Tarangire

Tarangire National Park

Arrived back in Arusha after a relaxing weekend at Tarangire National Park and Gibbs Farm, a favourite place for a rest over from safaris. We found that both the places we stayed were suffering from the economic downturn. How sad for the people here. We heard that the largest operator has laid off 60 driver/guides.

A Promising Meeting

We had always wanted to introduce Horace from Ndoombo to Anza from Living Water and were so pleased that we were able to do this. They hit it off straight away and we left them to discuss their achievements and challenges. Horace told us he had learnt so much and he is taking Anza to see Ndoombo on Sunday. We hope they learn and can help each other.

Anza Meeting Horace

Visit to Help to Self Help

Next we visited the vocational training centre, Help to Self Help, to see Mrs Makunde. She reported on how well the 3 girls that we sponsored for catering from Tekua had performed. They never missed a day; not bad when you have to get up at 5.30am and travel for 1 hour before starting at 7.30am. She commended all of them on their hard work and now they have a chance. We spoke to Mrs Makunde about further vocational opportunities in catering, tailoring and electrical.

Tekua Catering Students

Catching up With Gerald

Gerald at Living Water

We finished our busy day by meeting Gerald who we are sponsoring for teachers degree at Kampala University. We are overwhelmed of his continued development and his vision for improving the quality of education in Tanzania. He will be a great asset to Living Water Children Centre. We passed to him some work from Meath Green Junior School, Sussex. They asked us to bring this with a view to forging some links and we are looking forward to receiving some reciprocal work from the pupils at Living Water.

Preparing Work for Meath Green

Meetings and Football

The following day we met up with Maffie, our Kiswahili teacher. We discuss with him other vocational training opportunities for the Tekua students and he takes us to Mshikamano Vocational Training College. We decide that we will discuss the opportunities here with Chris and Ally at Tekua who we meet with next.

TEKUA Football Team

Further discussions follow with Chris and Ally about possibilities of vocational training, developments in Tekua and current priorities for donations. We end the day with Garrie refereeing yet another African football match on a hard dusty ground with the boys from Tekua playing their local rivals. No riot this year, Tekua concede 3 late goals to lose 3-1.

Garrie Keeps Order

More Discussion of "Helping 100 Grandparents"

Garrie and Emmanuel

Finally, on Friday, we re-visited Emmanual at Wamata to discuss some assessments for the "Helping 100 Grandparents" project. We are delighted that some of the grandparents we visited in 2008 are proposed for help. We agree to meet next week for final assessments and visits.

Good News For Antonia

Antonia

To round off our hectic few days, news comes in that Antonia, one of the Tekua students we sponsored at catering college, has been offered work experience at the Naura Springs Hotel, just completed and the most modern in Arusha.

We planted the seed and now it is growing, we drank to that and toasted all our donors.

THANK YOU.