Monday 12th
Monday started with a visit to the headquarters of Tanzania Women Research Foundation (TAWREF), one of Vine Trust's partners in Tanzania, where we were greeted with a welcome song sung by all the staff, before listening to a presentation about their work. We were then able to visit the gift shop, where a couple people made some questionable fashion choices when buying shirts!
We then drove to both of our home-building worksites and started digging foundations for the houses. Visiting the sites was an eye-opening experience - witnessing the nature of the extreme poverty faced by these communities left many of us quite emotional. However, we made sure it was more than just tears shed on the worksite as we got down to the sweaty work of home-building!
PS. Everyone has got used to the squat toilets now! ;)
Heather and Olly
Tuesday 13th
Today was the first full day of construction. After a much needed lie in, we headed to the home-building sites to begin helping the fundis. On both sites, the foundations had been dug and were ready to be filled with stones and cement. Moving the stones was probably the hardest part as the lifting and carrying really takes it out of you, and regular breaks were needed. Then we helped the fundis place the cement on top by passing buckets full of cement to them. It was a very rewarding day and a lot of progress was made. When we returned to the college at Berea (our accommodation), it was a mad dash to get to the showers and hopefully get some of the hot water. We are all rather tired after our first full day on site, but we're looking forward to helping further and being able to see the homes progress.
Heather and Michael
Wednesday 14th
We had an early breakfast at 7.30am so we could get to the worksite for another busy day. At Farahel's worksite, everyone tried sugar cane and Eryn got scared by some chickens, while at Elibariki's site, the boys and Scottson enjoyed some banter whilst shovelling sand and gravel, and carrying bricks and water, and nipetano’d (high-fived) with local called Michael! In the evening, everyone went for a meal at the Kilimanjaro Coffee Lounge, a luxury after 5 days of vegetable stew! Everyone was invited to dance with some African dancers in the middle of the restaurant. Some of our moves were rather questionable, but we all had great fun!
Hello to everyone at home!
Matthew and Iona
Thursday 15th
After exchanging currency, we visited a couple of gift shops to buy souvenirs for our families and friends back home (although some of these were secretly for ourselves!). We then travelled to Moshi Christian Children’s Centre (MCCC), where we spent a few hours playing games with the children - they loved playing with our cameras! After we had returned to our accomodation, we finished the day by sorting through donations we had brought with us for the different children’s homes and families we have been visiting and building for.
Rowan and Katrina
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