After three
and a half great weeks in Ireland, we are now back in Tanzania. Having had our
fill of pork, cheese, fresh milk and being cold we are back in the land of
rice, beans and UHT. It was wonderful to see people and we were very glad we
decided to come back for an extra week and a half. Thanks again to Swords and
Dublin West for asking us to share some of what we’re up to.
This post
has the making of a monumental catch up but in short, the couple of weeks
before we left for Ireland proved to be complicated in a uniquely Tanzanian way.
On our emotional last Sunday in Shinyanga, we piled a Hilux high with our
stuff, strapped a mattress to the roof and took off for Geita, our ‘new town’
(see previous blog post). Fifteen minutes into our four hour trip, Paul got an
email asking him to attend an interview in Mwanza (two hour car journey plus
ferry ride from Geita) the next day for a job based in Shinyanga.
A slight
change of plan meant that we dropped our belongings in Geita, and continued on
to Mwanza. A further email received that night indicated that the interview had
been postponed until Thursday. Continuing to rack up the miles, we travelled
back to Geita on Tuesday morning to meet people, find out about their projects
and familiarise ourselves with a new place – all the while knowing if the interview
went well, this could be our one and only week there. In a major stroke of
luck, we met Annette, a lovely German woman, who happened to be going to Mwanza
the day before Paul’s interview. So on Wednesday morning, Paul arrived in
Mwanza airport and after a very pleasant but challenging interview, Paul was
offered the job! In most ways, accepting it was a no brainer – it’s a great
project, will be good experience and allows us to return to our Tanzaniain ‘home
town’.
All was
going well until Paul’s lift back to Geita was delayed by a day due to some car
issues. That would have been fine had he not taken both passports with him and
immigration had not knocked on Alice’s hotel door in Geita at 10pm. After much
negotiation, threats of jail, explanation and a conveniently sent whatsapp
picture of Alice’s visa, sleep was had. Until 1am when Alice woke up and
vomited til the early morning...the joys of life here...!
In summary,
Paul has a new job. It’s with a Dutch NGO called ICS who’s main country office
is in Shinyanga, very close to where we used to live. He has been employed to
help manage a UK Aid funded pre-paid water project in villages in the Shinyanga
region. It will aim to share Shinyanga town’s water supply from Lake Victoria
with villages along the route which don’t yet have any mains water. Using
existing mobile money technology, users will be able to ‘top-up’ cards for the
amount of water they want. It’s a bit like this.
Leaving
Tearfund ‘officially’ was a tough decision but a great chat with Shannon in the
Tearfund country office freed us of any guilt which were are very thankful for!
Returning to Shinyanga also allows Alice to continue working in Buhangija where
she will be able to continue helping with the nursery school, working alongside
the nurse, monitoring the food and water situation and hopefully starting some
new projects. On top of all that, we received an email this week asking Alice
to manage a hotel in Shinyanga for a month...Tanzania, how we have missed you!
No comments:
Post a Comment