Written by Helen Macbrayne (Stirling, Scotland)
There was no particular reason that led to me choosing to go to Tanzania – I knew nothing of the country; all I knew was that I wanted to go to Africa. I now know that it is difficult to describe Tanzania without using superlatives. The country has Africa’s highest peak – Mount Kilimanjaro; its lowest point – the floor of Tanganyika; its largest lake – Lake Victoria; and there are many amazing famous game parks – the Ngorongoro Crate and Serengeti. Despite these things, Tanzania is one of Africa’s most unassuming countries; it is highly primitive, very friendly and all Tanzanians are very proud of their country.
The day of the 27 th January – departure day – finally arrived and my parents drove me down to Heathrow airport where, for the first time, I met my twenty-six companions for the next 6 months, before catching the evening flight to Nairobi. We were all very apprehensive but shared the usual polite conversations that people of my age have when meeting for the first time – A levels, university and where we came from – all brash confidence on the outside and quiet terror within.
After a nine-hour flight we landed in Nairobi, where we were met by one of the co-ordinators of the organisation. We were taken to a place in Kenya called Naivasha, where we were going to be staying for a week, to enable us to get to know each other, have some intensive Swahili lessons and acquire some teaching skills before we were placed as teachers in our schools.
When the end of our induction week came, it was time for us to cross the border from Kenya to Tanzania, which took us about seven hours altogether. I was so shocked by the difference in affluence between the two countries; they really are worlds apart in so many ways. Kenya seemed so rich compared to Tanzania. That night we stayed in a campsite under canvas and we were all taken by surprise by how very cold it was at night. My naïve perception of Africa had been one of constant warmth, not the bitter cold that came with nightfall.
The next morning it was time for us to be deposited at the houses where we would be living for the next five months during our teaching placements. Our rickety minibus (which are known as dalla dallas in Tanzania) had all of our luggage piled high on top. We bumped along the track for about a mile until we reached bare open plains of fields where there was a tiny little building, not much larger than the size of the minibus with a little blue door and chickens and goats roaming about outside. This was my home for the next five months. I would share this with three other girls, none of whom I knew. The four of us were greeted by the headmasters of the two schools in which we were to be teaching. Neither of these men (who were going to be crucial to our well-being) spoke particularly good English and our Swahili was of course minimal.
We entered the house, which comprised two very tiny rooms, each with two bunk beds and one larger room that contained one gas lamp, two kerosene cookers and a very narrow table with four wooden chairs around it. We were then shown the toilet which was outside the back of our house in a shed-like construction. Inside were two breeze blocks either side of a smelly long-drop – the breeze blocks being to stand on when using the toilet. Next door to the toilet building was exactly the same type of structure, just a bare tiny room, with a small hole in the ground (leading down to the same hole as the toilet), which we used for washing ourselves. The hole was our drainage system, not very sophisticated and certainly very smelly!
Our new and, as yet unknown, neighbours had prepared a huge feast for our arrival; this included bowls of rice, potatoes, meat, cooked bananas, small fish, cucumbers and watermelon. This was very generous of them, the first of our many experiences of their generosity, but rather sadly all four of us felt so disorientated that our hunger had vanished; however, we ate enough in order to be polite. Our neighbours then insisted on taking us to the local market, not quite what we had in mind but not to be refused. The concept of public transport in Africa is entirely different from that in England; because there is little or no private transport (a bicycle is considered a luxury owned by the very few) everyone relies upon the bus and, as a consequence, there is barely enough space to breathe let alone to sit!
The first night in the house was quite surreal; all four of us were still in shock trying to absorb how different our day-to-day lives would be for the next five months. The thoughts of having to go to the primitive toilet and washing ourselves with a bucket of dirty water (if we were lucky and there was any water for washing) were going to take quite a while to adjust to.
The first morning my partner, Natasha, and I needed to be up by six o’clock as we were to be at the school at which we had been designated to reach by half-past seven. A pupil of our school was going to show us the way to the school as it was a two-mile walk through maize fields and houses and over a small river in order to get there. On our approach to the school grounds, we could hear drums banging and children singing. There were tiny children rushing past us, for fear that they were late for the assembly, desperately trying to reach their age group so that they could join the end of the line that their class made in the playground without being noticed by the teacher. We later discovered that pupils arriving late were caned.
