Tuesday - me again

Since I'm not looking for animals, I get to blog. Elizabeth took David to Rotary so he can talk to them about the water project. David and I first went to the Mwangaza Center to talk with Shoonie, from the u.S. , John and Salome, from Tz. Mwangaza is a center for education of teachers and is walking distance from Elizabeth's. They have done an assessment of all the Lutheran Church sponsored schools in Tz. , including Ngateu. We rank near the bottom of all of the schools. (ranking is based on performance on the national exams.) That's the bad news, which we kind of knew. But the good news is that they are going to help! A proposal is being pressented to us next Thursday for the cost and the scope of their involvement with teachers and headmaster at Ngateu. It is very exciting. They have done their homework. They were excited also, to hear of our ideas and assessment of the school, teachers, facilities, etc. Books, library and working computers delighted them as MANY schools have none of these. There's so much to tell that I can't do it here, but I will write it up and share the highlights. After we had talked awhile, and we realized what their involvement would mean to Ngateu andour involvement, David tried to tell them what it felt like for us and he got all choked up. It was an amazing meeting!!!!
The Tanzanian teachers also gave me advice on various questions we've had and that is so valuable. One question was whether sponsors should be able to buy a set of textbooks for their student,or if other students would be left out. The answer was please buy the textbooks, maybe not all of them ( 8 or 9), but maybe 4 or 5 that the student really needs. That way, some students will have their own textbooks in class, so the school books will spread farther.

So, I feel hopeful and excited. Now I will walk back to Elizabeth's and tonight, the 3 of us will try out a new restaurant to see if the group would like it. (Somebody has to do these restaurant checks.:-)
We will be glad to have the rest of our friends back and hear their tales. m