5-22 Last day at Arusha School and on the Demonstration Garden

We went back to the original school today to finish what we had started. We weeded the entire second field of corn and ended early. This was fun for me because I was able to play a giant game of soccer with the older boys at the school! They were surprised I knew how to play and was faster than them! I really enjoyed playing the game and growing my relationships with the kids. They appreciate us helping them out and attempting to speak Swahili, which most people who come to help do not attempt to do! We then went back to Convoys headquarters to work on our demonstration garden, which was all sorts of fun! We finished all the double digging and the fences for the tomatoes! We also planted all the corn, tomatoes, spinach, and carrots. This was a huge step forward and convoy as well as myself was impressed with all the work we had done. Another group went and worked on a new rocket stove to improve efficiency of cooking the food for the kids at the school, which was another successful project. This was really cool! It was sad to say goodbye to the kids but I think we had a positive impact on the work we did at the school and prepared the kids and staff well so a dependency was not created. “We need not to be bystanders. Our support can be decisive” (Collier 192). We were interactive and were not bystanders. We jumped in and helped improve an already standing program to become more efficient and we educated kids so they are able to continue growing in the fact of self-support.

5-21 School #2 and Masai

Today we traveled far inland to visit another school. This school was much less advanced as it only had 3 classrooms and the only water source was 4 kilometers away! The kids were required to bring at least a liter of water to school each day and some would have to walk at least 5k to get to school then another 4k to get water! Not only was it far but it’s a dirty water source where cows and animals lay in and poop in. It was crazy to see that. The surprising thing to me was that no matter what the kids had huge smiles on their face! We ended up just getting tour of the school then played with the kids. I started playing soccer with one of the kids and eventually all 200 boys joined in and we played a huge game! Soccer, the international game that brings everyone together! Loved connecting with the kids and how they loved to see I knew how to play a game they play everyday! We later went and evangelized to the Masai people. They were very welcoming to us and they told us they loved us and were welcome any time! They were upset with us for not giving them enough time to be able to make us tea! They are so humble and hospitable. This is another thing that is not customary in the states that was really cool to see. They opened up to us and appreciated the prayer. Cool to see the spread of the gospel. As Lupton states in the bottom billion “It is more difficult to detoxify pathological relationships than to build new, healthy, reciprocal relationships between the rich and poor” (Lupton 38) it is cool to see us building theses new and powerful relationships with the people and kids.

5-20 Presentation Day

Presentation Day! Convoy had been working with the school through a feeding program, which to many was the only meal of the day. The aim of the program is to get the school to eventually be able to sustain themselves and grow their own food. This is where we come in. Throughout the semester we studied the proper ways to improve a gardens growth in a healthy matter as well as studied how to maintain a chicken farm and keep our chickens healthy so they can grow big and fat to be butchered or to grow nice and strong to be able to produce the maximum amount of healthy eggs. The kids were incredible, they took everything we said and remembered it and reiterated it to us right back. They took great notes and understood what we were teaching them. I was angry with our class at the end of the day for the fact that they thought the kids would not understand or be able to comprehend what our lesson was teaching. The kids are just underprivileged and lack in opportunity. They go to school because they want to learn not because they have to. Sterns states in his novel “God made me to love serve and obey Him” (94) and in my opinion part of obeying is leaning from others, even if they are the ones that we are supposed to be helping! I had a hard time understanding why our class thought they would not be able to get on board with us. The kids are so smart and really take pride in their schoolwork! We could learn something from them!

5-19 Project Day

Today was the big day to start the projects at the school as well as our demonstration garden at convoy. As stated previously we did not show any signs of getting a lot done due to lack of working together. Surprisingly everything came together though! We had a successful day at the school and worked along side of the kids and finished weeding one entire cornfield! That was really cool. The kids showed us really how to do it! They were all hard workers and really did a good job and loved that we were along side of them helping! We later went to Convoy and presented our plan to them, which they loved. We quickly started to take down banana trees and start the double digging and anything that was needed to do to start prepping for planting and organizing the garden. It was really remarkable how well we came together to work together like we did. In my opinion I think it was mainly due to seeing the kids work before us and how well they did their job with no complaining. Everyone wanted to jump in and help which was awesome to see! We got one part of the double dig done as well as cleared out all the trees we needed to and a group successfully built a compost bin out of banana tree trunks! Pretty amazing if you ask me! The demonstration garden is going along nicely and will be of great value to the locals! Toxic charity states “the will to change our traditional charity systems, now that is the real challenge”(63 ) Us lending a hand and jumping into what was already going on was an encouragement to the kids and was a different way of helping than a traditional charity system.

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)