West Coast Reconnaissance : The Schools

Last Sunday Charlie and I set out on a mission. 

Next year, the Benedictine Volunteer Corps, the program that sponsored us to be here in Hanga this year, would like to send two more volunteers to the western part of Tanzania to Mvimwa Abbey. Our mission last week was to visit the abbey and the surrounding schools run by the Abbey. It could technically be called work, but it was a fun trip, and quite a different travel experience than we are used to. 

We were gone for a total of seven nights:

Sunday in Mbeya

Monday in Sumbawanga

Tuesday in Mvimwa

Wednesday and Thursday at Kipili on the shores of Lake Tanganyika

Friday night back in Sumbawanga

Saturday night back in Mbeya

and we were back home in Hanga on Sunday. 

We had stayed at St. Benedict house in Mbeya last October, and it was good to visit the town again and greet Fr. Novatus who runs the guest house. It was also a great opportunity to get eat some good Indian food at the Mbeya hotel and Pizza on our way back!

The "road" to Sumbawanga from Mbeya was perhaps the most treacherous that we have been on the past 8 months. We had heard news from the monks that the road was bad in the dry season, and we are now in the middle of the rainy season. It was that bad...

here is a scene from one of the times we had to get off the bus as it slid through the mud in the backed up traffic.

Here is Charlie in a crowd getting back on the bus after a bathroom break...no there are no gas stations along the way that can accommodate a bus load of people.

After only about 9 hours of traveling (2 on paved road, and the other 7 on the mud/dirt where the bus continually feels like it will tip on its side, though somehow never does...) we reached Sumbawanga and were greeted by Brother Joseph who lives at the house in Sumbawanga and works at St. Maurus Chemchemi Secondary school that is run by the Abbey.

After a short break for some chai and bread, we took a tour of the school.

It is a beautiful school! The volunteers who come next year will most likely spend most of their time in Sumbawanga and will be teachers at this school. It is a very large school, and also looks much cleaner and much newer than any other secondary school I have seen in country. I almost wanted to stay on for another year and work here...almost...

Charlie in deep discussion with Br. Joseph in his office at the school.

Another purpose of our visit was to ready the schools for the arrival of donated books! After nearly 4 months of sorting through the container that arrived back November, the schools in Hanga are about as full of books as we can get. So many of the rest of the books will soon travel to the west to enable these schools to start libraries of their own.

St. Maurus already had a good start, but we assured them, there are MANY more books coming. Fill the room with shelves...

A view from the entrance of the school with the main assembly ground directly behind us.

The next day we traveled to Mvimwa Abbey in the afternoon. Again, not the greatest roads to say the least :) but we made it in just about 2 hours of up and down bumpy riding. Br. Joseph is a pretty talented driver. 

The primary school in Mvimwa is run by the Abbey, but is Kiswahili medium. This would make teaching here a little more of a challenge for strict English speakers. 

It was another good looking school. I really enjoyed the red sweater uniforms. Here we are visiting some Standard VII students. their English was pretty good. I think Charlie is trying to answer the question posed by one of the students: "If your lakes freeze in the winter, why don't the fish all die?" Good question...

A view of the boys dormitory. A good number of the students board here. 

The school even had a nice computer lab. Charlie was confused by the juxtaposition of modern technology and the ancient. I think that other machine is called a "typewriter"

And finally, the site of the future library at St. Placidus primary school in Mvimwa. Again, we stressed how many books were really coming. fill the room with shelves! This will be a great project for someone next year.

Benedictines and education. go together like a horse and carriage. 

All for this installment of the review from our recon. I will post again tomorrow with some pictures from Mvimwa. The Abbey is in a truly beautiful location on the edge of the rift valley.

thanks for reading!