The Fun, The Frolics, The Pain, The Sadness, and The Love

Greetings!!

Sorry it's been a slightly longer gap between blogs this week. We have had very little spare time lately, until today which has been the most chilled day you can think of, so now I am going to continue filling you in on our adventures and accidents in Africa.

Last week I think I finished talking about Tuleeni Orphanage, finishing some work up at the school, and it was the eve of our trip to Marangu, and a Chagga tribe, but firstly due to a personal request from an anonymous persona, whom I must reassure about the safety of Porky the Porcupine, who has so far evaded the claws of Simba (Also now known as Billy Ricky) and is doing fine in camp.With that done we can fill you in on the rest of the news from Tanzania.

The trip to Marangu, the waterfalls, the tunnels, the blacksmith and the Chagga was FANTASTIC!!! It was great to see all the climbers of Kilimanjaro embarking on the first part of their 9 day trek up the mountain. Many of us are so jealous that we are discussing climbing it in the future. However, it was a brief trip to Marangu, as we quickly moved on to the local Chagga village, with an additional blacksmith's. It was great to see how they coped with the lack of a forge, and their improvised bellows. I had a go at operating the bellows, but unfortunately I was terrible to the great amusement of the blacksmith. Many people bought magnificent hand-crafted spears, and jewelery from there. As well as this, we met a man who had caught a chameleon for us, which was great, as we had him on our hands, and he/she was fascinating to watch. However, because of the way the man treated him, and intented to keep him, and stuck him in a leather bag to take home, away from the chameleon's habitat, me and Stefan decided to buy him (Stefan did the actual buying) for 5000 Tshillings of the Tanzanian realm. The man was not happy, but we convinced him to give him to us, which he eventually did, and we then took him away and released him into the wild.

Next, we went down some tunnels where the Chagga people kept their entire livelihood's whilst at war with the Masai, for maybe weeks at a time. Now, many people ready this blog may have been on a school trip to the WWI trenches in Ypres with school. These tunnels were like the trenches on smaller, and much more extensive. Your view of the entrance to the tunnels was of a ladder extending down for about 7 feet, with a tiny entrance, roughly 2 feet high which you had to crawl through to continue into the tunnels with no lights. For the first time ever I felt slightly claustrophobic about these tunnels. However, once we had descended I was very glad that I had not backed out at the last. They are very extensive and cleverly built, to be undetectable to the attacking Masai, and it was very easy to imagine yourself as a Chagga living underground. It was warm, and it was basically a small village underground, but one of the downsides was that you could not stand. There were no lights, and one of our guides down there said that he could travel through the tunnels without lights, an idea which did scare me, with the idea of getting lost down there (however our guide had been down over 1000 times which gave him the slight advantage)

Lastly, we journeyed on to a waterfall, which was truly spectacular. Having never seen a waterfall, let alone swum in the pool beneath it, it was very surreal actually frolicking around under it. It was one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. The natural beauty and atmosphere of the place was only increased with our rendition of the video of Peter Andre's 'Mysterious Girl' which has been videoed in itself and I'm sure it will be on Facebook for all the ladies (and gents) to view at their pleasure.

Now, onto more serious and interesting topics. Work has continued up at Mbokomu Primary as usual, with great leaps towards finishing plastering the inside of the dining hall. It is just the finishing touches, along with the floor to be cemented, then we are able to move onto the outside of the hall. In addition to this, we have started building the joists to finish the roof off. It's been great work, sawing, hammering, and great for uniting the group itself. We have done 6 joists so far and must do another 4 to then lift up and fit into place for the completion of the roof. I have not taught this week, as other members in camp wanted the chance, but I am teaching a class tomorrow, which I'm looking forward to.

We visited Tuleeni Orphanage again yesterday, which I think went even better than the first trip. There were fewer children about, but it made it much more intimate with the children. However, it was also much sadder than the first time, due to a small 5 year old girl named Vie, who we had not met on our previous trip because she has been in hospital with malaria. She is undertaking ongoing treatment, but she broke our hearts at how fragile she was. It is not fair for her to have malaria when a mosquito net costs 90p to make in Tanzania.We fell in love with her so much that we donated money to provide some more mosquito nets for the kids, but it was a very difficult time, and every returned to camp quietly, each of us contemplating Vie's fate, and more respectful of our own mosquito nets. No matter how annoying they are at night wrapping round your legs, and sticking to your face, they save lives, which I think is a good enough reason for me to continue to use it.

A big news story on camp life this weeks is that relationships have been sprouting up all over the place. We have 3 couples, and another 2 potential couples that have appeared. This has, surprisingly, not caused any major problems (so far) although there was a slight tiff between girls over a certain lad, but that has been sorted now : )  On the other hand, tensions and arguments are running high between people mainly on the work side of things, with people who work hard all day long, feeling slightly peeved at the people who are not pulling their weight, or not working at all every day, or leave half an hour earlier than the rest of the group. This issue has been raised, and this week should hopefully see an improvement.

There are also tensions between characters in camp, with differing personalities, and opinions (which is obvious), but they shall have to wait until the next blog entry, which will have a full character analysis.

I'm loving every minute of this trip, it's awesome, showers are still cold, food is great, I am yet to have too many bites, although yesterday I did get seriously burnt all down my front in the midday sun (very painful) but it's already turning brown : ) hahaha!!!

Until next time peers

Josh