You're never fully dressed......

......without a smile

There are so many wonderful smiles, and they show you just how great all the different personalities are here. I hope this blog gives you a taste of what I am lucky to see every day teaching these fabulous children and working with the many talented smiling adults.

Boisterous Bryton, never a dull moment with this happy little guy, one of the youngest members of Chekechea.

Marvellous Magdalena, daughter of one of our employees John, Magdalena is master of the hula hoop and takes after her Dad in being a true gem in every sense.

Esta and Sharoni, no need for buggies in this part of the world

Clockwise from glitter girl Eliza, (not sure about the half face), Bryton, Claudia, Daniel and Stephano.

Racy Rama, if he's not sitting in a box you'll find him racing up and down the Chekechea room with anything that has wheels.

Beautiful Bernard. Polite, intelligent,and already a true gentleman (he'll make a great husband one day!)

Sister Act - Sharoni and Nai, 2 shining stars

Great buddies, Margaret, Leah and David

House Mama Eliza, always a warm welcome from this super busy mother of 4


Energetic Erick, always full of life, Erick doesn't have the full use of one side of his body, do you think this stops him from flying around the Chekechea room at play time.....of course not.

Nanci never ceases to amaze, full of fun and warm smiles just like her mother Eliza.

Aggie and Maswai, our lovely duo, with Tanzanian hair..........

with Irish hair........

And last but not least the wonderful group of volunteers

Keep smiling!

By Brenda Droog

Every day is different here in Sinon, so instead of trying to think of one thing to write about for this blog, I thought I’d keep a photo diary for the week instead..

Sunday

Like everywhere else in the world, Sunday is a rest day here in Tanzania, so some of us volunteers headed in to town to see Mama C (cooler than cool African American blues/jazz singer) perform at Massai Camp, and were treated to an unexpected fashion show by a localdesigner. The clothes were made from Kangas and Kitenge (vibrantly bold local fabrics.. Kangas are the bright pieces of fabric that women here wear over their clothes), and shukas (massai blankets). There were some interesting designs which may well provide some inspiration for our mamas future clothing range. Just as with most things Tanzanian, the show was full of happy energy, bright colours and beaming smiles.

Monday

Monday is usually an office day for me, so it was a nice surprise at lunch time when we had a visit from Aggie’s mama and little sister, seven year old Naomi. They are visiting from their home in Kenya for about a week, and Aggie was excited to show them her workplace and to introduce us all. We enjoyed a lunch of beans and chapati together and took some happy pics before saying kwaheri.

Tuesday

Yesterday I had planned to go to town today to go to the bank and to get one of the sewing machines fixed, but I should know by now not to make plans that far in advance. We’ve been expecting some money to be transferred from Australia, but it still hasn’t come through, so the town trip will have to wait until the funds arrive. Maybe tomorrow…

Tuesday afternoons I help Brenda teach the Mamas computer class, so I headed to Kesho Leo just after lunch, and as usual was joined by some kids whowanted to walk with me, hold my hand and practise their English. In class the Mamas added a couple of sentences (in English) to their emails they have been working on.

After class Brenda and I had to get back to the volunteer village for the weekly team meeting so we piled onto the back of the ute, and after some gangster rapper style posing, we headed home. A wedding was being held about half way home, and we got stuck in a bit of a traffic jam (in the photo it looks like just one other car, but there were actually two). Caused quite a delay, really! After our weekly team meeting where we discussed everything from solar panels to hand washing, we headed to the Engo (local pub) for chipsi mayai and an Eagle.

Wednesday

Wednesday morning started with a budget meeting at Kesho Leo with Mudi, Kelsey, Eve, Barry and I. Ester (one of the Kesho Leo house mamas) surprised us with some delicious sweet potato from the Kesho Leo organic farm. I had some spare minutes to do a quick walk around, got a quick pic of the chekechea (kindergarten), and sewing room.

Then it was off to town to get one of our sewing machines fixed, and what you would expect to be a simple trip always turns into a half day job.. town is hectic and the traffic is slow moving but crazy, and you have to be prepared to dodge people, wheelbarrows and daladalas (pic of that is under Tuesday for some

reason, oops!).

