Quick Update

The past week has been a pretty exciting week with a lot of activities going on. Last Wednesday we had an EAD on the Arts and we had the opportunity to make our own Battik and Tanzanian Style Tye-Dye. Making the Battik involved waxing the fabric with stamps and for the Tye-dye we used thread to sew the fabric instead simply using elastics.

It’s a bit surreal that we just had our mid-project weekend. We’re so close to the end of the exchange, but there are some big plans in the works right now for the next few weeks. February will fly by…



The trip to Bagamoyo was nice and great change of scenery. We had the chance to partake in a lot more touristy activities than I thought we would. We visited a couple museums of past Kaole civilizations, slave houses from the 19th century and the historical stone town. Bagamoyo was once a crucial link for the slave trade. It’s there that the slaves were gathered and kept before being shipped to Zanzibar for the slave market. It’s quite daunting and depressing seeing the sites and hearing the stories, but at the same time it’s remarkable to think it was only a few hundred years ago that all those events existed. We went to the beach once again that was a lot of fun, except for being swarmed by carvers everywhere we went… I bought some really nice things.. bringing them back to Canada might be a bit of a problem though… :S hhmm… overweight luggage.












Tomorrow is my group’s EAD on Local Economy. We decided to use to the Canadian High Commission for some more credible information for our topic. I’m excited to meet some fellow Canadians that have lived here for a while to hear about their experiences. I was a bit weary before, wondering if the visit would actually happen. Everything has worked out, should be a fun visit 
The next month we have 2 big trips planned…. I’ll let you know more about it once the plans are a bit more finalized.

Work at the Orphanage has greatly improved and I feel as if I’m being a lot more useful. Although playing with kids all day is fun, it’s a bit repetitive after a while. I can’t remember if I mentioned this before, but I started having a computer class with the older “kids” around. I feel that I can only provide the younger kids with attention and some amusement. But for the older ones, I thought I could maybe teach them some skills that they could use later on. I have access to a laptop, so I downloaded some typing games and are teaching them the basics for using the computer and teaching them to type properly. They’re progressing very quickly and are doing very well, there are about 10 of them taking part in the class. This is keeping me busy most of the time. I also got into looking at the financial plans of the orphanage and the “strategic plans”. In my opinion there’s quite a bit of work that has to be done on that side of things, so I’m also working with another member in the office on revamping the reports so that they can achieve their goals. I guess I’m putting what I learned in school to use know.. now it’s sort of a test to see if I actually know what I’m doing …