arts college exists in Tz) and theyr'e known by everybody in the arts industry here as the Bagamoyo Boys. I attended the 27th Annual Bagamoyo Arts Festival to recruit and evaluate the artists there for our project in Kizimkazi. This is Kitebo in front, he is a musician- he has been recorded and his songs are often on the radio here in Tz! Behind him is Lumelezi- who does painting and other types of art. Both of them work in a children's group that teaches drum making, drum playing and traditional dancing to area children. Hence, they are being employed at the Kizimkazi Culture Music Festival to head our children's program! So, next week I will be doing a training workshop with them, and Asha, who you will see in another post, to do the programs we want during the festival and also to help with stage design and the artwork to be displayed at the festival!

This is another picture for the greeting cards to send to Toledo,Oh. I thought this was very interesting because religion here is very important to EVERYBODY- regardless of which particular religion you practice, the fact that you MUST practice one, and dilligently, is something this culture really believes in. So, many people are Christian, many people are Muslim, and the rest are just considered "pagani" or pagan if you are someone that doesn't go to church or the mosque...witchcraft is also ever-prevalent here. I hear many many stories but have only witnessed a few instances of it. This is a pretty sensitive subject here- withcraft- and what is happening with albino killings on behalf of witchcraft rituals is extremely scary- but its another topic that I wish not to get too deep into- please read and research it though- its very interesting and may give you a perspective you havent thought about...ever

This is me reading and looking at some of the drawings done by the boys at the boy's orphanage.
Nassarro is the boy across from me and Omary is next to me and Ally is standing behind him.

This is a picture of one of the girls in Madam Kurwa's Form 2 English class...she is drawing a picture to put on the front of a greeting card to send to the Early Start Highschool in Toledo, Ohio (as soon as i get the address). This design is one that is usually used in piko- or henna art- a type of temporary body marking that is done on the body- usually the hands and feet and back for wedding ceremonies here. it is most common among the indian culture for weddings here but many people use it and the style is very prety. There is a group of women in Zanzibar who are piko and henna artists and they have started transferring the designs onto canvas- something that hsa not been done yet in African art- and it looks so nice...the different styles and colors contrast and compliment one another and really stand out on canvas

Here I am stamping books that were donated to area schools- INCLUDING TOLEDO SECONDARY SCHOOL!!!!!!!! by the U.S. Army Civil Affairs and USAID- the stamp says "a gift from the american people" in english and in swahili...the books chosen were very nice and the students have enjoyed them so much!!

These are the boxes full of books that were donated...i took lots of pics of this because books are very VERY rare here, during the period of socialism all the book publishers were banned from Tz. the effects of this period are still seen here today...

This is a HUGE spider- this picture is taken in my room and i did not sleep for two nights because i didnt have anything big enough to hit this spider with that would impair it for long enough for me to find something else to kill it- honeslty- the heel of any shoe could not conquer this beast- i know it doesnt look all that big from the pic cuz theres nothing next to it to guage its sixe from, but if you think i could get that close...ohhh, it was terrifying...and embarassing. i was living at the boys orphanage at the time and i would wake the boys up early in the morning for exercise and they were told before i moved in they had better behave because i had army training...so, i couldnt exactly run from my room at night in fright from a spider...so id go to my room and just keep the lights on and tuck in my mosquito net and read and not let the spiderout of my sight. eventually i asked one of the boys to come check on something and i pointed out the spider and they used a broom to sweep it out and catch it and then they took it outside...

Here I am dancing with some of the boys at the orphanage before they take their showers and brush their teeth!

This pic is taken at the playground of the Tanga International School! I am with three boys from the orphanage, Omary on the far left, Nurdini in the red and blue and Eliyah on the right. the other boys are neighbor kids that play there too!

This me working on schoolwork with Sarafina and Masaaidi at the girls orphanage in the study room.

this is exactly why

so- i hardly ever take a long time on the computer- like this last blog i posted took abt 40 mins with the pics...i dont often spend much time on the puter as you well know- for this very frickin reason...i finished my post and someone came in and asked me if i rode a bike. i said yes. he said- it was just stolen.... my phone was stolen last week in dar. now the bike.

it wasnt my bike. it was the orphanages'

thats tanga for ya!

PICS!!! YAY! And... CONGRATULATIONS MAUREEN!!

Hello Everyone- first i need to send out some shout- outs

Maureen- CONGRATULATIONS!!! I just read my comments!! I am so happy for you! I hope everything is going alright and you have been healthy and happy!!
Renee- thanks for the pics!! Ty is looking like the quite handsome gentleman!
Dale- Thank you for calling to wish me a Happy Thanskgiving! It was so nice to hear from you!
John Henry- I have now returned from working in Dar and I will be in Tanga for the next two weeks- I will be meeting with Mr Charles and getting things straight this week, talking to some tour guides here abt private coaster rental and safari expenses in order to get the budget- i apologize i have been so busy with other projects here. Could you email me the address of the Toledo Early Start school? I have a bunch of cards and letters to send them from the Toledo Sec. School here
NanaDan- i learned how to make ugali, coconut oil, palm oil, and lots of african dishes- ill try my new cooking skills out on you when i get bak :) thx for the email
Simon- I miss you

Ok!!!! So, below are numerous pictures of a survey and evaluation of the area known as Kizimkazi, located on the southern tip of Zanzibar. I went there to recruit local artists and musicians for an upcoming cultural enhancement festival and also to get the support for the festival from the village leaders- known as sheha's. I also did a survey and eval of the tourism industry in the area and speculation for the establishment of a permanent cultural enhancement center. I worked with two guys, Omar and Ally, who took me around all of the villages. You'll read more about them through the captions.
This was all done abt two months ago- since then I have been working on the music festival with this team in Kizimkazi at the Promised Land Beach Resort to set everything up- do promotions, artists contracts, seek sponsorship, business proposals, more evals, and in two weeks i will be returning to do another workshop with the two tour guides and an artists workshop to do the stage design for the festival and get everything straight for the children's programs ( kites made from recycled materials found in the village and boats made from plastic trash and also a recitation competition of the Q'uran! _kizimkazi is a predominantly Muslim village).

In the past few weeks I have been in Dar es Salaam doing the promotions and sponsorship for the music festival.

two weeks before that I successfully got 9 CASES OF BOOKS DONATED TO THE TOLEDO SECONDARY SCHOOL through the US Army guys that were here. we made it on local television then on National Television!! Can you believe it? You should have seen how excited the students and staff were! These books are a HUGE enhancement for the curriculum and its amazing. Since this date there have been three full pages full of students who have checked out these books to read in their own time! Im going to see what i can do to get a wood shelf donated to the school so the books can be kept where the students can see them- something like a library hopefully! You will see pics soon!!

Our last day of school is this tues- we are grading tests and filling out forms now and then we will have a holiday from then until Jan- so this next week in Tanga I will be working on the TIYO coming over and the medical mission and then I will be going to Kizimkazi and dar for more work

also in the past month I was up in a remote village of moshi- called Machame- doing a survey and eval on an initiative based group doing tree nurseries and conservation with Julius Shoo. I will upload those pics too. Simon told me of a great foot-pump water irrigation system in Morogoro so I would like to see abt getting that for the nursery and Simon has donated towards that so- THANK YOU SIMON...and I miss you. So I am going to weigh the options of this irrigation system or natural drip-irrigation to see which is more feasable and cheapest and easiest to maintain....

so- as you can see its been a bit busy for me. I am finding things I am very interested in, meeting extremely intelligent individuals and discovering lots of small ways in which i can contribute and use my education. please enjoy the pics! Let me know how you are and whats going on with you!


