Gap year & Travel News

We arrived in Moshi on Sunday after a two hour van drive. On Monday we had a tour of the town and was shown where all the amenities such as the bank were, it’s a much smaller town than Arusha and easy and safe to walk around. I needed to go to a bureau de change and on the way back stumbled upon the food market. Its an amazing, colourful and lively place, split into different sections for different types of food…I’ve never been anywhere like it! Me and Sirily (one of our project leaders) bought a pineapple which was the most delicious thing I’ve ever eaten ; )

Kids at Rau Primary School

We have spent the rest of this week at Rau Primary School doing several different projects. The boys amongst the group are constructing a staff toilet block, this seems a really worthwhile thing to do as at the moment they are using two long-drops inside a corrugated iron shack. I’ve avoided venturing inside! The work has been tough in the heat but I am was really glad to have got back to doing something physical after all our game drives. At times the progress has been slow which has been frustrating, our Tanzanian builder who we are working with is very precise about his measurements…which when combined with the work ethic here makes the going a bit slow! We have one final day at the school tomorrow, and sadly the chances of us finishing are slim but possible if we have a good amount of cloud cover. We still need to build the walls higher and put a roof on, if we don’t get it finished I’ll be proud of what we have achieved here and hopefully it can be completed in the near future- perhaps by a future Leap team!

The Girls make friends!

The girls have been making a garden for the environmental club at the school. It looks really good now, they have planted quite a few saplings and done lots of preparation work for the kids to do lots more planting. They also have built several benches for the children. The school in itself is the best I’ve seen so far. This is because there are many trees and shrubs in the courtyard some planted by other Leapers who’ve been here. It’s an amazing resource to teach children about the importance of looking after their environment and in particular encouraging reforestation- as the cutting of trees in this area is a big problem here that’s having a devastating effect. Hopefully by teaching children to have a responsible attitude towards the environment the message will spread throughout the generations.

Yesterday we went to Kinukoamori waterfalls at Marangu-mtoni which was amazing. The water was absolutely freezing but the waterfall was a magnificent sheet of water cascading over rocks- good for Timotei advert poses! We clambered into the waterfall for some photos, with the water crashing down around us. Some of us climbed a path to the head of the waterfall and took some more photos. It was great fun exploring. On the way back we got some great views of Mt Kilimanjaro with its peak covered in snow…I can’t believe how close to it we are. Me, Harry, Georgia and Sabrina have decided to climb it when we’ve finished the Leap placement and just met the guide who we are going to hike with at the beginning of April. Exciting times!

We have one more week here in Moshi before moving on to Dar Es Salaam at the coast. Five of our group are leaving us during or at the end of this week, so its going to be a little quieter with just seven. The trip to Dar will be interesting as its going to take about 8 hours on a public bus, I think ill have to buy a pillow as the seat was really uncomfortable for my two and a half hour trip from Lake Manyara to Arusha!