Rainy Season

            The past two weeks I have been busy teaching in the classroom, doing some farm work, reading some books, enjoying the great weather, exploring Arusha town, playing rugby, and planning a safari. I feel like I am building up a good base to experience the most here in Africa.

            The work in the classroom has gotten better over the past couple of weeks. Some kids are very advanced and some are still very behind. I have learned some teaching techniques from other teachers on how to get the students to understand and apply the new computer knowledge. I found it useful to prepare and place posters around the computer lab with pictures of basic computer functions.

students after match

After work in the class each day there are clubs that the students play in. I have been playing rugby with some of the students. We play at a nice sports complex called Tanzania Game Trackers just a few minutes from the school. It has a fitness center, bar/restaurant, and rugby field. People have said it is the nicest field in east Africa. It has been lot of fun spending time with the students here and playing rugby. I have been able to pick up on the rules and I am able to play in the matches on the weekends vs. other schools in Tanzania.

Peace House has a goal of becoming self-sustainable in the future. On campus there are a few large farms and gardens that produce the food for the students, staff, and volunteers. We have been preparing the farms these past few weeks just before the rainy season so we have a productive crop. Each week the students have to work for a few hours on campus. So after we finished weeding we started our planting just before the rains.

dust cloud

The first few weeks I was here it was very dry and dusty. There was one dust storm that came through last week. It was pretty cool to see the big cloud of dust and dirt fly through the air. You could taste the dust in the air even in the house. This last week the rainy season officially started. We get a few large storms each day that last for an hour or so. Everything is begging to green up and the sky is so clear, but now its hard not to track mud everywhere I go. I have been caught in a storm unprepared. It was after a rugby practice we were riding back in the back of an open transport truck and heavy rains started coming down on us. I thought it was pretty cool to be in it but all the other kids did not like it and were trying to hide behind me to stay warm and dry.

after rain

rain storm