A New Home in Moshono Village, Tanzania

The first time I was in Africa I traveled with a private school based in Toronto, Canada called Blyth Education. Our mission was build a school room for a small village in Tanzania. After the school was built we went on safari. I kept a journal on my computer and here is some of what I wrote.

07/03/07
My day started at 3 am with my first flight from Ironwood, MI to Milwaukee, WI and then on another flight to Toronto, Canada. I must have looked very lost because Alexander (from the view foundation) spotted me and asked if I was looking for the View Foundation. That is when I started to meet my group. 

Hailey, Me, Karsen, Monica, Ella, Kathy
Melissa, Michelle, Izzy

There are 8 volunteers and 1 leader. The leader of the group is named Melissa. There are 7 girls (including me) and 1 boy. The United Airlines plane took us from Toronto to Washington DC. In Washington we had about a 3 ½ hour lay over. I said my last good byes to my family and friends and packed me cell phone away for the rest of the month. We boarded the Ethiopian Airlines plane at about 7:45pm. The total flight from Washington DC to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia is 15hours.
 We stayed overnight in Addis Ababa but left early the next morning for Kilimanjaro International Airport. Not enough time was spent in Ethiopia so I definitely want to go back.

07/04/07
From the Kilimanjaro International Airport we took a bus to our village that we will be staying in (Moshono). On the way I took a lot of pictures of people, houses, and scenery. The ride to Moshono was when it hit me – I am in a third world country now. It was a big culture shock. There were children running around without supervision wearing no shoes. Women walking on the road with baskets on top of their head as full as they could possibly fill them. I saw two women who were carrying bundles of sticks on top of their heads that were bigger than they were! Yet everyone looked so welcoming and cheerful to have us there. A little girl came running down her driveway towards our buss waving both hands yelling “JAMBO!! JAMOBO!” (Jambo means “hello”). When we got to the house we were staying at, we were greeted by teachers of the school, Munka (our chief organizer/Melissa's "go-to guy"), and 10 amazing school children.

Munka took the whole group on a walk around the village. We met tons of adorable little faces just waiting to get their picture taken. The children absolutely LOVE to see their picture after they take it. They get such a kick out of seeing themselves and their raffikies (friends). We saw many children playing soccer at a field right next to where we will be building the school. Before I knew it we had a train of children following us down the road.

07/05/07
Today is the first day we start building the school. We left the house at 8:30am ready for a full day of work. I love how all of the children come to greet us at the end of their driveways when we are walking to the school where we are building. The school is called Moshono Primary School.  We got a tour and I saw Jescar and went into her classroom. Jescar said, “The boys love to do hip-hop”. So Ella and I asked the boys to show us a thing or two. A young boy named Dennis, who you could tell was the leader of the pack, had his friends crowd around him to decide on what song to do for us. One boy broke out into this beat he was making with his hands and a wood stick on a desk. Dennis and his friend Hassani stood up in the front of the room and started rapping!!! They had awesome dance moves. 

When they said that we were going to be building a school...they really meant it. We started from nothing. We have to dig the foundation for our new school and build up from there with cement blocks and everything was done by hand. Talk about hard work. They only supplied us with 4 shovels and only 1 had a handle. Jescar took me to her home. She lives there with only her Aunt who is a schoolteacher. 

 

There was also a little boy named Samuel (pictured below) who attempted to help us on our job site all afternoon.