Travel progress

Just a quick note to say we have arrived in Istanbul. Everyone is both excited and tired after our early start. Next flight will depart in about an hour and is 7 and a half hours long! More to follow when we have arrived in Dar and are more rested. 

Amy

--

Ian Thompson

God’s Bridge (06/08/16)

 Today we started the day by the mama's making us eggy bread for breakfast at around 8 am before we left the bible centre on LuLu and headed for Tukuyu, where we were meeting the Tanzanians and our tea tour guide. Once we arrived in Tukuyu we waited for roughly 50 minutes for different people to arrive however, we also found out that the tea tours hadn't actually been booked for the correct day so instead we set off to look at other natural sights around Rungwe.

 After an hour's drive on bumpy non tarmacked roads we finally neared the "boiling pot". We drove through a Tanzanian military compound before pulling up in a small village where we were greeted by the local children who followed us down the twisty path to the "boiling pot". The boiling pot was a naturally formed hole where the river had eroded the volcanic rock which formed a bowl shape where the river was swirling around.

 

After visiting the "boiling pot" our bus driver 25 took us to see a pineapple plantation where we saw how pineapples grow. I never realised pineapples grew in the middle of strange looking bushes!

Our last visit of the day was to God's Bridge which was a naturally formed stone bridge over a river which had a waterfall behind but unfortunately we couldn't get to the waterfall to see it.

For lunch we stopped at a Tanzanian pub which is very different to in England. RCCL had already ordered us some food so there was a selection of chips myai and chicken and chips, which was delicious after our long day. We were also given soda and water.

Due to this being a late lunch around 3 ish we decided to stop off at the Tukuyu maket where we were given 2 hours to buy snacks for the evening as a few people were on home stays that night so we decided not to bother making a big tea. We also used this time to buy more material and kangas so we could get some clothes made by the Lutengano Fundi (dress makers).

After our long tiring day, we relaxed and enjoyed the evening by sitting around the compound chatting, snacking and playing games.

By Hannah

Tanzumbrian sports day (05/08/16)

Today was the day of the inaugural Tanzumbrian sports day. The day began by each of the four teams; green, blue, red and orange, donning their team colours and exchanging pep talks with one another. After breakfast all four teams walked the short journey to Lutengano school. Once the group arrived they were welcomed to the school by the headteacher and signed the visitors book. The whole school then sang the Lutengano school song, which we were privileged to be able to hear. The Cumbrian leaders and students introduced themselves, followed by the Lutengano teachers. Then we were showed around the school in our sports teams where we were showed the classrooms, the dormitories and the school plantations. As with the other schools there was a stark difference between the Lutengano classrooms and what we are used to in England, but this did not affect the students' ability to learn due to their motivations. It was also great to see the foundations of a new block of the girls' dormitories which some of the money we raised was funding.

            When 11 o'clock rolled around it was time to assemble on the school field for the games to begin. We assigned Tanzanian students from Lutengano, Lubala and Kisondela to each of the four teams – each of the teams looked evenly matched (with the exception of the green team who looked like they had the physical advantage). With the 11 members of each team assembled in each corner of the field they striped their face with the team colours and decided who would compete in each race.

            The first race was the egg and spoon – a new concept for the Tanzanians' and a time to shine for the English students – especially Robyn who won first place for the English students. The next race was the long distance – a race around all of the Lutengano school grounds. This was unsurprisingly an easy win for the Tanzanians without an English student in sight. The race was won by the blue team allowing them to take an early lead. The third race was the three-legged race – another win for the blues after two teams were disqualified for badly tied kangas. A coconut throw was next and despite some surprising attempts from Gama and Luke, John won the event as expected.

            After the 100m sprint, the potato race, the sack race and the relay it was time for the team events – the first of which was the tug of war. A surprise substitution of Carly for Ipyana, the Tanzanian breeze block, and the transformation of Abby who turned various shades of red and would have been able to pull the rope herself, the Orange Team managed to win the event with ease. The fate of the four teams now rested on the final event; tunnel ball, an alien concept to most of the competitors but all teams coped well, with the blue team just scraping a victory.

