Challenge Yourself to Change Your World

For the second half of my placement in Africa, Charlie 2 focused their efforts on construction, teaching and a HIV/AIDS awareness campaign.

My team were hoping to make a lot of progress in the construction phase with the help of our project partner. Due to the horrific state and number of primary school toilets we planned to build three new latrine blocks for the children at Mgongo Primary. At the start we thought five weeks of hard graft and the assistance of local fundi (builders) would be enough to help us achieve our goal. However ‘This Is Africa’! The man delivering the water was ill for a few days, there wasn’t enough water for the next few days, then someone’s uncle died, our project partner never turned up, then the fundi were going to a wedding for the following two days, we had to wait for them to turn up each morning in ‘Tanzanian Time’, the fundi got too tired to work past 11 o’clock, and of course everyone celebrates the end of Ramadan for two more days… It seemed to never end and our goal went from completing three toilet blocks to finishing one, to just being able to get the bricks made!

So early each morning we lugged our tools, wheelbarrows, supply of drinking water and medical box to the school feeling motivated to do our best. We started by helping to dig the latrine pits, which were eventually around 10ft deep. Next we learnt how to make the simple mud bricks that the locals use for their houses. This involved hoeing up the ground into a pile, pouring water over, shovelling it into a wooden cast, punching out the trapped air, smoothing it over and then lifting off the cast whilst keeping it in shape! After a few days of drying in the sun we had to move and place the mud bricks into a complex stack ready to be burnt, which would increase their stability. The bricks were fairly large and heavy so it was harder work than we originally thought! But it was really good when we all got into it and worked together as a team. We danced and sang along to the radio which the locals loved, especially when we played a great Tanzanian tune ‘Dar es Salaam Stand Up’!

Due to the inconsistent schedule for the latrine construction we decided to go ahead with our secondary project instead.

Our secondary project in Charlie 2 was a HIV and AIDS awareness campaign. We were very lucky to have a HIV/AIDS volunteer working with our project partner, who helped us launch our campaign in the local area. Together we composed a presentation that included definitions, symptoms, stages, spread, prevention, stigma and discrimination. Over our last few weeks in Mgongo we held our awareness campaign at multiple community meetings, to secondary school students and teachers, then to teachers and elder students at four primary schools. I learnt a lot about HIV and AIDS from this project and it has inspired me to get involved with other similar projects in the future. By far the most interesting part of the campaign was the question time at the end – it really showed us how false or little knowledge most members of the community had on HIV/AIDS. We heard some weird and wonderful things, but the most important thing we realised about preventing HIV was that we couldn’t just tell people to wear condoms – They had no idea how or why. So after lots of persuading, Thabani and Catherine made use of our bananas and box of condoms to demonstrate this novel idea!

 

Black African magic, a.k.a. juju, seemed to be the biggest culprit for a negative attitude towards condoms and HIV. Many people believed that condoms themselves contain diseases and if you leave them out in the sun then you can see the viruses and also maggots start growing inside. We attempted to try this but they all burst after a few minutes in the heat! They also believed that AIDS is caused by someone cursing you; hence most people would seek advice from a witch doctor and not a medical professional. One teacher was even fiercely accusing condoms of shortening the distance that people can pee, as ‘back in the day they could pee for metres’…

All in all our awareness sessions were extremely successful and we received some great feedback from those who attended. It has certainly taught me a lot and I hope that it has made an impact on the community in Mgongo. 

