July 16, 2017
Good Morning! Today, we started our 2nd day in Tanzania. The day started with breakfast at 8 AM and Agape (member of GLA) taught us the basic Swahili. This concluded greetings and basic manners. The tailor came and took our measurements to make the African clothing for all of us. We had an educational speaker come and talk about the education system, history of Tanzania, and discussed the differences between Tanzania and America. Now, its lunch time and everyone met their host families from the Village. They came to the home base to have lunch with us and after we stayed 3 hours with them. They showed us around the village, their houses, and met the other family members. Along the way of everything we saw some beautiful sites, including bridges and rivers. At the end of the visit with our host families, we all came together to sing and dance as one in a dance party. At the end, we walked back to the home base to have dinner and we split up in out mentor groups. Everyone has having a great time in Tanzania!!
-Jada and Natalie
July 17, 2018
This morning after our amazing breakfast cooked by Mama D, we packed up our WITS and headed off to the schools for our first day of playing with the kids and doing service which included planting trees outside and working to refurbish the student’s classrooms. Around noon we had to say goodbye to our new friends and they chased our buses as we left.
Once we got back to our home base we enjoyed our delicious lunch and quickly got ready to break into two groups and head to the Saki Studio or Batik. At both locations, we learned how to create African art which was very fun filled and a great new learning opportunity. Later on, we headed back to home base where we had some down time before dinner. Finally, we separated into small groups where we prepared our lesson for teaching the next day.
Goodnight!
Etienne Waroquet, Hanna Uselding, Brady Buchwald
July 19th, 2017
Today we had a late breakfast at 8:15. We headed to the school at 9:00 to plant trees and help rebuild a classroom floor. Since we had pre-dug holes from yesterday, we started our service by filling them with manure and fertilizer. Then we put baby Neem trees in the holes and filled it back up with soil. We finished by filling each hole with two buckets of water so that the trees were hydrated under the hot sun. Other people who worked on rebuilding a floor spent their time laying cement. We returned to home base for lunch at 1:00 then headed out to town. We stopped by a souvenir shop then headed to the internet cafes. The food there was extremely tasty and it was nice to relax after a morning of hard work. At 4:30 we drove to a field near home base to watch the Kili Wizard dance group. Their dancing was insane, and it was fun to get taught their moves. After that some of us walked to home base and some rode the bus. We had dinner at 6:30 and then we had an evening discussion about single stories stereotypes. This was another fun filled day in Tanzania, we are all excited about the days ahead of us.
P.S.: Mom I broke my glasses sorry, love you mommy –Declan
Mina
Bella
Declan
July 19, 2017
Today we started off the day like many others, teaching English in the classrooms of Himo and Korona. After our lessons concluded, we went to recess to play, dance, and sing! Afterward we got our elbows dirty planting and watering trees while other people worked on cement in the classroom. When we finished working, we loaded onto on the buses and watched as a bunch of smiling kids chased after us and waved goodbye. After a delicious lunch, we listened to the heartbreaking stories of 4 local women living with HIV/AIDS. We gained interesting insight into the lives of these brave women struggling with the stigma that follows this disease. We had the daunting task of saying farewell to our host families and thanked them for allowing us to experience their daily lives. We came home to another delicious meal from Mama D and were pleasantly surprised by a beautiful cake made especially for Hazel for her 15th birthday! There was lots of music, dancing, and singing. We finished with a motivational talk from Mama Simba about overcoming her struggles in life. We ended the night feeling exhausted from the long and exciting day.From your smiling children,Chloe, Taylor & Julia
July 25, 2017