            After the teams had a chance to rest the results were in and it was time for Andrew to present the Tanzumbrian Cup. The team in 4^th was the Reds, followed by the Greens and the Oranges leaving the Red team (who were surprisingly gracious in their victory) to lift the Tanzumbrian cup. All participants of the sports day had a meal at the school and then we returned to the bible centre in high spirits.

            At the bible centre, Ano was waiting for us with equipment to make batiks and tye 'and' dye kangas for the Link to sell and raise money for next year's inward trip. We started by printing zebra and giraffe prints for our batiks and then we worked on the tye-dye materials. The final result was very impressive, particularly the sambosa-style kangas. Get your wallets and purses ready ladies and gents – coming to a charity sale near you.

Christian

           

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Katumba 2 (04/08/16)

On Thursday 4^th August Becca, Beth, Robyn, Andrew, Ian and I visited Katumba 2 in the hope of completing a colour coded map of the school compound which identified the areas which needed improved. Upon our arrival it was evident that in order for the school to be suitable and safe for all of the children who attend the school, it was essential to make some changes.

To begin with, Ian introduced us to Kalyoto, the headmaster of the school and after being welcomed we had a look around the school and visited each area in turn. We initially looked at the classrooms and the children were as enthusiastic and as welcoming as ever and they were all eager to hold our hands and introduce themselves. After being taken into one classroom by two small girls, I was shocked to see that despite the fact that there was no teacher in sight, the thirty young children, who were around the age of 7, were all focussed on doing work in their books. This was both upsetting yet heart-warming to see as the young children clearly had the motivation and the urge to learn yet it was the lack of dedication from teachers that were preventing them from doing so. We therefore felt that we should take the opportunity to make the students involved and to teach them something new. In order to interact with this class in particular we began to sing the classic 'head, shoulders, knees and toes' and the children instantly picked up on words and joined in enthusiastically. As I was walking around various classrooms I was instantly drawn into one particular class as I could hear them singing the songs that the group that visited on Monday had taught them. It was so lovely to hear them singing and counting with such pride and it was evident that the children were so happy to have someone to watch and listen to them.

We then visited Ali's workshop and he was in the process of designing various pieces of paper technology which would cater specifically for a particular child's disability. The piece that he was currently in the process of making was a chair which was designed for a child whose legs had been born extremely close together and therefore the aim of this was to help to separate his legs. It was so rewarding to help Ali finish various pieces of furniture and it highlighted how effective this method was in a deprived area such as Rungwe as it was both a cheap and easy process.

Following this Andrew, Becca and I then began to draw the map of the school and as we were going around the school area it was so sad to the struggles that the young children were facing as they were moving around their school. One particularly upsetting moment was when one child who was suffering from clubfoot was attempting to push her friend who was in a wheelchair up a steep, bumpy path and despite the fact that the young girl was evidently struggling, her determination and care for her friend was clearly enough to give her the strength to do this. We highlighted this particular area of the school as being awful and therefore it is at the top of our priorities to ensure that this is fixed in the near future in the hope of making the children's movement around the compound much simpler. After highlighting the negative areas on the map it was lovely to visit the albino dormitory as the rooms looked safe and comfortable and this was reassuring that the children had a nice place to sleep and that there were positive areas of the school. Robyn and Beth then went into each classroom and dormitory in turn in order to find out various pieces of information, including the number of children with disabilities in each classroom and what they were suffering from. This information would allow us to assess the paths that children with physical disabilities would have to take in order to get to their classroom and therefore make any necessary changes and improvements. After retrieving as much information as possible and after getting photographs of each negative area, we finished off more of the paper technology before leaving.

We then stopped off at Tukuyu market where we had the traditional 'chipsi myai,' once again without any form of cutlery so we were left to eat with a toothpick! After eventually completing this task we ventured out into the market so Andrew could collect some last minute things for the sports day tomorrow. 

Alisha