This is a sea creature we found while walking in the mangroves on an uninhabited island. It is called a "sungura" in swahili- which means rabbit. as you can see, it has tiny little antler things and big eyes, it is gooey and when u sit it upright- its belly is a light tan color and there is a defecation hole on its back- it defecates purple oozey liquid that looks like jelly- it looks like a tiny mythical dragon to me and i was so interested in it- i am going bak to find more so i can take better pictures, this is the type of thing i work on with Ally and Omar, we find creatures like this, then we look it up and find out info abt it so they can explain it on their next tour...

this is an average sunset at kizimkazi- yea, i know....

thats me standing on a dock which was just repaired. it was built 3 weeks prior to this pic. 5 days prior to this pic, there were strong winds and the entire thing was spilt down the middle- it was an embarrassment because this land was purchased by the govt and this was built for govt visitors so i went to tak a pic of the damage and it had been fixed already- which is extrmely rare in Tz. there is a bridge in Tanga - Mkwakwani bridge- that connects children in a village with a way to cross over to the school- this bridge has been collapsed for the entire duration of my stay in Tz and there are rusty nails hanging from it and two kids have been injured trying to cross it- yet nothing has been done to fix it- the local rotary club is now taking it on as a project!

This pic is for those of you have mushroom hunted in the past with me- i havent forgotten our adventures and i have been fungus-spotting and thinking of you

This is a painting done by the man you see below- Kizimkazi is full of talented artists- but there is no real art management or presentation- so most of this talent is wasted unless a tourist just happens to be walking in remote areas out in the village like me- but we were doing the survey and eval to find just such artists- so this artist was recruited to come to the festival also to set up a booth. Some artists do make it into the touristy areas to set up shop- but shops in tourists areas are EXTREMELY expensive and most artists cant even dream of affording supplies- let alone a shop of their own to display their talents Dad- i thought youd like this painting

This is the artist working on another painitng. This style of painitng is common throughout Zanzibar and many oceanic scenes are the norm- however, there is a new generation of artists branching out into abstract and different designs, but they are rare- its these types of rare artists we are looking for that are trying new things that we want to bring to the festival and the cultural enhancement center. keep in mind there are very few art institutes here, i only know of one in Bagamoyo presently- these people are self taught or apprentice and learn by watching others paint so much of the work is mimicked- which artists here are trying to do different things to break away- but tourists arent really interested in abstract art and buy more of the ocean views or Maasai art.

JUST MONKEYING AROUND!!!!

hand made baskets from palm leaves

the kikoi (read on for further explanation of kikoi)

colored palm fronds used fro different types of basket weaving

This is the guy who runs an art shop called "moto" which is just a small shop on the side of the road in the village- he makes all the kikois and he also hand weaves baskets, and mats, and puses, and various other arts and handicrafts- all from natural materials! We invited him to come along to the festival to set up a booth to display his works and sell!

This is a loom, it is this machine where the fibers are made into the kikoi that i am wearing in the picture below- kikois are very soft, nice material and they are individually hand crafted on such a loom! Its amazing to see the loom working. this one is run by foot pedal

This is me and a local woman from the village of kizimkazi- its Ally's mom actually- and here she is, teaching me how to make coil rope- what is coil rope you say? well, you know the hairy part of a mature.....hahah...coconut...yes, put it together, rub it between your hands and then string it taught wrappin both ends the opposite direction then quickly bundle more on the end of that and keep twisting, and repeat...all day, and at the end of the day you have a very strong, naturally made rope- I am designing the backdrop of the stage for the music festival and our program will be employing a lot of women to make a lot of this rope for the festival

This is Ally climbiing a coconut tree to show me how its done! Ally and Omar are two tour guides that I am training and working with in Kizimkazi, Zanzibar. They are very knowledgeable about their environment and surroundings- but they dont really have professional tours or the concepts of what tourists want, so I have been working on developing their tours and setting up programs with them and learning swahili and english words for all the things we see on tours! It's almost exactly what I was going to do with Tayodea.. Ally and Omar took me around kizimkazi and the surrounding villages of Pete, Munyoni, Muunia, Jambiani, Djimbani, and Makunduchi. I had to do a survey and evaluation of the area as a job and meet all the sheha's (local political leaders) in order to get their consent for the upcoming music festival which will be held in kizimkazi- in return for their excellent services- I talked with the owners of the resort I was working witrh in order to get them permanent jobs as tour guides directly for the resort!! So now they have a guaranteed source of income instead of just hoping for what they get when they compete with the other tour guides who hang around the bus stand all day and haggle tourists as soon as they get off the bus...so they are happy- and i was happy to work with them. I am going to back to do another workshop with them in 2 weeks!

This is Ally again- he is showing me how charcoal is made locally. very interesting process

This is an ant hive- all these red ants- which have a very powerful bite by the way- clump leaves together and secrete some sort of sticky liquid (think spider web) to hold these leaves together to form a dwelling- you see them all over in the forest here

This is me in one of the caves touching a rock formation- there is a legen to this rock formation. it is said that centuries ago, people went down in these caves to fetch fresh water but once they were inside- you couldnt call out to one another because if you turned around when called- you would turn to stone- and so this stone is said to be a lady with aforementioned fate! I am wearing a kikoi in this picture- it is like a long rectangular sheet and is for men, for women is the khanga which is brightly printed- ill post apicture of khangas later- i wear them often and theyre very nice and comfortable and people here really appreciate it when you dress in their style which is why i wore this on that day as we were meeting shehas later

thankful

Hello! I'm sure my faithful readers have long since forgotten about me- I apologize for not writing sooner...you'll see in the next message just how busy i have become here in the past two months.

I have been wrestling with myself over a lot of issues here- and one of them has been whether or not to just let it all out- exactly what goes on here and exactly the way i see it- or to be diplomatic and ensure that nothing i write is too in-depth and raw for certain types of consumption... im still choosing the latter at this point- which means my posts will be about simple observations here and the differences between our cultures and the perceptions here, i will wait to post about the impact of this experience and how it has changed my once- rock-solid perspectives about NGO's, NPO's, international development, and international relations. These are all topics which I once researched extensively through independent study as well as my chosen course for undergraduate studies, even as potential careers...ready to dedicate myself fully to this path. There is no way to even describe what I have experienced which will shed light on why i have chosen to go down a different path. When I was very young my sister taught me to read while we were playing school, my parents always read to me and I can remember almost every last favorite book of mine from age 4 until now... but i was once told- experience is the best teacher, what you have read does not count as experience... now more than ever have i seen this is truth, all that ive read about the aforementioned areas cannot compare to what i have learned in this time here...

So, even though I miss my family and friends more than i can put into words- i'm thankful for having this experience, this opportunity, people at home who believe in me, people here who have challenged me, and for the continued love and support ive received from those close to me. I miss you so much during this Thanksgiving, but I want you to know how truly thankful I am...

Dreams are coming true!!

