Day 10: Leaving Celebration

After a relatively dry night, it decided to absolutely tip it down from about 5:30am until gone 9:00 - just typical as this was the morning we needed to pack our stuff and move out of our tents...needless to say we got soaked..in fact drenched! We got packed anyway and one by one the tents got packed away and we moved our bags into one of the classrooms.

After a quick breakfast it was time to get ready for the celebrations - this meant blowing up balloons (which we stored in a mosquito net - genius) getting the gifts ready (the football shirts and footballs etc) and putting the ribbons and tape up for us to later cut to officially sign the school over from Childreach to the Uwa School. We had been given an agenda as follows:

Leaving Party Agenda

The Children began turning up in droves from about 9:00 - the ceremony not due to start till around 11:00, so we used this opportunity to spend some time with the children playing singing games, taking photos, and firing off rocket balloons as well as trying to learn a little more Swahili [most of which they were trying to teach us was definitely rude!!]. We handed out a few more "gifts" including tiny silver and gold stars which they were licking and putting on their faces...we got absolutely mobbed by the kids with hands coming from every angle trying to grab whatever it was we had in our hands.

We were informed that the Education Minister was going to be around 30mins late so we ended up having an early lunch so as to make sure we still got away on time since 5 of the team had planes to catch back to the UK.

At around 12:00 the ceremony began, firstly with the cutting of the first ribbon (to the entrance of the school) followed by a tour led by Elvis and Jan of all the work Childreach had carried out on the school. This in summary included:

• Renovation and painting of all the classrooms
• Dividing walls to make separate classrooms rather than just a single teaching space in each building
• A new kitchen for the staff to prepare meals for the children
• A water harvesting system (to collect rain water)
• Painting of the outsides of all the classrooms and buildings
• A new toilet block (sanitised) with drainage and sewerage
• Painting of all the benches
• Murials and pictures in all the teaching rooms to aid learning - these included maps, pictures of the human body, the solar system, nutritional diagrams and water cycles as well as times tables, numbers, alphabets etc.
• A Volleyball pitch
• Steps to replace the dangerous muddly slope which connected the upper and lower blocks.

Once the tour was complete we cut the final ribbon and then Jan raised the school flag while all the school children and staff sung their national anthem to us. We were then serves a glass (well, plastic cup) of champagne (ok, sparking juice). We we seated and then followed a programme of speeches, dances from the children (which we were invited to join in with) and presentation of gifts - firstly from the RM Futurebuilders to the school (football shirts, footballs and an assortment of musical instruments such as clappers, recorders, tamborines etc. The school then presented each of us (in turn) with a kilimanjaro sun hut and a traditional Tanzania braclet before then serving us up a meal (which we were not expecting as we'd just eaten lunch). The meal was basically goat in a kind of stew with local nuts coated in salt and fat and fried bananas with vegetables....it was actually a lot nicer that it sounded though we had to eat with our fingers (since they rarely use cutlery).

Bottom of the new Flagpole..signed by the RM FutureBuilders

There are a few traditions/values with regards to Tanzania food... Firstly, it is considered extreemely rude to turn the offer of food away, Second, you have to eat with your RIGHT hand only (since they use their left hand for....well...you know..) and THIRDLY while is acceptable to leave food uneaten on your plate you should not leave any food which has not been grown from the ground...i.e., anything that has been "sacraficed" such as an animal..in our case, the goat!

2:00pm came round very quickly and we had to rush off....we said goodbye to the Education Minister, Education Councilor and teachers before saying goodbye to the children for the last time....it was a bit of a wierd experience knowing we would not be coming back (not anytime soon anyway) - we have all achieved so so much these past 10 days and completing the walk around the school really opened our eyes to just how much hard work, sweat and commitment we had all put in.

We set off for Moshi to we where we said goodbye to NIkki, Tom, Chris, Freddie and Kevin who carried on to the airport to catch their flight back to Niarobi and then to the UK. We wish them a safe a pleasant flight and hope they wont be too jeleous of our final week of safaris and beaches...

The remaining FutureBuilders were now ready to start the next part of our adventure....the holiday bit. Harry, Simon, Paul, Jan, Kerry, Adrain, Katie and me checked in to a little hotel in Moshi, headed to the pool (thanks to Katie for cleaning all the leaves out for us while the boys sat and drunk Konyagi).

We went out for a meal in Moshi Town (a very cheap but nice steakhouse - around £3 for a good steak) and then a couple of beers back at the hotel before bed as we had a earlish start in the morning to set off on safari.....