Hello! I’m writing this with a heavy heart, as we heard on
Monday that the sister of one of our TNZ team members died. It was a terrible
shock for him and, as he left for Dar on Tuesday morning, we all said
goodbye to him on Monday evening, which was horrible. All our thoughts and sympathy
are with him and his family. We’ll miss him so much over these next few days
and, of course, once we go home.
Today was our community farewell which, apart from the sad
news, was a lovely afternoon. The awesome community farewell team organised a
really nice, reflective and fun few hours with our host families and other
community members that have been important to us during our stay here. We had
the classic slide show of photos, alongside presentations on the different
aspects of the programme, a role play of our time in Karagwe, a ‘string of
memories’ and, of course, soda, mandazi and groundnuts. Oh yes, and some
dancing to Waka Waka (Time For Africa) at the end.
None of us can believe that we’re leaving so soon. 5.30 on
Thursday morning is looming far too near. The first month of our time felt, as
I’ve said, like the longest ever, but the last couple of months really have flown
by. As Flo said today, ‘I’m not done yet!’ It does feel like 3 months isn’t
enough – I just feel like we’ve settled in and know our way around Karagwe and
now we’re leaving.
At the same time, I’m so pleased with what we’ve achieved
while we’ve been here; especially with CADs. Last week it was the anniversary
of the first International Women’s Day (I.W.D. is on the 8th March)
and we marked it with a chai afternoon at a local hotel, where we enjoyed some
debate on gender issues, a presentation on FGM (Female Genital Mutilation) and
more general discussion, led by WOMEDA (Women’s and Men’s Development Agency),
a local NGO. We didn’t have time to do everything on our agenda, partly due to
us not being able to start until an hour after we’d agreed because of African
time, but mostly due to how involved people were in the debate and discussion,
which was awesome! We hadn’t anticipated so much involvement of everyone; we just
sat back and listened to the Swahili keep flowing.
Another project we’ve had is renovating a classroom at
Rumanyika Primary, a local – er – primary school in Kayanga, which was also
some volunteers’ placement school. It was completely out of use, because it was
in a pretty sorry state, with what can only be called pot holes all over the
‘floor’, no windows and a big crack in the wall. Two of the Hannahs in our team
spotted it one day and had the idea to try and sort it out so it could be used
as an activity room, or a classroom for extra-curricular activities – maybe
even for the facilitation of sessions on sexual reproductive health. We decided
the floor was at the top of the list of things to do, so we set to getting
cement. Very kindly, the mayor donated a bag of cement and a couple of bags of
sand to the cause, which got us off to a good start. We all helped carting said
materials and water to the classroom from SAWAKA one hot Friday afternoon after
team meeting and got to work. The TNZ volunteers quickly proved to be the most
competent and capable in the job and were awesome in their work. Once the
sweeping and shifting of gravel (first out of the holes in the floor, then back
in – there was quite a lot of controversy as to which was best) was done, us
mzungus didn’t seem to really have any more to do. Our TNZ counterparts were
amazing and worked way past curfew (oops) to finish the floor, which now looks
so much better. Although this project sounds like a cliché gap yah activity,
the fact that the classroom is now being used by the older students as a
study/social area is proof that it was a worthwhile use of our time.
Aside from CADs, we’ve also had some pretty memorable
socials, most notably of which was on Sunday 2nd February. We all
piled into a dala-dala belonging to Flo and Walter’s baba and set off to
Bweranyenge, a beautiful corner of Karagwe bordering Rwanda. After seeing a
site where baba’s tribe used to hang out, eating maize at baba’s brother’s
house and experiencing the spirit of the chief in a hut in the garden, we
headed to the crème de la crème of views at the border.
We’d heard that the views were stunning, but we weren’t
prepared for how beautiful they’d be. There were plenty of rocks for us to
run/jump/sit on, too, so we were more than happy. It was such a nice day for us
all to be together on the last weekend to relax, chat and enjoy les paysages.
The time to leave came far too soon!
A few of us have been to watch the sunrise over the Kagera
river valley this morning, and we’re just waiting for breakfast at Hannah
Nick’s house before our first day of debrief. We saw chapattis being rolled
out, which is very exciting.
So, this will be my last blog in Karagwe! Crazy stuff. It’s
going to feel like such a shame to say goodbye; it’s such a beautiful part of
the world and we’ve been made to feel so at home. I’m SO excited to see
everyone at home, but at the same time the thought of never coming back here is
so sad. I’ll just have to come back!
Kwa heri!
