Vitenge shopping, School Introductions, and the World Cup!

The market place is a busy place; walking through the tight streets surrounded by bright colors, piki pikis and dala dalas (motorcycles and buses), and the loud yells of vendors can be overwhelming. However, the mighty girls of Iringa Session Two were up for the challenge and determined to find the perfect patterned vitenges (images of this frabic in the gallery) to buy so that they could have traditional clothing made for themselves and their family members back home. Let me also add that vitenge shopping is no easy task regardless of the environment one is in. Vitenge shopping means searching through hundreds and hundreds of frabics - all with diverse patterns and colors. Just when you think you found the perfect one that you love, you turn your head in another direction and you see another that you love equally as much. Trust me - this is some serious decision making here.

After our time spent purchasing vitenge at the market place the girls met Agnes and her daughter Anna back at our CIEE Study Classroom. Agnes is the tailor who will be making all of the clothing for us with the vitenge we purchased. The girls were all so excited to be able to share their ideas for what they would like made and Agnes was even more excited to start making it all! After measurements of the girls we headed to Ilula. Ilula is the location of the schools at which the girls will be coaching each day! Upon arrival we were welcomed with a delicious meal of beans, rice, and lots of ugali (mixture of maize flour and water) and then took tours of the five different schools, some of them being: Kiheka Secondary School and Folk Development College (FDC). In Tanzania, introductions are very important, especially in partnerships like the ones this program is helping to build more deeply. The tours of the schools were an opportunity for the girls to get to know the community they will be working with during their time in Tanzania and to introduce themselves to the principals of the schools they will be serving at. During reflection many mentioned how happy they were to be able to introduce themselves and get to see the community that they would be working with before they actually started coaching there. 

After our tours and introductions we headed back to Iringatown, met Agnes one more time for some more measurements, and then walked to The Hellenic Club to have dinner and to watch Croatia defeat England in the teeth clenching semi-final World Cup game.

Overall, it was a really great day of getting to know more of the community in both Iringatown and Ilula. I can't emphasize enough how much our group has bonded over the past few days. The ten girls on this trip have an incredible group dynamic and are always able to make each other laugh no matter what the situation is. Whenever we have free time you can catch us playing a game like telephone, mafia, or pterodactyl (look it up- SO FUN).

As promised here are the rest of the videos of the girls in the group introducing themselves and sharing their goals for the program with all of you!

Eugenie(her video did not upload properly yesterday) [VIDEO::https://youtu.be/17cA_XZre9o]

Dez [VIDEO::https://youtu.be/LHsNYjza8Dw]

Tomorrow will be our first day coaching at Kiheka Secondary! We are so excited!

Tutaonana,

Dee & the Iringa Session Two girls