Archive for the Newsletters Category

When we first arrived in Kandashe…

Posted by johnson on Monday, August 29, 2011 at 2:08 am

When we first arrived in Kandashe, day cornstalks waving to us from the draught-ridden earth, thick dust from the roads clinging to our throats, threadbare clothes clinging to running children backs, the inundation of our surrounding was overwhelming. Nothing was familiar-every action, every conversation, every gesture required attention and thought.

Even greeting someone proved exhausting, it seemed that there were over a thousand ways to greet someone on the road. What may be conveyed in a mere nod of the head (or in Boston, a complete disregard of the other person’s presence) had here developed in a ten minutes or deal. Furthermore, if you don’t greet someone properly you may have a thirty minutes of inquiry as to why you don’t know Swahili. Yet show that you know even the slightest bit and you are standing on the road for half an hour explaining your life story.

In short, we discovered, nothing here is short. And so, we learned to great people. We accepted invitations from those who graciously invited us into their homes, we drank the chai (tea) and ate the hard boiled eggs that they were graciously offered. Despite the cost to the family, the men and women that we met were eager to show us kindness and hospitality, even though we were not the ones with water to fetch and families to feed. Luther was always the least surprised “that’s just what we have been doing,” It became his standard response.

One day, after waiting for two hours for a group of mama’s who never showed, we noticed that Kandashe’s vice Executive officer had been sitting outside of the village offices.

“shikamoo mzee, pole” (hello sir, sorry)

“Asante, Marahaba what are you doing?” (thank you, hello)

“We had prepared to teach the mama’s of Chem Chem at 2pm but no one came”

“Ah, we were supposed to have a village leaders meeting at 10 but none of them came either”

Again, Luther explained.

“Yeah, that’s just how we do”

We were learning, slowly, exactly how and what to do

By the second week, Emily had mastered greetings in Kimeru, the local language spoken in Leguruki, causing mama’s and baba’s to bend over in disbelieving laughter each time she said “kwanto” instead of good morning. Inevitably, every man and woman wanted her to greet them and wanted to converse with a foreigner in their native language-thankful for the fact that an outsider had taken the time to learn.

Luther learned or already knew, exactly how to approach a teaching. Engaging our school children to participate, coaxing our ladies to pay attention, encouraging our students to listen and ask questions,  his voice, his gestures, his words all tailored to me specific individual or audience. And so, in this way, we gained respected and formed friendships. We weren’t the two foreigners from England and America here with the Tanzanian from Arusha. We were Emiliana, Katarina and Luther. Our school children sang spontaneously, unprovoked bursts of song and villagers answered each other’s questions during teachings.

I can remember every hope we had the day we first moved to Kandashe , the numbers we wanted to teach, and the facts we wanted every student to recite. Some we may have met, many we most likely didn’t. Yet, looking at our community teachings chart on the wall, I’ve realized exactly what I’ve learned here during our six weeks in Kandashe.

Our success hasn’t been measured in numbers; the goals we made and figures we attempted to reach, though helpful, are now superfluous and what matters most, now 80 hours of teaching later, is the fact that a difference was made. Men who had previously taken an adamant stance against condoms asked where to buy them, women who firmly believed HIV was transmitted through saliva grew to understand why it is not, girls who claimed men have power over everything came to the realization, “my body is my own.” I have learned that our success is to be measured not by the sum, but rather the parts.

We did not reach all of Kandashe, some villagers remained unconvinced, many remain untaught, yet, despite this we left Kandashe separate from that which we found, and we are certainly departing with more knowledge than we left behind.

Contributed by: The Kandashe teaching group – Katherine, Emily, and Luther

Review your experiences with SIC and be entered to win an around-the-world ticket!

Posted by dana on Saturday, August 27, 2011 at 7:48 am

GO! Overseas was started with the simple idea of creating a centralized website to provide the resources required for meaningful travel abroad. That idea has grown and expanded into a community driven website of like minded people who are all passionate about teaching, studying and volunteering abroad. GO! Overseas features a popular ‘Help Me Find a Program’ forum where users regularly discuss a wide range of travel topics, and a blog community where we have brought together a wealth of overseas travel experiences. We also regularly post insightful articles to help expand the community’s knowledge about opportunities to travel abroad.

Please join us in our mission to build a great online community for any and all people interested in meaningful travel abroad!

