Language School- week 7

Our penultimate week has been full of action for us, but a week of inactivity for our computer, as our internet connection stopped working. Hence a late entry for week 7!

The week started with a tale of vermin infestation in "Stone Banda 1": the banda we had stayed in- and hastily moved out of - during our 1st week at Riverside Campsite. The family in residence caught their 1st rat on Sunday morning, followed by several others over the week -and even had rats visiting them at night IN THEIR BED! Ugh!! It was a real-life nightmare for them. They certainly had my sympathy, although I have to say that I am greatly relieved that we were able to move out when we did and have not had 2 months of sharing accommodation with roaming rodents!
Half way through the week, one of the Norwegian boys, aged 4, found another snake. The culprit was quickly dealt with by the Tanzanian staff and lunch was interrupted as we all crowded round to get a good view of the reptile.
We also had an active social agenda this week: a farewell buffet on Sunday for the Richardson family, a meal with Tanzanian friends at their home on Thursday and lunch with new friends, Ken and Diane, in Kilolo village on Saturday (the village I visited in 2002 with the team from St Michael's, London). There were many changes there, including the completion of St Michael's Secondary School, which was just a few walls and is now a school with 300 Tanzanian students!
On the language learning front, we had a hands-on lesson in Tanzanian culture on Friday. 6 of us became campsite chefs. We donned aprons in order to cook lunch for all 30 campsite residents, under the tutelage of our Tanzanian teachers. We started early and got a glimpse of some more culture differences between our convenient western world and life for many Tanzanians. Meal preparation starts from scratch out here, far from the city and takes much longer than I am used to. Here are some of the jobs we did on Friday, which Mr Tesco or Mr Sainsbury would normally have done for us over in the UK:
-sorting and cleaning the rice, to make it ready for cooking
-cracking open and then grating the coconut to make dessicated coconut
-"mincing" the beef - by hand- once it is cooked ( I had that job- it was not my favourite!!)
-taking whole spices and crushing them with mortar + pestle to be able to use them
-killing the chicken- a job for the only male chef of the day: Mr Andrew Parker himself! A job he did with great calm, despite the squeals of the ladies present, not to mention the poor chicken!
-making the bread, the doughnuts, the chapatis and samosas from scratch: I learnt a lot about making pastry and dough!!
-preparing savoury bananas for cooking
Then there was all of the usual vegetable preparation- washing, peeling, chopping- but in plastic bowls, using water which had been delivered earlier from the bore-hole. Cooking the food was another lesson, as we experienced first hand the extra work that goes with using a charcoal stove. As we fried and stirred and boiled different food on the metal grill above the hot coals, the temperature rose- and there were a lot of red cheeks among us white-faced foreigners!
The food was served to happy students and staff and was very tasty, if I say so myself!However, we couldn't help but notice that, due partly to lack of resources and partly through lack of education, kitchen hygiene is not quite as we would expect in England. There has been a constant round of runny tummies among the students and children at the campsite, including Ben, who has had us up for 3 nights in a row, with some interesting nappies for us to deal with. We are learning to appreciate just how we are spoilt in England in terms of access to resources and education.
( Cooking Lesson photos to follow...watch this space).