Today was a big day with Aussie and Sydney, our new school pets, arriving at their new home.  

We purchased them from a farm about 2kms up the road, and had 2 options to get them home - either walk them (along a rather busy highway) or load them onto a pickup and drive them the short distance back to school. We were pretty keen to walk them home, not only for the fantastic photo opportunities this would provide, but to also save some money however in the end, on the recommendation of some people with a lot more cow handling experience than us, we went with the pickup - yep this was definitely the right choice !   As soon as the cow pen door was opened Aussie tried to make a run for it, dragging the little man who was helping us out about 100m into the bush before he regained control of the runaway cow !!!! 
After some initial mayhem, cows were 'relatively easily' loaded onto the pick up for the slow and short trip home. The kids were very excited and watched on eagerly as the cows were unloaded and taken to their new enclosure at the school. 

Both of our new family members are now safely in their new home, and watch this space in the next few months for the arrival of their watoto (babies) :-) 

Today we bought 20 new uniforms for some of the students who did not have a uniform or who had grown out of their current ones. 
The kids were very excited, for many of them it was their first ever school uniform and they were pretty chuffed with themselves ! 

I can't believe I have been here for over 2 weeks already..... time flies when you are having fun as they say ! And I am already sad thinking about leaving. 

This past week has been busy busy busy, with Mr Massawes home currently looking like a construction zone.  


The chicken enclosure is finished and the 200 new chicks (Kenyan of course because they are the best) were delivered on the weekend. As the chicks grow over coming months, they will be transferred into the new enclosure and will start laying eggs in about 5-6 months time - they are currently occupying what was previously a bedroom, kept safely under heat lamps and constant care to ensure none are lost.

Another bedroom has now been demolished and is currently being converted into the new cow enclosure (see picture above).  Animals are such valuable assets that they often take priority and we have now also hired a watchman who's job is to sleep with and protect the cows from thieves. 

This week also saw the construction of a new water tank. With water in such short supply it was essential that we have enough water for the cows, so we have purchased and installed a new Water tank.

Just over a week has passed since I arrived back in Moshi.

After 29 long hours hours, most of which was spent aboard the not so impressive Ethiopian Airlines,  the view of the mighty Mt Kilimanjaro bursting through the clouds on approach to Kili Airport will never cease to be one of my favourite sights in the world.

It definitely does not feel like a year since I was last here, and not much has changed with the exception of a brand new Nackamutt Supermarket, which has revolutionised the shopping experience in Moshi – mainly for Mzungus (travellers/white people) as I doubt many locals could afford to shop there !

I went straight to visit Mr Massawe at school on Thursday, and was greeted warmly by both Mr Massawe and Susan, with an extra long hug from Talent, his youngest daughter who is now 4 !

The school is looking great, with the children currently on holidays this week, everything had been cleaned and new trees have recently been planted in the school yard which will provide some well needed shade during summer months.

Having only just eaten breakfast, I had to quickly make room for more food as it would have been rude of me to refuse the omelette Susan cooked for me to let me taste some of the 150 eggs per day our chickens are now laying.

The chickens are all very healthy and laying well, we have only lost 10 of the original 200 purchased.  

I was saddened to see the impact of the current drought in the region, with only a very short raining season this year the Corn Maize crops have all died, and as a result there is a food shortage especially for the local farming community. This community rely on the annual crop for not only income but a substantial amount of their daily food. At this time of year Mr Massawe would usually be getting ready to harvest his crop and would get enough maize to feed the children and his family for the coming year – this year the silos are now almost empty and there is nothing that can be salvaged from the crops.  Whilst I prefer and in all circumstance try to use our funding for sustainability projects,  this year we will need to be buying additional corn maize to ensure the children can still get their daily porridge at school, which is now also supplemented with eggs 1-2 times a week.

I was however, delighted to hear that Mr Massawe now has another teacher working at the school. A volunteer from the USA is funding the salary to allow Mr Massawe to have 2 full time classes with permanent teachers.

As always Mr Massawe was very organised and had done a lot of work prior to my arrival to ensure we could hit the ground running.  After breakfast #2 we had our first meeting to discuss our projects for 2012 and spent a lot of time talking about his plans for the future.

We quickly agreed on the key projects we were to get completed in the next few weeks – expanding the chicken project and investing in 2 new cows to start producing and selling milk. 

After the huge success of last years chickens Mr Massawe was keen to expand, and with a little renovation work to some already existing buildings we will be ready to house another 200 chickens.  Again Mr Massawe works his magic, and in a very non African fashion, work began immediately to complete the new chicken enclosures.  FYI – nothing in Africa happens quickly, so to have construction starting in less than 24 hours after our meeting I was suitably impressed, and is a true indication of how important this is to Mr Massawe.

Our second project involves cows – we will be buying 2 very pregnant cows which will produce approx 15 litres of milk per day per cow which Mr Massawee will sell at the local market. We went to check the cows over on Friday before we finalise the sale next week, and whilst I would like to say my years of being raised on a farm proved beneficial, all I can say is they looked fat and healthy and I wasn’t offended by the over whelming stench of cow manure. 

Stay tuned for next chapter, I will share more about our plans for the future and cant wait till Monday when the kids are back at school. 

Sara