Back To School

Hello again

Week 7 has been the week of physical labor. Eileen, Teresa and I have been busy painting ELA Nursery School for the ELA Advertising Project (ELAAP). We are painting one classroom with numbers and shapes, the second with sounds, vowels and corresponding pictures. On the outside of the building we are painting the alphabet with corresponding pictures. This has made ELA look like a brand new school and we hope it will attract more students. Also it is a great learning tool for the students as their supplies in the class are extremely limited. Every day we walk about a half mile, put in hours of painting and head home. Now with school during the day we have tried to squeeze some painting time in after the school day. We should finish this weekend (WHOOOOHOO) and hopefully we can get some pictures up for you to see. Also to prepare for the new term and the building of the new computer lab we had to move many of the classrooms around. This took 3 Masai, 3 Americans and 2 Tanzanians for a solid 5 hours as it was quite the large task. I think a little physical labor has been relaxing for us all and is probably the only thing keeping stress levels manageable.

The stress is largely due to the fact that the container still has not arrived. As of Monday we have had to pay $500 USD to cover port charges and we are still counting at 40 USD a day. The worst part is Babu has spent countless hours and hundreds of dollars on fuel going into to town to sort out the matter. Yesterday we went into town and spent all of 8 hours to sign a paper and leave. There were 13 people shoved in a barely functioning 9 person van and although we were very efficient it made for a seriously long day. They still haven’t been able to guarantee a delivery date or secure that we won’t have duties to pay. This process is making everyone crazy and its holding us back in our work. Although we remain hopeful that all of our goods will arrive safely, it would be nice if they would hurry up. My biggest concern is that for every dollar the port takes from us the more we have to cut projects from our list. This is heart breaking for everyone involved with TEP and especially for the people who have worked so hard here on the ground to get the projects started.

Since school started on Monday, normal school stress has kicked in. It has been crunch time to get all the documents we have been working on typed, printed and approved-retyped and reprinted. This process is always stressful as technology here is less than reliable and the printing process is a nightmare. Plus getting back into the normal time table can reduce our concentration on TEP projects. I have purposely limited my own subjects as I need to stay focused on TEP however T and Eileen have full loads. Despite any stress it feels great to be back at school and see my kids, old co-workers and get into a steady routine.

As Teresa mentioned last week we received two new volunteers here at Fanaka. In order to utilize Liz and Maranda’s teaching skills we are working on English as a Second Language (ESL) training program for tomorrow. Also a team building project called CHARACTER will be introduced by them to entice stronger leadership and citizenship among the students. Although their time here is limited they will be able to put these programs into place and teach us and the school how to use them.

We also had a great opportunity to spend the day with my 2^nd mother Aichi. Aichi works with TEP and African Children’s Haven with our programs at Olof. We spent the day swimming and enjoyed a game a Scrabble. Yes I won…no big deal. It is always great to spend time with her and get some Olof details figured out.

As for Bibi…please keep the prayers and thoughts coming. She is doing much better as she is talking and sitting up however her health concerns us. Also please send extra prayers for our Headmistress, our friends Mother and our teacher’s family as all struggling with health problems. As for the volunteers, we are all in good health.

As always thanks for your support,

Cassie