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Sunday July 1, 2018
Mambozenu Families!
Your students have arrived safely in Tanzania and have completed their first full day of service, cultural exploration and learning! Today, we met with the many teachers and 150+ students at Moshi Primary School. The local students greeted the GLA students with wide smiles and lots of hugs! Some even playfully pushing and shoving to get closer to the “wazungu” (foreigners). After meeting everyone at the school our new GLA leaders started their first day of service with pickaxes and sandpaper in hand. After 2 1/2 hours of hard work they were rewarded with Tanzanian enchiladas and some traditional ugali for lunch. We then departed home base to explore Moshi town. While in town we visited the local fruit market and seamstress to select traditional Tanzanian fabrics to be made into dresses, shirts, skirts, pants and backpacks. These students are going to look AWESOME when they come home! After getting tailored for the fabrics local staff introduced some basic Swahili to better prepare the GLAers for their journey ahead.
Myself and the rest of the staff are very excited to continue this program and to create life-changing experiences for all of these lovely students!
Cheers and All the Best,
– Racquel Maronde
Monday July 2, 2018
Seasons come and go, but education lingers forever. Hello, I am Eesa and I am presenting you with the first part of this blog post. Today was quite eventful, we embarked on our first journey to the schoolhouse which was a leisurely 15 minute walk across terrain ravaged by light rainfall. We arrived with boys and girls ranged from grade 1 to grade 7 screaming out for us and greeting us with warming smiles. Orientation was filled with songs and mini games, during break we played soccer and musical dances. We then proceeded with our service part of today.
After the teaching, we split up into two groups. Eleven would be using pick-axes and shovels to tear up the concrete of a classroom almost 50 years old. The other ten would be sanding the walls. (Jack) In my experience, I was using the pick-axes taking chunks of concrete out of the ground. Two lizards were found and a pic-axe was split in half by Kai. After we made about two and a half hours of progress, we went back to home base for lunch followed by a trip to the market in town.
The market was something most of us has never seen before. Hundreds of people lined the streets either walking to a new destination or selling goods to locals and tourists. At the market the locals welcomed us. We bought some fruits to share, selfies took place, and some good efforts to speak Swahili came from us. A bus trip back to base camp and a delicious dinner ended the awesome day.
Wednesday July 4, 2018
Habari dudes!
Everything has been real poa here in Tanzania :)! We started our day by lesson planning, then headed off to the school for our first day of teaching! We taught our designated classes which are grades 3-6 ranging from 7- 12 year olds with various English levels. We taught everything from colors to days of the week. After our classes, we started our labor based service which meant half of us pickaxed concrete and the rest of us sanded walls! Whoop! Later, we learned about the Tanzanian education system from a secondary teacher who is very familiar with the local and national education system. Next, we headed to a coffee farm where we learned about the coffee making process, including harvesting and roasting then ultimately enjoyed a cup of fresh coffee we helped make. Also, we danced with the amazing Chagga dancers. It was a long but good day.
Kwaheri,
Rebekah and Kayla 🙂 <3 😀
Thursday July 5, 2018
Hello!
This morning started off with our normal trip to the school where we continued to work with the students on a variety of topics. After class we enjoyed another recess in which we experienced many games and activities that the students enjoy, such as broken telephone, duck duck goose, soccer, and of course flipping over rocks. We then went to work on mixing and laying concrete and priming the walls in a classroom. Back at home base we ate a lunch that was favored by the mentors and is now by us.
The afternoon consisted of batik painting. This process is done by using dye and wax. The wax is placed to create the design It was an extensive but very rewarding process. It is still up for debate who is going to be the next bob Ross. Most importantly we celebrated Rosie’s birthday with a cake and a surprise water attack. Today was more relaxed but just as unique and fun as past days. We are very eager for the upcoming days and the new relationships that are forming!
-Ashley and Rosie
Sunday July 8, 2018
Hamjambo friends and family,
Lorena and Quinna here writing to you after our fun weekend of safaris! We’ve had early mornings but being able to explore all day was worth it. Saturday we left home base for our first safari where we saw cheetahs, wildebeests and a lot more in Tangire National Park. It was one of our first sunny days in Tanzania which was much appreciated! Saturday night we spent at a hotel and we left 5:30 Sunday morning for another full day in Ngorogoro National Park. The crater was beautiful but very cold. We saw lions, hyenas and ostriches and stopped for lunch with the hippos! We got back in the jeeps for a long drive back to home base and we’re ready to get back to teaching and service tomorrow.
