5-18 Meeting Convoy and School Activities

I had coffee with one of the staff members of the Green Mountain Hotel. His name is Tonny and he became my friend who I still keep in touch with. It was great building the relationship with him and getting to know his story and what his aspirations and dreams are. We were told that relations in Tanzania and Africa are one of the most important things so I took advantage of that. Later we went to the first school we were to visit in Arusha. We again built a relationship with the head teacher and got to know the schools mission and what it took for kids to move on from primary school. We also looked at the food programs that Convoy had implemented and were checking on them and seeing how were could help them. We looked at the cooking stove they had, the status of the corn field, as well as the chicken coop they had built for their program. We then went to Convoys headquarters to plan out our demonstration garden. At this point we were very unorganized and I didn’t see any signs of successful progress to come in the future. We were too worried about our own egos and were not working together. This needed to change in order for our trip to be a successful one. I wondered again if our work with the children would greaten the dependency or if it would lead them in the right direction. This thought comes from the book toxic charity that we read  “contrary to popular belief, most mission trips and service projects: weaken those being served, foster dishonest relationships, erode recipients’ work ethic, and deepen dependency” (16)