TCRS Village Water Project

This tank is expected to hold water that will serve 10,000 people.

The homes and villagers who live close to the tank.

Facing the collection chamber. This chamber collects water from a spring which is then piped to the holding tank and routed to 10 different tap stands.

View of the collection chamber from the top.

For Aili and Terry

Terry, here is a pic of what I have dubbed the "Tuxedo Bird"

These are for you Aili. Yeaaa for PiAf!

Kanembwa Primary Schools

UNICEF provides school supplies for primary students in the refugee camps. Yesterday half of the supplies were delievered. I went with the school coordinator to deliever books to the form 6 students. For 6 is equivelent to grade 6 in the U.S.

Notebooks delievered by UNICEF.

Students holding up their new notebooks.

More students who have just recieved their supplies. Notice that these students are much younger than some of their form 6 classmates.

This boy is just too cute! I don't think that I'll ever get tired of photographing children!

Kibondo Lutheran Church

Children that follwed us home from church ;-)

The interior of the Lutheran Church I attend every Sunday.

Ntende School

This is part of the building that they are trying to fix to house the new students.

The interior of one of the classrooms they want to rehab.

The front of that same room.

A picture of the current pit toilets. They would like to build additional toilets.

Ntende School in Burundi

These photos are from Ntende school in Gisuru Commue (i.e. "town"), Rutana Provience (i.e. "State") Burundi. The school is being flooded with returning refugee and native students. I hope that U.S. dollars can help this school meet the needs of its students.

Primary (7) and secondary (3) school classrooms.

Interior of one of the classrooms.

Secondary students.

Primary students.

On the way to work

One of my neighbors taking her younger brother and sister to school.

A view of the episcopal school at the top of the hill (not the school the kids are going to).

Yard work and brownies

A few weeks ago, several of the kids who live close to me helped me with yard work. They were great! I slipped out for about 20 minutes to bake brownies, which we ate once the work was done.

Yumm...brownies and milk are good. Contrary to appearances, Will (on left) really did like the brownies. I promise--they tasted good. Eva (on right) agrees with me ;-)

A satisfied group ;-)

This is a picture of the crew once we were finished. I hope that they'll help me put a garden in next weekend.

Agriculture Projects

As I began to explain in yesterday's post, TCRS sponsors agricultural development projcets through the generous support of some of our donors. These projects are designed to teach animal husbandary and plan cultivation skills. Pictured below are images of the farming/gardening "classroom" and a tree nursery at Kanembwa Camp.

This is a photograph of the tree nursery. No need for greenhouse glass to grow seedlings here!

This is a picture of a sugarcane field. (I'm learning how to eat/chew/suck on sugar cane; it's pretty tastey)

Here you can see onions (the larger field in the middle of the photo) and what they call Chinese spinach in the foreground.

The head of the field, garden, and tree cultivation operation walking through one of the demo plots.

Agriculture projects

TCRS has programs to improve the agricultural skills and knowledge of refugees. These programs are currently being scaled down and phased out due to orders by the TZ Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) that UNHCR and other NGO's are supposed to follow. Though the programs are being phased out, they are still functioning at this time.

The picture above is a shot of a Burundian man with one of his two holstein cows. The other adults are part of the agricultural staff that runs these programs.

I thought this boy was a cutie!

Kids who gathered around the muzungu with a camera ;-)

Another shot of the cows. The tag ID is for TCRS record keeping. All animals have been "loaned" to individuals by TCRS. To pay back the loan, refugees must give the first offspring of the animal to another refugee. Essentially they pack back the loan by "paying it forward."

First Day of School

There are 5 primary schools at Nduta. These photos were taken at Urafiki School, one of the two schools I saw on the opening day of the school year. This school was orderly, meaning that the vast majority of students were in a class being instructed by a teacher. The second school I saw was very chaotic! My estimate is that less than 10% of the students were in classes. They just ran around the school yard and swarmed whatever was of interest to them. (When I was there with my camera, I was the main point of interest...)

The photo above is of a standard 6 class, which is roughly equivelent to 7th or 8th grade in the U.S.

A student writing on the chalk board.

A standard 3 class. Though you may not be able to tell it from this photo, each classroom has a wide age range of students.

The same class waving good-bye to me as I left the room. Aren't they adoreable?!

More basket weavers

This lady is holding up the bottom of what will become a basket.

A finished basket.

Basket in progress...I still don't understand how they can carry things on their head with such apparent ease!

A group shot!