Hello Everyone!!

In the past few weeks, it has become apparent to me that most of my life expereinces thus far have prepared me for my time spent here in Tanzania. I remember when I switched my major in college from biomedical engineering to political science and international relations and everyone asked me "What do you want to do with that?" Well, the opportunities presented to me in the past few weeks have been the realization of my dreams!
I met an NGO fiscal project director (the guy who finds the funding for NGO's and NPO's) who asked me to do a survey and evaluation for a cultural enhancement center to be located on the South eastern coast of Zanzibar in a village called Kizimkazi. Since the Toledo Secondary School was on a holiday, I said yes, I would go and see how I was capable of helping!
I arrived two weeks ago and met with the owners of Promised Land- a beach resort in Kizimkazi, and the owners of Via Via Cultural Cafe in Zanzibar, and under the collaboration of these people, with Sadiq, the NGO fiscal project director, we put together the logistics and resources and most of the funding for the Kizimkazi Music festival- to be held Dec 26-Jan 1!! We have signed the three most popular artists in Zanzibar- Bi Kidude, Makame Faki, and DJ Yusuf, all of them having performed around the world! I also personally met with the Minsitry of Tourism, Trade, and Investment for the Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar!
My job was to survey the local fishing village and the surrounding areas- here's how it went;
Two local tour guides, Omar and Ally, later nicknamed Mosquito and Chameleon respectively because the tourism industry is such that if a tourists has already chosen a tour guide for the next day, and approached by another tour guide, if they tell them who they are going with, the tour guide will become jealous and belligerent, telling the tourists the other guides are irresponsible and incompetent and do not know the area as well...they nicknamed me Kobe, which is swahili for "turtle." So, we were a team, and a darn good one at that. Each day we would walk many kilometers to the surrounding villages, meeting with village sheha's (the local chiefs/heads of village politics), finding local artists, local musicians, local people who do cooking and other cultural activites such as coil rope making, piko, henna art, batik and kikoi (traditional fabric weaving on a loom), and other various sorts of art. We found many interested artists who are now signed to come to the festival to display their local artwork, promoting local business, while at the same time educating travelers and other locals on the importance of their artwork in the community, explaining their creative processes from start to finish. Once we had everyone from the surrounding 8 villages, we then went into Stone Town and the heavily populated and touristy parts of Zanzibar to find popular artists interested in coming...and boy did we find a lot! We are now expanding to include artists from Bagamoyo, Uganda, Arusha and Kenya and we will be able to fill each day of the festival with many entertaining and educational opportunities for the local people and travelers to collaborate and experience the local culture through dance, music, arts, acrobatics, and international cuisine!

Mosquito and Chameleon also took me all around to see the most fascinating sights in Kizimkazi in order to promote the local businesses in the village. The problem is that travelers are coming from Stone Town to Kizimkazi just for the afternoon to swim with all the dolphins, which is what Kizimkazi is most popular for, but they are not staying to experience all the ecologiocal and cultural tourism opportunities that exist, leaving the area largely undiscovered, which is devastating the local economy that relies on the revenue of tourism! So, I got to go on tours of the natural springs, the caves, and the cluster of islands where the mangroves, red monkeys and amazing snorkeling spots are. I also got to go on the dolphin tours and swam with approx 40 dolphins next to me, below me and above me. I got to ride my bike to Jozani National Forest to see amazing protected wildlife species that exist only in this national park, and I also got to make coil rope with the local women who rope the husks of coconut shells to make a local product widely used in the villages. I got to see how charcoal was made, how fishing nets are repaired, how local dhow boats are made, and how local wood carvers, batik painters, and jewelry makers construct their crafts! I am compiling all of this information into a tourist book complete with write-ups and pictures in order to enhance the local tourism industry in Kizimkazi and I will also be working with Mosquito and Chameleon on further training so that they can improve their tourism business! It was quite indeed a busy week, going all over the area to do this survey was so interesting though and the people I met with were so eager to share their artwork and explain it to me! There are really no words to describe the relationships that were formed during these two short weeks and I felt that because of my experiences there, Kizimkazi will now be a place I will return to.

After the survey was completed, I kept meeting people who wanted to be involved with the Kizimkazi Music festival in order to promote the arts in Zanzibar. The last person I met with was Khamis, an Art Manager in Stone Town. On the final day of my work in Zanzibar, he took me to meet the Ministry of Tourism, Trade and Investment for the Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar!!! CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT?! Me, a girl from Ohio, going from meeting local tour guides, to local villagers, to local village leaders all the way up to the head of the national government...the Ministry!!! Well, long story short, I gave them the proposal I had written for the Kizimkazi Music Festival, and they were in total support of it, encouraging and offering further suggestions even!!

Now read this carefully...the Ministry asked me if I would be interested in meeting with them again to do further work of this type- creating a position for me to work under them, organizing future cultural enhancement programs and festivals in other areas of Zanzibar which are in need of more tourism, like Kizimkazi!!! The MINISTRY!!! ASKING ME??!!
Not only that- I know you are all besides yourself...i almost wet my pants in that meeting!!! But in addition to that, there are other programs for the cultural preservation of Zanzibar that Khamisi asked me to work on with him!! He is involved with numerous NGO's operating in Stone Town to promote the arts and the culture of Zanzibar. He also took me to the Dhow Countries Music Academy (look it up on www.zanzibarmusic.org) to see what this music education foundation is doing in Stone Town and to meet various other artists passionate about preserving their culture and arts! To see more of what i'm talking about, check out www.bayimbaculturalfoundation.org and www.busaramusic.com But those are just the sites for some of the people we are working with...i will have to post pictures of the actual culutral events I got to take place in...words really cant describe it!!

It was amazing...and it seemed as if all of my aspirations had come true...THIS....THIS right here, right now, what I am doing, is what I went to school for! I never knew these types of opportunities could ever come true for me...and now here I am...

this is all the good news!
However, there is some bad news...

The Tanga City Council denied my petition for a volunteer permit in Tanga...I am very upset about it and can't believe that they would deny me the opportunity to teach in their schools, to volunteer at the orphanages, and to enhance the relationships between their Sister City in Toledo with the TIYO and the Medical Mission. Thus, I cannot say that I will be staying in Tanga much longer because of this...if I am not welcome as a VOLUNTEER...then I should not stay here. No one on either end of this has been able to help me at all in this matter and i find it quite shameful. So, I will be finishing up the logisitics of the TIYO and the Medical Mission to the extent that both will be successful and well planned out to detail and continue to teach at the Toledo Secondary School and with the boys and girls for as long as I can until I am harrassed again by immigration here...then I will go elsewhere where I am actually welcomed.

Please tell me how you have been and what you think of what's going on, i love hearing from you all in my comments box!! until next time...

Habari n'do hio

Habari N'do Hio- That's the way it is (In Kiswahili). It's also the title of a popular song here in Tanga!! SO, a lot has happened in the past few weeks! I have met some very good people and had some amazing adventures...and a few eye openers that have been shocking.