Maweni’s village update

Posted by anna on Tuesday, August 16, 2011 at 12:58 am

Mambo from the Maweni group! We have been here for nearly two weeks and our teaching and bodily schedules have begun to settle, we are continually itching for opportunities to meet new faces and explore this beautiful village. Maweni is a gorgeous place. Our village is nestled up against the lush Mbula mountain range. The main road we use to get in and out of the Magara ward runs parallel to the mountains and splits our village in half. We live on the half with the mountain range and when looking away from them, you see a huge open savannah spotted with goats, cows, and straw huts. A dense thicket of acacia trees dots the horizon where every morning the sunrise lights the sky with bright pink and orange color. It’s a spectacular sight to wake up to. There are five of us in our teaching group, 2 teaching partners and 3 volunteers. The five of us are living with two families on the grounds of the primary school and we wake up every morning to the song and clamor of nearly 600 students. We teach the older primary school students in standards 4 – 7 twice a week. We cover everything from puberty, to cell biology, to HIV progression to whether or not we can predict when it will rain (a student asked us this question last week). Our goal during every class is to have each student laugh at least once. Outside the classroom students often come up to us asking more questions. In exchange we usually join in on their games of soccer or goat herding. In addition to teaching at the primary school, we also meet with community groups. We have had the great privilege of being involved in several community groups that offered us teaching time. Last Saturday we attended a Lutheran church service with a wonderful pastor and choir. Following the service we were able to briefly cover HIV transmission and prevention, and talk a little about testing and stigma. Several Mamas and Babas asked great questions. After our teaching we were led outside to take part in the auction. Church’s hold auctions after the service to raise money for the church community. It is typical for people to bring fruits, vegetables, or chickens to auction off for money. Nearly everything that was bought was given to us, the guests. It was a deeply humbling and welcoming ritual.

The next day we were able to visit some of SIC’s HIV+ patients in Maweni. Our Community Health Worker (CHW), Massanga, helped us set up a time where we could go see the patients in their homes. It was a very moving experience. We brought with us the gifts we had received the day before at church as a thank you to the patients for allowing us to meet with them and see their homes. The highlight of this week was teaching at the Mamas clinic under a huge mango tree. There were over 90 women all with their adorable children crowded around the five of us reading our posters and diagrams.  We were able to do a male and female condom demonstration for them. It was a huge success! On a daily basis we hug, fist pump, tickle, and laugh with several dozen small children that congregate whenever “wazungu” (us) come near. The thought of leaving our families and friends in 6 short weeks is saddening. We are definitely making the most of our time here with our community. We look forward to continue teaching in our primary school as we watch the kids learn and grasp the material we are teaching.

Contributed by: The Maweni teaching group (VP3)

We are big fans of Miririni!

Posted by anna on Thursday, August 11, 2011 at 6:53 am

Incredible views of Mount Meru and mount Kilimanjaro, sunsets so pretty I sometimes think they are fake, the bluest lake with the pinkest flamingos, and fields of corn for miles. Needless to say, we are big fans of Miririni.

With just 6 more days here we’re now wrapping up our curriculum with or secondary school and two primary schools all while attempting to squeeze in a few more community teachings before we have to leave our amazing village.

This past week we had two testing days. The first was for our entire community and we were able to test 32 people. Today we had our testing event at the secondary school complete with music, dancing, Tanzania’s favorite meal – rice and beans, and of course HIV testing. Today we were able to test 120 students and a few teachers.

These numbers mean a lot to us. When we firs arrived here the village was welcoming, but seemed very resistant to talking openly about HIV/AIDS. But today was proof that a dialogue has been started. We have no fear for the future of Miririni.

I don’t think I am even going to forget my standard 3s shouting out “Mwalimu” (teacher) through missing front teeth, or the inevitable shouts and giggles as I demonstrated proper female condom use to form 2s.

And we wont soon forget these people, all that we’ve learned from them in our time here and the intensely bright starts.

We are incredibly sad to leave but so grateful for this experience.

