Back to Arusha

We arrive to the hot, dry heat of Africa, after leaving a freezing cold England. We are pleasantly surprised to see the land looking so much greener around Kilimanjaro airport. It is usually so dry and brown.

Since we left last year at the end of February, the drought here continued until the end of November and many families were left without a maize crop. The rains eventually arrived and continued until the beginning of January, however we are told that some families were afraid to plant their crops for fear the rains would not come again. The torrential rain has swept down the hillsides and left the already rutted dirt roads even more impassable, and dried out to leave huge potholes.

The tourist trade is still suffering from the recession in the USA and Europe with reports of a patchy recovery.

Catching Up at TEKUA

After collecting our old reliable Suzuki, we are off to meet Chris and Ally at TEKUA. We are warmly welcomed and are happy to see the new gate and all the finishing touches have been made to the building. It is so heartening to see a new group of young people, unable to afford secondary school, eagerly awaiting their English classes. It is great news to hear that we now have a driver/guide in one of the national parks, 2 girls employed in catering and 2 welders about to begin field experience.

There is a strong sense of a well organised and stable community group under the leadership of Chris and Ally and our challenge of helping people become sustainable looks more of a reality by funding vocational skills training.

We firmly believe that this is the way forward for Helping Africa 100 and our intention is to replicate this centre.

Chris and Ally have already identified a new rural village location for TEKUA 2 and take us to see it the following day. Building a new vocational skills training centre at Nduruma will benefit the young people from here and 3 neighbouring villages. We meet the local leaders and some of the community who are keen to assist, as there is no other skills training available in this area for young people who are unable to afford secondary education. The leaders have specifically asked for carpentry and tailoring skills as these are in short supply locally.

The visit resulted in 3 long hot afternoons, discussing the planning, logistics and financial implications.

 

Update on Helping 100 Grandparents

We have also been busy catching up on progress with our "Helping 100 Grandparents" project with WAMATA. We meet with Emmanuel to discuss the successes and the challenges. 14 grandparents have now received a goat, with a further 6 grandparents identified. We agree that visits are needed to talk to the grandparents to understand the challenges before we agree to expand the project.

The rural locations and state of the roads means that it takes 2 days to visit 9 families. This is truly helping at grass roots and is the most emotionally draining experience. Without doubt, the grandparents who have received a goat overwhelmingly agree that by providing milk and producing "kids" the goats are helping them become sustainable.

One example is Anna. She has been widowed for 10 years, lost her daughter and son-in-law to HIV/Aids and inherited one grandchild from them and 3 others from another son. She was proud to show us the pregnant goat and remained cheerful despite the obvious poverty of the small home.

We could clearly see that the self esteem of these grandparents had improved and could be summed up by Grandma Sara’s comment, "This has given me a purpose in life and stops me from spending so much time seeking milk for the children".

We feel humbled and privileged to meet such strong and committed people.

 

Pleasing Progress at Help to Self Help

Finally in this first week, we managed to see Mrs Makundi at the vocational skills training centre Help to Self Help. She gave us a progress report on the 2 boys we sponsored last year from TEKUA for Electricians Training. Said and Zakayo are both awaiting their first year examination results due in March and Mrs Makunde tells us the teacher says they are doing very well. When we meet them, we are astonished to see the change in just one year. From 2 shy young boys hardly able to communicate with us, they have developed into confident, well spoken young men; keen to continue with their studies and make the most of the chance they have been given. They are being enrolled for their second year.

We are so pleased that Mrs Makundi has some places on the catering skills courses and has agreed to assess 3 of the girls from TEKUA next week.

We are still awaiting to hear of final customs clearance for the container.

A tiring but most rewarding week, seeing the fruits of your donations. We are looking forward to seeing progress at Living Water Children Centre, Ndoombo and Kiwamifo next week.