I was thrown in front of a classroom about four weeks, totally unawares to me, there I was, told to teach English. So, I didn't have time to be shocked at all, I just took the book that was handed to me and then went into discussion and had the students come up front to read aloud. With only two books and over 60 students, there isn't much of an alternative. Since that day, I have been able to prepare myself and actually write lesson plans and have structured notes ready for class, full with role-playing and discussions and homework!! It is so different here than education in the U.S....I will have to devote an entire posting to just this subject because it is actually quite unbelievable... I have some students who are just wonderful and so eager to learn, and others who are shy and can't understand me, and even others who prefer to come to me for counseling...I never thought I'd be a teacher in a classroom, but much to my surprise, i really love it!!

In the afternoons when school lets out I go between the girls and the boys' orphanages to read with them and play and talk. I seem to be spending more time with the boys recently. It's nice to be with them because we can all sit and talk together and i know how they all interact with one another, whereas with 35 girls, it is much mopre difficult to show them all the attention they deserve and so badly need.

I travelled to Arusha, the town where Mt. Kilimanjaro is, two weekends ago. It was so nice! The weather was cool and there was a breeze and even the people were a little different than in Tanga. It was nice to get out and see another part of Tanzania. While I was there, I met some very nice people who were very interesting and each of them have outstanding projects they are working on and some have asked me to help! We have a holiday at school next week and one of the people I met asked me to come to Zanzibar to help with a project they are starting there. There is a small island, Kazimkazi, that is the Southern part of Zanzibar and this group wants to expand one of their culture enhancement centers in this location. It is called Via Via Cafe and there are other locations all over the world. The Cafe offers a cultural perspective of the region with local foods, local music, traditional dance lessons, language lessons, etc to enhance tourist's understanding of the local culture. So I will be going there for a week to do a survey and an evaluation!!! Yea, I'm PUMPED!!!

I had a very nice meeting yesterday. i brought together Mr. Charles and Mr. Ndauka, the headmaster at the Tanga International School and the Toledo Secondary School where I teach. They met and discussed ways to facilitate the growth and development of their schools and their students. It was a very positive meeting and I have high hopes for this new bond! The Tanga International School is where the TIYO concert will be held...I hope to be posting pictures soon.

For now I am living in a hotel. It is nice but I cannot stay there long as it is expensive. I will soon be moving in with a Hindu family, Dharmish's family, I have mentioned him in previous posts. I am excited to learn the Hindu traditions and this expereince is one I a m looking forward to. I am practicing Ramadan again this year and it is much MUCH HARDER in this heat!!

My time is up...

THANK YOU to my friends and family who have been keeping in contact with me...you have no idea how it is carrying me through! THANK YOU...i miss you

A quick Hello!!

Habari Asubuhi!! That's Good Morning in Kiswahili!! How is everyone? I am doing well...just wanted to give you all a quick update as to what I am doing!! I am going back to the Toledo Sec. School today to talk with the English Dept. there and listen to their teaching methods and watch them in their English classes to see how everything is taught and then the teachers and I are going to discuss different types of teaching methods and I will be helping with different projects within the English department during the day there while the children from the orphanage are at school! The children from the orphanages all go to different government schools and none of them attend the Toledo Sec. School. It is quite a far distance from the orphanage but that's alright! I am very excited for this opportunity!
I spoke with Mr. Charles, the Headmaster at the Tanga International School, and he suggestyed that I get my certification in teaching English as a foreign language- TOEFL Cert. from the Open University here in Tz. I am going to check on the price today and see what it entails and maybe take the course online here! That way it would be more legitimate and I would have a more informed perspective on teaching! I do have previous expereince with tutoring from volunteering back in the states with the H.O.S.T.S. (Help One Student To Succeed) program and also from the Learning Resource Center I worked at during highschool, but as far as a certificate in teaching, that would be nice!
Mr. Charles and John Henry and Liz all spoke on a conference call on Saturday about the TIYO coming and it went very well! Mr. Charles has media contacts and a lot of resources to really make this a wonderful experience for the TIYO, the Tanga Community, the TIS, as well as further developing the relationship between Tanga and Toledo. I am very excited about this and cannot wait for further details and to gwet the ball rolling on all the organizational details!! The venue is very nice and right by the water and the community here in Tanga will welcome the TIYO very nicely! Soon I will be introducing Mr. Charles and Mr. Ndauka to see what developments and opportunities the schools could offer each other here in Tanga! Connecting people locally is a very big deal here, as resources and information are not always shared here! I look forward to all the possibilities to come!
I will soon be posting pictures of the girls at the orphanage and the boys I work with! The girls went to the beach a few days ago in celebration of their birthday! They had never been to the beach before! Most of the children do not know their birthdays so we celebrate them all on one day! They really enjoyed the beach and it was so nice to see them all having fun! I tried to teach some of them how to swim but they were frightened at first...hopefully i will have another opportunity to work on this more with them! Most of the local people do not know how to swim and I have heard horrible stories of boats going under and everyone on board drowning in shallow water due to the fact they have no knowledge of how to swim. It's terribly sad. And when you see these boats, they are just packed full of people and there are two or three guys dumping out buckets of water from inside the boat so as to make sure it doesn't go under...oh the things I've seen here!!
Today I am going back to the City Council to HOPEFULLY get all of this immigration situation wrapped up!
I talked with some people from the yacht club the other day and they were all telling me about how many people come through looking for sailing companions! Each day I think about how exciting it would be!! Some of these people have been sailing around the world for decades and just want someone to talk with, to share the view with, and hoist some sails here and there!! I just got done reading Saul Bellows' "The Adventures of Augie March" and it was a VERY good book, similar to "On the Road" by my fav. Jack Kerouac in that it highlights the adventures of being a traveller, what one encounters from place to place and the different mindsets in different locations...the ending of the book was very good! Tim, I think you would love this book! I have already read seven books since I have been here and now I am all out of books! However, Mr. Charles has offered to let me use some of his books at the TIS!! Books are rare here and hard to find...during the previous presidency all book publishers were banned from TZ, so, one can imagine the shortage of books here, especially textbooks!

While snorkeling, it's a very good time to clear one's mind and think of all the possibilities life has to offer...just looking at how freely the colorful fish swim in and out of the most beautiful coral reefs, surrounded by colors that even the most wild imaginations cannot fathom, and while the sun is beating down on you and youre full of this life that surrounds you- it's hard not to think about what other opportunities are abound. And I feel like I've just reached the tip of the iceberg here... and you think about all the chances you've taken in life, or all the things you've taken for granted, and you can't believe that you're really there, inside these experiences...living. And I think of all the people I wish could be here to experience this with me. Each day here is and adventure...some days are stressful, and sometimes I get frustrated when I am teaching, and other times I am lonely, but it's the little things...seeing the women carry firewood back to their houses, laughing and joking with each other while they strenuously work...seeing the children coming back from school, all saying hello to me while i pass them on the street, watching the men at the market scream and holler to sell their wares, watching people carry unimaginable things on the back of their bikes (huge cabinets, a double bed etc) and I think to myself...these people have nothing, and they are so happy just living day to day...and in America, most people have everything they could want or need, and have no idea of this happiness... So i am taking it all in and remembering how all of this feels so that I can store it within my self and share with you when I get back how it feels to live for the moment and know only what is happening around you in the present, thoughts of the future and the worry of all the tangible things, money- possessions...these things don't seem to worry the people here too much! And I like that...if only i could mesh the happy medium of sustainability through planning for the future (a western ideal) with the local mindset of living happily on very little and enjoying the present day! Maybe I will find it and be able to make the two ideals coincide...

until next time!!

