First Few Days in Arusha, Tanzania 2011

Aarthi Naidu and I traveled together from London, England to join our team in Arusha. We were greeted at the Kilimanjaro Airport by our team leader Shannon Howlett and her family. The trip to Arusha was a forty minute drive through a scenic landscape of rolling hills and corn crops. Unfortunately the corn crops have mostly failed this year and the World Food Bank will be working in the area to help feed people. We were joined later in the day by our other team members Katharine Kan and Clare Mian.

Thursday morning started bright and early with a drive to the Leguruki area where we would be conducting the workshop on Monday. We drove thirty minutes out of Arusha then left the tarmac road to traverse the dirt roads to the various schools. We met Laura, Liz and Julia from “Education Power Change” an Australian NGO that we would be partnering with us on the workshop. We drove to Shiston Secondary School which would be the location of the workshop on Monday. The reception was not warm to begin with but after much conversation with the principal we were able to discuss the workshop theme of sharing ideas between teachers. We were shown the classrooms we would use for the workshops while there were discussions with the cook for the tea and meal. We spent the remainder of the day visiting schools and delivering official letters of invitation from Noble and the District Education Officer. The difference between this workshop and others in Kenya is that the schools would be open on Monday and teachers would be released to attend the workshop. One teacher would stay behind to supervise the students on a study day. We were happy that both permanent (government paid teachers) and temporary (volunteer teachers) were being included in the workshop invitation.

The weekend was spent purchasing supplies for the workshop including all of the food except the goats which Laura was providing. Shannon also needed to acquire all of our living supplies including cooking pots, food, mosquito nets, cots and sleeping bags for the three nights we would be living in teacher accommodations at Mbaaseny Primary School. Laura’s foundation had built the house, new outdoor bathrooms and supported the infrastructure of the school itself. We also spent a great part of the weekend planning Monday’s workshop based on our theme of collaborative teaching with a small introduction to inquiry learning. Sunday night we were in bed early so we were ready for our 6:00 am departure to Leguruki.