Contributed by: Elaine and the rest of the Miririni teaching group

Summer Job 2011 in Maruvango

Posted by anna on Thursday, August 11, 2011 at 1:48 am

Right, so summer Job 2011. So after all of our prefield training at Peace House we were assigned our villages. Maruvango is situated at the bottom of Leguruki ward, with occasional views of Kilimanjaro and cornfields crisscrossed with dusty roads that cover us in so much dirt that not even half moonlit bucket showers can get us clean. We are all in very friendly homestays who feed us well with rice, beans, veggies, and lots of fresh bananas and avocados. Old and young greet us with “mzungu” (foreigner) as we walk around the village, ensuring that our “knee boobs” are covered appropriately with our kitenge/kanga skirts. Wherever you walk you will hear disembodied voices saying “Mambo,” and have no idea where the voices are coming from.

Both teaching and testing have had their success, creating some memorable moments. Teaching at 2 primary schools and at one secondary school for lessons of 80 minutes at a time with our Tanzanian teaching partners, Juliana and Suzan, who are both from Arusha, has been great. We teaching over 100 students at a time – it has been a challenge, but they certainly love our dancing. We’ve been accepted into the community with open arms, in some cases receiving several marriage proposals at a time from the football team who we’ve taught. These proposals are surprising given our attire in the villages, which would definitely have boys running in the opposite direction elsewhere. Church teachings have been interesting – our first church experience involved the 4-hour service, full of intense preaching and singing.

To burn off our rice babies, we have attempted to exercise along the dusty roads, completely destroying our trainers. Children try to run alongside of us, which is quite irritating, but the odd old man running in flip flops beside us is very entertaining. Everyone says “poleni” as we run, which basically translates as “I’m so sorry that you have to do that.” I think walking is enough here so voluntary exercise comes as a shock. For example our cornfield “circuits” session, where squat thrusts, sprints, and the plank, drew in about 30 small children who just stood there staring. Overall we are wazungu…exercising. This exercise session in particular failed miserably as we ended p laughing too much. At least our abs got a work out – all the better for those Zanzibar beach bodies (which was such a fun break!)

Village life has certainly been different from our average American/British lifestyles, but certainly an experience that couldn’t really be anywhere else.

Tanzanian love from,

Claire, Kieley, Juliana, Laura, Jenna, and Suzan!

Team Shishtoni

Posted by anna on Monday, August 1, 2011 at 2:16 am

Greetings from Shistoni where mules hyperventalate and eating 6 bananas a day is completely normal. The past week has been a hugely productive one in the life of team Shishtoni. We finished up our two weeks of teaching at Eting’are Primary School, where as always, students of all ages crammed 5-to-a-desk to get a seat in our teachings. Playing jeopardy as a review activity was hugely successful with our primary kids, ad now when they see us wandering arounding the village they run up to us and ask to “pasha” with us — a fun activitiy we use to keep students engaged during class. This week was also our first week teaching students at Shishtni secondary school, and with our jam-packed classes of over 100 students we quickly learned that teaching the big kids is a whole new ballgame. They already knew all about HIV transmission, but we did manage to teach them a super sweet ABK rap to help them remember some HIV prevention strategies. After school one afternoon we attended a relaxing pickup football match where we recieved no fewer than 5 marriage proposals from some strapping young Shishtoni lads. Flattered, of course, we proceeded to give them a complete condom demonstration. Last week before we deomonstrated condoms for the village leaders one of the leaders asked, “What is this condom you speak of? Is it a drug or something?” Luckily we were able to set him straight. Though Shishtoni mostly consists of born again Christians who condemn condom use, we are starting to find individuals who are eager to learn about condoms and their benefits.

This last week was also an important one because of the immense progress we made in planning our HIV testing day which happened on Sunday. Our village leaders are notoriously hard to pin down because of a scandalous corruption trial that is currently going on involving our mwenyekiti (town mayor), but this week we were lucky enough to catch the vice-mwenyekiti, or VEO, in his office to talk about our testing day with him. Once he gave us his stamp of approval we began spending every spare moment making signs to publicize testing day and telling everyone we saw, most especially our students, that they should attend. Our favorite tool to use in spreading the news is an SIC megaphone, which blasts the Titanic song, “My Heart Will Go On” through Shistoni’s rolling cornfields at a most impressive volume. The testing day was a great success. Over 40 people got tested, a great turnout!

Our SIC CHW Mr. Mbise has been an amazing resource for us throughout the planning for testing day putting us in touch with the town caller and helping us choose a location for our testing. We’ve also had a great time getting to know Mr. Mbise by taking lunch with him almost everyday in the Shishtoni Hotel right in the village center. Do not be alarmed — the hotel does not actually have any rooms or any patrons as far as we can tell, but they do make a mean chai ya maziwa (sugar sweet milk tea) and mandazi (fried bread rolls that have become a staple of all of our diets). Until last week Jasmin thought that Mr. Mbise’s name was Mr. Ndizi, which translates to Mr. Banana in English. Whoops!