This is a mobile market! These guys have probably just come from Tangamano- the second hand market I previously told you about. It is held on Tues, Thurs and Sat and hence today is Thurs approx. 4 pm which is when most people collect their goods and head home. Mr. Ndauka took this photo as they were passing by. The guy caring the board on his back is carrying items such as sunglasses, belts, hats and other items which are most likely Chinese made and purchased cheaply beacuse of the outsourcing of labor to the Chinese has lead to contracts here which are trade agreements. It goes something like this; the Chinese do much construction here and in exchange for this their goods are shipped here at low rates and put to the market. This can also be seen in the fishing industry whereas the coastal regions are not protected for local fishermen- and the huge Chinese boats are allowed to fish right up to the shore- using nettting practices and such that rob the local fisherman...this is a subject not open for discussion here... Environmental conservation is a subject that I will write in further detail about at a later time but it is taboo here in the sense that no one talks about what is going on or how the local people are being robbed by these dangerous practices...it is hard for me to bite my tongue on this issue here as well, but it is somewhat dangerous to have an opinion on it. The other goods sold are second hand and come from thrift stores in the U.S. and Europe. These are commercial goods these guys are carrying, but often you will see people coming from the produce markets carrying goods in this manner or in HUGE woven baskets, made of sisal, carrying their harvest on their bicycles or their heads.
This is a photo of a local woman who has just collected firewood and is carrying it back to her house most likely. Either for personal consumption to use as cooking firewood, or for a building structure or perhaps she will sell it. She is approx. 50-60 years old and still doing this type of labor is not uncommon for even older women.
This woman was walking with the other woman in the above photo. As you can see, their type of dress is called a "kanga" and it is a sheet of material with bright prints and wrapped around the body as a skirt on the lower half and a matching, or not matching material is wrapped around the head in a number of different ways. One way is to wrap it around in the traditional Muslim style, another way is to wrap it with a circle in the back, like a bun, or another way is to wrap it and tuck both ends under one another and it looks like a turban, but more stylish. Yesterday I saw a kanga with the print of President Kikwete's face on it, others are for the CCM party, others are brightly colored fruits or vegetables and still others are animal print. The newer fashion is to use this type of material but have a tailor make it into a more modern style dress...it looks very nice and it is pretty cheap to have a dress tailor-made. All along the street sides you will see both women and men sitting behind foot-pump sewing machines, making beautiful dresses or fixing school uniforms, or making handbags or seat covers...you can have pretty much anything sewn here. Yiu can even take them a photo of something from a magazine, let's say a dress style you particularly like, and then chose the material, they will take your measurments and you will have exactly what you want in a few days. I have not tried it yet, as you have to be recommended to a specific tailor to ensure it is done properly and I have not done so yet...but I'm sure I will before i come home.
This is a picture of the word "Toledo" which is written at the Toledo Secondary School. It is done with white and green flowers and previously mentioned from the other photo captions :)

This is a photo of an unfinished classroom building. Because the Toledo Secondary School is a community based school, not governmentally funded, they are waiting on the funds in order to finish the building. These funds will eventually come from community members and the building itself is also done by the local people. This type of community involvement is essential as it forces the parents to take an active role in their children's education and other community members can see the fruits of their labor and take pride in the education their children are receiving. However, with the local economy as it is, it is very hard to raise sufficient funds. On top of the demands of expansion, there is also the demand for textbooks and other resources that are often taken for granted...things as simple as test tubes and bunsen burners are scarce in Tanga and there are only three science labs in existence here. Which means, anyone who wants hands-on practicals, like mixing chemicals and doing equations and such things one would expect in every school, the children must go to one of the three labs and pay extra for this equipment. Having a lab here at the Toledo Secondary School is one of Mr. Ndauka's goals for the future development of the school!
This is a photo of Mr. Ndauka and I responding to the comments on my blog about the interest in corresponding with students from the Toledo Secondary School! Mr. Ndauka was very pleased to see such interest and he is very eager to start this relationship and have his students actively correspond with other students through pen pal relationships, exchanges and other types of relationship enhancing ideas! We thank you very much for your interest and look forward to the future of this correspondence!

Today I had another visit to the Toledo Secondary School and Mr. Ndauka and I discussed a lot of exciting opportunities. I will tell you about them and also explain the pictures. In this picture, Mr. Ndauka is showing me some of the work that the Environmental Club at the Toledo Secondary School has done. This is a mound formation with nice flowers and a tree in the center and the outlying lettering behind Mr. Ndauka spells out "Toledo" in white flowers. It is this type of work that earned the Toledo Secondary School the award at the Earth Day Celebration which was my first post. I will also post photos of that celebration and the award!
This photo is of Mr. Ndauka and I in front of the Tanzanian flag located at the school and as you can see there are many trees planted in the schoolyard and it is very nicely maintained! Here also you can see the letters "L" and "E" of the "Toledo" written in flowers in the lower lefthand corner of this photo. Mr. Ndauka is also waering an "Obama 08" button!! Most everyone I have met here has asked me if I will be voting for Obama!! Mr. Ndauka is a proud supporter of Barrack Obama!
Here I am standing in front of a finished classroom building! Each classroom houses approximatley 40 students- that is supposed to be the max. capacity. However, due to budget constraints and lack of funding and materials, the classroom you see in this photo is seating 56 students at present.

Photos to come!

Hello! Today I met with Mr. Ndauka again, the headmaster of the Toledo Secondary School!!! He showed me how to upload pictures to this blog site! So, thanks to him you can all see my photo under the "my profile" section! Mr. Nissenhaus and Mrs. McComb, we replied to your comments about the relationship between students in the U.S. and students here at the Toledo Secondary School. Those comments are shown as a response so if you go back to your comment you will see our comment! We are very eager to start a pen pal relationship with your students! This will foster growth and development between the students and improve relationships! We are eager to start! As for other news, I have much to say and will be posting more later today and hopefully uploading many more pics soon!!!

I'm sorry it's been so long

Hello! The past few weeks have been very hectic here!! I moved out of the boys' orphanage. They found a full time matron to live with them and she is doing a nice job with them. I miss them very much though and I'm sad that I don't get to play cards with them at night anymore or go to the futbol field and play with them until dinner...but I do still go there everyday and we work on homework together and I am working on their english with them still. I now live at the girls orphanage...which is actually less stressful than when I lived with the boys because they have a full time matron also and my work with them consists mainly of doing their schoolwork with them and talking with them and working on english. A funny thing happened the other night when I was going over the national exam with some of them...there was a paragrapgh about the Jewish faith and the question was for them to summarize the paragraph...in talking with them, they had no idea what the Jewish faith was!! I grabbed the little blow up globe we have and showed them Israel and asked if they knew what was going on there between Jews and Muslims...they had no clue! Then i drew the star of David on the board and asked them if theyknew this symbol...they just stared at me like i was crazy...I was fully amazed that they have no awareness of a world religion! Most of these girls I was working with were Muslim girls and I had assumed that somewhere in their teachings they were informed of different religions..but the more i asked about it...they told me that "if it's not christian or muslim, its pagani" which basically means that if someone is not muslim or christian, they're belief is in witchcraft...now any of you reading this who know me quite well must know how agast i am with this situation...it doesnt even seem possible to be so close to the middle east in geographical proximity, so engulfed in the muslim culture, and so knowledgeable in many areas as these girls are, but have no exposure to different faiths that are not in their immediate range. Don't get me wrong, there are a meriad of different faiths here in Tanga, from Singh, to Burwani-Dowd, to Hindu, Shi'ite, Sunni, the list could go on...but no knowledge whatsoever of thew Jewish faith or what is going on in the West Bank or Gaza Strip. I found this very interesting because it is something I have been very involved in studying for quite sometime...so to actually experience this was of intense interest to me and I just wanted to write about it because it caught me so off guard.
So, yes I live with the girls now and it is nice. I do miss the boys though a lot.

