So, I have arrived at the Kishumundu Secondary School in Moshi, Tanzania. It took me 4 days to get here, bit of a long journey all the way from Cairns but was well worth it. I flew from Cairns to Sydney, Sydney to Johannesburg, Jo’burg to Nairobi and then a local bus from Nairobi to Moshi! 4 days and I was shattered at the end of it all! But it was an interesting trip, I’ll say that! I was shown around the school by the secretary Salome on my arrival and I will be living in a house on-site next door to her for the 4+ weeks I am here. The accommodation is a lot more than I expected, a nice bed, a kitchen, sitting room, it’s pretty nice actually. Hardly 5 star luxury but it’ll do for the duration I’m volunteering here! When they said it was on the lower slopes of Kilimanjaro, they weren’t joking! I went for a run on my first day and nearly collapsed from lack of oxygen and dehydration! Well, not quite but it was pretty darn difficult running back up the hill after going down first! D’oh!
So I have been given a Form III class to teach and I will be attempting to tell them about Commerce as I did my degree in Economics. It’s been a while since I picked up a text book and was actually a bit nerve-racking! I’ve never taught before and they just gave me a class, some text books and have left me to it! Marine transportation and communication, all taught in English to 14/15/16 year olds whose main language is Kiswahili! It should be good fun and very different to working for Restless in Sydney, Australia!
I wasn’t quite sure what to expect before I arrived in terms of standards of living and education here but it is pretty shocking even if you know what to expect. Obviously there is a lot of poverty and crime around Africa and hopefully education will become more and more favorable to life on the streets as a criminal. Moshi is a fairly small town at the base of Mount Kilimanjaro, with its larger neighbour Arusha 70km up the road. Having been to South America I had seen poverty before but this seems worse than there. The school itself is about 8km up Kilimanjaro from Moshi Town and is pretty remote. There are local buses, or dala-dalas as they call them here, that travel between town and the school but most students can not afford these. So some walk up to 8km to and from school every day and their school day begins at 7.30, it’s a lot earlier than I remember starting school! They finish around 4.30/5.00pm and then walk home. The classrooms are very basic, just concrete walls with tin roofs. They have desks and chairs but some have to share. There is a black area painted on the wall for a blackboard.
The School is a private one, so they do not receive any Government money. They depend on fees from the students and their parents plus any donations they receive from external sources. They have just purchased a lot of text books from money donated by a School in Germany; this will be a massive boost to both students and teachers. There are some students who live in the school grounds as they simply live too far away to walk every day. There are about 40 girls in a room probably twice the size of your living room at home, sleeping in bunk beds so close together they can’t move between them very easily at all. There are two toilet blocks outside, one for the boys, one for the girls. They are basically holes in the ground in tin sheds. And without going in to too much detail, I’m sure you can imagine the smell in this dry heat. Another problem they have is their kitchen. It is far from what you or I would describe as a kitchen, more a few wooden poles holding up a tin roof covering two brick-built wood burning stoves. There are 280 students at the school and around 20 or so staff, so cooking for 300 people in this ‘kitchen’ is a difficult task. However, having tasted some of the food, the two cooks do an excellent job with what they have.
Other items they need for the school includes new water supplies, text and exercise books, sports equipment, cleaning and catering equipment, to name a few. I have been raising money through donations from friends and family, so hopefully I can provide just a few items to make things a bit easier for them to educate the local children. I will be climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in a few weeks as well, to do a little something for this ‘sponsorship money!’
Time is flying by pretty quickly actually, been here over a week so far and only here for just over 4 in total. Then it’s up Kili and then on a big safari around Africa! It’s a tough life!
See you soon
Nick
If you would like to sponsor Nick’s climb to help him raise these much needed funds then check out his Facebook Group for more information about the trip and how you can get involved.
Inspired by Nick’s dedication and generosity and our own sense of responsibility, Restless’ new year’s resolution for 2010 is to give more to those less fortunate. We will be sponsoring Nick’s climb of Mount Kilimanjaro to make a contribution to the town of Moshi and in particular the children of the orphanage. We will also be coming up with other initiatives throughout the year and we will keep you posted on those.
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