Pommern- Weekend Number 2!

Our second weekend in Pommern was another relaxing one.   On Saturday we went to a party for a pastor in the village who has been promoted to manage an entire district.  There was lots of wonderful singing, speeches, gifts, and food.  Of particular note, many of the gifts were... alive.  We counted at least 3 chickens.

Of course, there was more volleyball:

And we had a lot of nice walks around Pommern enjoying the landscape that is really hard to describe.  It's vast and not nearly as interrupted by humanity as we're used to.

On Sunday we dressed up in some new African clothes we had purchased materials for and had sewn by the local tailor (a skirt for Shannon a shirt for me).  Now we're practically locals!

Finally, the weekend included a lot of good card game with the team.  I'm happy to report that I've developed a knack for Skipbo!

Pommern - Shannon's Birthday!

Shannon's birthday (November 13th) coincided perfectly with a handful of events in the community and so we had a really great day!

First, at the Primary School the vocational school students in carpentry were having their graduation.  We were guests of honor to this event and really got to see "Africa time" in action here.  We've experienced a more laid back sense of time in every country other than America, but Africa takes it to a new level.  When they say the graduation will start at 9 AM... they really mean... 10ish or 11ish or....  After playing with the kids in the morning, helping with the tippy taps, and cooking for the fiesta, we finally got things going and enjoyed the celebration of graduation for these students.

Students dancing prior to the ceremony.

Carpentry graduates holding up the tools they received at graduation.

After the graduation we had a duck chase back at the house.  This was actually our second poultry chase (previously, chicken) as Aiden our youngest team member had made a goal of learning this skill.  Ducks are easier to chase than chickens but more intimidating than chickens because of biting possibility.  Anyway, we were successful.

In the afternoon, we had a visit by some traditional Hehe dancers (that's the name of the local tribe).  They danced with bells on their feet at the encouragement of a very old man.  At first we thought he was randomly from the village and needed a chair to watch the dancing and only later learned that he was a critical part of the dance.  Essentially, he was a real life Rafiki (from the Lion King).

Finally we had a great birthday dinner complete with doughnuts Momma Tony cooked, a cake, and a bottle of Tanzanian wine.

It was definitely a very unique birthday for Shannon and one that'll be hard to top!

Pommern Week 2 (Part 1ish)

Our second week of service in Pommern continued what has become our pattern here.  Teaching physics and Pre-Primary (kindergarten) in the morning and then drifting into some sort of community project during the afternoon.

We started a bit more heavy labor this week while we worked on removing the mud mortar from the school library and eventually replacing it with concrete mortar.  This project was a liiiiiiittle dirty.

One other thing we worked on was depositing "Tippy Tappys" which are frames which have a pedal to pour water out of a gallon jug to teach children to wash their hands.

We also enjoyed regular visits from community members who have talked to us about education in Tanzania, cultures and customs, ethnographic history etc.  Below is Edward singing after teaching us a bit about African ethnic groups.

Soooo... that's a few pictures and outline of our life in general.  The next few posts will be about a few highlights including, most importantly, Shannon's birthday.

Pommern- Week 1/ Part 2

This describes more activities from Week 1, written on November 9th--

After a quick Kiswahili lesson from Mohammed on Monday afternoon, we all looked forward to going on our assignments on Tuesday.  Scott was charged with working with a physics teacher at the secondary school, while I was headed to- where else?- pre-kindergarten!  We continued these assignments for each morning the remainder of the week.

Scott really enjoyed brushing up on his physics concepts and by the end of the week, was building periscopes for the students to experiment with.  I should note here that in Tanzania all subjects at the secondary school are taught in English.  From what we have learned about the school system, they are trying very hard to "catch up" and see learning English as a way to do this.

As for me, working with the 3 and 4 year olds was quite familiar, with one major barrier: language.  The children in this class speak only Swahili or their mother tongue (called "Hehe").  I did attempt to teach them the English alphabet.  Teaching style here is VASTLY different than the way we do early education in America.  It was a struggle to know what to do, but I was assured that just being there and playing and smiling with the children was enough.

In the afternoons, our entire group of volunteers headed to the secondary school where we split up into smaller groups with students from "Form 2" (which is roughly equivalent to sophomores in high school) to have open question and answer times with them.  This was a cultural exchange and also a way for the students to practice their English.  Having students ask us questions really provided a lot of insight into the culture and education system of Tanzania.  Popular questions were about jobs in America, what crops we grow (like Scott and I in particular), how our education system works, bride price (which is still a custom here), and Barack Obama.

For our first weekend in Pommern, about half of our group set out for a safari at Ruaha National Park.  Scott and I decided to stay behind since we're going on a two-week safari later.  So we had a mellow weekend in Pommern.

On Friday night, we grabbed a drink at the "quiet pub" with the teacher Scott has been working with, Patrick.  He was very kind to sit and chat with us about everything from elephants to skiing (skiing has been a VERY foreign thing to explain in Tanzania).

On Saturday, we took a hike to a waterfall not far from the village.  While it wasn't the most stunning waterfall we've ever seen, it was nice to get out and see the countryside.

In the afternoon, we played volleyball with some of the secondary school students.  I enjoyed the chance to recall some of my high school volleyball skills (haha).

On Sunday, we were introduced at the Lutheran church and really enjoyed the beautiful singing.  The rest of our group returned from the safari and we settled in for a new week of serving!

Pommern- Week 1/ Part 1

Scott and I are back in internet connection (still spotty...but at least possible), so we are going to try to update on the last few weeks!  To summarize, we just completed a three week service project in a rural Tanzanian village called Pommern.  We did our service through an organization called Global Volunteers, which is based out of Minnesota.

