Hello all,
We have almost reached the end of our international experience here in Tanzania, and the pace certainly hasn’t slowed down. Read about our continuing adventures below:
We closed out our time at Tumona Secondary School this week. We continued working on some computer skills with the students, as well as physics lessons in topics such as Archimedes’ Principal of Buoyancy, work, energy, and power. Beyond our lessons, we also spent some time talking with the teachers. On Wednesday, we did a short Q&A session with the teachers on computers, including how to clean off viruses with Windows Defender, and afterwards we were invited to tour the town with some of them the next day. On our walk on Thursday, we spent the afternoon learning about them and their views of us and Americans in general, and had a bit of dialog back and forth about some of the finer points that were brought up. It was a very good way to close out our time spent at Tumona.
Continuing our work at KITAYOSCE this last week, we worked more with the youth on their football skills, and especially stressed teamwork and communication, both on and off the football pitch. As the kids got more comfortable working with us, the games and scrimmages got a lot more laid back and enjoyable. KITAYOSCE, in addition to working with youth to develop their skills, also have a young adult team, and are a feeder for some of the Tanzanian professional teams. As such, they are always looking for ways to improve their online image, as well as their football skills. To this end, we were able to leave one of the KITAYOSCE executive board members with two action cameras, as well as instructions on how to use them. They will be able to use the cameras to capture game film for later review, as well as make promotional videos for their Facebook page. We know they will be well used!
To cap off our final weekend in Tanzania, the team, accompanied by ‘the Germans’ also staying at the Foot2Afrika hostel, traveled to visit the Marangu gate one more time at the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro. We then went to visit the Kilasiya Falls, where we waded in the gentle, cold rapids as well as climbed through the rocks and took photos. Next on our itinerary for the day was to visit the Chagga Caves. The caves were created by the Chagga tribe of northern Tanzania about 200 years ago to protect themselves from the Maasai, an enemy tribe. Although very cramped, these caves/tunnels housed many people, and the team had the opportunity to learn a lot about the history of the two native Tanzanian tribes during the tour. Overall, it was a great way to cap off our adventures in Tanzania; we will definitely have plenty of stories and pictures to share with our family and friends upon our return to the States!
Once again, thank you for reading, and please feel free to comment on and share the post!
Team Tanzania