Moshi and back to Arusha

I went to Moshi for the weekend and it was fabulous. I took the bus in on Friday and wandered the city for awhile by myself until the other people staying in my hostel got back from their projects. Moshi is much safer than Arusha. I did however, collect quite an entourage of local men following me at one point - this happens often. On the way back to the hostel I chatted with a 14 year old boy who ended the conversation with, "I am so excited to have talked with a white woman teacher today! I will dream of it tonight!" Then he proceeded to ask for my phone number.

I stayed at Hostel Hoff which is a hostel just for volunteers. It feeds into several local orphanages and while in my opinion it could be run more efficiently it is an excellent way to do volunteer work without committing to a set period of time and you actually get to work in villages. It costs about 20-24$ a night which includes breakfast and dinner. I believe it could run off of 6-12$/night since they do not donate to the orphanages, but it is still a good idea and it provides a wealth of networking opportunities as I found out.

When I got back to the hostel on Friday I met with Amanda, an Aussie who helps run the hostel. She told me about her current project which is separate from the other projects in the hostel. She volunteers for an NGO that helps children in a village at the base of Kilimanjaro. Recently, she took an 8 year old girl to the hospital who had been badly burned carrying water in an accident that occurred 2 years ago. It was a 3rd degree burn and the skin never reformed. Apparently the medical bills came out to 100$. They also build houses for people who cannot afford them. The cost of building a house for a family is 300$. Most of the families there cannot even afford to leave their village. Their average income is about 5,000 Tanzanian Shillings a week for everyone in the family added together. This is about 5$. Amanda's job is to take the kids to the hospital and arrange for houses to be built. She does not get paid.

Saturday I went to Newlands village orphanage about 45 minutes from Moshi with the other volunteers from Hostel Hoff. It was actually a really nice place. The kids were not sick and they didn't beat on each other like they do at other orphanages. There were about 70 and only 3 had HIV. It was a beautiful little village - pretty much exactly what you would envision. It was complete with naked little boys playing in the stream while their mothers washed clothes. I'm sure the stream was full of parasites, but it was still quite picturesque. I was supposed to teach sex ed to the older girls, but the woman who runs the orphanage was stuck in a meeting with the pastor who is apparently a bastard so there was no program. We just played with the kids for about 6 hours. The girls promptly took a liking to my hair (all their heads are shaved) and began braiding it, which was good since I didn't quite know what to do with them without a program. Some of them seemed pretty smart. Not all of them attend school at the orphanage - most are in government schools which are sometimes very harsh and full of shitty teachers. One girl's hand was swollen up where she was beaten in school. Apparently this is a good orphanage because the woman who runs it actually took her to a doctor and also insisted to speak to the teacher who did it.

I made several friends at the hostel who might come by Arusha - this is good because I don't feel any great kinship with most of the others in my program. I also talked to a woman staying there who is starting up her own project in January.

I got back on the bus Sunday for Arusha and now here I am. Going to Moshi was very good. I would have just been bored to hell if I had stayed behind. But now I face the reality of my current project which so far has been a reality of boredom and meaninglessness. I am trying to be patient, but I have other things I can do if the school doesn't need me and when there are government schools that need teachers so badly it seems hard to justify my current post. After a week they have finally come up with something that I can do. I will assist with a 1 hour long class that is dedicated entirely to reading aloud and answering questions. That is fine...but it is not enough to justify my staying if I can be more useful elsewhere. It is frustrating. I also would still prefer to be in a village.

Nothing is worse than boring easy work. I will give it more time though. If it doesn't improve in the next few weeks I might see about heading off to Kenya or Uganda. Most people with our program feel unfulfilled too I think. Maybe I should have just sacked up and done PeaceCorp. I think about that sometimes. That and teaching in Thailand. I have heard that there are MA programs that you can do while in PeaceCorp - if anyone has more details on this, please share.

I am generally having a good time, I just have doubts about the program and I am not too terribly fond of Arusha. Anyway, I am sure it will work out. My next objective is to find more expats and PeaceCorp volunteers in Arusha.