Let's LEAD Tanzania

Team CAHBIN: Carol, Angel, Humphrey, Ben, Innocent, Najma

At the end of April, volunteers across Tanzania came together for the second annual Tanzania National Leadership Experience and Development (LEAD TZ) conference.  For American teenagers, meetings, seminars, camps, and extracurriculars are commonplace, but many of the students attending this conference had never left their villages, and most had never been outside of their home regions within Tanzania.  After a creative application process, 10 groups were selected - each consisting of a Peace Corps Volunteer, a Tanzanian counterpart, and four students (two female and two male).  With changes in funding and leadership of the conference, the road to actually implementing the conference was difficult and lengthy.  Luckily, thanks to collaboration between PCVs, we managed to fund and attend the conference!

My big, strong boys who took my hand
and saved me from being washed away in
the thigh-deep, rushing "rivers"

Still the road to LEAD TZ had its challenges.  April is in the middle of masika, or the monsoon season, in many parts of Tanzania.  My village, situated in the mountainous Machame region of Kilimanjaro in the foothills of the big mountain, is subject to extreme rains that permeate every part of life.  The hard, rocky roads transform into a slippery, muddy mess, and transportation becomes even more difficult!

We had planned to ride our old, beat-up school truck for the mere 6 kilometers we had to travel to get to the main road where our cross-country bus would meet us up (travel got much easier when after I realized even the biggest buses were willing to negotiate a pickup on the side of the road!).  I guess you could call it the typical SNAFU to wake up before dawn to the unexpected thunder of fat, fast raindrops on tin roofs.  It turns out our mountainous village roads had transformed into slick, brown rivers.  We piled in the back of the pickup truck, drenched in seconds from raindrops pelting sideways into our faces.  Needless to say, our truck got stuck in muddy ruts once, then twice, then three times (see the video below!)

Fed up with angry phone calls from the bus conductor, and the relentless shower, I led my students' gaze to the paved road visible on the horizon, and told them we were going to reach, whether on foot or not.  We were in the farmlands only about a kilometer away from the road - but the path had become laced with rushing rivers with water reaching to mid-thigh!  My slippers, which quickly snapped, were left in the farms, and the six of us, with twelve bare feet, navigated the slippery landscape, and eventually made it to town, where a bus full of angry passengers lay waiting for us.  They were pleased to finally direct their anger at someone (me), and I gave them the simple answer that we were late - just simply late.  We arrived to Morogoro, a beautiful city in central Tanzania, still soggy and cold (except for myself, who had taken an opportunity when the bus was stopped in traffic to hide behind a thorny bush and exchange my drenched jeans for damp ones from my soaked backpack).

The conference proceeded without any other major obstacles.  Check out some of the highlights of the conference with the photos below!  You can also check out the Youtube video  (hyperlink) by a talented member of the Peace Corps Tanzania Media Team (posted below).



Our main focuses included team buildling, leadership, and career planning and empowering youth with knowledge about HIV/AIDS, malaria, nutrition, food security, sexual health, gender equality, and science.  Each session was led by a Peace Corps Volunteer/Tanzanian national pair from one of the 10 participating schools.

Morning exercise - a fun staple!

Teambuilding activities - making a team cheer, trust falls, obstacle courses, and other fun activities!  Pictured standing on the chair you can see my hardworking, insightful counterpart Benson Mushi, whose tireless work and collaboration made our work possible.

Activities from World Malaria Day - learning about the importance of sleeping under a mosquito net through games!

Sexual health and condom demonstration lessons - always interesting with shy Tanzanian teenagers

Gardening with limited space and resources - in a gunnysack!  And a nutrition lesson - making delicious guacamole!

Science competitions -
my students creating an "egg-drop" contraption

A highlight of the trip - a visit to Sokoine University of Agriculture

Action-planning to take the knowledge back to their peers
at Uroki Secondary School

You can check out a more detailed description of the conference from the lead organizer, my friend and fellow Peace Corps Volunteer Chris Biles by clicking on the link below. (Today is actually my first day of medical school, and I guess this is one way to save time while still updating this blog :P)

https://usawatanzania.wordpress.com/2016/05/22/the-tanzania-national-lead-leadership-experience-and-development-conference/

LEAD TZ 2016 was an incredibly powerful and moving union of youth from all across Tanzania that admitted students and educators, but produced changemakers with hope and the prospect of creating a brighter future for Tanzania.

My confident, beautiful inside-and-out future leaders of Tanzania