Volunteering

About 30 of us now reside in Arusha, in a very small, quirky and African motel which Kilimanjaro Volunteering Exposure have sorted out for us. It is amazing, each shower room has its own unique way of going totally wrong. For example, mine and Martin's shower turns on when we flush the toilet. Martin and I have pimped out our room....multicoloured flashing lightbulbs, massai cloths on the walls, paintings - it is a real bachelor pad, there is even a TV which turns on only to a blue screen.....we call it mood lighting and the girls are, quite frankly, loving it!!hahaha. The volunteer placements started yesterday and the feedback has been amazing. Fergus Wilson was immediately thrown into teaching a class of 60 on his own! The football coaches had the pleasure of playing on a pitch in the shadow of Mount Meru. The HIV/Aids volunteers have been truly humbled by the stories so far and are very interested to be going again to meet more sufferers as well as helping educate the children on prevention. The painters and builders started today, so I await feedback there. Arusha has finally made me feel like I'm at home in Africa. Until now, everything has gone very smoothly and brilliantly, but now I think we get to see the real side of Africa. Just two minutes from our motel is a slate quarry where women work long hours, in the blistering heat smashing up the slate into small pieces. Some of us got the chance to go down into the quarry and do some mining of our own, and it is hard work, the conditions are dangerous and fatalities are regular. Gone are the days of private hire buses, we hop on and off dalla-dallas all the time. People are honing their haggling chops just nicely and it is all becoming a lot more real - and for that reason, more enjoyable Best Wishes Nick