A post

Well,we have been here just over one week.  Lots happening.  Our flights were long but uneventful. Getting in a day early was a good idea.  We got to Dar Es Salaam (using the full name seems to mark you as a tourist, so it will forever more be refered to as Dar).  Our hotel was pretty nice in the business part of town, but after our fight the buisness of the day was sleep, wake kids up go eat and sleep again.  I will say I had an amazing dinner of king fish  for just over $10.00 that would rival any Chicago restaurant. Favorite part of the night was when Stuart asked what kind of drinks they had the first response was Killi, the local Kilimanjaro beer.  When Lizzy ordered a rum and coke, the waiters response was "double or single"????

We were picked up at our hotel as expected and on the way to Bagamoyo, we needed to stop at a bank for one of the families to change money.  Bagamoyo has one ATM which is frequently out of money or not working. When I walked out of the bank, I was surprised to see a bank guard and policeman sporting an assault rifle crowded around the van my kids were in.  Fotunately our silver tongued driver defended  Stuart, who had pulled out his computer and assumed to be hacking into the bank security system to steal all their shillings.  Stuart felt our driver Didase was actually chastising the policeman for not being nicer to us when he can up to the car.  I was starting to feel like we were in really good hands.


The first three days seemed a whirlwind of activities.  Getting settled in our rooms, dormatory style.  Quick hello & good by to the West Point guys who were leaving the same day we got here. and getting to know those who still had a week left.  Learning the rules and meeting the staff,  lots of group discussions. tour of the town by car.  Sure can tell Daniel Burnham was never here.

Interestingly, the group that will be here the whole time we are are 3 familes, with Stuart being the only male.  The kids have made a good friend of Bella, who lives in San Diego with her mom Deann.  We have a good group!

Moday was a scavenger hunt about town, which gave us a much better feel for it. Had to go buy oranges and answer a bunch of questions.  It was a good way to get us out of the home base.  

We had lunch with the directors of our placements at home base. I met Julius, who runs the Anglican church school which we would be teaching at.  He showed us a schedule which was basically two subjects a day Math or science/ English or Swalhili.

   Stuart met with Charles who runs UKUN and true to the warnings we had gotten from other volunteers is seems like he has his hands in everything.  I did get a glimpse of a diagram he drew for Stuart describing his organization, but it looked strangley similar to the Krebs cycle to me.

The first day of going to our school, we understood we were to observe and get a feel for the classroom.  I was a bit surprised when after introducing us to the class, Julius handed me the pointer and sat down in one of the 2 chairs in our classroom.  These chairs being the only furniture as well.  Pictures of the classroom will come later.  Camera's tend to be a huge distraction in the classroom so we will try to bring them only at the end of our trips.  Classes run from 8:00am to 11:00am.  10:30 if the cook is not there and thei r is no porridge.  Faux pas the first day was including the word breakfast in morning English instruction when in some cases the porridge is the only meal the kids may get.

 Many of the children in our classroom are orphans and street kids, generally taken care of by relatives or friends.  There is no orphanage as we think of them.  The expression of "it takes a village to raise a child"  Is evident all over here.  The kids are watched and disciplined by any and every adult.  This is also a "private school" which charges tuition and there for considered a reeally good school.  The government schools may have 100 kids in a classroom.  We have just around 30. There are lots of interesting things to know about the school system, will share more details if interested, but suffice to say the government schools don't start teaching english until 5th grade, the private start right away.  The testing for students to advance in the layers of school is all done in English.

CCS gives us classes and discussions in Education, health care, Swahiali lessons on most afternoons.

Friday class is sports and games.  Our school is very close to the Indian Ocean and Friday is beach day.  We had walked on Thursday evening to the fishing port in Bagamoyo. Not the place you would want to be after sundown, but ok for during the day.  Saw they had dumped off some boat about a hundred yellow plactic bottles of cooking oil, which then floated to shore and were being stacked up for delivery.  Sorry pictures are often not encouraged -you have to ask- and you may be asked to pay for the privilage. Not an easy task if there are 20 people in the scene.

The same boats we had seen last evening, which were bobbing away in the water were now totally up on sand, the tide having gone miles out, barely visiable from last evenings beach.  I should be able to get pictures of that next Friday.  July 29th.