I apologize for my lack of posting here. I have had so much to say, but incredible trouble putting my experiences into words. I want to find the right words to convey what an impact the past 3 months has had on me and on the other side had on the Olarash community. I want to be able to evoke the emotion of it all, but I have yet to be able to write ( Read more... )

Wearing trousers will never be the defining mark of civilization. Step out of your shoes; stop placing your Western values and preconceived notions on the mysterious yet striking world you have never taken the time to understand.

Everyday is a new beginning where nothing is guaranteed. There are no comforts to take for granted. Life is ( Read more... )

I’ve had a lot of time in the last week to take a step back and reflect on everything. Mostly the time has been granted to me, because I have been sick and haven’t been able to do much of anything. We think it is my appendix, but who knows. Anyway, I’ve had to delegate a lot of tasks, which I admit has been hard for me. I like to be in control ( Read more... )

Tomorrow we will be starting to renovate the other two classrooms. There are two reasons that we waited to do them; one, we didn’t know if we would have enough money, and two, because Standard 7 is still in class currently. For the next week and a half they have moved down to the standard 4 classroom, which we are completely done with.

( Read more... )

 It has been a few weeks since I have written, but I'm in a rural village and don't have an exactly reliable internet source unless I go into Arusha, which is an hour away. We have been working very hard and have gotten a lot accomplished ( Read more... )

Today we have a lot of meetings and took care of a lot of the administrative side of the project. We met with Jan and the contractor, Godwin, then went down to Olarash Primary and met with the headmaster and the major of Monduli, Mama Diwani. During the meeting we decided what would be most beneficial for Olarash on our budget be building a ( Read more... )

We are here and we are safe. We are spending the first weekend in Arusha and I am playing somewhat of a tour guide. I want Maiyan and Alex to get a feel for the culture and what life is like here. I think that is an important first step. Plus we are all trying to adjust our internal clocks to Tanzania time (+9 hours). We have not done much yet, ( Read more... )