Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Day 3: St. Dymphna School (Arusha)

Our third day in Africa we went to the school that Colleen built, which is being ran by a Tanzanian woman named Mary. Colleen has told that story before, so I will just add that the school is doing very well. It has expanded amazing amounts beyond what it was when she started. Mary has volunteers from all over the world regularly coming to help. From America, from the Netherlands, Canada, Australia. It is especially vital that teachers, and particularly teachers trained in special needs education, come to help. There are forty some students at the school now and there is no way that Mary can handle it all alone.

Right now a lot of the volunteers stay at local hostels but there are a couple of rooms with bunks where people can stay at the school. Mary also plans to build an addition on the top of the school with additional rooms so that volunteers can stay there. There is also tons of room for additional infrastructure projects. For example, power is spotty and they have a couple of old computers. To get a steady power supply they have a solar panel on the roof of the school, but the battery is busted and the panel is old anyway. Definitely could use another system. I'll just leave it there and would encourage anyone interested in the school to visit Colleen's website. Be warned - there may be an impostor / fraudulent website that is attempting to solicit donations. It is using a very similar name as Colleen's foundation and claims to have built dozens of schools in Tanzania. Colleen's website is:

http://www.brickbybrickonline.org

Day three was also very exciting, for we won the game of "Iko wapi Kili", which means "where is Kili" in Swahili. On the way home from the school, it was a cloudy day everywhere, but it was clear above Mount Kilimanjaro! The thing was friggin huge. I cannot wait to climb it someday. I am very lucky to have seen it. Pictures forthcoming.

Cheers,
Nick

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