Friday 30 July 2010

Of Rice (and beans) And Men

Mambo from Moshi! All of TG3 are here safe now after long flights, bumpy rides on Akamba buses and the deepest night's sleep of anyone's life. We're all getting along like a house on fire. Today we had a full day of first aid recapping, training and a session on becoming trainers ourselves, and how to bridge the gap between standard British first aid and how to teach it in Swahili schools to kids of any age...a lot of information but hopefully it's all going to stick.
Currently residing in the TG# boys' room with my flatmate Becki - we manned up and joined Team Testosterone in the Kilimanjaro Backpackers Hostel. True to its name, we can see the mountain from the rooftop bar. It's so much more beautiful than you can even anticipate, to see it rising out of the clouds and smog still covered in snow.
The first few days have been a bit of a culture shock and there's more to come; Moshi is a little town but urban and with some Western influence. Lots of English and lovely people. Learning Swahili little by little and we're having lessons from team leader Fiona tomorrow as well. Apparently there are about 14 ways to greet someone...hopefully we can get a grasp on the basics at least. I'm all over 'yes', 'no', 'thank you' and 'white man' but it might take a bit more than that to teach kids how to treat an open fracture or a compression.
We've been meeting a lot of team leaders from previous groups and several of the groups themselves are in Moshi tonight to celebrate the end of their placement. With presentations due tomorrow morning, it's needless to say, no Konyagi for us. Maybe on 27th when we finish teaching officially...
The sun is setting here and it's dinner time! We head out to our individual placements of 2 - 5 people in each school on Sunday, so I won't be back in Moshi or probably anywhere near anything resembling a computer before next weekend. Until then, kwa heri!
Fiona
 

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