Nearly Ready...

With my exams finished and my fate sealed, my fingers and toes are crossed as the long wait for results begins. However, it won’t be like any other year and I won’t be like many other A Level students. My results will get passed through several people (hopefully without them playing Chinese whispers) until they reach me in Tanzania.

I will be in Tanzania for the summer – from Monday until the start of September – on the International Citizen Service (ICS) Scheme with Raleigh International. It’s a bit of a mouthful so let me explain. ICS brings together young people from different countries to fight poverty in a community that will have specifically requested our help. A big part of ICS is that I will be working with the local people to make a lasting difference. I will be working alongside 5 other UK volunteers and 6 Tanzanian volunteers. Each UK volunteer will get partnered with a Tanzanian volunteer, which will be a really exciting way of learning more about Tanzania and Swahili, which I still need to brush up on. 

 

I will be working on a health project which will involve improving access to water or sanitation in the local community. During my time in Tanzania, I will be living in the heart of the community in extremely basic living conditions. This will include having no electricity, no running water, sleeping on the floor and using a long drop toilet. Admittedly this is the part I am least looking forward to, but it’s all part of the experience, and I am making the most of these luxuries in my last few days.

I can’t believe how quickly Tanzania has come around; it feels hardly anytime at all that I spent more time at the Raleigh stall than I did at the university stalls at London Anthropology Day (LAD). Whilst talking to a Raleigh representative at LAD (sounds funny doesn’t it) I knew that this was right for me and would be a fantastic experience, and here I am now 11 months later ready and raring to go, well almost, for a summer of a lifetime!

http://www.ics-uk.org.uk/about/

http://www.raleighinternational.org/where-we-work/tanzania/raleigh-ics-in-Tanzania

http://www.londonanthropologyday.co.uk/