A team of teachers, clergy and lay people from the diocese have travelled to our link diocese in Tanzania to see vital work in its schools being done with our support.
The link with the Diocese of Mara is well-established over many years, but for the first time the visitors from Leeds are posting regular blog reports during their nine day trip.
The first has just been sent by educationalist Ruth Randall from Wakefield and for further updates please go to: /video-diarytanzania-blog
“It was amazing to wake up in Tanzania. So much to look forward to and so many experiences yet to come.
The team were woken by a fantastic storm during the night apart from group leader Diane Norton (who can obviously sleep through anything!)
Leaving Mwanza, the group were overwhelmed by the sights and sounds along the way. Roads populated by bikes, goats, ducks, one pig and scores of people.
Sights were seen on the roads such as: bikes carrying families of 4, a horde of pineapples; a precarious stack of chairs on the back of a motorbike and 12 seater mini buses carrying over 26 people.
During the ride, we were kept supplied with water and fresh bananas from the road side market stall-the most fresh, tasty bananas we have ever eaten.
Just before reaching our first stop, we were met by a group of baboons on the road. We stopped and fed them banana skins from the minibus.
They were pretty bossy so we had to keep the windows firmly shut!
Four hours later, we made our first school visit to the diocese of Mara girls school Bunda. We were greeted by the schools headmistress, Deninsea, who proudly showed us around the school.
A highlight of the visit was Rev’d Stephen Rochell, delighting the girls with a performance of Amazing Grace on his ukulele.
We were then surrounded by the beautiful, welcoming girls who hugged us and couldn’t wait for their photographs to be taken.
The school treated us to a wonderful meal cooked by the school cook on charcoal. All the ingredients were from the school grounds from the vegetable, sukomawiki, to beef from the school’s cattle. Sadly, we had to leave and continue our journey to Musoma. After another couple of hours, we arrived at the hotel on the shore of Lake Victoria. An overwhelming first day.
We can’t wait for what is to come.”