Hi everyone,

Sorry this comes a little late, but with only 5 computers with alright(ish) internet speed in the whole of Arusha it is rather difficult to keep up-to-date! Anyway, two weeks have already past and we have completed our first placements. The task was to build a wall (or as much of it as possible!) for Camp Joshua Christian School.

The school has around 140 students of which 70 are orphans. The whole of the first week was spent digging a 30 – 40 metre long and over a metre deep trench. As the ground was really hard with each hit we only manged to dig up around 3 cm of soil. This was much to the entertainment of the local men who would ask us to get out of the way and do some of the digging for us. The amount we dug up in a couple of hours they managed to dig up within a few minutes – how embarrassing. At least we provided entertainment to the little children who weren’t privileged enough to go to school and just sat outside their houses all day and who had to look after their baby siblings while the parents are working.

On Thursday and Saturday night we got to experience the night life of Tanzania. One of the places we went to is called Via Via which is a really cool outdoor pub / club which lots of life music, djs, and a bonfire. I am sure you would have all loved it! As far as the security goes, boys are being searched with a metal detector whereas girls can just walk in. We obviously have very trusting faces!

We spent our second week of the placement preparing the foundations for our new wall (putting different soil back into our trench, carrying the heaviest stones in the world) and then finally laying the wall and plastering. We had help by two local builders, Moody and Kevin (his name was Isaac but we preferred Kev) who didn’t speak any English but were absolutely lovely.

Anyway, my time is up.

Lots of love
V xx