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!