Service in Shirati

The following blog post is brought to you by Simon

Karibuni na Shirati! Welcome to Shirati! And welcome to our time of service. On February 25th, we all dispersed to our different service locations all throughout the Mara region. I was placed in Shirati along with Madelynn. Shirati is located in Northwest Tanzania along the shore of Lake Victoria and about a 45-minute drive from the border of Kenya. Thankfully this location is much cooler than Dar es Salaam, so I have been enjoying the more comfortable nights.

Here in Shirati, my volunteer service placement is at Shirati KMT Hospital. I currently work in the accounting department with the accountants of the hospital. I assist them with everyday accounting tasks, and I’ve been helping them find new software for their payroll system. Working with the accounting department has new relationships with my colleagues and develop new friendships. Together we enjoy sharing chapati and chai breaks. Every morning they ask me if I’ve had my chai yet, and it has developed into an inside joke in the office. I share an office with the Human Resources officer, Violet. The hospital also has many Dutch medical students that come here to do their final internships. It has been good to connect with so many kind people during my time here.

When I’m not at my service location I’m with my host family, our SST Mara region coordinator, Gayson Magati, he and his family live in a place called Michere just a few kilometers from downtown Shirati. I stay in a compound of houses that include all of his family members; he has a very big family! While living here, I have enjoyed playing soccer with other people from the village on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Throughout the rest of the week there are never-ending opportunities to play games with all the kids in the compound. Then in the evenings and weekends it’s been fun to watch some Tanzanian soccer matches at “center”, which is a community room that has a tv to watch different soccer games. Shirati is quite rural which means it is normal to see cows, goats, and chickens roaming throughout the streets. Our SST group has been learning Kiswahili but in this part of the Mara region there is also a local language called Luo, this language is widely spoken by all community members. It is very different from KiSwahili, but I have tried to learn some here and there.

As I mentioned earlier Madelynn is also located here in Shirati, though her host family is a located a little closer to downtown. She has been volunteering with the SHED organization. It is a local public health NGO that focuses on clean water access and infant/maternal health. SHED is ran by Nyamusi a ’09 GC grad. Madelynn has been visiting the locations where SHED has helped establish clean water stations in some surrounding communities. She is conducting interviews with people who benefit from the water access. The ultimate goal of the interviews is to assess the sustainability and long-term viability of these local projects. Madelynn’s host family is related to my host family so it’s been nice to see each other on a somewhat regular basis and hang out at extended family functions.

I hope you enjoy this quick glimpse into our service placements. Kwaheri (goodbye) from Shirati.