Holiday Rewind

Thanks to our awesome field director who happens to have handy connections in Zanzibar I got to spend Christmas in a tropical paradise with the other volunteers for our mid-service conference.

Zanzibar is actually a group of islands including the main island called Unguja and Pemba, a smaller island to the north. Zanzibar is the birthplace of Swahili language and culture. It has many cultural influences from Eastern Africa as well as from the Middle East due to its location. The island was an important part of the slave trade and you can visit caves where slaves were hidden after slavery became illegal but the slave trade continued. Zanzibar is also sometime called "The Spice Island" due to the many spice plantations located in the islands interior.

On Christmas Eve I took the ferry from Dar es Salaam into Stone Town, the capital city of Zanzibar. The trip only takes 2-3 hours depending on the speed of the ferry you are on. Here is the view from the ferry as you are approaching Stone Town:


One of Stone Town's charms is its maze of streets and alleyways that you can wander through for hours. It reminded me a lot of Venice (minus the canals). And I found that as long as I kept heading in the direction of wherever I was trying to go I eventually got there.



Another charm are the beautifully carved wooden doorways that you will see as you are wandering through the streets.

Stay tuned for more stories about Zanzibar...

Debate Club

A new addition to the English Club starting in January this year is the weekly debates. In an effort to create a medium for all students (science and art) to improve their English communication skills the headmaster would like to see all of the Form V classes participating in a weekly debate. Every Saturday two classes debate a motion given to them by their debate team secretary. So far they have been very interesting to listen to and the debates give the students a great platform for practicing their English and presentation skills.


The motions so far have been:

Africa's people are the cause of its own underdevelopment.

and

Co-educational schools are better than single sex schools.

Congratulations Form VI!

Our Form VI students just had their graduation ceremony last week and it was a pretty big event. Family members from all over the country came to congratulate the graduates on completing their secondary education. After a four hour ceremony everyone got to enjoy a delicious meal of pilau, chicken, beef, rice, kachumbari, bananas and soda.


On Monday and for the next several weeks the students will start taking their National Exams on their class subjects. Good luck Form VI!

Books!

Thanks to everyone who donated to our Library Project! So far we have raised $2,620.00 -- but its not too late if you would still like to donate to the Library at Kibiti Secondary School just visit our website: http://www.firstgiving.com/kibiti

On Tuesday last week we went with the headmaster of the school to make our first book purchase at Tanzania Book Support Trust - a local NGO.

"Paving the Way" Into the New Year

To celebrate the new year, the staff at my school were all invited to go on an overnight trip to the Selous Game Reserve. The school rented a bus to pick us all up at school and after a few hours on a bumpy dirt road we arrived at Selous. While a bus is not exactly the ideal vehicle for travelling on dirt paths through the wilderness and viewing wildlife everyone still had a good time and enjoyed the journey to the hostel where we were staying the night 70 km past the Reserve Gate. The Rufiji River cuts through Selous and lots of elephants, giraffes, zebras and birds can be seen enjoying the water:

Outside our hostel we found a warthog family that was hanging out:




After a restful night that was nice and cool due to the rain we started to head back towards the entrance gate at noon. The park rangers made us wait an extra hour before we were allowed on the road because of the rain.


While our hardy little bus was able to make its way along the wilderness roads while they were dry it was not quite up to the task after a night of rain. Shortly after we started driving we found ourselves sliding into a ditch along the road. Everyone piled out of the bus and while the park ranger who accompanied us kept watch for dangerous wild animals and the lion we could hear growling in the bush nearby everyone pushed the bus back onto the mud that was trying to pose as a road and we continued on our way.

That first trip into the ditch turned out to be the easiest one to get out of - Further down the road we found our bus tire deep in a river of mud too many times to count! Since there is no AAA in Africa (that I know of) we had to get ourselves out of the mud on our own. We literally had to create our own road out of boulders, logs, sticks and grass that we could find in the bush in order to create a surface the bus could drive on without sinking.





Even the ranger helped! (Note the big gun)


All the while a giraffe family watched us from down the road. They weren't used to seeing people outside of their vehicles in an area where large, dangerous, carniverous animals hunt for their dinner!

Finally, after seven hours of this business and after the ranger spotted a leapord nearby (!) a giant tractor showed up to tow us through the rest of the muddy spots and we reached the entrance gate by 8:00. Eight hours to travel only 70 km (a little less than 45 miles). It was quite an adventure! Next time I visit Selous, however, I will be sure to be in a vehicle with 4-wheel drive.

Tui La Nazi

Tui la nazi (aka coconut milk) is a very popular and delicious ingredient in the coastal regions. Here is a little "How-To" for making your own fresh coconut milk.

To start you will need a Kibao cha Mbuzi (literally means "Goat Board" but no one can tell me why) and a ripe coconut:


Step 1: Crack open the coconut


Step 2: Sit on the Kibao cha mbuzi and "scratch" the coconut. (Kuna la nazi)












Step 3: Add a little warm water to the scratched coconut

Step 4: Knead the warm water and coconut together with your hands.

Step 5: Strain



And finally you have a nice bowl of coconut milk to use when you're cooking!

Library Fundraiser!!!

After spending several months at Kibiti Secondary and seeing what kinds of things the school really needs, Duffie and I decided to start a project to build the school a library. In July the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training conducted an inspection of the school and the outcome was staggering. The ratio of textbooks for students was 80 to 1. The school is lacking in critical resources for the students to get an adequate education. The biggest need is for textbooks and reference books that are current and relevant. We have a team of bright, intelligent students that want to help with this project and we are excited to work with them to create this library for the school. Check out our fundraising website to learn more!!! www.firstgiving.com/kibiti