Mambo kutoka Tanzania

Hello from Tanzania,

We have now finished our volunteering and thought we'd update you guys on what we have been up to over the last few weeks...

Journey to Tanzania

After our safari, our driver dropped us at Namanga, the border town between Kenya and Tanzania. After collecting our visas, we were hounded by touts trying to taxi us to Arusha, our next destination. A man pointed at a nice looking taxi and we haggled a price. Unfortunately, after we agreed, he took us to the dilapidated minibus parked next to the sparkling taxi. It was already crammed full of people and luggage, but they managed to find us a few "seats".

The journey lasted 2 hours and at one point there were 23 people to the 12 seats. It did only cost us a fiver between us though!!

Our African Family

We are staying with a host family during our time volunteering. They are Mama and her 4 girls (Aisha, Zubeda, Haiman and Zaineb). They have been so welcoming and made us feel very safe in a place where "Mzungus" (white people) are hounded everywhere they go.

The food has generally been amazing, with the odd traditional Tanzanian speciality thrown in. Ugali (tasteless porridge / semolina eaten with your hands) was good, but fried bananas were revolting.

Andy and Linnea are the other volunteers staying at the house. They are a really nice couple and we have a lot in common. It's nice to be able to tell others are stories after a day at the orphanage with people that understand what it is like here.

Karim Care Centre

Our orphanage has 10 kids: Salma (13), Lucy (10), Saumu (9), Sabrina (7), Babu (6), Antonia (5), Mwana (5), Maggie (5), Toshi (4) and Hawa (2). They are adorable kids and it is so sad to see how they are living.

The orphanage consisted of two small rooms with 3 bunk beds and 3 school tables inside. The walls and floor were filthy and the area smelt damp. On our 2nd day we were asked to tidy their clothes and were shocked at the state of them. Very few had no holes and not a single piece was clean. Some of the underwear had been soiled and then just put back on the shelf. It's so sad.

Our days mainly consisted of playing with the two youngest kids who did not go to school. They were so cute and loved to sing and colour. Their favourite was "Row, row, row your boat". They also thought the light and beeps on our watches were incredible!! We never thought such simple things could excite them so much!!

On Elliott's birthday we took them some cake and they all sat down and scoffed it. They were so grateful just for something different.

Our main gift to them was a new set of school uniforms for 4 of the kids and a new outfit for the 2 smallest. A full uniform cost 8 quid, which is a bit embarrassing given the prices we pay in the UK. They were so happy. Who'd have thought someone would get so excited about a school uniform!!

On the last day the orphanage moved to a slightly larger building across town. It was hard to leave them as 2 of the girls showed us signs of abuse that they get from their Mama. One had a black eye and the other a cut in her leg. We just wanted to pack them all up in our bags and take them home. They deserve so much better. We hope we can return to help them in the future.

Church

We were fortunate enough to be invited to a church service at Andy and Linnea's orphanage. We arrived and were greeted as angels from heaven!!! They were so welcoming and offered us everything they could, despite them having so little.

The service went on for a whopping 3 1/4 hours!! There was lots of singing and dancing and even a few people fainting and rolling around on the floor while the paster exorcised some demons!! Very weird!! We had to introduce ourselves to the whole congregation, which was cool and they were clearly appreciative that we had come over to help those less fortunate than ourselves.

Next up...

We are leaving Arusha tomorrow on a 10 hour bus ride (it didn't take us that long to fly here!!) to Dar es Salaam, where we will get the ferry over to Zanzibar for some sun, sand and sea!!

Hope everyone's well and we'll post again soon.

Love Ells and Gem xx