Seeing life in Tanzania

 Mum and Dad had the opportunity, while they were here in Dodoma, to see a bit of Tanzanian life and culture. My language helper, Mama Kambenga (seated on Dad's left, with Joel) was very welcoming and invited Mum and Dad to a meal at her home, with many delicious Tanzanian dishes to sample!
She also welcomed Mum to a visit at the Nursery School which she helps to run. Mum was able to see first hand the very structured Tanzanian education system at work, where children even as young as 3 and 4 are expected to sit still and listen on their hard wooden benches, repeating their learning aurally. There are few resources and the children only use pencils and paper sparingly. There is no craft work and none of the group work, reading books, bright posters on the wall or play equipment which we associate with Early Years schooling in England.

 Mama Kambenga took the children outside onto the dusty "field" (not a blade of grass to be seen!!) for a game of "Duck, duck, goose", all in Swahili, which the children loved! They raced around the circle with  delight and also joined in some group singing with great enthusiasm.

There was another visit to a Tanzanian home when we all went to see the newly constructed home of Gadi, who helps us in our garden twice a week. Gadi's new home is situated on a newly appointed building site, up on a hillside with great views over the flat plain of Dodoma, but in order to get there, it was a VERY bumpy car ride on muddy roads, severly pot-holed by the recent rains.
It is a long walk from the main road up to the house and takes his wife about an hour and a half to walk down the hill, drop their daugther off at school and then get a mini-bus taxi into town, to work in their market store each day. There is no plumbing available at the site to bring water near to their home, so water is fetched in a large container from a well down the hill and brought up to the house and carefully used over a few days. Electricity is also not an option for the family yet. As Dodoma develops, it remains to be seen how long it will take the government to implement better roads, water services and electricity for the people of its capital city.
Gadi's home:

Mum and Dad pose with Gadi in his lounge:

They were kindly invited to eat some "ugali"- the most typical of Tanzanian foods, served here with beans and eaten with your hands, as you roll it into a ball. Ugali is made with maize flour and water. As we see here, Mum was having great fun learning to eat her ugali and beans with her hands!

Mum and Dad also had a more sobering visit to "Safina" -which means "ark" in Swahili. (See blog entry from February 2011 for more information on "Safina"...)

  They witnessed the work of this amazing project, which helps and supports street children in Dodoma, along with providing a free, daily meal for these disadvantaged children and young people.  A moving experience, seeing these street children come along to the centre and joining in with singing and a Bible class before the meal. Mum and Dad reported that they were very impressed by the hard work and commitment of the Safina staff, although this visit meant that they also saw a sadder reality of life for some in Tanzania.