As we entered the school grounds of Tuvaila Primary School, we were greeted by blank-faced children, who looked positively terrified by our arrival. This was not quite the reaction that we had anticipated and we found it very unnerving. It was not until later that one of the teachers explained to us that the children had never seen a white person before and they had possibly thought that we were ghosts! Our task to teach these children suddenly seemed more daunting than ever.
We stood in front of the rows and rows of children who were lined up in their forms, taking up the majority of the playing area of the school grounds. The headmaster then proceeded to introduce each of us individually to the whole school and to the teachers and explained to them in Swahili that we would be teaching the standard seven students English for the next five months before the end of year examinations. I was due to teach the first lesson of the day. Feeling slightly anxious about how the children would respond to me, I picked up some chalk and the textbook that I was supposed to follow and headed to my classroom. I walked into a large, bare room filled with 70 faces staring up at me, all sitting behind very old wooden desks. The children all stood up to greet me with “Good morning, teacher, don’t get Aids.” Not quite the greeting that I had expected and this did take me aback a little. However, the headmaster did explain to me that this is the school’s way of trying to make the children aware of the danger of Aids as in Africa now almost eighty per cent of its inhabitants have this potentially deadly virus. This figure is not helped by the fact that all the children I spoke to about it have been led to believe by some source that using contraception enhances the possibility of catching Aids!
As my class were the oldest in the school, they were not quite so overwhelmed by my white complexion as most of the younger years were. However, it took a few weeks to bring them out of their shells for them to respond to me. To my great relief it turned out that the level of some of the children’s English was surprisingly good. English is their third language, coming after their mother tongue (tribal language) and then Swahili.
After the first month had passed, our daily routine became almost fixed. Natasha and I had structured timetables to follow at school and the two-mile walk became accepted without question. We taught sport two afternoons each week and also art for three lessons every week. One thing that did take me by surprise was the length of time it took me to mark the exercise books for all seventy children in my class every day. However, it was worth every minute, as those previously blank faces gradually changed into smiling happy faces that were so very eager to learn.
Many of the children in my class lived in the orphanage, which was not very far from the school. These children had either been rescued from the street, had been taken away from a violent family or came from a family that had too many children. Tash and I tried to visit their orphanage every Sunday to play with them or just to talk and give them a cuddle. These tiny things always seemed to bring a smile to their faces and to ours, as we simply loved being with them.
During the second month, the level of water shortages increased; it could be up to a week that we were without water in our village. This meant that we had to walk carrying a bucket each for two miles in order to get some water. This basically meant that we did not wash during these periods, as drinking was obviously our priority. Hence, there was not even an ounce of glamour in our day-to-day appearance! The majority of the time we wore long, loose skirts and baggy polo shirts that we had bought from the local market. This meant that we neither offended the prevalent Muslim beliefs nor gave an appearance of affluence.
The rainy season began towards the end of the second month and, unbeknown to us, this meant more mosquitoes, snakes and rates! As we were living in such a rural area, with maize fields surrounding our house, it was an ideal habitat for snakes. On three occasions on our route to school in the morning we were greeted by a deadly green mamba snake crossing the path in front of us. Our neighbours also warned us to be cautious as they could slither under the doors of your house!
Then came the rats … One night Natasha and I could hear a scratching in our room. We couldn’t work out where it was coming from. Then I shone my torch up onto our shelf and there it was, with its huge black eyes and long rubber-like tail, staring at me. We both froze in our beds, with only our flimsy mosquito nets to protect us. It scrambled down off the shelf, knocking off most of our things. The next morning – having had no sleep – I discovered that the rat had eaten half of my bar of soap and nibbled at my mattress. I wish I could say that this was the last of the rats, but they came back almost every night. We eventually piled heavy books across the base of our bedroom door each night and this did keep ratty and his friends.
Money is a bonus in Tanzania. If someone is without, then their neighbour will help them. The warmth and hospitality of this country is overwhelming, making the Western world look cruel, hard, greedy and selfish.
Two months later and my adventures in Africa seemed like a distant memory, until I take a few quiet moments alone to look at my photos. I have tried to explain my time in Tanzania to my friends and family, but I never seem to be able to do it justice. I will keep those memories for my great friend Tash and me to share, as there are some things that my parents need never know, nor would they understand even if I tried to explain.
There are many more aspects of my time in Africa that I could have mentioned but I feel that there would never be enough words.