Back To Basics - Shopping

Even though the school provides most of our needs we still need to buy breakfast goods, snacks, and importantly, toilet paper.

 The currency is the Tanzanian shilling. There are about 1,500 shillings to the Australian dollar.

I have been to three supermarkets to date -  Njiro, Shoprite and Rotterdam Gardens. They all have a good range of local products which are inexpensive including tea, milk, juice and bread. Anything imported is very expensive such as biscuits, cheese and chocolate!

Fruit and vegetables are sold at roadside stalls or in large markets.There are no scales so the vendors pile up their produce and sell them by the pile. Above you can see Helen, the teacher librarian at Usa, strolling past some past  piles and buckets of onions.You can purchase just about anything and the avocados are huge!

Here are Laura, Cindy and Barb with the "veggie mumas" - the preferred stop for fruit and veggies in Arusha.

Markets also sell a large range of products that you may or may not want.

Fresh eggs can be bought from a staff member. At Usa River it is one of the cooks, Rachel. It is 1,500 shillings for 6 and they have wonderful orange yolks.

The Usa River Campus

The Secondary School campus at Usa River

During term, the secondary students study and live at the second campus of the school near the township of Usa River. You can supposedly see Mt Kilamanjaro from here, but it has been too overcast as yet.

This campus was opened in 2008 and this year has Forms 1-3. In 2014 the first students will graduate from the School of St Jude.

I will spend most of my time here at Usa as my role is as an ESL teacher/mentor to the secondary staff.

                                             Two of the teachers- Awadhi and Jones
I moved into my room in the boy's dormitory (who knows?) on Monday 20th having spent one night at Moshono. As I will commute most weekends, I am lucky enough to have been allocated a room at each but it means I need to plan ahead so that I am not carting too much stuff back and forth.

There is a daily shuttle service to and from each campus. The trip takes about 45 minutes.
It apparently used to be shorter when the drivers went cross country, but now they are expected to stay on the sealed road!

There are only a few volunteers here - Helen (the teacher-librarian), Bernice (the boarding supervisor), Ian (the art teacher) and Lucy (the PE teacher). The rest of the teaching and administration staff (about 60 in all) are either Tanzanian or Kenyan.

In addition to the teaching and admin staff I also have one lesson a week with the 15 boarding teachers who work from 3pm-7am. That makes 14 hours  of teaching  a week in all.

First bell shatters the silence at 5.30am. Last bell is at 9.30pm.

Students do all their own cleaning and washing with "chore time" both before and after school.Every surface including the footpaths are wiped down daily, toilets scrubbed, gardens weeded and tables set and cleared for 500+!

In the kitchen there are large wood fired cookers on which enormous pots of rice and beans are stirred with wooden spoons that are about two metres long! It takes a lot of muscle I'm told especially to cook the substance that looks like mashed potato, but tastes like................ nothing. It is in fact maize flour and water which is cooked and stirred until it takes on that consistency. Not one of my favourites I admit but it is good for soaking up the sauce from the beans.

                                                        The wood pile for the kitchen

           The cooks taking a break. See the man in the background carrying a cooking pot on his head.
The students have a blue day uniform, a sports uniform and a burgundy night uniform.Both boys and girls have closely shaved hair for ease - not a hairdryer or straightener in sight!

Staff have their own washing machine. Bliss! (And can wear their hair as they please of course).

In the evening I can eat dinner with the students or cook in the volunteer kitchen/ common room. If I eat with the school we all have our set places and I sit with Agnes and Neemah who are both in Form 1. Grace is said before each meal. There is only ever the main course. No bread or desert but it is good nutritious food, hot and plenty of it.There is water to drink. (Oh yes, more bliss, you can drink the water straight form the tap here).

Incredibly I have my own large room for teaching in with a desk and a computer. When I arrived on the Monday afternoon the Headmaster, Rasul said I should wait until Wednesday to start classes (which was good as I did not have a timetable or even a  list of names) . This gave me a day to set up the room, get some resources and nut out the timetable and who would attend when.

                                                              My welcome message


Again I feel totally welcome here and I can't wait to get my teeth into the teaching programme and getting to know everybody.

PS: Photos will follow. Technical hitch. After all this is East Africa!

Moshono Campus

The primary school is located in the town of Moshono just outside Arusha.
There are currently about 1,000 primary students at The School of St Jude.

Isn't it a beautiful looking school!

Monday June 20th was the first day back at school after the mid-term break. It was a pupil free day at the primary (Moshono campus) and the teachers had a planning day.

This year the primary school has implemented the Cambridge University  (UK) IPC (International Primary Curriculum) . This has quite a different approach to teaching compared to the Tanzanian curriculum.
Amongst the volunteers I met straight away were two primary teacher mentors (Barb and Liz) who conduct demonstration lessons and run PD for the teachers. There is also a primary school ESL support teacher (Laura) PE teachers (Cindy & Cameron) and a  teacher librarian (Sarah ) - all Aussies!

Currently there is also a Kiwi, Cheryl, who is here during a vacation from her regular teaching job in Thailand to help choose, and locally source, classroom resources related to the upcoming themes in the curriculum. There is a good library here, but the school lacks other classroom equipment and teaching aids we would take for granted.

A few days ahead of me Andrew had arrived. He is on leave from the Victorian police and is here working on emergency procedures.

These volunteers all live on the Moshono school campus where I will usually stay from Friday night to Monday afternoon.

Lower primary children are transported by bus everyday to and from home.Upper primary students board Sunday to Thursday in a separate complex about 15 minutes walk away.

