I guess every six months changes your life. Six months richer, or poorer. Six months more knowledgeable, or less. Six months more settled in a job, or a new one. So, every six months changes your life, the question is in what way and how much. I'd better introduce myself; I am Martin Pickup and am on a Xavier Volunteer Programme placement in Mwanza, in Tanzania, by the southern shore of Lake Victoria. I've finished four years at university and went to the preparatory school to the Jesuit-run Wimbledon College in South London.

Short Story- the vital information

I am not dead and am happy.

Medium Story- a brief sketch of my travels and project

I landed at Nairobi airport on the 10th January, having transferred in approximately 45 seconds from one delayed plane to another in Dubai. I spent four days with the Jesuit community there before flying on to Mwanza on Sunday 14th. I am staying at Nyakahoja Primary School, as school run by nuns (the St Therese Sisters) that has boarders and day pupils aged from 3/4 to 13. It is an English Medium primary school, the oldest such school in Tanzania and one of the best. I'm teaching English and Sports and Activities and generally trying to be of some use. I'll also be hoping to see, and possibly participate in, some of the projects run among the city's poor by our next-door neighbours, the Jesuit parish. Part of my aim, as the first volunteer here from XVP, is to work out possible volunteering opportunities. I'll be returning home in July.

Long Version- you have been warned

I think I'll start by telling you where I am penning this now. excuse me. Sorry, was interrupted by four boys coming to ask English terms for football skills like bicycle kicks, volleys, step-overs and the like. As I was saying, I have very pleasant digs - a bathroom with shower, flushing toilet and sink, kitchen with an electric hob (and a kerosene back up for when the power is out) and a bedroom/living area complete with a sofa and desk. I'd guess the total area at 8m by 7m. I have two electricity points, a kettle and a mosquito net. There is, naturally, no fridge, oven or washing machine, and no flooring in the kitchen or bathroom. But it is generous accommodation and I am very comfortable in it.

I'll tell you of a few episodes, a typical day and then share one or two observations.

In Nairobi, I was very happy, and was welcomed warmly by a busy, full Jesuit community. Three particular occasions stand out. The first occurred when I was visiting JRS (the Jesuit Refugee Service), which has a shop selling items produced by the refugees. One of the Jesuit priests I was with was interested in a cross, and proceeded to barter with the nun who was running the shop. For some reason the image of a Jesuit haggling with a nun about the price of a cross made by refugees caught my fancy, and is one that will endure (of course this says more about my sense of humour than anything else). The second episode was a bit more uncomfortable. Fr Patrick, an Irish Jesuit en route to Uganda, Clement, a Jesuit-in-training, and I went into Nairobi to grab a beer one evening. As soon as we sat down, a couple of prostitutes approached us, simply because we were white people, and white is the colour of money. At first it was not obvious, to my naïve eye, that this was the case. When it did emerge, we escaped to another bar closer to home.

My final memory to record from Nairobi occurred earlier in the same day. I visited Kibera slum, which is the largest slum in sub-Saharan Africa at approximately one million inhabitants. We went to visit St Aloysius School, one run by CLC, a lay group following the spirituality of Ignatius of Loyola (the founder of the Jesuits). Most reports I've read mention the smell of the slum. Photos in clean, white sunlight don't prepare you for that. Not to put too fine a point on it, the place stank of shit. This is no reflection on those that live there; like many things it is their problem but not their fault. What struck me most, though, was how empty the slum was in the middle of the day. I didn't see one man aged over 14. The reason for this, of course, is that they were all out either working or seeking work. A slum is not just where people die, it is where they have to live. The idea of living in such a place for years is in its way more challenging than the idea of waiting there to die.

To Mwanza, and just three clips for the moment. I'll set the scene for the first. My second day at school, a Tuesday, and everything is still new and strange. I'm feeling a little dislocated. I am returning from some food shopping to my room, which is in the school compound. Entering through the school gates, I am spotted by a group of three girls, who run full pelt at me. They grab my arms and legs, saying, 'Good afternoon teacher' and calling me 'Sir Martin', which is enormously endearing. They insist on helping me with my shopping back to my room.

The second experience was accompanying my fellow English teacher, neighbour and general mentor Madame Manyama to see her tailor back where she used to live on the other side of town. I didn't realise how big Mwanza was, as we ride over there in a dalladalla (crammed minibus taxi). The houses we pass which rise on either side of the road are concrete, with corrugated iron roofs. They are small and close together, with no obvious sign of electricity or running water, though I imagine they might have both. The same greets me when we disembark, and I am welcomed into a friend's home. What strikes me is that this accommodation, three weeks ago, would have seemed like a slum to me. But it is nothing of the sort. It is comfortable and pleasant and most people here, professionals and otherwise, live in this sort of housing. While I was aware, back home, of the existence of slums, I didn't realise that all housing here is on a spectrum; there is no unbridged jump from the slum to western-style houses. (Indeed, as I discovered in Nairobi, there are different qualities of slum; upper class and lower class ones. This is hardly surprising, given that maybe 75% of Nairobi's population live in so called 'temporary accommodation' i.e. slums).

