The Shift

Today was the last day of the educational fair, and I had a wonderful time. For one, everything was finally up and running, with decorations and electricity. It only took about three days to completely set up for the arrival of the Head Commissioner in Education, but I suppose that was not too shabby, given that we didn’t even hear about the event until the day before set-up. As we couldn’t locate a pickup to take our items, Ally ended up biking our pedal-powered water pump over to the event. It was quite the sight, seeing a bike on top of bike, so I had to take a picture of it. Shown is Charles pretending to tie up the pump…but it was really Ally who did all the work!

As for what made the day so great, there were tons of festivities, with a parade of all the participating schools (as shown below with Ally on Raymond’s shoulders, holding the sign I made for Global Alliance), acrobats, performances, and of course, the arrival of the Head Commissioner of Education in Arusha.


But what made this event even better was I got to hang out with the students outside of class. As they rounded the end of the parade and saw me taking pictures, they ran over to give me hugs in greeting. It was awesome. And then at the end of the fair, as we were waiting for the pickup to bring our stuff back to the Vijana Centre, I pulled out a deck of cards and I learned “Last Card,” which was very much like Uno, but with a normal deck of cards. We had a blast, and thus I deemed this day “The Shift” as it was as if I’d transitioned into acceptance.


And thus I end with a picture of Zuhura and Halima with me. I think the picture reflects what the remainder of the summer is going to be like…and I am most certainly looking forward to it! I’ll talk to you soon!