School lunches are served each day for staff and students. It appears the meal is always a variation on the theme of  beans, rice and some vegetables.

Whilst the food is good, the water is not so. There is an urn with a  water filter outside the shared kitchen or you can buy water at the supermarket, or boil it.

I have to remember when I clean my teeth to keep a glass of bottled water in one hand and my toothbrush in the other so that I don't accidentally drink water from the tap!

There are a lot of administration staff living at Moshono as well. Amongst them there are Aussies, Canadians, New Zealanders, English and Americans. About 30 -35 I am told in all. There are also usually one or two visitors who have chosen to stay at the school as part of their African holiday as well as day trippers.

It is a busy place especially when you add in the local  fundees (maintenance people) and ascari (security staff) who work on a seven day roster. I am sure it's never going to be boring here!

Below is the view of the campus from outside my room at Moshono. (The little building is the laundry. There is one washing machine for all of us and the cleaners!)

The shared volunteer kitchen/common room in Red Block

Turn off to the Moshono school from "main road"

Outside the school gate at Moshono

Barb, one of the bus drivers, an ascari, me and Laura

Africa at last!

Yes, Plan A worked and the only real "time to spare" was waiting at Dubai airport.

Luckily, at the new Terminal 3, you do not have to walk or bus across the tarmac as the temperature when we arrived at 4am was 37 degrees centigrade!

The best shower is in the airport hotel's health club. They provide everything you need for $US14 - thanks for the tip Judith. I did not however see any gold teaspoons as I wandered from end to end of this amazing complex at the crossroads of the world.

From Dubai on to Nairobi . My first glimpse of Africa was the wide grass plains of Kenya stretching as far as the eye could see.
Three forms and $US10 later, having had my fingerprints and photo taken, I collected my luggage and began my adventure.

My transfer to the Kenya Comfort Inn was waiting just outside as the School had arranged. Even though it was about 4pm on Saturday the road to the city centre was crowded and the traffic often at a stand still.

There appeared to be no traffic lights or overhead bridges so those wanting to get across the six lanes of traffic to the other side of the road simply dodgged the oncoming cars. When we did stop, a range of hawkers would appear it seemed from nowhere carrying fruit, peanuts, bangles, pillows, toilet paper and all manner of things.

When I finally arrived at the hotel the friendly porter (below) told me "Kenya is a very safe country and I am here to protect you".

My superior room did indeed have a TV and a wardrobe as well as a bed and a flushing toilet. Next door there was a small supermarket where I bought mandarins, water, biscuits and mints for under $4.

I had a very early night and was the first person to breakfast in the hotel at 6am. Amazing how many unusual methods of cooking eggs in the world there are . I am pretty sure mine had been fried and baked and then perhaps grilled.

It was then only a few metres to the bus stop to board the shuttle to Arusha due to leave at 8am. Unfortunately, the bus ahead of us had a minor accident as it pulled out from the curb. So, after much ado, the passengers and luggage from that bus were loaded onto ours. There were 23 people on this bus with everyone's luggage on top.

Luckily, having arrived early, I had a window seat and all of us took it in good humour. Most of the road was sealed but, when we did have to take a detour, the driver would yell "open the windows" . This appeared to let the copious amounts of dust pass through the bus as we rocked and rolled along the corrugated tracks.

Along the way there was so much to see and take in as the dusty plains of Kenya gave way to the plantations and mountains of northern Tanzania.

                                                            the townships

                                    the Maasai in their colourful blankets and incredible jewellry

                                                           and their animals.

Six and a half hours later, having crossed the border without incident, I arrived in the oasis of Arusha. It is a garden city. Incredible.

I was met by four staff members and taken in a St Jude's bus to the Primary School campus where most of the international volunteers live.Everyone went out of their way to make me feel welcome over dinner. It is a wonderful community of people.

I was allocated room Red 20 which is simple, but more than adequate. I have a mosquito net over my bed, screens on the windows and an ensuite with a hot shower and a flushing toilet - pretty much luxury for these parts.

I am so very excited about everything that lies ahead.

Plan A

It was my grandfather who taught our family the saying "If you have time to spare.......... go by air". I do hope that, in this case, it won't be true!

Plan A is this.

Fly direct to Dubai (which is a mere 14 hours away). This is through the night so I am hoping to get some sleep.  I am reliably informed that I can acquire a hot shower in the transit lounge which will reinvigorate me for the rest of the journey. I am also reliably informed that there are gold teaspoons in the airport coffee shops (as opposed to the plastic stirrers we are served up here.)

From Dubai, I fly to Nairobi in Kenya. This is a 5 hour daytime flight and weather (and window seat permitting), I am hoping to see some of Saudi Arabia and north Africa form the air. Wow!

I will be met in Nairobi and transferred to my hotel where I have booked a "superior" room. The website tells me nothing of the "basic" or "standard" room but that my room will have a wardrobe and a TV! (I am also hoping for a bed and a flushing toilet!)

Early the next morning I am taking the bus to Tanzania. It will no doubt prove an interesting introduction to Africa!

So, that is Plan A. You will have to wait until next week now to see if it all comes to pass without a hiccup!

Bye for now

More gifts!

These tea bags are apparently an "encouragement" for my trip.

The one on the front says "You can't scare me ........... I'm a TEACHER".

On the reverse it says the bags are for the days "when the same old tea bag just won't do".

Thank you Jody. I think there are going to be some days just like that!



The Survival Kit

This is my wonderful survival kit - a gift from a friend who has been to Africa!

Love all the written instructions! Thanks Anne x