Wednesday 9th September was my first night in Iringa, i had met Tully the lady of the house and wife of Willard the lead co-ordinator for the voluntary work i will be doing during my time here. Tully and Willard have a 15month old baby boy called Faith and Tully’s nieces Friain and Atu, they had lost their parents and have been taken in by Willard and Tully which i just think was amazing in itself, they have so little and a small home but have these 2 girls with them now and they seem very happy. Also living here and will be until October 5th is a girl called Alice, she has travelled from Harrogate near Leeds and is staying to help out and is also part of Original Volunteers. So far she has taught at a local primary school and helped out at a nursery and visited an orphanage which i think is amazing.
Dinner was cooked by Tully and it was made up of a chip omelette, you will probably notice the lack of pictures on my blogs and this is due to the poor internet they have here, i am lucky to get any connection really but will take advantage all the same. So the omelette was quite literally chips mixed into beaten eggs and fried, so i had this with tomato sauce and freshly pressed passion fruit and carrot juice.
After dinner and having gone through a 10hr bus journey i was feeling pretty tired, so it was time for me to head to bed, my room for the next couple weeks is a box room, with 2bunk beds, a mattress that has seen better days, so i am glad i remembered to bring a sleeping bag and the bed is covered in mosquito netting. At night on the polystyrene ceiling you here rats and a lot of them, it sounds as though they fight on the roof and it is so loud you would think they were in the room, this goes on throughout the night, but you just have to curl up and block the sounds out.
Thursday 10th September
Woke up pretty early as i had to visit the immigration office to pick up my voluntary work permit, we took a bus into the town centre and i have never witnessed and been part of a more cramped journey than that. A mini bus that seats 15ppl managed to hold 30persons and when it is hot and humid outside, the last thing you need is to be face to butt crammed up in one of these buses. When is stops to pick up more passengers or drop off passengers, everyone squeezes past one another and the push and shove to get past but no-one will actually get off the bus to allow others room to jump off, you just have to push your way past. It was the most interesting experience but this is something i pretty much have to get used to now, as the bus will be my transport to get from one place to another from now on!
Following my trip to the immigration office we then decided to take a trip into town so i could have look around the markets and walk down the different streets and see Iringa’s main centre. They were all very much the same and it is a wonder anyone knows where they are going, unfortunately the wifi is not strong enough to upload pictures, but it is just so intriguing to watch the market traders and shop owners hard at work. After having walked around for a couple hours we then stopped off for some water and a sit down before meeting back at home for the afternoon activities.
After lunch we headed to meet the owners of a charity organisation called FISCH – this is an organisation which fund Iringa’s street children. They go out to the really poor areas of Iringa and meet with street children who have no family or are stealing from others to help support their family. They have no money to go to school, if they have family the parents cannot afford to pay school fees, they just about manage 2 meals a day which consists of rice and beans or their cornbread made up of homegrown ingredients including maize and starch and grains. So the organisation take the children off the streets and they attend FISCH and are taught to make something of themselves, to work hard and get an education, by attending classes. I listened as Joseph who heads up the organisation in Iringa talked through how they help and the lack of money they have, but somehow find it to help these kids.
I met with some of the kids, there were 6 of them whilst i was there and 1 of them was 18 with an 11month old baby and the other was 20 with a 2year old child, both of which were taken off the streets and given a place to stay and be educated. It was truly amazing listening and being introduced to the kids, they were very shy but still shook hands and told me their names. I was given a tour of the building and the facilities or lack of them and each room needed work doing, there was a lot of damp around the walls, fungus in the corners and just not very welcoming at all, but it had a roof and somewhere the kids could stay and be fed and feel safe. There is a medical room which has 2 beds, a table with some medical instruments and materials for poor sick kids who arrive and need somewhere to stay. The children will be re-housed as they do not stay on site but the charity help fund their food and they walk as far as 10-15miles to attend FISCH which i just think is so hard given the heat and the path they take which is not safe for children at all.
We stayed for a few hours and was asked to come back on Friday to take an english lesson and help paint the children’s washroom, which was not in the best condition and we were also asked to go to the projects too, which meant a follow up in these poor areas with the kids families, so we could see for ourselves what conditions they live in, how the charity are helping these street kids and why they need the funding to support them, of course i was more than willing to go to the projects which i knew would be a very emotional encounter.
Having spent a few hours at FISCH we then came home ready to have dinner and prepare for the long day ahead which both Alice and I were very much looking forward to.
SaimasCharityTravels 