We were hoping to do quite a bit of teaching in our second phase, but due to the messed up construction timetable and on-going success of our HIV campaigns we only managed to fit it in a couple of times. The classrooms are simple mud structures packed with rows of battered wooden benches and a painted on chalk board. When you walk into the classroom you can’t help but smile as the children stand up with a chorus of good mornings and giggles! It was a little daunting when I was presented with my first class, who were the youngest in the school. Where the hell was I going to start?! My Swahili was certainly put to the test, especially when my Tanzanian translator Kenny decided to disappear for half an hour! Luckily I managed to wangle my way through shapes, numbers, the alphabet and body parts, ready for heads shoulders knees and toes! My chalk animal drawings went down well too and they decided to teach me them all in Swahili before acting out the noises! I ended up teaching for three hours I was having so much fun! My other class was with Frank for Standard 7 doing maths in preparation for their upcoming exams, so a bit more serious! After some Pythagoras and division I decided to liven up the lesson in true Raleigh style - with an energiser! We selected some students to come up to the front to act as ninjas and try not to get karate chopped; it was highly amusing and hopefully brightened up their maths lesson! I really enjoyed teaching in Mgongo and it has given me the confidence and motivation to do more teaching in my future projects. I’m now considering doing a TEFL after university (teaching English as a foreign language qualification), so we’ll see what happens!

 In between our busy project timetable we managed to fit in some cultural experiences and a little bit of chilled time! Faudhia taught the girls how to make sweet and savoury chapattis, which were amazing! Kenny was assigned as our language teacher, testing us on basic Swahili words and phrases. So in return we decided to challenge the Tanzanians with some old fashioned English tongue-twisters! I learnt  a hell of a lot about the African culture too, through observing behaviours and asking billions of questions! The most intriguing things revolved around juju, for instance the Tanzanians believed that certain people can fly on rice sieves as midnight. You have to be naked of course…

A great experience was visiting the travelling market that passed through Mgongo once a month. We haggled our way into some weird and wonderful souvenirs, including machetes, cow bells and arrow heads! Freya, Kitty and I were in awe of the hundreds of beautiful kitenge fabrics on offer, with every print, pattern and colour imaginable! The second market fell on Eid, which celebrates the end Ramadan. Faudhia from my team had been fasting so in honour we all dressed up and sacrificed a goat for a thoroughly enjoyable feast!

On our last weekend in Mgongo we decided to hike to the mountains in the distance (more of a long stretch of steep hill). We arranged for a local to be our guide, who insisted it would only take around six hours. But obviously this was in Tanzanian time… The walk there was really beautiful and the view from the top was worth every panting breath and aching muscle!  The moment we reached the peak I realised how far I had come and everything Team Majanga had achieved. We could see for miles across the flat plains and also a waterfall nearby, so we decided to head over for a swim! After lots of clambering and climbing we got to the base of the waterfall. The pool beneath was sacred to the local Pagan community, so we were only able to have a refreshing dip further downstream! After a long, sweaty day in the relentless heat we eventually hauled our feet back to camp… Ten hours later! It was definitely worth every second though and summed up our journey in Tanzania.

To celebrate our achievements we held an Awards Ceremony on our last night in Mgongo, complete with champagne! (Non-alcoholic unfortunately…) It was great to think about how far our team had come and everything we had done in the village. I had an incredible time living and working alongside such interesting people and have learnt so much from it. I knew it would be sad saying goodbye to Mgongo and I will really miss everyone I met, but I was glad to finally be leaving that bloody tent!

Our Projects in Tanzania

For the first four weeks at our village the main focuses of our project were integrating with the community, action research and awareness raising. 

To integrate with the local community we introduced ourselves in a number of ways. Firstly we visited the market every day to familiarise ourselves with the stall owners and explained our role with Raleigh ICS and SEMA. At first we got lots of unwelcoming looks as they thought we would just be there for the goldmine that was on the outskirts of the village. I don’t know if I was expecting them to welcome us with open arms, but I was a bit thrown off by this and couldn’t understand why they were being so unfriendly and would just stare or demand money. However when people started listening to our reasons for staying in the area and what we planned to do they gradually became more accepting, making us feel at ease. The villagers began to learn our names and faces and would try their best attempt at speaking basic English to please us. We met some very kind people in the village, especially the village leaders who welcomed us back to visit whenever possible!

