Photos and update on week

This picture is of 4 of the 5 children from Meserani and Lesiraa school who have been sponsored by Acklam Grange to attend secondary school (this was taken when I was with Peter and Diane Swan and their family)

the orphanage we visit every wednesday :)

a crocodile at meserani snake park!

me and katy in our masaai jewellery that we got taught how to make by woman in middle:)

making the jewellery (it took so long and was so fiddly!)

just for mark lol i got the kids to write about him in their books, we were doing a "but"" or "and" excercise :)

I hope you like these photos! Ive uploaded them quickly in the luxury of the Impala hotel, I have been staying here for the past two nights on the floor lol On thursday I met up with Peter Swan and his family from Acklam Grange and spent the afternoon and evening with them, it was so lovely to see friendly faces from Middlesbrough! we visited Meserani school, the project that started the last time I was in Africa with school, and Meserani snake park, both brought back a lot of memories and seeing the school made me realise what a difference all the money raised had made (4 new classrooms had been built when back in 2007 when we came there was only 2) A huge thank you to Peter and Diane for letting me crash on their floor and enjoy a 3 course meal and a BATH it was amazing to have a break thank you!

My parents also arrived yesterday! was so wierd having them here in my separate world at first lol they are also at the Impala hotel which is handy so i slept on their floor last night and am doing so again tonight lol Ive also taken advantage again of the food and hot water so feel very refreshed! also went to get my legs waxed yesterday at our rep Madeline's house, that was much needed! lol

Today me, mum and dad have been to Arusha National Park and saw giraffes, monkeys, flamingo, buffalo, zebra etc it was a lovely day out, all of the photos are on dad's camera but I'm gonna hopefully get a few on here, i got one of 2 monkeys mating so funny lol

I now have one week at school and then see parents again next weekend before mum flies home and dad goes up kilimanjaro! I'm then off to Zanzibar on sunday 1st March for a week, this will hopefully be amazing, white beaches, good food, snorkelling, a fantastic break! I shall update u on this as soon as im back :)

I hope everything is ok back home and that you know I'm thinking about you all and family postcards are gonna be sent to you shortly!

I'll keep you posted, I cant believe I'm half way through already! it's been crazy!~ups and downs but I'm so glad i'm doing this!

Take care everyone, Love Claire xxxx

more photos ?!

power cut!, our village with meru in background

Photos?!

One of our teacher's familym we went round for a meal and she made us dresses :)
relaxing by the pool :)
before the valentines day party :)

in ViaVia :)

Hello again!

I'm sorry it's been a while since I updated this! Been really busy!

School has been going well I've been doing tenses with my class which they mainly understand now ?! and we've been continuing with volleyball club, dance club (which we started on monday) and creative club. I taught the children finger knitting and have now started a finger knitting craze of making bracelets etc!

On thursday we went to our bar/club ViaVia where we all enjoyed steak and chips, cider and western music plus a live band, it was an excellent escape I loved it, might make it a regular thing on a thursday, its hard getting up for school the next morning though!

This weekend has been very relaxing and much needed, saturday we went to McMoody's (a fake Macdonalds) and had a valentines day party! Sunday Becky and I went in search for another church but only found swahili speaking ones lol the singing was amazing though, on the afternoon we all went to a big swanky new hotel and used their pool and ate their food, its an amazing feeling being clean! lol

Mum and dad are coming over this weekend so if i cant get photos up now il do so this weekend at their hotel cos I know it works there, I really hope that all of the snow has melted!

thanku for all of ur emails and comments,

Much love!
Claire xxxxxx

Hello England

This week has been CRAZY!
I have been teaching all on my own (my teacher has pretty much vanished lol) and with 50 children in my class whose English is VERY limited it has been quite tough. I'll spend ages explaining something and they'll smile sweetly and say "yes teacher" but then have not understood a word I've said! It's very frustrating at times but I keep reminding myself that their first language is swahili and all of their lessons apart from English are taught in swahili (most of the teachers even teach English in swahili which makes it even harder). Therefore I feel that as little as we think we're doing, we're probably making a bigger impact by just talking and interacting with them? Sometimes they will surprise you and get something right and they are SO creative! I gave out coloured pencils one lesson when we were doing punctuation and they were so happy! They take great pride in presentation and all love answering questions on the board. I'm trying to be as creative as possible in my lessons using posters and games (thank you for the jelly smelly pens Mark they're fascinated by them!) they really love interactive lessons because usually they are told to copy down notes off the board or to read quietly, so hopefully even if they don't understand everything that we are saying, they will be seeing new ways of learning!

Another difference between us and their normal teachers is that in Tanzania the cane is still used as a form of discipline, this is shocking to see and very hard to understand but hopefully we'll help the teachers too by showing them that you can control a class without violence.

Now we're getting into the school more we've started a volleyball club and a creative club, both are hugely popular and successful, the kids love volleyball and some of them are really good! They're also very imaginative in creative club, drawing pictures and making figures out of salt dough (photos soon of all this hopefully!) It's just lovely to see how joyful they are when they get to do something other than writing, plus it's fun for us too!

This week we also visited an orphanage that we're going to help out at some afternoons and we have been getting to know our neighbours through random volleyball games and asking where to buy bread etc, everyone is really friendly and helpful which is good :)

Bad points of the week however include an invasion of cockroaches in our living room (very traumatic) about a million powercuts and we've had no running water since Saturday! I've been having "bucket showers" which aren't great but i suppose it's all part of the experience!

I'll try get photos up asap, I hope the snow's melted back home, I'm devastated I'm missing it!

Lots of love,

Claire xxx

Jambo UK

I'm settling into Bourka Primary nicely and getting on well with housemates and house!

I have ensuite (when theres water) and, as you can see from the photos, a nice room with plenty of storage :)

the girls im living with are really lovely and we're all teaching either class 4 or 6 im teaching standard 6 class C (10-11year olds mainly), their English is very limited but they're all keen learners, I read them a story on friday and asked them to repeat the difficult words and they did so in a northern accent! it was really funny!

yesterday we went to one of the teacher's houses for dinner we had traditional african food including yams and ugali (a random porridge thing) it was actually rather tasty and she was very welcoming, the village we're living in is amazing i love it here, will get photos of it up asap...

im also going to start a volleyball club soon so will keep u posted...

some horror stories now!

wer had a HUGE cockroach in our dining room last week that got stuck in a coke can and you could hear it rattling around for ages! Charlotte bravely diposed of it after taking some grusome photos lol

there was also a GIANT black rat in our kitchen one day when we came home that scuttled out of a window as soon as it saw us, im still rather traumatised lol

AND in my old school enaboishu, there was a rotting lizard behind my wardrobe that absolutely stank lol, by the way dad, there's a man next to me with an electric fly swatter haha

deppite the little things (or in this case the huge scary things) Tanzania is beautiful, the view of mt meru from our house is totally breathtaking and the kids are wonderful, after a rocky start i think i'm really going to love it here :)

much love, thanku for all of ur comments, txts and emails,

tuto onana (see you later)

Claire xxxxx