I am having some visa and permit issues as of late so much of my time has been devoted to figuring out the ACTUAL laws here...which are not written anywhere and asking people is of no use due to the corruption i have experienced. Hopefully, it will be worked out soon. There are some documents I am waiting on from the U.S. in order to file correctly here...so hopefully soon everything will be alright!

As far as some good news...I FOUND A LOCATION AND AN AWESOME PERSON TO HOST THE TIYO CONCERT TAHT MAY BE HELD IN TANGA!!! The headmaster of the Tanga International School has offered to host the Toledo International Youth Orchestra at his school. There is a small stage there and he has media outlets and publicity contacts to start broadcasting the event as soon as possible. The school is in a very nice area and the people around the school are all very wealthy- it's right by the ocean. The Tanga International School is the nicest school here and it's where all of the doctor's and expats send their children for schooling. The headmaster lets the boys from the orphanage play futbol on the field there all the time and he is a very nice guy so I look forward to getting all the communication links between he and I and the TIYO set up so that we can figure it all out...he said that everyone in the area would come and it would be a very exciting event for Tanga!! He was very excited about it!

I met a guy who runs a school for disabled children here and I think I will start working with him soon while the children from the orphanages are at school. He was telling me a little bit about the school and invited me to come look and volunteer if I'd like, so that was nice. It's a little ways out of town so I think within this week sometime I will ride my bike there and see which hours would be best to spend time there! I will let you know what it's like.

Yesterday I went sailing and snorkeling! There were miles of coral reef and the fish and the coloring were like that of what you see on National Geographic...it was breathtaking and unrealistic all at the same time. It's surreal. You feel like you're swimming in a beautiful fish tank because there's no way it could be real that you're actually in the ocean, seeing all of this with your own eyes in its natural wild state...its very intense and I know that colors like this could never be recreated in another sense. There's no mixing of paints or dyes or anything else that could match these colors... I have learned a little of sailing from the lady who runs the sail boat. Her name is Sabilye and she is very interesting and extrmemly intelligent- especially on the local wildlife and what is going on environmentally in the area. She owns her own eco-sustainable island off Zanzibar call Chumbe island- google it if you're interested to know more- it's very intriguing. Anyways, I have learned how to set up the sails, how to steer witht he wind and how to know when to switch the sails depending on the wind...its very interesting and I wish the internet was good here so i could research sailing more. I was told that if I'm really into it, I could post myself at the yacht club here as a hired hand and sail around the world with people coming in who are looking for help! Wouldn't that be exciting? I've thought about it- when I'm done volunteering here of course.

How's this for a paradoxical world...so there's this second- hand clothing market here in TZ that is HUGE! And some of these clothes are really nice...dolce and gabbana and designer names you wouldn't normally see...all just in these huge piles that people are sorting through and meanwhile there will be the clothes merchants putting on skirts over their clothes, acting like girls screaming in monotonous tones at the top of their lungs how pretty their clothes are and at what price they are selling them...So you're in the mix, sorting through these clothes and its packed shoulder to shoulder with people looking and tearing shirts and skirts right out from under you and all the vendors are screaming...it's enough to give you a serious headache...but the clothes are nice and cheap so you stay to look... and if a white person is at their site, they're ten times louder and they'll throw clothes your way they assume you will like. So people are all around just rumagging on the dirt through these clothes, taking them right out of your hands, throwing other ones that land right on you, screaming right in your ear, other vendors come to you and show you what they've got...youre just bombarded by it all...and here's the paradox...these clothes came from the exact spot I used to work...I HAVE SEEN ACTUAL CLOTHING THAT I HAVE BAILED when i worked at the Goodwill in Bowling Green!! I'm not kidding. That's half the lure for me to go to the market to see if i'll see another shirt that I used toknow a world away...here I am...on the other side of the world, and i'm on the opposite side of the clothes i used to be...i determined the fate of these unwanted clothes when i was in the U.S. and here I am going through them again in the most unlikely fashion...it's truly something that makes you take a step back and look at your place in the world and how quickly you went from one side of the extreme to the completely opposite other end of the spectrum...and this is not the only case in which I have experienced that transplant while i've been here!

Simon comes back from Kenya soon so i'm awaiting his return! I miss him very much and it's hard and lonely not to have his sense of humor...it's hard to meet people here that have similar interests or like to talk about things I'm interested in and Simon alwayshas interesting conversation as well so im looking forward to his return!

Ok, well, this was a bit disjointed of a post and I apologize, but the internet here has been terrible and it cuts out a lot so I have had to really rush throug this! I hope all is well on your end of the world! Imiss you!

A new home!

Hello! I must sincerely apologize for not having made it to a computer in order to update my blog...I really didn't think many people were reading it because I rarely get comments- besides my mother of course (thank you Mom!)

The past week has been quite hectic! There have been numerous problems at the boy's orphanage so I have moved in there! There are fifteen different boys attending different schools at varying levels of english capabilities and each have their own emotional needs that are quite complex, so it has been a big adjustment for us all but it is now going wonderfully!! Besides the well-being and safety of the boys, I am in charge of the "store" which is basically a supply room there so I am to order the food, look after all the supplies and distribution so that all the boys have an equal amount of necessities (sheets, toothpaste, pencils etc.). I wake them up at 5:45am for exercises and then i make sure each of them showers, brushes their teeth, washes their clothes and makes their bed. Then we have porridge for breakfast and i check that they have what they need for school and make sure they get there on time. When they get home we sit down to do homework and then we work on english and then we play games. They are very active and now that they are used to me they listen respectively and interact in very interesting ways!! They are so much fun to be around and it's kind of like having fifteen younger brothers!

I am pretty busy with them so I really do not get the chance to make it out much. However, before I moved in I got to have quite a few adventures!! Last weekend I hiked the Usambara Mtns. It was phenomenal!! It was 1,900ft up and it took us a few hours, I kept getting elevation sickness and felt lightheaded...i guess im out of shape- but PT with the boys every morning will fix that! The whole way up, Boris, my friend that runs the lodge in Mambo- where the Mtns are located, kept cutting down sugar cane and we ate sugar cane the whole way up the mountain! It was quite a trip- just cutting something and then eating it right there, it's very sweet (as one can imagine) but it has a celery-like consistency and after you suck all the juice from it it's like eating shards of cardboard...so the trick to eating sugar cane- if ever you find yourself in this position, is to shear off the outer layer, bite down into it and suck all the juice out, then spit out the pulp right away because if you chew on it, you will never get it out of your teeth!! It was fun though! Then we went over a waterfall and the view was amazing! Imagine being on the side of a mountain, overlooking villages as far as the eye can see and knowing you're on top of a waterfall!!
Well, by the time we got to the top I was sweating buckets and could barely imagine getting down the mountain...then i saw our transport down....i really can't tell you what i felt...