Life changing events have happened in the hotel. Yesterday, for example were eating plantains wrapped in a bundle of newspaper and when our teaching partner Godwin tore off some newspaper to grab a plantain he spotted his name on the paper in tiny print. Turns out the paper had published Tanzania’s university admission results and Godwin had been admitted to his first-choice university: University of Moshi. His reaction was cool and collected as always and continued to eat his plantain and chai. Were not at all surprised by the good news since Godwin revealed to us this week juicy details about his past careers as a daldala minibus driver and a minter for Tanzanite. Godwin was also the mastermind behind our group’s favorite saying, “Thank you sana,” a swanglish fusion for “thank you very much.” We know he will make the university proud next year.

On top of teaching schools and community groups and planning for testing day, we have visited two HIV-positive patients living in Shistoni. One was Elisha , a six year old orphan who has had HIV since birth. The second was a 61 year old grandmother suffering from AIDS. This visit was partiuculary harrowing for our whole group. We walked in to find mama’s body worn and withered, a jumble of atrophied body parts on a dirty and lopsided bed. Upon greeting her we realized that she did not even have the energy to swivel her pupils in our direction. Her daughter told us that the virus had paralyzed her as swarms of flies feasted on her weak flesh. We knew that we had to do something to get her toa hospital to start receiving the proper medication. We started a collection for the patient and asked or fellow SIC volunteers to contribute, Within a few short days we had the 70,000 TSH we needed, a tribute to the immense generosity of this group. We go her to the hosptial the e where she was instantly admitted with plans of staying for a few weeks. Sadly though, we received news last Thursday that the patient had passed away. We couldn’t help playing the “what if?” game after hearing the news; what if we had gotten her to the hospital sooner? What if she had registered with SIC a few months earlier and gotten the treatment she needed? Crushed by the news of her death, we all feel that the experience of seeing this sick patient and trying to help her has given s renewed vigor and drive in our work here. We have seen first-hand exactly the kind of suffering we hope to prevent by educating people about HIV and how they can protect themselves from the virus. We hope that our words have resonance, and that Shishtoni comes to realize that HIV can be avoided. Though we were too late to help this one particular patents, we feel that, if well executed, our teachings have the potential to protect hundred of Shishtoni youth from HIV.

Contributed by: Ginny, JP, Jeannie, Jasmin, Lester, and Godwin

Team Mbaseny & Co.

Posted by anna on Monday, July 25, 2011 at 9:49 am

This week has been full of teaching! We spent the first half of the week trying to arrange when we teach at all the schools, no easy task let me tell you with time tables all over the place. Our first teaching of the week was at a duka (a small village store). We made some posters with questions and answers. A group of around 30 people gathered around us. we mostly answered questins nd elaborated in the answers. It was a great teaching and also ended in a marriage proposal to the entire group.

We started teaching at Leguruki Primary school and the kids are crazy enthusiastic (and deafening with the pashas). We’re genuinely stoked for the rest of our school teachings, which will be keeping us busy for the next month.

Our mamas and babas all overfeed us; avocados abound. We all live in lovely houses with lots of animals. Walking up early to the sound of a rooster is not a very fun wake up call, but the baby goats, cows, and puppies are very cute. We are learning now to cook Tanzanian food. Chapati is generally agreed to be the best food. It is a dense flat bread similar to Naan. We have all learned to make it and truly enjoy it.

Somehow we have managed to find our way around the village and discover new shortcuts all the time. Shortcuts entail walking on small dirt paths and ocassionally through cornfields.

We are very excited to go on our second weekend of adventures!

Contributed by: The Mbaseny Team – Andrea, Vi, Julia, Emma, Rebecca, Magreth, and Sylvester

Hamjambo from Ngole village!

