Tanzania - building goat sheds

Get ready to listen to a story that happened to me when I was 15. Some will cry, most won't believe it.

So how did it go? I was 15, in middle school, completely green when it came to travelling, when I was big enough to go on an annual school trip to do charity in Tanzania. Let's make it clear, although it was my dream to do charity I knew NOTHING about Tanzania, or Africa. I would probably had better memories if at least on of my friends decided to join me, or if my dad didn't try his hardest to stop me from going.

So, what did I know? Nothing. I was told to get vaccinated against a number of diseases, buy anti malaria pills (we'll get to that in a second), that I'll spend a day in Turkey and more or less what to pack.

The Road

Warsaw - Kilimanjaro is not a quicky. It took place in February which means the climate shock was literally sickening. It isn't direct either and forced us to spend a day in Istambul, but that's a story for another time. Something that my history/geography really put emphasis on was packing all the essentials in our bagpacks, NOT the suitcases. That is because the airline that we took is known for loosing luggages and Africa is the place were you don't want to end up in without underwear. In other words, the road took us 2 days. We arrived in the middle of the night. I'll never forget the feeling of exiting the plane. The air was humid and heavy, as Kapuscinski described it "felt like a sponge". The airport was tiny, without a roof, so we as we waited for the bus we could watch the stars and the beautiful African sky at night.

Accomodation

You probably won't find it very helpful, mostly since the camp we stayed at was my school's property. We had multpile 4 people tents, a fire place, a huge cantine, a chill-out area, bathrooms, a view on the mountains, chefs, security guards, cleaners and a huge pool. And it was amazing. Everything was surprisingly clean, the food was always restaurant quality and the camp itself counted as a safari. Which brings me to my next point.

Safari

Before we actually started doing something useful we had 2 days of safari. For those of you who don't know a safari usually takes place in a car/truck and is about viewing fauna and flora (pun intended). Something that I feel like I should warn you about is who you will go with. I was trapped in the truck with a bunch of people who had absolutely o interest in anything going on around us. And I hate to say it, but it did take away a lot from the experience. I also got my period. TAKE PADS, TAMPONS AND PAIN KILLERS. As you can imagine, there will be no pharmacies between elephants and giraffes. Nevertheless, I immediately forgot about the blood and the cramps when I saw a baby elephant bathing in mud. It was the happiest thing I have ever witnessed.

Creepy Crawlies

I'll try to make it quick. Every night, whether I was at our camp or at the safari, I was always afraid of sleeping, because I would rather die than wake up and find a spider on my sleeping bag. Luckily, I didn't find anything in my tent that wasn't supposed to be there, but I did hear that the tent next to us had a hole in the floor (probably from a cigarette), which led to a huge trace of ants crawling on the girls' belongings. Otherwise, that's what I have been told by our guide "If you find an ant I don't wanna know. If you find an entire army I do want to know. If you find a tiny spider I don't wanna know, but if you find a big spider I do wanna know. And if you a snake, of any size, I do wanna know". That is true if you find any animal that would freak you out at your own house contact someone in charge, if it's anything else just deal with it on your own.

Malarone (seriously it's important)

Aside from a bunch of vaccines that you have to get you will be required to purchase and start taking a certain drug. As you can deduct, it is meant to protect your ass from getting malaria. Although, at the time the risk of getting malaria in Tanzania was about 1%, most African countries want to avoid the spread by making it obligatory. What I wasn't aware of were the horrible side-effects. Let's face it, the climate will be a shock for your organism. You will most probably get a cold and quite possibly a diarrhea from not being used to the water. However, malarone will surely make both of them about 10 times worse. At least that's what happened to everyone I talked to, to the extent where a lot of us actually stopped taking it half way. Just trust me on one thing. Get it from a reliable source. I had my box from a pharmacy, some people bought their's on-line, big mistake. Along with everything I have mentioned so far they also had fever, nightmares and even hallucinations.

Charity Work

Alright, let's finally get to it. As I said, I didn't know at all what's going to happen. I knew that the yea before us they painted an orphanage which was what I expected. Boy was I wrong. At our chill-out area we have been told that our mission was going to be building goat sheds. Imagine my face. Why goats? That is probably the most sustainable form of charity. Basically, we gift a goat to a family and a place for it to live. Thanks to the goat the family has milk, butter and cheese, which they can both consume and sell. If they sell it, they can buy a second goat and start breeding, which will not only double the food, but also give the possibility of selling more and more goats. And that's beautiful.

The next day, after we picked up our white goat we went to the family that was assigned to my group. Their house looked interesting. The only thing we saw was approximately a 2m squared "room" with a kettle in the center that served as a kitchen. I think it's a good time to talk about the family.

They obviously didn't speak English, so we couldn't communicate. All information comes from the people who live there and take care of them on a daily basis.

Women in Tanzania get married early in life and usually have numerous children. The mortality in East Africa is high, so the husbands die quite often. However, a woman isn't allowed to remarry. She is only allowed to marry another woman if she's lucky. Apparently, the woman who's acquaintance I couldn't, had to take the more dangerous option.Can you guess what the other option is? If you can't here's a hint: three weeks before our arrival she died of AIDS. To make that story even worse her 2 youngest children (age 1.5 and 0.5) were born with AIDS. Also did I mention that she left behind 10 kids age 0.5 to 16? "So who did they live with?" you may ask. The answer is their grandfather who was an alcoholic. There's also this small detail that some of the fathers who knew that they had children took them away.

I don't think the rest of the story is important. All I can add is that at least they had a blast building and decorating the shed with us and they decided to name the goat Rose. And I hope that their life finally got a tiny little bit better.