As most of our projects would involve the schools we thought it was essential to get to know the students and teachers to build trust and respect. To do this my team held sports days at Mgongo Primary and Kibululu Primary Schools, with sack races, relays, three-legged and traditional running races. The children had never done anything like this before so were very excited yet nervous! The team were feeling a bit anxious about controlling hundreds of kids speaking a different language, especially as order and organisation doesn’t really exist in Africa! But with their co-operation and the help of the prefects we somehow managed to run it all smoothly and it was a really fun day. The highlight for me was being surrounded by all the children at the end of the day, fascinated by our hair and skin, then singing us a song in unison. It really was special to hear and is one of my favourite memories with the children in Mgongo.

 

To engage with the secondary school students we joined in with netball and football tournaments on a Friday afternoon for a few weeks. At secondary school they get taught all their lessons in English so it was slightly easier to attempt speaking to them, although they all got very shy! They loved that the British volunteers joined in with the sports too and liked to laugh at us getting tired in the heat!

As mentioned in my post ‘Welcome to Mgongo – Karibu Sana’ we conducted household surveys for our action research about water and sanitation. The results of this subsequently guided our awareness raising, infrastructure construction and secondary project.

For our awareness raising we decided to do a hand hygiene campaign with five schools in the area. In order to make it effective and sustainable we knew we had to plan it thoroughly. The team gathered for hours of meetings to discuss and plan everything we were to do in detail. As we were the first Raleigh ICS group in Tanzania there were no resources available from any previous teams or from the project partner either, so it took a while to prepare every campaign, session and meeting. This was still within our first few weeks so to begin with we had some slight language barrier difficulties, as the Tanzanian volunteers were having trouble keeping up with the fast incoherent discussions of the British. Hence part of our challenge was to continuously consider this and to make sure everyone understood every detail. After all, we were part of a team and each individual needed time to get involved. So after hours of discussions and decisions we had a plan of action to help the water, health and sanitation in Mgongo.

Once the planning and organising were complete we were finally able to begin the health awareness lessons. Our aim was to teach the schools about hand hygiene in order to help prevent diseases and illnesses. For the knowledge to be relevant we had to first provide the schools with hand washing facilities, i.e. a ‘Tippy-Tap’. A tippy-tap is a very basic but effective invention that has minimal surface contact and water wastage. It is simply three long wooden sticks, a jerry can with a hole cut in the side, string and a stick for the pedal. So to access the water you push your foot down on the pedal, which tips the jerry can via the attached string, and the water will come out like a tap – voila! We built two tippy-taps by the latrines at each school to encourage the children to use it after going to the toilet. We then conducted the health awareness sessions in four parts. First of all in introduction into why you should wash your hands, secondly a play about protecting your friends and family from illness, thirdly an explanation and demonstration of the tippy-tap and finally a germ game using flour to represent how thoroughly you must wash your hands! It was only basic information, but the children were completely unaware of why it is essential for them to wash their hands. It was such a great moment to first see a young boy running straight to the tippy tap after the toilet to try it out – I really hope we educated the teachers enough too for it to continue.

Another on-going project throughout our time in Mgongo was the Women’s Group. It was the first female social group to be set up in the area, so we found that it was a bit slow to get going and we began to doubt any success! However after a few meetings we all started to really enjoy it and have a really good time, despite the huge language barrier! We all spoke about our lives, families and ambitions, which helped us to understand each other a lot more. They also shared music and crafts that they had made and we showed them our photos and art work. Mama Musa showed us a bowl she had weaved using dried grass, and because we had said we loved it she presented all the girls with one as a leaving gift! With the whole women’s group we also made a doormat and netball bibs together; the netball bibs were an on-going project for the girls at the Secondary School to encourage them to be active and enjoy sports. In our last week in Mgongo Mama Musa invited us to her house for tea and to build her a Tippy-Tap outside her latrine. It was a simple mud house, yet she had made it feel very friendly and cosy! It was very sad to say goodbye to all the women from the group, but they generously welcomed us back to stay with them whenever we could J

So that’s what we got up to in our first five weeks in Tanzania. I will update you again on the second phase soon!

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