School on Saturday.

           As well as teaching my Year 2 class during the week I have also been helping out at ‘Saturday School’.  Saturday School is a chance for children who go to the local schools to come to English lessons and take part in some activities that are provided for them by some of the staff.

Each week there can be up to 100 children from year 6 age upwards turn up at the school gates. They have an hour of lessons then they enjoy an hour of activities such as football, basketball and swimming using the facilities at school.

 Once a month we open up the opportunity to younger primary aged children. This term I have been helping out in the English lessons for the primary children. They are so different to the children I teach during the week. Very eager but much quieter! It has been wonderful to give the local children the chance to improve their English and give them opportunities that they wouldn’t normally get.

 Many of the children walk a long way to get to Saturday School but when you see there excited faces as they are told it is their turn to go in the swimming pool you understand why.  After they have grabbed a swimming costume there is no stopping them jumping in. They love the hot showers they can have at the end too.

Last week we had a special Christmas week.  After the normal English lessons they all enjoyed watching the dress rehearsal of the school production of West Side Story. While they were watching the show some of the older children from Isamillo school and some of the teachers prepared a feast for 140 hungry children. There was a lot of plates of food and lots of happy smiling faces.

This is our school hall where they performed West Side Story.

I dished out a lot of spoonfuls of rice!

They were big fans of the ketchup.

The grins got even bigger as they received a Christmas present on their way out. 

I can't believe that I have been here a whole term, it has gone so quickly. I have now finished for Christmas. 
Bring on a month of no getting up in the dark, lots of sunshine and getting to see Mum and Dad! Yipee!

I'm dreaming of a hot Christmas!

Last weekend was unofficial Christmas weekend at the ‘teacher flats’. As most people will be away for actual Christmas we decided to have ours a month early. When it is 28 degrees outside and the shops are not blaring out Christmas music it is quite difficult to get in a Christmasy mood but by the end of the weekend I think we all felt like we were getting there.

The week before we all watched Christmas films as if we were watching rubbish TV the week before Christmas. Unfortunately we couldn’t recreate the Strictly Come Dancing so it didn’t feel like the real lead up to Christmas.

On the Saturday night we had a ‘Christmas Eve’ party on the roof of the flats with Mosquitoes doing the nipping not Jack Frost! Mulled wine was replaced by fresh fruit cocktails but the cheesy Christmas tunes and even a Santa hat made it festive.

Sunday was Christmas day which was a real flats family affair. There were 15 of us for Christmas dinner. Each flat had there own part of the meal to cook. Flat 3 (my flat!) cooked the roast potatoes and stuffing, not quite like Mum’s! Considering we are in Tanzania most of the important parts were there, just the parsnips that were missing.

Even Santa knew we were celebrating a month earlier. He had delivered presents for everyone (Secret Santa buying is even more difficult when the choice is very limited).  We had very own Queen’s speech and of course the Christmas afternoon games.

I had made a Christmas cake that we were all too full for on the day (like in the Durrant house!) even though we had room for chocolate brownies and sweets. Christmas left overs have been great this week and no turkey sandwiches!

Unfortunately ‘fake Boxing day’ is not a no school day!

We are all now on major count down to real Christmas! We are doing our Christmas play at school this week so it really is starting to feel like Christmas. The tea towels and tinsel are out!

Only 7 more days of school until my month holiday and just over 3 weeks until Mum and Dad come out to visit. Yipee!

Church in Mwanza

I am still enjoying life in Mwanza but I have to have the timing right to update you on the internet to fit around bad internet connections and no electricity.  It sounds like they happen a lot but actually they just happen in the evening when I am not at school….. So inconvenient!

I have just got back from church so I thought I would give you a little insight into what it is like.

Although it is easier to get up early here as the sunshine streaming through the curtains wakes you, getting up for church that starts at 8am is still a bit of a shock on Sunday mornings. The other option is to go to the 10am Kiswahili service but even though I have started learning Swahili I think understanding 1 in about 100 words would be hard work.

Kirumba Valley Christian Centre Church is about a 10 minute walk from my flat on the other side of the market where we do our shopping. It is always an interesting walk we lots of weird and wonderful sights and smells to pass on the way.

The Church services are held in a big warehouse type building which is normally full of about 300 people by the end of the service (Half the congregation work on African time!). The worship is lead by a 20 strong African choir singing out beautiful harmonies. The songs are mostly British worship songs but in their own style.  Oh Lord my God, How Great is our God and Majesty in full on African Gospel style makes pretty powerful worship. One of our favourite songs is ‘Awesome’. Here is a link to a church in America singing it just to give you an idea of the style. The swaying, passion and sound is the same but imagine a choir a quarter of the size and a few mosquitos buzzing around to get the true experience of church in Mwanza.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ej5Wr43JYHE

The Pastor is very passionate but luckily doesn’t talk for the typical hours and hours like in most of the churches here. You have to be very ‘unbritish’ when every 5 minutes he asks you to repeat a question to your neighbour or shouts Hello!  For you to say back to check you are still listening! As I am one of about 8 white people at the church we kind of stand out so we are made to feel very welcome with lots of hand shaking and cups of delicious Tanzanian sweet tea! Here is a link to a Blog that someone from the Church has set up so you can have a look at what it looks like and what they do. The photographs must be fairly old as they now have flashing fairy lights behind the stage and a proper screen for the words!

http://kirumbavalleychristiancentre.blogspot.com/

As I have started having Swahili lessons I better practice by saying…….