– Lorena and Quinna
Monday July 9, 2018
Today we got back on track with service in the morning after a weekend at the safari. At home base we had an HIV/AIDS panel, which consisted of four guests giving their testimony. Each of them explained how they dealt with HIV and how it has changed their life. After the HIV/AIDS panel, we visited an orphanage called Tuleeni, founded by Mama Ferragi. This orphanage has several locations and offers sponsorship opportunities. After learning about this, we came back to home base and had an amazing dinner. To wrap it up we met with our mentor group and participated in different activities.
-Ivanna and Maria
Tuesday July 10, 2018
Bailee and Enrique here blogging. Hello dads and moms. Today we started the day off as usual, breakfast, teaching, then service. quite a nice start to the day. We came back from service to some delicious lunch. After lunch we took some naps, and we then went to a chill moment where we ate some untypical Tanzanian food (fries). We attempted to use the internet but it was quite difficult to access our snapchats. We finished the day with the best activity which consisted of watching and partaking in traditional Tanzanian dancing. peace out – Spain rules.
Wednesday July 11, 2018
Mambo friends!
Today was another wonderful day in beautiful Tanzania. We had a productive morning full of teaching the children and finishing up on painting and cementing the classrooms. After a delicious lunch, we were introduced to a speaker who discussed a highly significant issue in Tanzania, female genital mutilation. We were informed of the issue by a speaker from NAFGEM (Network Against Female Genital Mutilation), and along with him the students and staff were introduced to two young girls who were fortunate enough to escape this lifestyle in avoidance of child marriage and female genital mutilation.
After this, we met with our host families one last time to say our final goodbyes, experiencing and learning of the lifestyles of the people in our community. To end the day, we had a tasty dinner cooked by the lovely Mama D. Then, we debriefed with our mentor groups. Now, it’s time for bed. Good night to you all! 🙂
-by Charlotte & Rain
Hello rafiki zangu! Today was a crazy day filled with both sadness and fun. We started off our journey by walking over to the Moshi primary school for the last day of service. Teaching with the kids was bittersweet for us because we’ve all become so attached to these kids and it was very hard to say goodbye. After many hugs and tears with the kids, we moved on to complete the finishing touches on the newly renovated rooms, for our final service act. It took several minutes for us to finally let go of the kids’ hands and leave this chapter behind.
After another fantastic lunch, we set out into Moshi town to do some last minute souvenir shopping and pick up snacks for our hike tomorrow. Upon returning to Home Base, a few adventurous individuals received cornrows from local hair braiders. Our specially ordered clothing were also ready and we were able try them on. Our final activity of the day was a series of competitions/games between mentor groups titled S.P.A.C.E. J.A.M. (Smart Practices and Competitive Games of James, Andie, and Melissa). These competitions consisted of physical, mental and teamwork challenges and games. To cap this wonderful day off, we ended this series of competitions with a closing ceremony and a friendly feast of ice cream.
Friday July 13, 2018
Hi! So today was sadly our last day on the trip, but we definitely had a really fun last day!!! We got to wake up an hour later (woooooooo!!!!) and we headed off to a town a short ways away from the base of Kilimanjaro. We then began our hike through the rainforest. Although the weather wasn’t ideal we all made the most of our last day together. After an hour or so from our start we came to a beautiful waterfall and a little lake as we stopped for lunch we also had the choice to swim in a river that was ice cold.
After we finished our polar swim we continued with the hike and finally made it to the trailhead of Kilimanjaro. When we got back to home base we had a “compliment circle” where we all expressed how much we cared about one another (it was super cute!). We had an AMAZING last dinner (thank you Mama D!!!!) and had our last mentor groups. We finished off the night with a late verges and scary stories around a bonfire. ‘‘Twas a fun trip. Peace out Tanzania, its been real 🙂
-Isabella and Rebekah
