A Fun and Friendly Community

By Jenny (Kesho Leo Education Volunteer)

I have been to Africa three times before, and came back for the wonderful sense of community and the fun times that I have found before. Arusha and the local foodwatershelter community have not let me down.

At school, both in the morning with the Chekechea and Pre-Primary classes and in the afternoon with the Tuition classes, I regularly find myself smiling or laughing with the students and the teachers. Sometimes it is a happy smile, after children have answered a question they have been asked, or done some work that I have been helping with, or just simply showing me their work. Sometimes it is the teacher’s humour at the response from the students doing their work, often trying so very hard, and coming up with an answer that is “beautiful” although incorrect. It is so rewarding watching the teachers with the children, and getting a buzz from hearing them laughing with the children and showing in so many ways that they care about them. It is not unexpected to see the teachers sweep up a child in their arms and give them a big hug, sometimes congratulating them, sometimes comforting them, and sometimes because the child has made a mistake and is confused or embarrassed. 

Regina (Kesho Leo Education Manager) congratulating the Champion Pre-Primary Student
at the Kesho Leo-Engosengiu 2012 Mini Olympics

Lucy, Kesho Leo Chekechea Teacher (far right) and Engosengiu Primary School Teacher (far left) congratulating the students after finishing the Chekechea Champion Relay Race at the 2012 Mini Olympics.

Beyond job satisfaction, there are many other places that I have found my fun. I came here hoping to find other volunteers who like playing cards, and couldn’t believe it when the first group of vols didn’t seem very interested. I was very disappointed, until a few months after I arrived I discovered that the night Askari (security guards) play cards. Once I realised they enjoyed cards, it didn’t take me long to invite myself to their game. It has been entertaining and interesting. I have shared some games I know, and they have shared games they know. The last game they have shown me is a Maasai game, and it really ‘takes the cake’. In every card game I have ever played, you may not show your partner your hand, even though in some games like Bridge, the bidding can give a pretty good indication what is in your hand. In this game, when you play with a partner, it is best to show your partner, but not your opponents, your cards so that you can work out your strategy to win the most cards. And believe me, there is real strategy to this game. I still haven’t got it yet, as I have lost a fair few more than I have won. 

From the left: Midmi, Husseini, Jenny and Toshi, play a round of cards.

Keeping the game equipment in order also proved to be an event in itself. Although we can play without a bench, the makeshift table, a shallow plastic crate on a bucket, was not the most stable. So I asked the Askari to see if they could repair the broken bench. We lacked a few basic requirements, like a hammer, good quality wood, and eventually light as we had a power out while the job was half done. They managed to fix it with the back of a small axe, scavenged wood from some other broken benches and light from my mobile phone, with a result while not the most elegant, is a stable bench that is often used for cards in the night. Added to their company and card playing, the Askari are very generous and are always offering to share their meal with me. I finally accepted, and just recently we shared a delicious dinner of local smoked fish, cooked to perfection by Husseini, one of the Askari, and I cooked the rice – I just can’t eat ugali. If you ask the Askari why, they will laugh, as I tell them that if they were to throw it on the ground, it would bounce, and I can’t eat food that bounces. They know I am joking and that it is just me being fussy again. 

The games bench...

Last of all I have had some dancing. I love to dance and do many different styles of dance back home in Australia. Only a few days after I arrived in October, one of our Askari had his wedding, and we attended. We went to the reception ceremony at his home. After that amazing experience came the music and of course, for me, that meant dancing. I had a great time, and danced both in and out of the covered area. Later, as I got to know the mamas, I shared my enthusiasm for dance with them, and they responded with similar enthusiasm. So came about our first dance at Kesho Leo last year. It was a few weeks before Christmas, and all fws employees and their families were invited. Simon (aka P.Diddy and day-time Askari), was our awesome DJ for the night. Unfortunately, he had to swap his rostered day and was working on the day of the dance, so we didn’t have his expertise and equipment (borrowed from a friend) at the start of the dance. I had gathered music from different sources, endeavouring to provide music for all who came. The night (6.30pm) started slowly, but when Simon came and the volume increased, things got moving. It was a fun night with one or two stand out dancers from Kesho Leo. We had our second dance night at the end of March and this time Simon was there from the start. Again, we had a great night and it got pumping much earlier with P.Diddy doing his thing. 

