my lovely students…

Teaching was not my first choice for my volunteer experience, but I can honestly say that I have enjoyed every single moment of it. My students have been fantastic and I am sure I have learnt just as much from them as they from me – just different things!

Their curiosity and willingness to learn has been refreshing and wonderful to experience. And to hear about their lives, their culture and their ambitions have been so interesting.

Intriguing to hear their opinions on the fact that some of their fathers have several wives, the fact that some of them had to go live with their grandparents because their parents separate and the fact that girls can get married even before the reach their teens.

And those are just a few of the things that are hard to understand for me – there are over 120 tribes in Tanzania and they all have different traditions… But what I love about the people here is that they do not judge each other, they accept and respect the differences in traditions, in religion and in beliefs. We could all learn a lot from that!!

So it was sad to say goodbye to them last week – so sad that I just didn’t want to, so I offered conversation classes with them this week, and am so pleased that so many of them wanted to join me for that…my last one is today, so will be proper goodbye this time, although I hope to pop in and see them all in December when I’m back here…and I will stay in touch with those who have email addresses – am helping one of them with a business plan, another with creating a LinkedIn profile etc.

Will miss these guys…