Details

The flights are booked, the placement paid for - time for some details:

DEPART
20th January from Heathrow.
Unfortunately, since I only need a single, it's not possible to get the same flight as the other volunteers, so I will be leaving about an hour later.

ON ARRIVAL
We'll be met at Niarobi by Madeline, our Tanzanian contact. After a 4 hour bus journey through the Arusha National Park we will arrive at a very swanky tourist lodge, where we will spend a few days to acclimatise, brush up on our Swahili and have another teacher training session. After visiting all of the schools involved, we will settle into our homes for the next 3 months.

SCHOOL
I will be at a Primary School called Sekei 2 miles out of the city of Arusha. It is literally next door to a newer and comparatively better equipped school called Naurei, which is only distinguishable through the colour of the uniforms!

I will be teaching pupils from ages 6 to 16, in mixed ability classes of potentially up to 80/100.

The school is in dire need of latrines and desks. Recently, an ex-pupil who is successful in the mining (Tanzanite) industry, donated 1,000,000 Tanzanian Shillings to pay for more latrines, but there are only about half as many desks available as needed.

The education is very old-fashioned by our modern British standards: the pupils work through a text book from beginning to end. Spelling is learnt by rote, and grammar learnt through filling in sentence structures and dictations. If pupils misbehave, they can expect to be caned which, needless to say, I will not be doing.

Creative writing is not part of the learning process at all, so volunteers are encouraged to introduce pupils to talking about themselves, their feelings, writing letters to friends, and story writing. This is for me perhaps the most exciting aspect of the teaching - I'm greatly looking forward to bringing story books (are real novelty) and hopefully sparking imaginations.

OTHER ACTIVITIES
After about a month, we will get to go on a luxury Safari for a fraction of the cost. It will be in the Serengeti National Park, and last about 4 days.

The lodge we will have stayed at on arrival will be happy for us to spend some time there occasionally to have a bath and a good nutritious meal (porridge will be a large part of our diet...).

Being so close to Arusha, it will be easy for me to visit at weekends. From there I can use a computer, buy any essentials, and hopefully spend some time with the rest of the group. One of the schools is 20 miles away, so we probably won't see much of James, Rachel and Catherine!

PLACEMENT ENDS
19th April

I will have a free 10 days to get myself to Dar Es Salaam and possibly visit the island Zanziba and spend some well deserved relaxation time on the beach. My old school had links with a school in Dar, so hopefully I will visit.

JON ARRIVES
29th April

We'll spend a few more days in Dar so he can acclimatise, then begin our backpacking!

BACKPACKING
There is a train line that runs East-West across Tanzania, and terminates at Lusaka in Zambia. The plan is that we pick it up and spend just under 2 months getting to Lusaka.

Once we get to Mbeye (near the border), we will make a diversion and spend a few weeks in Malawi. The infrastructure is practically non-existent, so we will have to follow the tourist trail mostly. It does, however, involve taking a boat down Lake Malawi, so I'm not complaining! Mum was born in Blantyre (in the South), so I'd like to visit. I will be the first in the family to go back.

We will then pick up the train from Mbeye again, and spend a while getting to Lusaka. Hopefully we'll have a good few weeks left, so we will go south to Livingstone (where my grandparents lived for a few years) and visit the Victoria Falls. I'd like to spend a while exploring southern Zambia before getting back to Lusaka.

COMING HOME
25th June

Well, that's the plan. No doubt it will turn out differently once we get there!