The Kesho Leo girls show off their dance moves.

Jenny gets into the groove!

The Kesho Leo residents enjoying the disco night.

As well as the dance nights, and the functions that I have been to and danced at, a family celebration for the new baby, two graduations, and another wedding, there is a group of children who sing to me when I pass them on my way to Kesho Leo. They once saw me dancing at some of the local celebrations and now every time they see me they come out to the road and sing and do a few dance steps eagerly waiting for me to join in. Anyone walking with me to Kesho Leo will meet them and hear their “Kiduku” song. What more can a person ask for? … What a fun and friendly community here in Sinoni Village, Arusha, Tanzania!

Mfereji: Communtity Based Water Management in Arusha, Tanzania

By Paul Hasse (Kesho Leo Permaculture Volunteer, 2011-2012)

One of the first things that caught my attention when I arrived in Sinoni Village was the water irrigation system. Coming from a developing country myself (Guatemala), and being habituated to chaotic, nonfunctioning community dynamics, I was ready to face almost everything but a decent and somewhat well functioning, community based water management system. This is how it works...

The local water irrigation system - the mfereji

The mfereji, otherwise know as an open water canal or channel, works as a community service, from 7am to 5pm. The water comes from the Themi River, in Njiro, and all of the money that comes from fees and fines is used in the maintenance of the mfereji from the river to town. Every farmer in the community is entitled to 1 or 2 hours a week of water, depending on the size of the plot. This schedule is arranged through Wilson Laizer, or Willy, our next door neighbour. He is also the one in charge of the mfereji revenue, and reporting to the village elders (which themselves report to the municipal officials, which report to the district officials, which report to the regional officials). When water is scarce, and consequentially not enough for irrigating large plots, night hours can be arranged. You can also lend or borrow hours of watering from other farmers.

Farm workers (John, Richi and Elias) prepare the channel(s) for water from the mfereji to flow in between the
farm garden beds and into the farm hafir (plastic lined dam).

There is only one simple and strict rule about using the mfereji: Use it in your time. If you block the mfereji; use it out of your scheduled hours; or claim that you are using it in someone else’s hours without their prior consent, you get fined. Fines are generally 20,000 Tanzanian Shillings (Tzs) (approximately $20AUD), but can vary depending on the attitude of the offender.

Water from the mfereji travels down the channels in between the garden beds. 

 

John Laizer (fws Farm Manager) oversees the farm water irrigation system.

In order to withstand water shortages and the exhausting labor that implies carrying water to irrigate, we’ve built a hafir. A hafir is a plastic lined dam. Ours is 7 meters long per 1.5 metre wide at the top and 1 meter wide in the bottom, and 1.5 metre deep. It holds approximately 8,000 litres of water.

fws Volunteer Village Farm hafir.

Elias channels the water around the garden beds.

Last but not least, there is a land transfer fee for the mfereji. If you decide to buy land from another farmer in the community, you must pay 150,000Tzs (approximately $90AUD). This fee falls into that kind of dodgy bureaucratic revenue which is so common in developing societies. Asking around about the real use of this revenue to a local farmer, I get a smile and: “If there’s a problem with the mfereji they’ll fix it, if not, they will all celebrate with sodas.” 

Construction in Africa

By Ben Keyser

My time in Tanzania was spent working as an infrastructure volunteer on a variety of small projects and maintenance at Kesho Leo and the Volunteer Village. This ranged from maintenance to starting the foundations of the new church compost toilets adjacent to the Kesho Leo site. When I arrived I was full of enthusiasm and remember saying to Corky, Infrastructure and Permaculture Manager working from Australia, “Make the most of me while I’m here, I’m happy to help!”. I remember thinking on my second last day when I had a list close to two pages of things I still wanted to do that maybe I shouldn’t have told him that. Having said that, I wouldn’t change a thing.

Enjoying a ride into Arusha Town!

Coming from an engineering background and spending some time in the construction industry I had some skills that I could offer the team working over at Kesho Leo. However I quickly learned that it would be the local workers who would teach me the most about construction in Africa and how valuable it is to work with them, rather than “Australianising” the way they do things.