It was a wooden plank...suspended in the air on a cable system and it was for transporting logs down the mountain...there were logs stacked into a pyramid shape and all the guy running the machine said was "hold on" yea, i know right!! So, ther I am, looking down this entire Mountain thinking to myself, it'd almost be safer to just tuck and roll and bare with a few broken bones rather than fall to my death and curse my stupidity for what would seem like an eternity until i hit the ground...but then I saw two other local people get on and I figured, if they can do it, i guess i can. Boris said no one has died on it yet...and just to hold on and dont stand on any wood that seems shaky...hahaha...describing it now does not even do it justice!!! There was another lady there taking pictures and she was literally shocked that we were getting on it, she thought for sure we were going to die...i kind of did too...just a little...but here i am! alive and well! Wait till i figure out how to post pictures!!!

I really wish i had more time to write but i need tog et back to the boys! Next time i will tell you all about the sailing i got to do, the snorkeling in the reefs and the swim/walk through the mangroves here...i will most likely make it into town tomoro afternoon to post!

Bye!

Pizza continued

Ok! So, we got done making the pizza and sliced it to feed 38 people and served it with their regular dinner of black beans and rice and water. The girls prefer the regular meals and do not especially like change much, even things that are big treats are so rare that they do not know how to react at first. The younger girls just stared at their slices and watched what the older girls did. Fatouma, Shufak and the others that helped ate theirs right away, and as i looked around the rest of the room at the girls, they were all waiting to see how the older girls reacted. The older girls took ownership of their hard work and encouraged the other girls to eat it, had they not participated in making the pizza, it would have all gone to waste...this is a vital example of how to run a non/profit or n.g.o. Without the help of the community, without local people becoming empowered by the responsibility invested in them, all the work and all the money in the world will not yield success! As the older girls urged the younger ones to try it, they all looked to me and Simon to see if we were watching...I sure as heck was but Simon kept his head down and the older girls looked at me and smiled as the younger ones were trying it and making funny faces. Sme of them really enjoyed it, others picked the cheese and tomoatoes and onions off and ate only the bread, and others gave theirs to the older girls. But for the most part...it was a huge success. Teaching the older girls something new, a different way of cooking, letting them try it on their own, entrusting them to carry out these tasks, and then letting them turn around to teach the younger girls these skills will be a great responsibility for them. So, my next job is to figure out all the necessary proportions for the dough machine and then formulate specific directions for the running of the bakery. Once I have all of that worked out, I will be able to teach each of the older girls and then watch as they pass it along to the younger girls! Vera and I may also be working at the Central Bakery here in Tanga to see exactly how they do it there...like an internship at the local bakery : )

The English classes are now running more smoothly. I have been able to assess each of the girls and what their skill level is and thus have broken them down into smaller groups for more one on one instruction. This has proved to work out much better and we have already reached sentence construction in one of the classes and prepositional phrases...which I have made fun by constructing a game where we pass the basketball outside but you are only allowed to pass it if you formulate a correct sentence with a prepositional phrase! It is really fun and the girls are very bright and sooooo eager to learn and try new things!

Last night at 4am i awoke to a very strange sound and thought Dan just kept flushing the toilet over and over again...but as soon as i checked out the bathroom, it was evident that something had gone really wrong...there was steam coming out and the bathroom was flooding! Dan had left on the water temp. heater and all day the water must have been heating up and then a pipe burst...it wasnt the fact that the water heater was on, that should not have caused a problem...its just poor plumbing and bad pipes!!! So hopefully someone will come fix it soon, in the meantime, we do have an outside shower...which kind of sucks, but hey, its a shower at least!

Last night we had friends over for dinner and it was quite an experience learning how to cook here and thank you Dad for the leatherman knife or we would have not been able to prepare anything for our guests!! Our friend Emelius from the TAYODEA tourism office came over. He will be attending one of the best universities in Tanzania for Wildlife Resources and tourism. He had us over for dinner the other night and he is a good cook and we wanted to return the favor! We made pasta, mixed vegetables, garlic and onion green beans, and Dan made some type of sausage and Carbonera sauce. I thought it was delicious and Emelius even took home leftovers so I hope he genuinely enjoyed it and didnt do that just to make us feel good, either way, it was nice of him! We also had over our freind Boris who is from Zimbabwe but grew up in Capetown, South Africa. He currently manages a lodge in Mambo and he has degrees in Wildlife management and tourism planning and is getting his master's in Environmental science. Both of them are great company and we all had a great time!!

Boris took me to Peponi, about an hour away from Tanga where there is a really nice quiet beach! We had a really great time and I got to take some great pics! Luckily he had a four by four or we would not have made it, the road was so rough that we were off our seats most of the time...bouncing and hitting our heads on the roof!There are little crabs all over and when the tide comes in they hide in these little holes they've dug and then when the tide goes out the pop out, crawl around, and then return to their holes. It is really neat to watch! Boris has invited us out to his lodge to stay for a weekend and his main job is guiding wildlife photography tours, so I think I may go see what that's all about.

Today, Samuel, the headmaster at the Toledo Secondary School took us to the Amboni Caves, its much like the Ohio Caverns, but it is dry and the stalagtites and stalagmites are no longer wet looking like in a cavern. It was a funny tour because it's not structured like an educational or historical tour rather it is more entertaining like 'look here, this rock looks like an elephant' or 'look at this formation, it resembles the female anatomy...' yea, it was pretty funny!!

Well, i must go now. i hope everyone reading this is doing well. i had some good meetings this past week that i will blog abt in a day or so. thank you for reading!

Lost in Time...

I have so much to say and so little time to say it...but you all MUST know what is going on here!!

Christiana took Dan and Simon and I out on Sunday. First she had us over to her house for breakfast and wow does she have an exquisite house. It is decorated in African style and very nicely done and she has loads of pets around. Dogs, cats, monkeys, HUGE turtles...you name it! Just sitting on her porch is like getting a free view of a zoo!! And we had the freshest fruit you could imagine...just fell off the tree! She explained to us the way the system here works and how things have come to be the way they are. In all honesty, mismanagement of aid and structural adjustment programs and NGO"s seems to be the bulk of the problems. It is very interesting hearing it from someone who has watched it all happen time and time again. After breakfast she tok us to a convent where the nuns there sell her fish at half price so the children in the orphange get fish at least once a week. We arrived at the convent and the view was one that cannot be described! The back door of this place was literally the ocean. Many people come to the monastery for spiritual retreat and we actually met one of the girls that works there through our friend Dharmish. She is not a nun, but she lives there and we ran into her.
Christiana and I sat and just watched the ocean and talked about what is going on in that area right now...We could see all the dhow boats out and the fisherman doing their work and I asked Christiana what the average income of a fisherman might be as there are so many resources for fishing and the market is good. The story is a sad one though, the Tanzanian govt gives much of their contract work to Japan and China and in return, they allow open fishing right up to their coast. So, most of the income that could go to local fisherman is actually ging to fishing industries in Japan and China, robbing the local fisherman of a living wage...talk about offshoring jobs...

