Gap year & Travel News

One of our amazing windows built at the Orphanage!

Last week we spent several days at the nearby Don Bosco Orphanage in Dar es Salaam where we repaired all of the windows in the orphanage. Sadly this was needed because as well as general wear and tear, they had also recently been targeted by vandals attempting to steal from the orphanage. Among other things the vandals had been taking food supplies meant for the children and one of the days that we were there they didn’t have enough food for the children to have lunch. Hopefully with the new windows in place this wont happen again! I really enjoyed the work…we had to tear off al the old wood and mess from the windows and then replace them with new ones. Whilst we were there we also had chance to play with the kids which was good fun. Sadly though my football skills aren’t as good as some of the boys here, leading to me ending up on my backside several times when their tricks caught me out!

This week is our final week together and it’s been quite varied with a mix of cultural activities, lounging on the beach and saying our goodbyes.

Abi with one of the orphans at Don Bosco

We started the week by visiting Don Bosco Orphange again so that they could thank us and gave us all certificates in recognition of our hard work. It poured really hard but was still fun playing with the kids in the ran and mud! On Tuesday we visited our tailor who was making our graduation outfits. They like to celebrate things out here so at the end of the placement they hold a big feast and have lots of speeches, it’s like a graduation ceremony and apparently everyone gets emotional and hugs each other alot! We then spent the next two days doing cultural bits and bobs, starting on Wednesday at the National Museum, some bits were really interesting and its amazing seeing the vast changes that the country has been through in the last century. We finished at the museum by lunch time so we headed to the beach and had a great time relaxing.

Us in our "graduation" garb!

Sirily proudly holds up the card we made him!

Abi helpfully lends a hand drinking the gifts we bought for the Team Leaders!

Georgie gives Siriliy the ultimate Thank you present : )

On Thursday we visited Bagamoyo which is about 70kms up the coast from Dar. Its full of history, first of all we visited some ruins which would have been used as part of the slave trade, we also visited the catholic church who led the movement to end slavery, which astonishingly wasnt abolished until 1922! I’ve never reallky learnt about the slave trade so it’s been fascinating seeng these things first hand. We spent Friday and the weekend at the beach during the day, it was really nice to relax after all our weeks of hard work, despite finishing volunteering the last week had still been quite hectic. On Saturday evening we had our graduation, I now have a large maroon, traditional African shirt and the girls all got traditional style dresses. Sexy! Our project co-ordinators made speeches before we thanked them, they have been brilliant and really made our experience.