After moving we took a trip to Umoja School where there is a small workshop called Enterprise where Days for Girls (DfG) menstrual kits are being made and distributed in the local community. Darlene and Joyce are really excited to share knowledge about DfG and see how it is handled in TZ. Paul brought supplies from a Minnesota group. It may seem like an odd topic but these kits are critical to keep girls in school who would otherwise be home one week every month with a negative impact to them alone. The Umoja school is a small secondary day school that reaches out to students who otherwise could not afford to attend school.
Up to now we have had showers in the morning but they are thankfully diminishing. Who thought that we needed to pack rain gear? Rain or not, we had to pack our bags after breakfast to move across the street. Mwangaza was inexpensive so we could splurge one night prior to going off to Safari. We are ready. After moving we took a trip to Umoja School where there is a small workshop called Enterprise where Days for Girls (DfG) menstrual kits are being made and distributed in the local community. Darlene and Joyce are really excited to share knowledge about DfG and see how it is handled in TZ. Paul brought supplies from a Minnesota group. It may seem like an odd topic but these kits are critical to keep girls in school who would otherwise be home one week every month with a negative impact to them alone. The Umoja school is a small secondary day school that reaches out to students who otherwise could not afford to attend school.
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Yesterday we attend Elizabeth's church then to a Chinese lunch with Titus & Zemobia Laroyas. Anna, their daughter, was sponsored by Safi members and has now become a pilot on a spotter plane looking for poachers in the Ngorongoro area. We are all proud and amazed of Anna. Good food, good fun, good friends. Oh Yes.....I forgot to mention the road and the bus. We arrived at JRO in daylight. We all got on a bus that would handle the 17 of us, Elizabeth and David, the driver and all our luggage piled on top and strapped down. (As we left the airport I was reminiscing on how we looked like the Jed Clampett family driving into Beverly Hills) The drive to Arusha was pretty normal but to get to Mwangaza we drove up Mianzini Road.....with all the shops open, street vendors and vegetable sellers out.....with delivery trucks, piki pikis (motor cycle taxis), cars, hand pulled carts, vehicles breaking down, and all of humanity going up and down the road that was in an almost destroyed condition by the very rainy short rains that would not stop. The people looking at us as something strange and we looking at them in the same light. Dorothy.....we are not in Kansas any more. My camera was still packed and my seat on the bus had no good angles for phone photos. Perhaps someone from the group got some. Suffice it to say the scene was on overload, and it was wonderful to be there. It was especially wonderful to watch the faces of the newcomers to Safi's version of Purposeful travel. Welcome to Arusha.Yes, its been a month sine we returned to the US from Arusha Tanzania. While there we did not have sufficient electricity or connection to blog. Since returning, It has been a crazy strange time. But....I find that on my second week of "staying at home in order to stop the spread of Covid 19" that I have finally caught up with all the pressing issues and can blog! IT WAS AN EPIC TRIP! Amazing every day. Seventeen intrepid travelers spent three weeks visiting many relevant organizations and cultural sites to better see and understand the current conditions and lives of the people that Safi School Project's mission serves. While there the group also went on a fantastic safari adventure to see the great migration. For those of us who left from Seatac WA, it took 24 hours of travel to arrive. In addition to the 11 hour time change. Some of the group came from Arizona and others from Minnesota. By 2/1 we all had landed in JRO (Kilimanjaro Airport) and made our way up the side of Mt Meru to Mwangaza's lodging, a 3 BR house with a dormitory in back. The house is where Mary Nelson began her love and support of students in TZ back in 1993. It was a great place for 17 people to get to know each other, organize our schedule,the luggage, 450 Days for Girls menstrual kits, 150 knitted caps, 200 hot wheels and bunches of school supplies. AND....Baraka, Safi's go to person in TZ stopped by to greet the group as did Elizabeth, our in country travel goddess, who also brought bead-work from Ketumbeine, North Maasailand, TZ. The beautiful items provide a small, regular income for 55 women in a harsh environment. Their work is based on Traditional art forms from Maasai culture. Kate shares a wonderful video of elephants on her Facebook page. Click on the link below.
www.facebook.com/kate.delozier/videos/1791946380832890/ It is hard to not visit Tamiha and with each visit we are amazed. There is always a new corp of orphans to sing to us. There are always improvements going on. This time there were new volunteers, full of energy and good deeds. Alex (long blond hair) from England came and ran a go fund me page to fix the gate and extend the new classroom. The gate got fixed, securing the children and the classroom was being built while we visited.
Thank you knitters for creating the wonderful hats that we passed out. We also found out that there is a primary school where the kids can attend that costs $400 a year. If you wish to sponsor an orphan, please contact us at info@safischoolproject.org and we'll give you the details. This morning a group of us went with Brendan Simonson (who was armed) and an armed ranger on a walking safari. We returned with the same number of people who left. We were happy. From L to R, Earla, Christine, Kate, Jane, Baraka; Back Row Kristina, John, Mary; Way back is the Baobab tree next to tent 29, Jimmy Carter's tent.
I will post more later. It is as wonderful as always. Here is a place holder On Saturday we held a parent meeting at Freedom Lodge. It was a true Tanzanian meetings lasting 4 hours. Many of the parents came from far away so the meeting included goat banana stew and sodas. Only 10 of the 91 sponsored students were not represented by someone at the meeting. Many parents didn't know how to get to Freedom lodge so the kids walked them to the meeting and picked them up after. It was a very positive day.
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