It would be impossible to tell all the stories and wonderful things we experienced in the last three weeks, but we will attempt to convey some of it over the next few posts.  When we meet you all again in person, ask us for a story from Pommern, and we'll be happy to share more!

This post is from our first week, written on November 9th--


We have made it through our first full week here in Pommern! On Monday afternoon, after a night and day touring around Iringa Town, we set out for the final leg of our journey- about a 90 minute drive on a dirt road to Pommern.  As Edward (our team leader) puts it- to "the real Africa".  This is a picture of our trusty Global Volunteers van.

We arrived at the Mission House, which is a large brick building built in the early 1900s by Lutheran missionaries.  We were greeted by Mama Tony and sat down for a delicious dinner.  After two/three days of loooong travel, we were all glad to finally reach the place we would call home for the next 3 weeks.

The next day (Tuesday), we spent the morning as a team discussing our goals and outlining some general group rules (replacing the toilet paper roll). We also took a walk to the schools we would be working with and met teachers and principals. During this process, we felt as if we had been formally welcomed into the community.  This felt very important.

I should take this time to introduce the people that we are on this journey with---
Pommern Global Volunteers Staff:  Edward- Our team leader. He lives in Pommern and gives us our daily assignments and inspiration.  Mohammed- expert driver of our van and general caretaker of the mission house .  Mama Toni- the wonderful cook.

Our team of volunteers consists of:  Scott and (from left to right) me, Barb (Minnesota), Meghan, Deborah, and Aidan (a family from Virginia),  Mimi and Eric (a couple from Detroit who have been here 4 times!), Tom (a little hidden) and Kathryn (couple from Minnesota), and (unpictured) Sharon (Oklahoma), and Michelle (a Global Volunteer staff member from Minnesota).

More from Week 1 coming in the next post!

Aaaaaaaand we're back!

After three(ish) wonderful weeks in Pommern, we are back in Iringa tonight (enjoying hot showers) before beginning the journey to Dar Es Salaam tomorrow.  Our time here has been very good with lots of serving, learning, and village life.  We'll try to put up some catch-up blog posts in the next week as we get closer to reliable power and internet.  But for right now here's a sneak preview photo:

Dar Es Salaam - Mini-Tropical Retreat before Service

We flew into Dar a day before officially starting our service trip because we wanted some time to recover from our red-eye flight.  Travel was simple enough, although two Dramamine put me (Scott) in a strange, barely functional state (helps with the sleeping though).  Once we arrived, we got a ride to the Slipway where we discovered that they drive on the left here and driving is... a little scary.  We napped, ate dinner, and pretty much went to bed.

Since our hotel is right on the water and we're pretty close to the equator... it's tropical!  This was honestly a bit of a surprise to us, but we'll take it.  today we found a boat shuttle out to a little beach and we enjoyed a tropical afternoon at Bongoyo Island.

We met our team at dinner tonight (well part of the team, some have later flights) and we're very excited to get started tomorrow.  Our host (Edward) informed us that this (the beach, etc.) isn't the real Africa... so don't worry, our "service trip" isn't going to be us laying on a beach, Shannon has already been signed up to have a seminar with the kindergarten teachers, etc.

We don't think we'll have much power and internet is way less likely, so our blog posts may get spread a week(s) or so apart.  If you don't want to have to go to the site all the time you can sign up for an e-mail when we update in the "Follow by E-mail" area of the right-hand column (drop your e-mail in and follow the instructions).  Cheers for now!

Europe Notes and Thoughts

Well, we've left the European continent behind and have drifted over the Mediterranean to Dar Es Salaam, the capital of Tanzania.  Here we are prepping for the beginning of our Global Volunteers based service trip in the little village of Pommern.  But before we get more into that, we wanted to share some last thoughts on Europe.

-Trains:  Especially after flying yesterday, we're really going to miss trains.  We used a rail pass and it was super efficient.  Several times we would over think train travel because "it-can't-be-this-easy" only to ask a train staff employee and find that it was in-fact that easy.

Miss you trains!  Kinda hate you planes!

-Cultures:  It's amazing how many different cultures are smashed into such a small place like Europe.  Crossing borders is incredibly easy because of the EU's agreements but just across any given border the culture changes quickly.  We wonder how countries maintain their independent cultures with no-real-border control and identical currency.  Not sure how, but they do.

-Food:  Was all good. We did have some really great authentic (we hope) meals in most countries.  And we'll miss things like kasekrainer, prosciutto sandwiches (in abundance), honey cream, chocolate croissants, Ritter Chocolate, schnitzel and especially marzipan.

Shannon getting her fancy dinner on in Mayrhofen, Austria.

-Pedestrian Cities:  Who could imagine that people would actually want to walk around their cities not just drive through them?!  Brilliant!

-Cost:  Europe ain't cheap.

...and Austria since we didn't say anything before.

-Sorta German, Sorta Italian:  We thought Austria, as a German speaking country, would be fairly close to German culture.  And it did seem that way at times (especially food-wise) but they definitely have a hint of Italian slow-life culture.  In some ways this maybe the best of both worlds?  A bit of German precision and a bit of Italian romance.

-Skiing is a big deal in Austria.  They care about World-Cup races and ski year round.  Very cool.

-The beer isn't as good (sorry guys) as their neighbors in Germany and the Czech Republic.

-Vienna itself is a really cool city with a lot of really nice pedestrian areas, it served us very well as a base-camp for Eastern European (and skiing) adventures.

This is a statue of Manatee we saw in Europe.  Bizarre and super random.  That's all!