Day 8 and 9

Day 8

Today we were leaving Geita and travelling back to Mwanza. Robert and Shabani picked us up about 10ish. To begin with it wasn’t raining but after a while the rain started. I was sat in the back of the car catching up on our blog, so Pete was sat in the front taking some photos.

As you can see we were still in pineapple country.

In this area it also seems that donkeys are widely kept and used for pulling carts..

There were also lots of rice fields with people working in them.

But now it was starting to rain again!!

A typical African town in the rain!!

The rain was so heavy there was now a “river” running down the road.

We could tell we were getting near to the ferry port when we started seeing the large rocks again.

And very soon the ferry port and a ferry came into view.

Today we were really lucky as when we got down to the port there were hardly any cars or buses ahead of us and so Shabani and the car actually got onto this ferry, and so did we and very soon after boarding the ferry departed. As it was raining Robert wanted to sit inside.

Pete, Robert and I spent the time chatting and Shabani was sat a bit further back having got some food.. As usual we were the only white faces onboard. In fact we hadn’t seen another white face since leaving Mwanza 3 days ago. The crossing only seemed to take about 20 minutes and soon we joined the queue of people disembarking.

As you can see it was still very wet and muddy. We found Shabani and the car pretty quickly and were soon on our way to Mwanza. We stopped on the outskirts of the town for lunch, at a bar that Shabani likes. We had fish, chicken, chips, bananas and cabbage and it was very good. As you can see though the weather was still not great. I had worn a cardigan almost continually for the last 2 days, something I have never done in Tanzania before.

After lunch Shabani dropped us back at Ryans Bay Hotel where we had stayed before. We checked in and were shown to our room and were very surprised to find we had been given a suite!! On questioning the receptionist about this we were told that they were almost fully booked for the night and so we had been upgraded........Excellent news!!

Our room also has a massive balcony as it is the last room in the building.

Once we had settled in, the weather seemed to improve so we went down to the bar for a drink. The sun had actually come out so we celebrated with our first bottle of wine of the trip. We both did some stuff on the internet and Pete also did a spot of bird ( and cat) watching.

Apparently this is a Black Eyed Bulbul,

This is a very sweet cat that Pete took a fancy to,

And this is a Black Winged Red Bishop

We then had a quiet evening, dinner on the hotel terrace and then bed.

Day 9

This morning we walked down to the ACTT office as for once it wasn’t raining. When we arrived Robert wasn’t there so we spent a bit of time chatting with the staff. My sister had given me some soft toys she had crocheted to give to any children we knew. Both Caro and Justina at ACTT have had babies in the last year so I handed over 2 toys. Justina actually wasn’t in the office this morning so I gave both to Caro so she could pass one on to Justina.

Soon Robert arrived back at the office and we then set out to visit Kayenze Ndogo School to collect some letters that the children had written in reply to letters that we had left there last week from the children at Meadowbrook School in Bristol.

You don’t have to drive very far out of the centre of Mwanza before you lose the tarmac road and have to drive on a very rough dirt track - see below

The drive to the school took about 40 minutes

 After a while we turned off the wider dirt track onto a narrower dirt track

And eventually reached the school. As always the kids are very excited to see wazungu (foreigners).

It was a fairly brief visit. We met one of the teachers and some of the children who had written the letters. We also took a few photos of the children with the 2 laptops they now have, one from us last year and another this year from Meadowbrook School.

Pete and I have now finished visiting all the schools that we are currently supporting in Mwanza, Geita and Chato so have given ourselves a few days of R&R before we travel to Moshi to spend time with the schools we support there and of course ACTT.

We returned to our hotel in time for lunch but the heavens opened again so we decided to eat inside.

But by the time we had finished lunch the rain had stopped  and the sun was out.

We returned to our room and sat on the balcony for a bit before going for a swim.

Later this afternoon we had more rain followed by the best rainbow I have ever seen. It was a complete arc.

Then while we were having dinner there was a nice sunset and after it got dark we could see all the lights from the fishing boats.

Tomorrow we are off to spend 3 nights at Little Okavanga Camp which is located between the Ndabaka gate to the Serengeti and Lake Victoria, where we are hoping to do a bit of bird watching and relaxing. Then on Monday we fly to Moshi.

I may take a break from blogging whilst at the camp but will catch up once we are in Moshi.

Day 7 - Part 2

It was still raining when we left Rutunguru and headed to Katemwa A Primary School. The drive took about 15 minutes and the rain just got heavier.

On arrival we were met by Emmanual the ICT teacher and taken to the computer room which was full of people, including the Ward Executive Officer and Education Officer, the head of the local CCM party, the village chair representative, the school committee, chair, vice chair and other members and of course lots of teachers including the head teacher, deputy head and academic master. They had even drawn a welcome picture on the blackboard.

We have noticed that when visiting these schools in Geita and Chato there is a huge interest from the local community and the local education office as well as from the actual school, compared to when we visit schools in Arusha and Moshi. I think this shows how much the support that we offer means to these schools. It seems that very few Western visitors ever come to these areas and so the fact that we do visit and keep coming back seems to be appreciated by everyone in the local community, they really are very very grateful for any support they get. It is for this reason that all the new schools we have supported this year are in these areas and I think this is likely to be the same in the future .

Emmanual had prepared a brief report which he presented to everyone. At this point it was raining so heavily, he was having to talk over the top of the noise from the rain on the tin roof. He reported that the school now has 3521 pupils and 29 teachers. At present around 1500 pupils can use the computers  including 312 from the local Secondary School and 180 from other schools in the local community. He then out lined all the benefits of having the computers and some challenges they still face.

We have supported this school since 2017 and at present they have 6 desktop computers, 1 laptop, projector and printer.  Over the last year they have made some savings by being able to prepare and print the exam papers themselves. They have used the money saved along with some money raised by the school committee, to buy a photocopier which is great.

Emmanual had then organised for some of the students to demonstrate their computer skills. This was a very competent display by all students who were able to explain exactly what they were doing at each stage of the demonstration.

They showed us how to use Microsoft Word,

Microsoft Excel,

Microsoft Publisher,

Searching the Internet and using the projector so everyone could see what they were doing.

Drawing and Painting,

Playing Games and Music

Then, as usual there were many speeches from the teachers, local community members and education officers as well as the CCM politician, all thanking us for our support and asking us to continue to help them.

We then presented them with 3 “Thin Client” computers to try out for us. Thin Client computers are much cheaper than a standard desk top computer. They were originally designed as a work station for a central server network but have been modified with a small amount of internal memory to carry their own operating system with external programs like Microsoft office and other programs being run directly from external flash drives. The school will be using the computer for the children to learn and practice their ICT skills so do not need a large amount of memory so this sort of computer will be ideal for them. We also supplied them with 3 flash drives with all the educational software loaded on. We have asked Emmanual to try them out for us with the pupils and report back as to how he gets on. If they work well then we will use more of them in the future which will mean we can provide even more schools with computers.

It was now about 5.30pm, well after the school day should have finished. We left the school and drove back to Chato to get some dinner at a place recommended by the Education Officer. It was a typical Tanzanian meal of rice, beans and either fish or chicken. It was actually pretty good.

We then drove back to Katoro to drop off Hamisi and then on to Geita, arriving back at our hotel around quarter to 9. It had been a long day so we just went back to our room and pretty soon we were in bed.