My last snapshot from Mwanza is from a Sunday morning, about 8 o'clock, and would be much better as a photo, if I'd taken one and been able to send it. The school is right on the shore of the lake, and while on weekdays dawn finds me through the stained glass while I am in Mass, on Sundays the sun is already rising from the hills behind as I walk next door to church. With the sun at my back, not yet warm, I would see a single dhow, a local fishing boat, working its way out into the lake. I don't know why this scene sticks so forcefully to my mental fridge-door, but it does. I suppose I mean to say that this place is beautiful.

As promised, I'll briefly describe a typical day. I wake at 6 and have a shower. Well, more accurately I first work up the courage for a shower, as there is only cold water. I shift weight from one foot to the other as I make mental countdown after mental countdown to convince my body to move forward. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 . O.K., actually move this time. 5, 4, 3, right get ready really. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. and I do a passable impression of a suffocating fish, gasping as the water hits me. All this can be easily avoided by putting the kettle on and having a nice warm bucket shower, but I enjoy the daily battle between mind and body. Mass is each weekday at 6.30, after which I have time to breakfast before the teachers meet at 7.20ish.

Classes and marking from 8 until break at 10 (I never realised how much teachers mark!). There is a ten-minute break at 12.30 and school finishes at 2.30. After this, I'll have some lunch, maybe play football with the kids and do some shopping/ washing/ cleaning/ ironing or try to learn some kiSwahili before preparing and going to bed a couple of hours after the sun at perhaps 9 o'clock. Weekends tend to be taken up by chores and more pleasant activities. I have a good amount of free time, which I can spend with the boarders or maybe in a few months doing something else productive. I'll finish with a few observations. There are some significant and some unimportant differences. The unimportant one are things like the fact that women carry almost everything on their heads, or the weather, or the different flora and fauna, or even the obvious fact that everybody here is black. These sort of differences are merely surface differences. The more significant differences are those that point to a different attitude, culture or world-view. Of course, I am not in a position to comment on this, but I don't think that will stop me.

As with many things, the hospitality of people here is something I had read about in reports by other volunteers, but many of these experience are just that; experiences. Describing cannot really explain the sensation of this welcoming, as it cannot explain much of what I am experiencing. I guess you will just have to come here. But the observation I think I can make is that the English, too, are very welcoming and kind. The difference I have found is that the extraordinary level of hospitality is expected here, and if not taken for granted, is at least not remarked upon. Perhaps it is just me, but if I were putting myself out as a host, I would expect acknowledgement. Here in Mwanza, by contrast, it is not expected - to be generous and welcoming is just simply the right thing to do.

Again as noted by others, physical closeness is important. Holding hands with friends, male or female, is a way of being near one another. Once you suppress British reserve, this is quite literally touching. This is more than a surface level difference, as it emphasises the closeness and dependence of an individual to and on a range of others. Perhaps I will struggle less to explain this by using a specific example; that of singing in church. There seems to be more individualism here; people sing harmonies, vary in tempo and pitch etc. Not to the extent of chaos, but just that more space is available to express without raising eyebrows. Conformity, of course, exists, but is more elastic. Western church services I've been to display a more organised singing experience; it is accepted that we try to match up to the same, ideal sound. This analogy might lead one to think that the experience in general here is more individualistic, and more communitarian back home. However, organisation does not equal community, and expression does not equal self-focus. For the reason why is most important. Here, one sings/acts/talks the way one does to add to the beauty of the whole, whereas in England one sings/acts/talks as a unit to avoid the individual being embarrassed or upset or wrong. So it feels like this difference here is, in many ways, a recognition that to complement is more conducive to the whole than to narrowly conform. This is not a criticism of Britain and the British, just an observation of the different attitudes toward community in London/Oxford and Mwanza.

Something more mundane that I have noticed is how long simple chores take - shopping and cooking for one thing, and cleaning and washing too. Without huge supermarkets and microwaves, hoovers and washing machines, these tasks take longer, and are therefore more significant. One might be tempted to say, for this and other reasons, that the day to day runnings here are equivalent to, say, 50 years ago in 'developed' countries. But there are two big problems here; firstly the practical comparison simply doesn't hold - some people have mobiles here, and some have t.v.. A few even have all the luxury items that westerners do. But some have no electricity, plumbing, healthcare are and not in a position that the average westerner was 50 years ago. The fact is that these people live on our modern planet, but not in our world. The second problem is the use of the word 'developed'. Even if it were appropriate to make an analogy between the west of 50 years ago and what I have seen of Tanzania today, to call western countries 'developed' implies that the direction they have moved from this point is forwards, something rather debatable.

I'll close by recording an observation, not of my own, but passed on to me by a number of people I have met here. Africa is not a country. In fact, it is probably more varied than Europe. Even Tanzania, as an entity, differs in its parts at least as much as Britain. It is tempting to generalise, but it is a jolt to realise that to lump Africa together is equivalent to calling a Scot English, an Englishman French, a Frenchman German and a German Italian. I should not, therefore, hope to know this 'Africa', but to know the people and places of my little corner of Mwanza.


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