Lovin' Life...

I have quickly come to realize that volunteering abroad is far more than an opportunity to help those in need, whether those needs are financial, emotional, physical, etc. Often it seems that one measures his success in a program such as CCS based off the impact he made or the changes he initiated, but I think that a large part of my own success will be comprised of the impact this experience will have in my own life. In my two weeks here I can already sense change is inevitable and personal growth certain. I have attempted to embrace, understand, and respect a culture far different than my own, and this has demanded immense patience. In short, I hope that my time in Tanzania will be as much about the people here as it is about my own growth.

I know that it is has been some time since my last blog entry, but incredibly unreliable internet coupled with a busy schedule has made writing difficult. I will try to catch you up on the past week, both my work at TAFCOM and my cultural experiences. At my placement, we have been busy planning the fundraiser. We are devoting this entire week to “office work”, which will entail securing a band, placing a deposit on the venue, and doing many little things that go into such an event. Luckily one of the other volunteers, Emily, has planned many fundraiser events similar to this for groups she is involved with at college, so she has been very thorough in covering all aspects of planning. We are all confident things will fall into place, but the next three weeks will be stressful as we hurry to get things put together. As I have mentioned in past entries, people in Tanzania are very laid back and run on TFT (Tanzanian Flexible Time), making it a little difficult to finalize plans this far in advance.

The other volunteers (Emily and Nicole) and I spend the majority of our time at TAFCOM with Nie, both in and out of the office. While we see Jonas almost every day, he usually is in and out, staying for only a brief time. However, last week Emily and I had the opportunity to spend some time with Jonas, an opportunity for which I am very grateful. Jonas shared with us his personal journey, starting from before TAFCOM’s existence. He was involved in the founding of a similar NGO in Kenya, a project that now is experiencing immense success, opening over forty schools and now coordinating a massive environmental effort. TAFCOM was established therefore in an attempt to make the Kenyan group an international NGO, a title that would make it much easier to receive grants and funding from various sources worldwide. However, due to logistics and various barriers, this never happened. Jonas and Nie were not discouraged, however, and continued to make enormous personal sacrifices in order to one day establish TAFCOM as a prominent and successful NGO here in Moshi. They sold the family car in order to purchase a plot of land in Pasua that will eventually serve as the site for a new office and children’s center. Jonas continues to work as a computer technician, dividing his wages between his family (they have one son) and TAFCOM. As Jonas shared these details, many of my doubts and fears were quickly replaced by hope and determination. I realized I was not working for two people seeking admiration or recognition but rather two selfless individuals solely focused on serving their community. There is no doubt that in the next few years TAFCOM will emerge as a successful and well-funded NGO. Past CCS volunteers have applied for and received the necessary permits and registration to establish a non-profit charity called “Friends of TAFCOM” back in the United States. Currently a work in progress, this is in fact a huge step and will hopefully enable private donors to help support TAFCOM’s efforts here in Tanzania. This has been a critical step for the majority of NGOs in this area, and I sense that Nie and Jonas are very excited for the future.

This weekend another new group of volunteers will arrive, and seven current volunteers will leave. One new person will begin work at TAFCOM and a former CCS volunteer is coming back to Moshi to resume her work, which has caused some concern for us. The office is very small and won’t even have enough seating for all of us! Thus, I have proposed to Mama Lillian (the director at my homebase) that I spend two days a week at another placement. I have yet to hear what I will be doing but I am anxious to begin that work as well. However, I will still be working hard on the fundraiser, especially since I have already devoted so much into the event.

As always, I also have stories about my adventures apart from TAFCOM. We spent last Wednesday on a daylong cultural “field trip” to rural Chagga villages (a large tribe in Tanzania) and then hiked to a waterfall. It poured throughout the night and continued to rain in the morning, and the dirt roads had become nearly impassable muddy trenches. Our van got stuck heading up into the hills, and thankfully some locals helped the driver get up safely. The drive alone was an adventure! The Chagga huts were much different than the Masai homes we visited on the safari and it was interesting to learn about the tribal origins. We even crawled through 300-year-old caves beneath the village that had been created as safe havens for families to hide during times of war and also the slave trade. We were all amazed to see how well built they were considering the primitiveness of their lifestyle. The hike to the waterfall was slippery and slightly dangerous for some, but the view was well worth the hike (and sore muscles the next day). Again, pictures will be posted once I return home to high speed Internet!

This past weekend three of us did a day hike of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Others had told us the hike wasn’t overly steep but that it was a good workout, and they were definitely right. I think I am still sore! In order to get as high as possible in the short time we had, we took the trail that went straight up the mountainside. We reached the halfway point, where there was a crater from the last volcanic eruption (probably over a century ago). It was an exhausting day but it was definitely worth the blisters, and although it was too cloudy to see the summit, how many people can say they spent a day on the tallest mountain in Africa?

Again I apologize for the lengthy post; I have received many comments about my wordiness. I have to write a little each day when I can borrow a friend’s computer, so I just write as much as I can in a short time! I hope you can sense how happy I am here and how amazing this experience has been so far. I am working on another blog to post hopefully at the end of this week with a more comical spin, so check back for that. Thank you to all who continue to follow and write. Miss you all!