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.
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| fws volunteer village, Arusha, Tanzania |
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| 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.
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| Outdoor showers |
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| Compost Toilets |
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| 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.
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| 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.
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