Flower power

04.07.2011

Dear help2kids friends and supporters, here is again Francesca trying to keep you updated with the recent happenings in Tanzania! Life here is always full of duties and surprises: besides the daily errands and common problems such as power-cuts and water shortages, this country and its people are magic and amazing!

Our kids are still on vacation, the school will open again next week. So Mathilde and Johanne, our lovely and multi-tasked volunteers from France, are still organizing home-classes in the morning and in the afternoon. In the past days they have covered several topics, such as geography, greetings in English and natural sciences: after a small expedition outdoor also with Patrick, now each child has a beautiful plants-book with different types of leaves and flowers found around the orphanage.

A big special thanks to Mathilde and Johanne also for being really sweet and adorable with the kids: besides all the teaching lessons, they love the kids so much that last Sunday they cooked special crepes and bought watermelon for all of them!

Of course, our priority is still to teach English because the school system in Tanzania is a little underdeveloped, especially in the public school that the kids are attending. That’s why the volunteers, our social worker Muhali and the mamas always put a lot of efforts in teaching English to the children.

We are always looking for motivated and passionate volunteers, willing to help us and to teach English. If you are interested, have a look at our volunteering website: https://www.help2kids.org/orphanage/projects/volunteering.html

Despite the rain season is officially (and finally!) over, the number of kids affected by malaria is only decreased and not ended as we were hoping. In fact, in the past 2 weeks we had three kids suffering of malaria. Now they are recovering and doing better, but we really wish that it will be over soon. Every time that we have a sick kid, we have to go to the hospital where we have to wait a long time. And the medicines are getting expensive, that’s why by the end of every month in our accounting the budget for health must be continuously reviewed.

After the umpteenth breakdown, our car definitely got broken because of the bad conditions of African roads and probably also because of the long series of repairs done by unskilled mechanics. We now bought another car and we really hope that this time we will not have such problems.

Before concluding this blog, a big thanks to Amandine, the new Assistant Manager. She is doing a great job in our Friendly Gecko Guest House and the house is now fully equipped. Visit the website (always updated with new pictures) and spread the voice! http://www.friendlygecko.com/guesthouse.html

So, that’s all for this week. Asante sana for reading. And also for your kind and precious support!

Francesca
Director Tanzania