Evening all,
Freddie and Adam here on the decks, hello to all the fans (our families)
Adam:
This morning was no different with the boys waking up to an overwhelming amount of dew on the outside of the tents, this made exiting the tent an undesirable activity often ending in disaster with wet clothes before the day had properly started! Not tasty, considering the mornings aren’t exactly sweltering themselves! The day started with a hearty breakfast with a range of orders from the inevitable ‘egg toast’ to a relatively new discovery of a pancake inspired breakfast, this set us up for the day ahead (apart from the boys who disappeared back to the tent to munch on a couple of Belvita before setting off for the day).
Miss Wilburn, Mr Owen and Sharon along with the rest of our team, loaded ourselves into the Grassroots flatbed truck and travelled east towards the region of Mabatini, here we helped out with an early morning milk programme that Grassroots set up in this region, this area faces high levels of poverty and is known as the red light district of Mbeya. The group was in charge of cooling the milk to a suitable temperature and then ensuring that every child was catered for, the children even got treated to a doughnut with their milk! Seeing Mr Owen with one of the small boys was a heart warming moment (Clearly a natural). The children were either too young to go to school or had other needs so were catered for in this programme!
Following this we handed out the lovely woollen hats that were so kindly knitted by you lovely parents and grandparents! These went down a treat and the children were over the moon with their newest attire, the smiles and happiness that came from such a small gift was enough to warm anyone’s heart. By this point the shy and nervous nature of the some of the children had left and the group of children and us erupted into song and dance, ending the morning activity with a bang!
After this activity the day was still young and we walked back to the Karibuni Centre where our Grassroots Flatbed Truck awaited us, we clambered into the truck once again and started the journey up to the Grassroots farm. Here, Grassroots had just received planning permission to build some emergency property to house vulnerable families in tough situations temporarily. Our task was to mark out the area of the property that had been granted, however we did not have conventional materials so had to use sticks, rope and bricks to mark out the area! On first look the property consisting of a lounge and bedroom looked small and cramped however it was hard to visualise the true size compared to other houses in the Mbeya region. We were told by one of the Grassroots drivers that this plot for one property was big (7m x 3.6m) however we struggled to see this. Therefore we agreed to go and see a property in the heart of Mbeya that Grassroots had previously rebuilt due to extreme floods washing away this property. It was amazing to see the compassion towards the Grassroots team from the owner of the house and it was clear to see that they had changed the families lives and helped to remove the fear of living in that area if a natural disaster was to strike again! This concluded another lovely morning in the beautiful Mbeya region and left us with a sense of achievement and some thoughts about some families’ situations.
Freddie
As described by Adam, breakfast was pretty standard. Routine is kicking in with another ‘cheese toast’ being devoured, however there was a slight buzz as the chicken group the day before was describing how you have to watch a chicken get dispatched. This made me slightly terrified. Blood and me do not mix well as 24 hours in AnE has proved. This made the 45 min journey to the farm a tad hellish with the only distraction being Tanzanian radio and the huge holes in the road propelling us into the truck roof. Once at the farm we watched a cow being milked and lulled into a false sense of security. Then the chicken… I will not lie, I was a huge girl about it. I let Kate and Joe B take the hit and hid behind them.
Once the cacophony of clucking had stopped I had a look at the scene. A plate of blood, huge knife and the chickens head greeted me, big mistake. Seeing that was enough to turn me vegetarian (more work for you mother, sorry😘) we then picked up our chicks (and chickens) and took them to the families that need them. Pablo was very well behaved the whole journey, unlike Shiela…, and was given to a very grateful family.
Post lunch my group went to register new children to the scheme. I was in charge of giving out footballs to them along with Alice. The children were delighted with their new toys and played with them outside. This brought issues. Lots of school kids kept coming into the building demanding a football, leaving Alice paralysed and me to attempt Swahili and ask them to leave which ended in me being faced with laughter. Finally they left and we went back to temporary home to eat and finally relax.
https://www.facebook.com/TheGrassrootsTrust/videos/1770971943010975/