I am back!
Tanzania was such an eye-opener, it was an amazing 4 weeks and I have learnt so much. Being able to help and feel like I have made a genuine contribution to the villages that we visited is such a great feeling. I made some great friends whilst I was out there and bonded with everyone. It was a challenge at times to try and get over the tough times when I missed home or felt physically drained, but because of the people I was out there with it didn’t take me long to get back on track.
All the project work that we completed was incredible. First of all we had our ‘community’ project work which involved demolishing a man’s house due to it not being strong enough to withstand the weather and rebuilt it for him; by using mud and wood. We managed to dig the holes for the foundations and build the skeleton of the house before we had to hand it over to the other school that was out there. The second bit of project work involved us building desks for the local school. My school managed to build three desks which we vanished and painted our names on once they were finished. Once we moved camps we began our ‘environment’ project work; this included ‘shamba’ which is farming is Kiswahili and the building of a chicken pen. Plenty of digging, shovelling and sawing was done during these tasks! In our final section, the ‘Wildlife’ project work, we cleared the watering hole of mud and rocks. The animals that we saw wandering around were incredible, zebras, impala, water buck and even the odd elephant! It was nice to know that we would be helping the wild animals as well as the people in the villages. The travelling took a lot out of me; it took us 30 hours to get home via buses, planes and walking!
The overall experience is one I would recommend to anybody, you really have to see it and feel it to believe it and to understand the difference between how we all live. Everyone out in Tanzania smiled, they may not be happy with what they have and how they live but they got on with it, they put up with it, they lived each day and moved on, nothing seemed to faze them, all with a smile on their faces which really sums up the expedition for me.
Tanzania was such an eye-opener, it was an amazing 4 weeks and I have learnt so much. Being able to help and feel like I have made a genuine contribution to the villages that we visited is such a great feeling. I made some great friends whilst I was out there and bonded with everyone. It was a challenge at times to try and get over the tough times when I missed home or felt physically drained, but because of the people I was out there with it didn’t take me long to get back on track.
All the project work that we completed was incredible. First of all we had our ‘community’ project work which involved demolishing a man’s house due to it not being strong enough to withstand the weather and rebuilt it for him; by using mud and wood. We managed to dig the holes for the foundations and build the skeleton of the house before we had to hand it over to the other school that was out there. The second bit of project work involved us building desks for the local school. My school managed to build three desks which we vanished and painted our names on once they were finished. Once we moved camps we began our ‘environment’ project work; this included ‘shamba’ which is farming is Kiswahili and the building of a chicken pen. Plenty of digging, shovelling and sawing was done during these tasks! In our final section, the ‘Wildlife’ project work, we cleared the watering hole of mud and rocks. The animals that we saw wandering around were incredible, zebras, impala, water buck and even the odd elephant! It was nice to know that we would be helping the wild animals as well as the people in the villages. The travelling took a lot out of me; it took us 30 hours to get home via buses, planes and walking!
The overall experience is one I would recommend to anybody, you really have to see it and feel it to believe it and to understand the difference between how we all live. Everyone out in Tanzania smiled, they may not be happy with what they have and how they live but they got on with it, they put up with it, they lived each day and moved on, nothing seemed to faze them, all with a smile on their faces which really sums up the expedition for me.
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