Living the African Life!

Landon and I with our Country Directors Chanel and Sarah  at our favorite restaurant Family and Friends. Nothin' beats a cold Fanta Pineappleafter a long day of work!

 It's a miracle! We now have our very own internet chip and no longer need to rely on the local restaurant's wi-fi, which took one hour to upload one picture. Lucky us!! Hopefully now we will be able to share a more constant stream of updates.

It is so hard to believe we have been in Tanzania for 3 weeks. We are basically pros now, talking with people, making our way around the city, and even getting past the normal "Mzungo" price for tourists. We have still been exploring several more options for volunteer work and have begun scheduling our time with meetings and projects.

Since I never had the chance to post pictures, this was the garden project we helped with for the HIV+ Support Group. It was a far different experience gardening in a jungle! We all got a taste of Safari Ants and their vicious biting! Landon had some fun using a machete to tear down dying leaves on the banana trees. 

 The Faraje Centre is an orphanage where we are planning to build a Rocket Stove. The cook currently sits in a small shack cooking the food over an open fire and inhaling lots of thick smoke. The orphanage is already very well established, so this is something small we felt we could give them. So far we have been building different versions of the Rocket Stove at our own house to test and approve the design so that it will be sustainable and well used for years to come. This stove was built from instructions provided by last year's HELP team. We want to improve the stove to reach a higher temperature using less fuel by creating more openings and possibly using charcoal instead of firewood. We would also like to design an option to enlarge the stove for situations like ours when a large amount of food is needing to be cooked.

The Faraja Centre Orphanage

Keeping the kids laughing and smiling, while I myself got a good arm workout!

Rocket Stove trial building at our house

A nearby neighbor of ours, Christopher, has been very interested in building his own stove as well. He has been very helpful in seeking out bricks and transporting them for us and sharing his ideas for he is also an engineer. He has also been really excited to help us bring power to the Step-by-Step Learning Center, a school for children with disabilities, through a solar panel setup. The school is run by a woman named Martha and has so many wonderful aspirations for assisting these kids. In Africa, most people with disabilities are shunned and are believed to be cursed. Martha has taken the opportunity to nurture them each specific to their condition with their own personal curriculum and teacher. The school is currently constructing another building that will allow expansion to the program. We have been looking at building the Solar Power system and possibly a playground. The Step-by-Step School has shown incredible efforts in making this an enjoyable experience for each of the students individually.

Step-by-Step School Building

We have also recently visited another orphanage just up the road which HELP worked with last year to begin a pigpen business. The business has grown substantially and the owners are now ready for the next step. We are hoping to organize a formal business plan to regulate an income for the orphanage. We plan to teach the owners how to budget, when to breed and sell pigs, and how much feed to buy in order to keep the business up and running. Budgeting is sometimes a difficult concept for the people here to understand, but as long as they are willing to try, we are willing to help.

Many volunteers have begun organizing the Inside Out Learning Program in Tanzania. This is a program designed to train teachers to use a variety of learning styles and methods when teaching in schools. The groups have begun spreading to many of the local schools and the teachers are excited to learn these new ideas for teaching. Some people have also been pursuing health promoting projects. There is a large focus here on Malaria prevention and treatment. Volunteers have began to seek out donations of medicines and mosquito nets to provide to rural Maasai Villages that will aid Malaria prevention efforts.  

Overlooking Arusha, Tanzania

On the weekends, we have the opportunity to explore the area with a little extra free time. We spent one Saturday on a beautiful hike to an amazing waterfall. We found a completely foreign world at the top of the steep hike. High above the clouds was this large flat plain of farmland. Somehow, these people managed to carry all their supplies up the dangerously steep slopes to settle in the beautiful area. We continued to hike through a forest, picking roseberries as we went, came across a humongous tree pulled right out of Tarzan, and hiked back down the steep and muddy trail to the river. Landon found some vines and decided he wanted to swing around like Tarzan. It didn't turn out so great.... :)

 After a short walk upstream we came to the waterfall. It was incredibly powerful. The water fell with tremendous force, creating a large gust of wind at the base. We pulled out our soap and shampoo, excited to bathe after 5 days of our water being turned off. Nicely sunned, cleaned, and exhausted, we hiked back out and made it home safely.

Landon showing off!

Oh so cooooooooldddd!

 And let the adventures continue... :)

Once in a while the clouds clear and we get a fabulous view of Mount Meru  right in our backyard basically. This is an area called Suye. Our house is just up the road.

Plenty of DalaDalas driving all around town. They make living here with no car much easier, just as long as you get on the right one and can find a seat :)

This is our marvelous room and bed! It's taken a little adjustment...

The entire team stuffed tight in one Dala Dala!