One of the main projects I worked on was the hand washing stations for the Kesho Leo mamas compost toilets. When told about the project, I estimated that it would probably take a few days and that being a Wednesday, it would be done by the weekend and another thing I could tick off my list. A few weeks later the hand washing stations were finally completed, albeit after a few frustrating days and frequent broken Swahili/English conversations with Vale and Moses, the two infrastructure workers. The most satisfaction I got out of this project was getting input from Moses and Vale, and seeing their ideas come to fruition. 

Inside view of the Kesho Leo Mamas Handwashing Station

Moses makes the final touches on the  Kesho Leo Mamas Handwashing Station water tanks

Throughout my time there, I worked on a number of projects including the new compost toilets at our neighbouring Church, finishing the ‘shamba’ (farm) silo, the Kesho Leo mamas handwashing stations and completing the liquid waste gutters for the mama’s compost toilets. They all had one thing in common; they never went to plan. That’s not to say they weren’t well thought out, great ideas or implemented correctly but it is an accurate reflection of the challenges facing new projects in developing countries. Whilst I learnt a lot from  working with the local foodwatershelter employees on these projects, I also learnt that problem solving and ingenuity are key assets when thinking about construction and to accept that things not going accordingly to plan is not always a bad thing.

Setting the liquid waste gutters on the Kesho Leo mamas compost toilets

The workers are so resourceful and given a scarce amount of resources it is quite incredible to see the solutions and ideas that they come up with. I certainly learnt early on that while I could help with some organisational and bookkeeping ideas, I had very little to offer when it came to doing projects ‘their way’. For the first time in working on construction projects I got the most enjoyment out of the process, rather than seeing the final product. I can’t wait to get the opportunity to work with Moses, Vale and the infrastructure team again sometime in the future.

Mudi (Kesho Leo Manager), Vale, Moses, Roger and Myself setting the foundations for the Church Compost Toilets next door to Kesho Leo children's village

Getting used to life in the fws volunteer village

By Ashleigh Stephens

Getting used to life in the fws volunteer village (and now my new home) has been somewhat easy. Based in Sinon, Arusha, Northern Tanzania,  I guess I was eased into village life, coming from travelling Egypt and many other developing countries in Eastern Europe before arriving in amazing Tanzania.  

fws volunteer village, Arusha, Tanzania

Shower time!

Initially I thought all of the volunteers would be eco-friendly extraordinaires, but I was wrong. Majority of the volunteers come from similar backgrounds to me (Australia) and have had to adapt to these new ways of living and learning. The first few weeks were a bit of a challenge adapting to the compost toilets and bucket showers and I soon found myself asking for tips on how to use less water. I will always remember one of the volunteers saying 'Stick your head into the bucket to wet your hair!'… a good tip that definitely saves water. It is amazing how quickly you adapt to new ways of living, it now seems normal not to flush the toilet any more, sometimes when I go into town and use flushing toilet facilities, I find myself reaching for the saw dust instead of the flush button.

Outdoor showers

Compost Toilets

Maggie our guard dog

We have two dogs, one is our guard dog 'Maggie', the other is more the fws volunteer family pet, his name is 'Nuckle'. On my second night, we thought, Nuckle he had been bitten by a snake! He was really lethargic and couldn't move at all. The outcome didn’t look promising and we could only get him to a vet the following morning. I woke up expecting the worst, but luckily little Nuckle was still alive, just,  he was in so much pain and quite awful to see. Ben, past Infrastructure Volunteer, took him to the vet, only to find out he had constipation. Pretty funny, but apparently if we didn't treat him he would have died, so another lesson learned - I never knew it could be so serious! We also have a cat, ‘Nudgee’, which I am not too fond of but she goes alright as she takes care of catching snakes and rodents.

Nuckle taking a snooze...

Whilst there are many other experiences to be had in the volunteer village and Arusha, along with meeting new people and discovering new places; I’m looking forward to adapting to this new and interesting African culture and lifestyle for my remaining time at foodwatershelter.

Travelling in Arusha... People, Pushbikes and Piki Pikis'

A road less more travelled… By Neil Shannon

I thought I would do a series of blogs on issues that may highlight the differences between life in Arusha and life in Australia. The first is on people transport, from pedestrian, through to the many forms of mechanised conveyances. The next blog will deal with goods transport.

