Electrical power is certainly a problem here in Tanzania….Rotating blackouts all over the country. We have tried to blog 3 times from our location up in the altitudes of Marangu West at the local hotel and in the local town but every time we showed up, the power was down.

Now we are in Moshi town, a bigger place, so we have internet cafes where we can do our blogging.

We are here to do some business in the banks of our ABCD  children’s schools, and to await the arrival tonight of our volunteer team. Lynn and I are very excited to see the team arriving at about 9:30 pm tonight. We will pick them up from the airport and we have rooms booked for this first night in Moshi. Tomorrow we all go up to the Sekao Lodge to begin our volunteer work.

Lynn and I have been very busy in this first week. We have visited a few schools to pay fees, visited some families to see children, held our first, very productive meeting with our local Advisory Board Members: Rose Lyimo, the Ward, Tibrus Mlay, the Education Coordinator, and Agnes Kessy, the Community Development Officer.

We have also begun meetings and made decisions regarding the future computer centre project, and our first school library. Our Advisory Board Members also requested that we consider a food program to help our poorest families. Certainly, this dovetails with our aim of helping our ABCD children to be healthy and learn more effectively in school.

We also coordinated a day of volunteer work at the local medical dispensary by Canadian friends, Kevin and Christine, who were on their way through the area after climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. Kevin is a contractor so he was able to make some vital repairs to the plumbing at the dispensary with the help of a local fundi plumber.

Photos to come!!! Stay tuned.

On Saturday, December 3/11 the team of volunteers heading to Tanzania in January 2012 came together for an afternoon workshop on Team Building and Cross Cultural Awareness…as well as a fantastic pot luck dinner. What a great day it was! Directors Terry and Joe conducted great role-playing exercises for the group to get to know each other’s personalities and how we can work together effectively. Lynn and Frank spoke about their own experiences in Tanzania and gave the team advice and knowledge about Tanzanian culture and travel tips. It became apparent that this is a team full of talent and potential to make a real contribution to the community and children of Marangu West, Tanzania. The anticipation is mounting steadily as the date of departure gets closer.

President Walter and members of the Rotary Club of Oshawa Parkwood warmly welcomed Lynn and Frank to a fireside dinner meeting at the Oshawa Golf & Curling Club this week. The Rotary club members were enthusiastic to learn how their Rotary club can support ABCD’s work in Tanzania. Mention was made of ABCD’s newest initiatives: the solar light project, library program, textbooks for secondary schools, language development project and the computer center. We are hopeful that the Rotary Club of Oshawa Parkwood will partner with the Rotary Club of Newmarket in support of a Rotary District Grant request to assist with the funding of the computer center, our most expensive project to-date. Computer literacy promises to improve our students marketability for employment and degree of success in post secondary education.