Then we discussed how beautiful the scenery was...another sad tale...Bush has recently been here and some tpe of agreement was reached to where oil tankers will soon be taking over the harbors...in the EXACT spot we were sitting in...she said that in about ten years...nothing will lok the same and the beauty that exists now will be no longer...the regin will be overcme with oil and the local ecosystems will parrish...its hard to digest and its so depressing...

On a lighter note...
Simon accompanied me to the bakery at the Stehmann House for our first day of bread baking!! IT WENT WONDERFULLY!! The oven worked! Going in to twn for all the necessary ingredients was irksome because it takes so long to get anything here...its not like a quick stop into the Kroger for all your grocering needs...any other day i would have been delighted to spend the day in the market...but we had bread to bake and making dough is not a quick task!! We decided to make a pizza that would feed all the girls! We bought onions and tomatoes and garlic for the sauce and used the leftovers as toppings, as well as mozzarella cheese! We had the older girls, Fatuma, Shufak, Suwma, and Nuru help us. Delegating the tasks such as slicing the vegetables and making the preparatins so they could learn and teach the younger girls as soon as we have an exact process down. While they were working on that, Simon showed me how to make the dough his way from scratch, without the machine. As soon as I learn how to use the machine and find the correct proportions, I will be teaching the girls. So, we made the dough, kneaded it, rolled it and put it on the pan and the girls came in to help with the rest and they had such a god time and were very inquisitive and eager to learn new things... We all sat by the oven the entire time to watch the pizza bake and we were so excited! We even had enough dugh left over to make bread...so I used my past baking skills and taught them how to braid the bread and then we put raw sugar on top and baked that too!
When the pizza was finally done...cutting it to feed 38 ppl was rugh...but we did it...im out of time now but i have so many more details and i want to tell you exactly what all the girls thought of it and how it went...so im sorry to leave you hanging...but it will be a good next read!!

Passion comes in a fruit/fluke

Hello! So- the past few days are indescribable- but i am going to try as that is the point of this blog :)

We met Christiana, the German lady from Eckinforde (another sister city of Tanga), and she runs a very impressive orphanage here that is known by the locals as a respectable establishment...and from my first step onto the grounds of the Stehman House (the girls orphanage), I could tell that working with this lady and these girls was going to be amazing! Orphaned dogs come up to greet you and all the girls come running out to greet you and help you carry anything they can! One of the girls, Suwmu, took my hand right away as we walked around the place! Christiana houses 35 girls in the Stehman House ranging from 4 years old up to 19 years old. They are all enrolled in local schools but she has asked me to structure English classes for the girls while they are not in school. The medium of education here has changed from being taught in Swahili to now being taught in English because the National Exams are given in English. The girls do quite well in school but they need to learn English and become proficient in the next months that I am here or they will not be able to understand what is being taught to them when school starts back up. I am also in charge of the bakery!! Christiana has purchased a nice baking oven and an industrial dough mixing machine and has asked me to run this area and teach the girls to make different types of breads and eventually pizzas that we will try to sell at the market here!! I am very excited about both of these opportunities!! Vera, a lady from Kenya, also works at the orphanage and she lived in Germany for a while and now she works here and is very involved with the girls' education and general upbringing at the orphanage. She is really wonderful to work with and she has told me so many amazing stories about the local culture here, the girls in the oprhanage, and other interesting things...she is a fountain of knowledge!!

Christiana also takes in dogs that have been abandoned and she currently has three that are in a sad state but getting better! And as coincidence would have it- the man who administers the medication to the dogs is Julius- our local contact for the Toledo-Tanga Sister Cities Committee and he is also on the City Council. He runs his own private business of livestock and animal husbandry consultation. There are also many cats, kittens, goats, chickens and other animals that Christiana has taken in!

We are staying at a Guest House currently and I cannot even explain how nice this house is... It is HUGE!!! And gorgeous! It has an immaculate garden, a mango tree, other citrus trees, monkeys and meerkats in the front yard, a gatekeeper, and an overall peaceful air about it that cannot be put into words. She has furnished it for us and has done so much for us that it is hard to even believe!!

I will tell you more about the wonderful girls in another blog- there is too much to say for one blog entry! There is also a boy's home that she runs where Dan will be working. He will be teaching English there as well as doing recreational games with the boys and just being a positive male influence in their lives. Simon, the guy writing his thesis on HIV/AIDS that we met in Dar is visitng and he likes it so much that he may come to live for awhile! He taught English in Kenya and has expressed an interest in helping out at the boy's orphanage as well! He also has a brother that runs a very good pizza business in London and is going to get me some tips and good information on how to make delicious pizzas so that the bakery runs well :)

Today was the day we moved into the Guest house and Christiana took us around to get us all the necessary furnishings for our place! It was very interesting to see how the city is mapped out- like how the streets are laid out and how one navigates through town and does business.

After we moved in we had a meeting with Julius & George. Both of them are on the Tanga-Toledo Sister Cities Committee and the City Council. This meeting was PHENOMENAL!!! We talked about different types of social programs that they are interested in starting with our help for organizational purposes. We discussed at length the different types of educational programs in the U.S. that provide self-empowerment and leadership structure among youth. They were most interested in drug prevention programs and young entreprenuer(sp?) programs. We told them about the models of the DARE program and DECA and Junior Achievement and they are very interested in us further researching these models to help them establish these programs in the 90 primary schools in the 23 different villages of Tanga! What a HUGE opportunity!! We also discussed setting up student volunteer programs, mentorship programs and environmental action programs. They were very dedicated and motivated towards getting these programs established and into the schools! Dan had the great idea of using the Toledo Secondary School as sort of a pilot for these programs- which will benefit the Toledo Secondary school, the City Council, the Toledo-Tanga Committee here in Tanga and in Toledo, as well as the sister school in Toledo!! One of the programs we talked about was the environmental clean up project- starting environmental clubs at each school whose mission would be to have the new student government designate a time and place each week where the students would pick up the trash and the garbage that litters the streets here. Since afterschool programs and sports teams are very expensive, this would be an activity that is costless and keeps kids off the street and away from the drug problems, while at the same time cleaning up the city!! Having the children doing this visbly in the community may also affect the adults in the community and change their perception in a way that will promote more environmentally friendly behavior! These are all just ideas at this stage but Julius and George seemed very interested in making them realities and so next week once Dan and I have it all in an outline form, we are presenting these ideas to the rest of the city council as well as the mayor!!

Dan and David from TAYODEA met yesterday and the meeting went well. We will be meeting with David again to hopefully solidify exactly how we can help him and establish a relationship in which he can be more direct with us pertaining to what his needs are to better TAYODEA!

All around the orphanage little ripe passion fruits fall. The girls always bring them to me to eat! Yesterday I was eating one and just thinking to myself- how funny is it that when I came here I was so passionate about something that didn't work out the way we expected- but by pure chance we have fallen into something different that I have always been passionate about- and falling all around me are these passion fruits!!

My perspective on everything has changed here. I used to be so certain about things that i am no longer certain about- and things i once thought were impossible- are the norm here! So each day i am learning and really experiencing things- and it has already changed me!

I hope to have pictures up soon. I hope you are all well and thanks for reading :)