Clock Tower, Arusha, Tanzania

There are some significant issues that are important as a backdrop to this discussion. Since Independence, 50 years ago, there has not been much funding or focus on infrastructure or maintenance. Therefore most of the bitumen urban roads in Arusha have deteriorated with many having little or no evidence of bitumen remaining. Arusha has long dry seasons followed by very wet seasons which create very difficult conditions on the dirt roads, most with no separate pedestrian footpaths.

Typical back street in Arusha, Tanzania

Dusty and bumpy road on the way to fws' Kesho Leo project in Sinon Village

Muddy and slippery road for both pedestrians and vehicles

Travel by foot is the most common form of transport since it is not possible to purchase and maintain a vehicle on very low income levels. Most people walk miles to and from their homes, markets, places of employment, schools and worship (many people attend regular forms of spiritual worship). Women and men take a lot of pride in their appearance and clothing. It is amazing to see the clean state of their clothes after trekking long distances on foot being subjected to either dust or mud (depending on the season). The absence of formed footpaths means pedestrians have to continually vacate the road (in some cases little more than a rough creek bed) and stand on the side as vehicles pass hoping not to be covered in dust or sprayed with mud. It is a constant question as to why there is not more agitation to repair roads, however, I suspect the majority of pedestrians probably prefer the very rough roads as an effective traffic device to slow vehicles down.

 

The next form of people transport is the pushbike, however, they are not very common probably due to cost and the difficulty of the poor road surfaces and the impracticality in the rainy season. William Msilu, foodwatershelter’s Librarian for the new Kesho Leo Francis Kealy Library, takes great pride in his pushbike but has to spend considerable time after arrival cleaning the mud off his pushbike. During the wet and muddy season he is regularly forced to push or carry his pushbike as the surfaces make riding impossible.

Road surface too uneven to ride a push bike

William, fws' Kesho Leo Librarian, cleans his pushbike before starting work

A very recent form of people transport is the piki piki (motor bike). This change has occurred in the last 18 months most probably due to the readily available cheap imports from China. There are now hundreds of piki piki in the unregulated taxi industry. Helmets are not common for the riders and are non-existent for their passengers. It is however quicker and arguably more comfortable than the dala dala (local mini bus service) and is quickly assuming a major significance. The cost for a trip of about 6km is 2,000-3,000 Tanzanian shillings (Tsh) or AU$1.30 to $1.80). So, If you like extreme adventure then I would recommend a short trip on one of these!

A piki piki takes a load...

The dala dala (local mini bus service) is the most common and economical form of vehicular transport for people. They are designed to accommodate 14 passengers (max) but commonly transport 20+ passengers making for quite uncomfortable conditions. Most are in a poor state of repair, exasperated by the rough roads which take a toll on these light, overloaded vehicles. During the wet seasons, it is not unusual for passengers to have to get out and push the vehicle through the mud. The fare for the same 6km trip is 300Tsh or AU$0.20.

Dala Dala (local mini bus service)

Another form of people transport is the taxi which is commonly a standard sedan that is in poor condition. There are no meters calculating the journey’s cost, but you can expect to pay approximately 15,000Tsh (approximately AU$16) for the same 6km trip and is therefore only used by those who have a higher form of income. As taxis are only two wheel drive with standard clearance, they can be somewhat limited in the wet season over all the bumps and pot holes on the roads of Arusha.

Due to such transport limitations, most schools have their own bus services for transporting students, so they are a common sight on the roads. An example of this can be seen with the fleet of buses from The School of St.Jude (largely supported by Australian sponsors) which has a 22 bus fleet for their many students from all over Arusha.

School of St. Jude Bus

Arusha is arguably the Safari capital of Africa and therefore a large number of 4 wheel drive safari vehicles, many long wheel base, are specially fitted. Land Rovers are most common for safari vehicles, however, Toyota dominate the vehicles that are generally available. For the more affluent, there a range of expensive 4 wheel drive vehicles that are used.

Larger buses are used for travel between the city centres and between countries, they are generally not air conditioned and are certainly not luxury coaches…..and they go very fast!

Luxury Bus Coach

As can be seen, local travel can be challenging and at times a little uncomfortable but it does not seem to greatly concern the locals who accept it and take it in their stride.