First Post From Africa! Finally!

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.

4 thoughts on “First Post From Africa! Finally!

  1. Glad you guys had a safe trip. Sounds like the good work is continuing.
    Looking forward to hearing more updates (power permitting!)
    Take care

  2. Loved the update and can’t wait to see more photos of the children and schools.
    What is VTC classroom?
    We wish you to have less blackouts so you can blog from location and don’t have to travel all the way to Moshi.
    All the best!

  3. Looking to hear from Sue Mccoy one of the volunteers that arrived on Jan 23rd…praying she is alright and just letting her know we are all thinking and missing her…especially Walter….love kat

  4. Hope that all of the projects are going smoothly for all volunteers and that rotating blackouts have subsided. Keep well and safe. LLL Gail

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