That night we had a barbecue at the vollage for Tom & Helens last night here (Karens visiting family), and being very generous and supportive people, they contributed some cash so that the volunteers could have a table and some chairs in the new garden Eve is working on in the vollage. Thank you Tom & Helen!

Thursday

Usually I have a Kiswahili lesson on Thursday mornings, but had to cancel to go to town to get some fws money from the bank. I had to pick up Mudi and some timber from the mill on the way back.. I just had to remember to turn left at the shoes..

Brenda and I had computer class in the afternoon at the vollage so we could introduce the mamas to the internet. Moses and Richard have been working on the water tank pipes and also building a wall in the vollage all week and kindly posed for a pic.

Friday

Office day.. Lucas helped with some Excel work while I prepared the pay envelopes for Saturday. After the pays were organised, Barry presented me with a cheque for 1200 euros (!) for foodwatershelter, money his family raised in Ireland by holding a trivia night. Huge thank you to the Ryan family!

posted by Bec McQueen (Kesho Leo Bursar)

Its winter here and although you wouldn't expect a place this close to the equator to get even a little chilly, because of our altitude (1400m) we do tend to get our fair share of crisp mornings and lately some windy, pretty miserable days. So I find myself with my second head cold in about a month, chilly toes (Ok, my own fault, I am a very reluctant shoe wearer but I promise that as soon as I finish writing this I will put on socks and boots. Just for you mum) and a hot water bottle stuffed under my cardy while I hunch over the computer in my almost grumpy mood.
Grrr...I really hate being sick. I don't get sick much at home, I can only reassure myself that my seemingly frail, sickly body must be actually be successfully fighting off hundreds, no, thousands of African superbugs, parasites, diseases.....maybe?
We've had some pretty interesting ones lately, I got some strange rashy, tingly thing which may have been a spider bite or may have been the result of some dubious washing powder, who can say? Kelsey got the dreaded... the much talked about but rarely seen... toe worms - yep that's right, little worms that burrow into your feet to lay their egg sacks. Gross. But strangely fascinating. Kelsey definitely got some street cred for those.
Brenda got what really must've been a spider bite as her foot swelled up and she got a welt with a flamey (? Really, it looked hot-rod-esque, only it was a dark maroon colour) bruise, Barry has a festering wound on his leg that took him to the hospital today and tonight he went a funny grey colour as he described the razor blade/tweezers/antiseptic session that ensued, none-the-less it sounds like the nurse did a pretty thorough job of sorting it out and he is now on a course of antibiotics (Pole sana Barry, none of us likes taking those things). So, sickies all round, and that's not even counting all the little things we volunteers get like diarrhoea, nausea, food poisoning, cheap-wine induced night terrors, headaches, or, after one particularly good Saturday night out, all of the above.

Anyhow I have been trying to use my sick time wisely, writing new fact sheets for our enviro pages on food forests (One of my favorite topics) and swales, and doing up companion-planting charts in Kiswahili and English for the farm office. Yep garden nerd, that's me. The farm is really coming into it's own these days we are getting fabo vegies from our vegie gardens and the first three of our still-young banana palms have fruit forming. Our food forest is settling in and already from this area we are harvesting sweet potatoes and fodder for the cows and goats in the form of indigenous napier grass, planted on swales between nitrogen fixing leaucaenas. The avocado frees and mangoes are covered in new growth and passion fruit vines are sending up long tendrils looking for their next upward spot to twine. Anton and I made an arbour in the vegie garden for our passion fruit vines over the path and already it is nearly covered. Mudi refers to it as Eves house of passion; in Kiswahili the fruit part is dropped and it is just called passion, which is an unfortunate second language thing! (He knows better though, just being cheeky as usual)

So, its now several hours later, we have just had our weekly team meeting and I am newly adorned with a beanie, scarf, two jumpers, jeans thick socks and boots and the evening wind is bitter. None-the-less I am bravely heading out into the night air with the others to the good old Engo Sheraton where chipsi-mayai (Chips in an omelet) awaits. Mmmm....