Volunteer Amani
11th Feb 2007A Suprise Visit Then Business As Usual! It has been some time since I have last written a diary entry here! Hello to everyone again! My reasons for my silence will be revealed very shortly! My main news of the last couple of weeks is a suprise very short trip that I had to make back to England last week! Yes you read rightly back to England! I actually returned from England a week ago, after a very brief few days home that I was forced to undertake to sort out a few pressing matters, that could not be sorted from Tanzania. Being home again in Croston was rather a surreal experience after over 6 months here in Tanzania! I couldn`t even begin to explain at home the complete differences between the 2 cultures! It was a real shock to my system in more ways than one as it was freezing! I landed at Manchester airport to zero degrees! I had just left 30 plus degrees, over in Moshi, a day and a half ago! The actual trip home went very smoothly apart from my enforced wait for nearly 9 hours for my connecting flight, in Dubai! I was amongst hundreds of sleeping people, many of them Africans all spread over the floor trying to get some sleep where they could! There was a really striong smell of sweaty feet as everyone had also taken off their shoes/flip flops! Still I got home in the end and spent the next few days recovering! It was so nice to see all of my family again, made even nicer by the fact that my trip was totally unexpected for them and me! Tha days flew by as I had so many things to deal with and before I knew it I was thinking about returning back to Moshi again! It has been 2 weeks now since my return from England and as my title suggests it is back to business as usual! The past 2 weeks have been very hectic as we are now under a week away from the Grand Opening of New Amani Karanga! There is so much preparation to do for that day that everyone is incedibly busy. As you can imagine it is a very major event in the history of Amani. The new buiding is superb, huge, but stiil unfinished. I think that the last estimate of our actual moving-in date is now the end of March so we are all keeping our fingers crossed for that day! For the past month or so I have been working across at New Amani with groups of children trying ro produce artwork for the opening. It has been quite a challenge to take groups of 6 and then groups of 12 children across to an unfinished building and occupy/teach them for the day! In England it would of course not be possible. I have been teaching within a construction site! It has to be said that the children have, for the most part, responded incredibly well to working there. It has been really great to show them around and see their faces light up when they realise that very soon it will be their new home! The building is really like a hotel rather than a home! The journey each day to New Amani has been entertaining to say the least! I started off with the use of 1 taxi and in true African fashion we crammed it full! 6 children plus myself and another volunteer believe it or not! The traffic police along the way didn`t bat an eye! I sat in the front with one child and all I could see in the rear view mirror was a mass of very smily faces! One quite memorsble day our taxi finally gave up the ghost and got a very serious puncture! on a very rough road. Luckily it wasn`t too far for the children to be walked back to the home whilst I looked after the cab for the taxi driver who I know well. He raced off into the dust rolling his spare tyre and hopped onto a dala dala shouting I`ll be back in 10 mins! That was after we had checked his spare tyre which was flat as a pancake and bald as a coot! I now know what an African 10 minutes equals so about 1 hour later the driver returned with a fixed tyre! In the meantime all the passing locals found it quite amusing and I lost count of how many "pole" comments I received (sorry in Kiswahili)! As time progressed we started to use 2 taxis and take more children and another volunteer. The builders on site and the Mamas who cooked for us each day made us feel very welcome and it was good for them to see the reason for all of their hardwork each day ie. Amani Children! Soon I progressed to taking a dala dala with 12 children each day and 2 volunteers! It was chaos each morning as loads of children mobbed the Hiace minibus. I always ended up with too many children all of whom were desperate to come! I started to take some of the very young children too, and after another really nice day all the young ones broke out into spontaneous song all the way home! It was so good to see lots of big smiles and hear the children singing. It is days like those that make my work here so very rewarding, memorable and enjoyable. When I have to finally leave Moshi for England I will find it so very hard to leave all of my little/young friends, the children of Amani, behind. I missed them very much too when I briefly visited home. Now my work at New Amani has ceased. The children were becoming increasingly excited about their new building, especially the little ones, and it had started to cause a few problems within the site where workers are desperately trying to get finished for the opening! I have spent the last few days working on display board designs for New Amani.3 boards which will go on the wallls of the entrance hall to the new building. I am now writing this section of my diary 2 days after our Grand Opening has happened last Thursday! Boy what a week it has been! I think that everyone is still recovering from the major hard work it has all taken, me included! My noticeboard designs came together at the very last minute, which was pretty amazing as we were still painting them on Tuesday and they were only fixed to the wall at 1pm Wednesday afternoon! Still, I was pleased how they turned out in the end. The Opening itself went very smoothly and everything for that also seemed to come together very well at the last minute! The Guest of Honour was Mama Mkapa the former President of Tanzania`s wife.The day began at 6.30am for all the staff who were needed to help with all the last minute preparations. The event itself got underway about 10.00am I think with several speeches then an official unveiling of a plaque and photograph. Everyone went `agh` when the scissors to cut an official ribbon were brought in a basket to Mama Mkapa by our 2 youngest children Nasma and Babu. I think Babu is now around 4 and a half and Nasma 2 and a half! Highlight of the event again was provided by the Amani Children who sang and also performed ngoma/drama pieces for the audience. The Amani Children really love to perform to an audience and they didn`t let us down! Soon after everyone broke for lunch served outside in a red hot sun! It was pretty amazing to sit there with food and a soda looking at the huge, but still very unfinished New Amani building. It truly is such a contrast t the Old Amani that there is just no comparison! Now the building has been officially opened the latest estimate is for us to move in at the end of March. We are all hoping and praying that it will happen very soon! We will have 3 purpose-built classrooms plus an Art room to use - amazing! The place looks more like a hotel than a children`s home! Anyway back to the story, very soon after lunch the event was brought to a close and that was it the day was over! New Amani (Amani Mpya) is now officially open and we are all hoping to move in very soon! The whole week has been very busy with 2 children`s trips, the opening and 2 evening socoal events all sponsored by some very generous overseas donors. Friday I was able to have a little rest away from work but today (Saturday) it has been back to business as usual and I have just completed a weekend duty 7.30am till 3.45pm with around 100+ Amani Children! It has been yet another extremely hot and busy day at the office!
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