Posted by anna on Wednesday, July 13, 2011 at 1:20 am

Although there are just two weeks remaining, we are busily preparing for our testing day on July 3rd. We’ve posted announcements in each of our three subvillages and mentioned the date at each of our teachings.
The responses we’ve gotten from the villages have been encouraging; we’re expecting a good turnout on testing day. We’re hoping the activities we’ve organized for the day will draw still more people. We’ve planned a 10 km bicycle race, a soccer tournament, and a checkers tournament, with small prizes for each. The winner of the
village soccer tournament will go on to Mwada to play for the SIC ward championships, which we will host on our ward community day on July 9th.

Our experience thus far has been one mixed with accomplishments and small frustrations. We’ve had the opportunity to teach four grades at the local school and multiple community groups that range from 20 to 100 people. Our condom demonstrations and skits have been big hits! Since one of our homestays is close to the main road, we also have taught unexpectedly along the road to people stranded by their broken down buses.

Since we just returned to our villages after a break, everyone is also enjoying spending time with our homestay families. There are six of us living in three homestays. Clark and Joram stay with Mama Ester, who has four children. Nicole and Hawa share a room at Mama Sombo’s house; five children live with them. Laura and Karen live with Mama Odelia, who has three children, including a seven-week old baby. Our homes are small, made of brick and stucco. The beds are comfortable and the families friendly. We’re still working on adding to our palate by trying out more Tanzanian dishes, like kachumbari (a type of salad).

We’ve got two more weeks to teach as many people as we can. We’ve got to get back to work – see you in two weeks!

VP2 is full of talent

Posted by anna on Friday, July 1, 2011 at 6:44 am

VP2 is off to a great start. During orientation the volunteers had the opportunity to show off their talents and impress everyone. From singing to soccer tricks, juggling, dancing and lots more, all of the VP2 volunteers and teaching partners got up in front of everyone. The volunteers from the UK made everyone laugh while they taught us how to be proper. It was a great way to kick off the program and learn something new about one another. Kathryn, one of the volunteers wrote a great rap…

Yo, come on over here – I’ve got something to tell

Haditni njoo – do I gotta yell?

Just sit on back and have a quick listen

Imma lay down for you my number one mission

You might not know me, I’m Kathryn with a K

If I get any say

I come from Massachusettes, land of liberty

And now I’m at Harvard, studying philosophy

But that’s not important, tell ya ’bout it later

I got a specific audience to which I must cater

I’m here at SIC for all of 8 weeks

Let me give to you, a couple of deets

SIC’s tops for me, that’s for damn sure

Female empowerment? Gotta happen hur

But of course that’s not all VP2 will be doing

Gonna teaching people, the dangers of “screwing”

Blood to blood, mom to kid, sexual transmission – oh damn

Of the ABK’s every kid be a fan

Mamas, Babas, Babus, and Bibis

Get everyone tested, even you and me

But hold up you say just in 8 weeks?

Listen up ya’ll, cause now I’m gonna preach

You might think wazungu have little to offer

But with our teaching partners, we’re a real shocker

We’re not just here with one the facts

We’re not gonna leave and never turn back

To create new leaders, that is our mission

An empowered youth, that is or vission

If we can reach one, two, one hundred and four

Take a minute to think, just how many more

Are gonna be helped – like every partner they may have

Or every kid with both a mom and a dad

You see HIV ain’t content with just a person or two

It spreads and spreads if you don’t know what to do

But that’s what I’m saying, trying to leave ya with here

Give me two more stanzas to make myself clear

Yea there’s no cure, there’s no pill you can take

Give the education, knowledge, the power, and tools

Teach ‘em to take a stand, their body, their rules

It ain’t gonna be easy not all will wanna hear

Yet away from negative thinking is what we must steer

‘Cause at the end of the day, things are gonna evolve

HIV’s a problem that you all gonna solve

Written and performed by: Kathryn Reed

Stepping it up in Sangaiwe!

Posted by anna on Friday, June 24, 2011 at 3:24 am

It has definitely been an exciting week in Sangaiwe. We’re really starting to settle into the community and so far I am loving village life, thanks in part to my great homestay Baba who is also our village leader. The highlight of the week for us was definitely our first soccer game, where we could really feel the excitement and enthusiasm of our community. With over 200 people coming to watch the game, we taught about HIV progression during half time. We also made a three hour trek to our furthest sub-village, Neneto. The people of Neneto had some of the most enthusiastic and creative questions that we have yet to receive, spanning topics from HIV transmission and prevention to our newfound love for the dinner-time staple, ugali!

Contributed by Luke, Anu, Nikki, Alex H., Veronica and Glory