Chatham Student Returns From Africa, Brings Back Plenty of New Ideas

Over spring break, 16 Kent Place School students and four chaperones embarked on a 10-day service-learning trip to Tanzania through the school's Global Service Learning Initiative (GSLI). They engaged in a service project assisting the Faraja Primary School and its students with physical disabilities. Mornings consisted of the construction of a concrete walkway between the girls' dormitory and the school's playground area. Afternoons were spent in the classrooms, where Kent Place students and chaperones led activities related to U.S. culture, the English language, and computer usage.

Here, Chatham seventh grader Sara Ramaswamy recounts her experiences.

When I first imagined Africa, I truly did not know what do expect at all. Before my trip to Tanzania, I associated Africa with lions, giraffes, The Lion King, and beautiful sunsets. However, when I got there, I realized it was so much more than that: from the vibrant colors of plants, to the constant exposure to new cultures, to getting within arm's reach of some of the world's most extraordinary animals, and to finding a new appreciation for my own life and culture in New Jersey.  The time I spent around the children at the Faraja School taught me lessons of compassion, happiness and need vs. want.  It was an eye-opening, heartwarming, and incredibly unforgettable experience that I will always cherish.

The main reasons Kent Place students visited Tanzania were not only to spend time in a totally different environment and school community than ours, but also to help by donating our time. We visited the Faraja School as part of our school community's Global Service Learning Initiative. This Initiative raised money to purchase supplies for the construction of a ramp at Faraja.

The Faraja School has a small and simple playground. Many of the children who attend Faraja have disabilities and therefore do not have access to the field and playground beside it. There is a very steep hill with uneven patches off grass, rocks, and ditches that they need to walk down in order to get to the field and playground. Many events that unite the kids, such as soccer games, or dancing around a drum, happen down the hill. This may cause them to feel extremely excluded. Our mission was to build a walkway as the solution to the inaccessibility of their field and playground. But of course we also wanted to become friends and enjoy the time we spent at Faraja by taking every moment in. We were so driven to make this project a success for them, but also for us.

There were no cement mixers, and no machines. We only had shovels, picks and hoes.  And of course we had our hands. The good thing was, lots of hands made lighter work.  We all gave a huge amount of effort, which was truly amazing to watch. We dug out the pathway, lifted heavy cinder blocks, carried large amount of sand on our backs, and mixed and laid cement. I could see the progress happening slowly but surely before my eyes.

Even though we only had our hands, legs, picks, hoes, shovels and rice bags to carry the sand in, it was so rewarding at the end of the day to know we were TRULY finishing what we planned.  There were no cement mixers, no trucks, just us.

During the time we weren't working at the school, we spent time dancing with the kids, singing, drawing, playing on the playground, playing soccer, tossing a ball around, showing them our cameras and iPods, and spending time socializing. I personally was touched by seeing their reactions to something like an iPod or camera that may seem small to teenagers in America, but were fascinating to so many of the kids there who had never heard of, let alone held such a thing. The looks on their faces when we showed them our cameras will stay with me for the rest of my life, always reminding me to be thankful for everything I am given.  We got to sit in on the kids' classes every afternoon, and learn about their lives, and what they are learning, even though the language barrier was somewhat of a challenge. The children take an English class, which is like our foreign language class here in America. Therefore, despite the language barrier, some of the older kids were able to speak more fluently with us than others.

We also visited a Masai village where we learned about their lifestyles, and how immensely different our lives are compared to theirs, due. The team bartered for souvenirs and cultural items in the Masai village, and also at markets alongside the road. I still continue to wear my giraffe necklace from one of the markets every day, because it reminds me of the sense of thankfulness that I had while in Africa.

On the Saturday before we took our journey home, the team had an exceptionally exciting adventure on our safari to Ngorongoro. Ngorongoro is a breath-taking and vast area occupied by extremely unique wildlife. It appears to be a large crater, but is in fact a caved-in volcano. As soon as we started descending, in jeeps, down the mountain that separated the Tanzanian villages and towns, and the crater itself, we began to see animals. Elephants, lions, wildebeest, zebras, hyenas, antelope, gazelle, flamingo, water buffalo, jackals, baboons, goats, cows, and many different unique birds all surprised us by how close they came to the jeeps. Many of the animals such as the zebra and the wildebeest came within arm's length of the jeep. The open canopy on the jeep gave us all a whole different perspective on the animals and flat land that went on for miles in all directions. We all took away an appreciation for wildlife and all of our surroundings. It was great to experience something that you can't come close to here at home. The next day we sadly had to return home, but we brought back great stories to share, intense moments captured by our cameras, and smiles.

The team had a vision when we arrived in Tanzania.  We were in the vision, carrying it out, seeing it through, keeping driven, and finally finishing it. I believe we not only helped the kids at Faraja, but they helped us too. By working there for the time I did, I think I learned a lot about being a more compassionate person overall. I was there helping people, being put in situations that were completely new to me. At the end of the trip, we were happy to see the smiles on their faces, and they were the reason we were all crying our eyes out. Today, halfway across the world, the children who were sitting glumly on the top of the hill are now experiencing the world in a whole new way.

To me, honestly, their reactions to the success of the project were probably the best part of my trip.