Daily Grind

Weeks of 11/1/09-11/20/09

During the last two weeks I have been busy with work in the Arusha Region, travel to Dar es Salaam to visit a friend from home, and a whole lot of trivial pursuit. Did you know that a snail’s reproductive organs are located in its head? Just a little factoid you might want to commit to memory.

I had the good fortune to be invited to a grant writing workshop with Jackie. The school she works for does pre-primary education which is not supported by the government. The program is struggling, but the director understands and believes in the importance of early childhood education. The teachers have been coming to work with no pay for many months. They are dedicated, to say the least.
Jackie, Juhudi and I sat with an expert grant writer and defined the programs activities. This was the third step in the process of organizing before writing the grant. The program has applied three times before and been unsuccessful, but with the help of this woman and the thorough process I hope the program will receive sustainable funding.

The children at the school are absolutely darling! I’m not a big baby person, but these kids are SO cute! When you walk into the classroom, they all jump up, put their hand to their forehead like a salute, and sing a song to welcome you. They then run and hug you and just want to hold your hand. Despite the fact that the program resources are stretched so thin, the school has recently begun to welcome in the young neighborhood children who sit outside the door and windows watching. So a new class of 2 year olds has formed. Since each of the other teachers was busy teaching the other ‘classes,’ I attempted to entertain the minis-it was more damage control as they were beginning to throw the picture books at one another-Building Blocks moment! I sang the only song I could think of: Head, shoulders, knees and toes. It worked! Even though they had NO idea what I was saying, they liked the movements. The school was thinking that it would be better for them to at least come into the school and have exposure to a classroom setting, but I think it may actually be more disturbing to the other three classrooms that are going on.
Shika is another school program that Jackie works at, as well as my other two roommates. One afternoon I visited the afterschool program to speak to the staff and see the program in action. Very action oriented it is! The children were very rambunctious; playing soccer, doing yoga, playing a game with tennis balls-all in a very small yard with two big, obnoxious dogs in the mix. The program had invited a local Rasta musician to do a music session with the kids. However, he failed to show up, so Asa organized the kids to do their own music show. It was quite funny to watch these kids sing and dance to local pop music as well as their favorite-Michael Jackson.

Aside from work, I was able to travel to Dar es Salaam to visit my old MCH buddy, Imee! Since my bus left at 5.30am on Friday morning, I thought it would be best if I just stayed up all night and then slept on the bus. So Thursday night, I went out with my roommates until the early morning when I ran home, gathered my bag and chased the bus down. Off I went to Dar. Dar is very different from Arusha. Even though Arusha has 400,000+ people and is definitely a big town, Dar is a proper city. With a mall! And fastfood! Imee’s apartment is quite nice complete with cable and music videos  After a quick dip in the pool, Imee and I got ready for a run way show for Swahili Fashion Week. It was great! The fashions ranged from super chic to bizarre to wearable. After the show we relaxed at a posh hotel bar where I got fresh calamari, yum! The next day I accompanied Imee and her roommate to White Sands Resort where Imee started her scuba diving training. Tom and I reclined under a grass hut next to the pool for the day, drinking soda and soaking up the sun (through layers of SPF 50). It was a short but sweet weekend trip! I was ready to take on the coming work week refreshed!

This week Kala and I have taken to an afternoon ritual of sitting in the living room, eating ‘cayenne pepper cheese roll’*(patent pending on the snack), and quizzing each other with Trivial Pursuit for hours on end. Watch out, I may be the next one to win on Who wants to be a millionaire. What was the first country to legalize abortion in 1935?
A. Germany
B. India
C. Iceland
D. Canada

Answer to come in the next blog!