Holy Rood High School has had a partnership with Lombeta Secondary in Tanzania, Africa for almost 20 years. Pupils have been privileged to go over there year after year to help build this partnership and grow close friendships. This year the Tz2016 champions (we thought it would be wise to make up a team name) made this bond even stronger!
From April 2015 there were 90 Applications, 24 interviews, 12 final champions, group bonding sessions, quiz nights, race nights, car washes, bake sales, a residential, away days, £16,000 and also….. rescheduled flights.
Fifteen months later on the 21st June 2016 a group of ten pupils from S4-S6 (Bethany Burgess, Niyoshi Dave, Matthew Dodds, Eleanor Campanile, Hamza Khan, Conall Loftus, Nadia Marziban, Olga Pypno, Lauren Service, Derek Spence) and two brave teachers (Mr Sandy Radford and Ms Megan Padden) were finally heading for the experience of a lifetime to Tanzania. A few days previous to this, it had seemed like an impossible dream, considering our connecting flights were through Istanbul where the Turkish government were in the middle of resolving a coup. After travelling through four countries in just over a day we finally arrived at our destination – The Kilimanjaro region of Tanzania.
Mama Clementina’s was to be our first home of the trip. It was a beautiful lodging just outside of Moshi, one of the main towns in Tanzania. Our first couple of days there were used to acclimatise to the heat and altitude of the country. Before we went on an expedition to discover Moshi Town and the new culture we had just been opened up to, we were introduced to the five people that we would be spending the 15 days with and who would soon be closer to our hearts than we would ever know. Martin, Moses, Peter, Agripina and Nancy were part of the Makutano group who had come to Scotland in 2014 to work with Michael Knox on a project called Global Vision. The town was incredible! Picturesque in every way. There were stalls left right and centre of anything you could possibly think of. A fondest memory of mine was walking past the fruit market and kindly being offered a passion fruit to taste. This piece of passion fruit that was causing my face to screw up with its sourness was the first glimpse of this beautiful culture I experienced.
Early morning on the 23rd of July we started our journey to Lombeta Secondary which was high in the mountains. We had rented possibly the biggest bus in Tanzania and our route to the school had what appeared to be the tiniest long winding roads in Tanzania. We were nail-bitingly close to the edge and it’s quite entertaining to think back that because our luggage was only tied to the roof, if anything had fell it would be gone forever!
Our second home was Maua Retreat Centre where we would spend the next week whist teaching at the secondary. I will never forget the first morning we woke to the bright shining sky at Maua. The view was breathtaking! Right there in front of us was Kilimanjaro with pink fading skies, surrounded by the forests of land down below. Although we took photos no picture could capture the true beauty of the view we saw that morning.
Our first visit to Lombeta Secondary involved us attending their Sunday mass. It was a wonderful experience as the mass was solely in Swahili and every few minutes the large amount of pupils sitting behind us in this small room would stand up and burst into joyful hymns at the top of their lungs accompanied by the keyboard played by a fellow pupil. Although we couldn’t understand what the priest was saying the language barrier didn’t seem to matter as the way the father delivered the mass made us feel part of their community. Shortly after the mass was finished we were split into pairs and were each guided around the grounds by a pupil in Form Five. We were taken round their dorms, to the dining room, to meet the cows who lived on the land and taken to their playing field which looked right onto Mount Kilimanjaro.
The following days spent at Lombeta led us to one of our main purposes of the visit – teaching ICT basics to the pupils of Form One and Three. We helped pupils who had never even turned on a laptop before become competent and confident enough to write full pages in Word and create PowerPoints with the photos and videos they had taken themselves on an iPad. Aside from teaching these classes after the school had finished each day we gathered in the assembly hall. We played football, netball, taught traditional ceilidh dancing, took part in debates and sang songs written by the Makutano group.
By the end of the week (that we never wanted to end) we had formed strong relationships with the pupils and it was hard to say goodbye. As part of the last day at the secondary, there was a mural that had been painted on a wall of the school by Lauren, Olga and Ms Padden. The rest of the champions and Mr Radford then placed each of our hand prints over the mural to make a memory of our time in the school. We also planted a tree each, our own tree being named after us. We then gathered in the hall one last time to be given Lombeta polo shirts, in the room at that moment as we all wore the same shirts there was a real sense of connection that no matter where you are from, what colour of skin you have, your religious beliefs we are as one.
The rest of our trip was utilised to return back to Moshi and visit local primaries, one of which was Legho Primary. Visiting this school has always been a real dream of mine as it was the partnership between Legho Primary and St Johns that first inspired me to visit Tanzania. I was overwhelmed with emotion as I spoke in front of the school on behalf of St Johns. I couldn’t believe I was finally there after all those years! As this was our last official day in Tanzania we decided to take a hike to the highest point of Legho village where we sat in silence taking in our surroundings (which were indescribable) and reflecting on this extraordinary experience. We made friendships for life and learned to appreciate the world we live in even more.
I want to say a heartfelt thank you to both Mr Radford and Ms Padden as they put every ounce of their being into making this trip happen. They constantly encouraged us throughout any struggles and we could not have asked for two better people to guide us. They inspired us all to be the best we could be.
By Nadia Marziban