Kwaheri! Niwasiliane!

Safari adventures.

    

 It is so hard to describe how amazing my adventures on safari were so I am going to let the photos do the talking. They still don’t do it justice but I hope it will give you some idea of what it was like……. I’ll tell you a few stories along the way! 

We got up bright and early to start our adventures. We had all got comfortable in the van  ready for our 2 hour drive  along tarmac roads before the bumpiness began. Unfortunately only half an hour out of Mwanza there was a bang........ we had a flat. It was another day at the office for Tyson our driver so the tyre was soon changed even if he did have to use a stone as a jack ....... we supervised!

We dropped into the garage to get the spare tyre repaired

We soon left the tarmac roads and headed into the Serengeti.

This is just a small selection of the wonderful sights we saw on the first day. Yes they were that close!

On the first night we arrive at Mbalengeti Lodge to be given an upgrade to the suite. We couldn't believe we were in the middle of the Serengeti until we looked at the view out of the window!

 

This is what greeted us in the morning from the bedroom window.

The next morning after a luxurious night sleep we were ready for a new day of dust and  bumpiness! About 20 minutes into our game drive there was a smell of burning rubber and the van stopped! Our wonderful driver Tyson was also a mechanic but even he couldn't fix the starter motor so for the rest of the trip we had to push start the van. We all piled out of the van with Wildebeast, Zebra and goodness knows what else watching us to push start the van.... luckily it started!

Our van was about a metre away from this young male lion who decided to go for a wander through the vehicles.

We travelled to Ngorongoro Crater and drove down a very steep decent into it to see more breathtaking sights. (This is my flat mate Suzie)

This was our picnic sight ........ if you look very carefully you can see the hippo in the lake!

As the sun was setting we drove back up onto the crater rim back to our lodge. Just when we thought we were nearly there.......... this was blocking the road (we followed him for a good 5 minutes) until he needed a snack and we could over take!

This was our lodge for the night. Our rooms had the same stunning view.

Our last day started with a trip to a Maasi village.

There was dancing. (Unfortunately the video wouldn't upload!)

We decided we would all come and teach at their school instead.

 Then it was back to the Serengeti for the last game drive.

We were just heading home thinking that we had seen some unbelievable sights then Tyson  brakes certainly  and shouts cheetah! It was quite a long way from the road so to us it was only a dot. Tyson was determined that we would  see it more close up so he decided he would drive over the grassland off road so we could have a closer look (He is suppose to keep on the tracks!). We soon got over the shock of coming off the track when we saw the cheetah this close up. It was an amazing end to an incredible couple of days.

We thought all the fun was over but Tyson had other ideas.

You can't see them in the photo but the river was filled with crocodiles and hippos. We decided it was safe enough to cross a very old wobbly bridge and pose for a photo!

We were sure that the excitement was definitely over as we headed back onto tarmac roads to Mwanza but Oh no! There was another bang. We had got another flat so poor Tyson had to change another tyre as we sat and watched the sunset.

I think one of the strangest part of the few days was being dropped off at our flats and not having to get on a plane to get home! I still can't believe I live 2 hours away from these incredible views and amazing animals.

African Firsts

Where has a half term gone? On Friday we finished term for a weeks half term holiday and I still can’t quite believe that I have been here for long enough to be at the end of a half term already.

Here are a few things that I have experienced for the first time since I arrived:

•A Tanzanian League Football match.

Yes you have read that correctly I have been to watch a live Tanzanian League Football match. Our local team are the Toto’s and there grounds are a 10 minute walk from our flats and we can hear the celebrations when they score very clearly so we thought we would watch rather than just hear it.

As a group of 10 white people walked into the 30,000 seater stadium I think we had more attention than the actual match as the stadium was very empty (as the team they were playing were apparently rubbish) so all eyes were on us . Luckily the Toto’s  won 2- 1 so there were a lot of happy and loud fans and their attention soon turned to the actual match. It was a great atmosphere and we enjoyed the ‘fast food’ served to us at our seats during the match. We joined the pitch invasion at the end of the match and got to meet some of the Toto players…… we are now true fans!

                                           

•The early start of the rainy season.
Unfortunately the rainy season which is suppose to start in November has decided to come early. On Tuesday this week the thunder and lightning started at about 2 o’clock in the morning and the rain was still hammering against my windows when I woke up……. for a few seconds I did think I was waking up in Leeds. I really thought we were going to be totally drenched as we walked to school but luckily it eased at the time we need to walk in. It decided to thunder and rain when the children arrived so I shouted my literacy lesson in the dark as the power also went off. The playground looked like a river but I was doing my break duty in 28 degree heat about half an hour later and all the puddles had dried up. Last night the thunder sounded like someone was drumming on the walls but the fork lightning was pretty amazing as it lit up the lake. You can enjoy the storms when you know that the sun will be coming out very soon!

•Biscuits with eating advise.
  As you can imagine they caused some giggles in the shop!

•Another extra member of my class.( This is the length of my thumb!)

Only one more sleep until the Serengeti! Will let you know how many lions we had to fight off very soon.