February: A dentist, a wedding and a cupboard

•  Lions Club, Amani Branch organized a dental camp at Buguruni – all pupils and people living in the surrounding area had their teeth checked. 
•  Simon spent another night in the boys’ dormitory, which meant he was up at 4.30am collecting water and doing the same chores as all the pupils! 
•   Richard Kweka and Priscilla Lukelo (two teachers) got married. 
•  Pupils joined the Caledonian Society of Tanganyika for Scottish dancing and were an immediate ‘hit’. 
•  Fiona Kennedy visited Buguruni to present the children with the first of the 24 new school cupboards donated by the Caledonian Society.

Scottish dancing

Fiona Kennedy

Wedding of the Century

 

January: no blues or detox needed here

Our hero, Mr Shibanda

New nursery class

Simon

• Lots of new pupils joined the school at the start of the academic year including 10 in the Nursery class
•  New teachers arrived and some teachers returned from their studies – Buguruni was flush with teachers 
• Simon Thursz, an ex-Mary Hare pupil arrived at the school for 3 months. 
• Mr Shibanda and Mr Banzi continued the English Club for teachers.

December: Exam results, holidays, goodbye to Guy and Judi and a giant Conga

• Eight pupils passed their Standard VII exam, which allowed them to move onto further education, i.e. secondary school. This is great news - in some previous years, the number was much lower. Some will go to Moshi Technical College where there is support for deaf students and some will attend a local school, which has a deaf unit. For those who did not pass, they will either go to school in Kenya (which is fee paying) where they are able to re-take their Standard VII exam, or attend a Vocational Training College. We are grateful to the staff at UMIVITA who will help with these transfer 
• Lots of very happy pupils as they went home for their long holiday (4 weeks). Those pupils who live far away are escorted home by the teachers. For those pupils who have ‘no home’ to go to, the Head Teacher finds someone who will care for them over the holidays 
• Guy and Judi finished their long stint at Buguruni. Tanzanear is hugely grateful for everything they have done. There's really too much to mention, but particular thanks for the establishment of the English Club for teachers and pupils and an IT Club for teachers. The idea behind these two clubs is to up-skill the teachers so they can pass on their knowledge to the pupils. Guy and Judi have gone off for a well-earned rest and are going to explore Tanzania – safari njema! 
•  A Scottish Band called ‘Big Jessie’ visited Buguruni – Big Jessie who regularly come out to Dar es Salaam at this time of year, came to visit the school, as part of their trip to play at the St. Andrew’s Ball for the Caledonian Society. It was a fantastic site to see the Chieftain, Paul Soppit leading the pupils in a giant conga line – the line wasn’t very straight but everyone had a fantastic time!

Big Jessie

Paul Soppit and his giant Conga

November: Addenbrooke's visit, handmade Christmas cards, a concert and an art workshop

Joanne from Addenbrooke's...

 Tom from Addenbrooke's

 Buguruni concert

 Guy and Judi

 Nursery school performance

 Miguel's art class

Art class continued

• Two audiologists from Addenbrookes arrived to give some support to Mr Shibanda, the school Audiologist.  Tom Mills and Joanne Deane had a busy week, making temporary ear moulds, repairing hearing aids, giving more training to the teachers and advising on the facilities the school already had and what they needed.  It was a busy week for them, but they seemed to enjoy themselves and said they would be back – hooray and thank you!
•  Each child received a hand-made Christmas card – in one of the luggage consignments were 300 hand-made cards thanks to Mrs Hadley and her group of friends; since Charlie, her daughter returned from her volunteering stint, this group of ladies have met once a week and made cards so that everyone at the school would have their own one.  There were cards for ‘small boys’, ‘large boys’, ‘small girls’ and ‘large girls’.  Judith and Alison had the pleasure of distributing the cards and the delight on each child’s face was super – you could see them walking round for days afterwards, each carrying their own card.  It is amazing how something taken for granted here, can mean so much to our friends in Tanzania
• A big concert was organized for all our donors and supporters from Dar es Salaam.  The guests were able to see different age groups putting on plays, dance routines and of course music; they were all marched down to their seats with the School Band leading them.  However, it wasn’t an opportunity to just sit and watch, the guests were encouraged to take part and we hope you like the photos of our guests dancing.  Thank you to Judi and George Njau (Deputy Head) for organizing this – the guests loved it and so did the pupils!
•  Thanks to Miguel Costales, some of the children were able to take part in another art workshop.  For more information about Miguel, see here 

October fun with IST

• ·         The community project with IST continued with the children from both schools taking it in turns to visit each other on a Monday afternoon.  This month the focus was on teaching the IST children how to sign, with the highlight being able to sign the Tanzanian National Anthem.

• ·         The Vocational Class made amazing Christmas decorations with materials donated by Judith and Alison.

 

Alex in his own words.

One of our longest-lasting volunteers, Alex Beck: read his story here

Alex bids a fond farewell to Buguruni. Come back, Alex.

Graduation Day 2011

With many thanks to Alison SB for representing Tanzanear and taking these lovely photos, here are some moments from Graduation Day at Buguruni School for the Deaf this week. These are pupils leaving Standard 7, which is the last year of primary school. We have our fingers crossed for their exam results, and congratulate them for all their hard work. And we are LOVING the Tanzanian equivalent of mortar-boards.

Class photo

Winnie (if memory serves) very excited. UPDATE. Memory didn't serve. This is in fact Neema.

I don't think these boys are old enough to graduate, but they are cute anyway.

The delightful, clever, hardworking Laurence Kigala - not old enough to graduate, but a very clever boy who loves maths. Which is the coolest subject of all.

UPDATE: the efficient Judith Roberts has told me the name of this very industrious boy.
And finally - Saidi making things in the vocational class. We hope that these skills will help make pupils self-sufficient when they leave school.

We also have a couple of videos, if I've managed to upload them properly. You can click here and here to see some dancing!