Simba Rock

Last weekend we finally made it up Simba Rock – a rocky mountain (or more correctly kind of outcrop) dominating the local area. We've been planning to go almost since we arrived, but something always seemed to crop up. We went up late afternoon to avoid the worst of the heat and in hope of seeing the sunset. In the event the sunset was nice but not spectacular. I loved lying on the warm rocks at the top though... It was a good time of year to go as the vast plains are incredibly green due to the particularly generous rainy season this year. Typical that I’d come to Africa and have more rain than I’ve ever seen before! The good thing is that it comes in spectacular down pours and is accompanied by beautiful lightening shows, usually at night. It is also obviously great for the crops but the accompanying mosquitoes are a nightmare! At one point I feared my feet were going to be parted from my ankles they were so badly bitten! Storms also have a tendency to see off the electricity for a few hours, so we’ve had many a cosy candle lit evening...

Celebrations

One of the great things about Tanzania is the enthusiasm for celebration. Everything is a celebration – Sunday mass is a weekly example. ‘First Mass’ (at which I’m not a regular attendee as it is at 7:30am!) is a massive affair. When the President is in town he attends alongside the hundreds of regulars who pack in. The choir is amazing – I’ve never heard anything like it. Even hearing them practice in the little band stand in the parish grounds is beautiful, but in full swing with harmonies, dancing and whooping it’s just brilliant. By ‘Third Mass’ (where I’m more usually found and where there is fortunately a similarly good choir), the sanctuary is often littered with gifts bought at the earlier offertory processions. It’s usual to see crates of soft drinks, huge branches of bananas, sacks of rice etc, but last Sunday featured a rather generous amount of toilet roll too!

Every gathering, whether it’s the parish workers’ party, community night at the Sisters’, or just a couple of friends round to our house, features dancing. Attempting to get us mzungus to move like Africans is proving a favourite pastime...

Last Saturday was the school’s annual ‘Family Day’ where staff bring a member of their family and generally celebrate being part of the school. Everyone was appointed to a committee and spent the morning preparing, cooking, decorating, sorting music and entertainment. I can just imagine how such an event would go down at home – get up early on a Saturday, cook all morning then spend the afternoon with colleagues... The lack of cynicism and general enthusiasm here is refreshing though and means the capacity for fun is considerable and opportunities for dancing, many!

Bingo

Last week was a really good one, I feel like things are falling into place and I’m adjusting my expectations... My time at school was more filled. I introduced the ever faithful bingo to standard 3 & 4 (9 & 10 year olds) and they totally loved it, it as did Mama Moshashu, their teacher. She got so excited we couldn’t just stop at one line & then a house – all the other lines were checked and rewarded with stickers too. The kids absolutely loved the stickers and I was mobbed at the end with kids waving bingo tickets & wanting their picture taken. Mama Moshashu greeted me for the rest of the week with “Teacher Clara – BINGO! Very nice game...”

I also started at the orphanage properly. The older kids were at school so I just stayed for the morning and played with the pre-school kids. Mostly they wanted pushing on the swings, to be held while they shimmied up the frame of the swings (some with already with impressive technique!), to have piggy backs & be swung round. One little girl though just wanted to be held and hugged as much as possible – after all the running round I was quite glad to sit down with her while the others conducted a game of ‘cooking’ with 2 jam jar lids, some leaves and soil...

There isn’t much in the way of toys there but the kids (most of whom have lost their parents to AIDS and are HIV positive) are well looked after by the sisters and seem happy. The sisters have asked me to come after school to do some English ‘teaching’ with the older kids. The first time I did this was a Friday and I was worried they wouldn’t want another ‘lesson’ after a week at school, so I’d taken animal snap – once they got over being too polite with each other, they really loved it. We played some other word games – learned such useful vocab as ‘shuffle’, ‘deal’ and ‘cheat’ and they were really keen to know when I’d be back. So much for not wanting lessons after school! The kids were all standard 4 but some of them were older as they’ve missed out on school in the past. One girl, Paulina was 17 – I’d like to try to figure out some more age appropriate things for her. She was totally lovely & really keen to chat & practice speaking English.

As for the Jesuit community – they’ve been incredibly warm and welcoming and have helped us out of more than a few fixes! We decided to have them all over for dinner last weekend but with the lack of dead meat, no oven, no appliances and at one point in the afternoon, no electricity we were hard pushed to produce anything approaching sustenance! Still, somehow we pulled it off and it was a lovely evening. We were 12 people from 9 counties: Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, DRC, Ethiopia, USA, Germany, England, Scotland... That’s one of the best things about this whole experience, coming together with people form very different backgrounds and realising how much we actually share.