During the last week, Sunday 19th, a group of us went for a snorkelling trip to the beach behind Southern Cross in Shangani as it was a low tide we where able to walk our further in order to see more of the good things. As it was so hot it was nice to be able to relax and have a dip in the water from time to time to cool off.
In the evening time Chigo, Jon and myself went to watch Bandari play Yanga which is the biggest home game of the year for them. It was the biggest crowd of the year but the match in itself was meaningless as Bandari were already relegated and Yanga had already won the championship but the game was not without incident and finished 3 – 3, highest goal scoring game I have seen involving Bandari. In the first half Bandari played really well and were worth the lead going into the break, one goal coming via a great free kick from the edge of the box into the top corner. In the second half Yanga dominated and in the end Bandari were lucky to win as Yanga had a goal ruled out which would have made it 3 – 4 to the visitors.
On Monday and Tuesday we visited Likonde school teaching sports to them we also started to distribute pens to the best behaved children for the lesson. Even some simple like one pen really puts a big smile on the faces of the children, so it is something we will continue to do for the rest of our time here.
The reason for going to Likonde twice was because there are national exams on at the moment so we were unable to visit Mlimani. The following day we sent out to visit the Wedneday school in Mikindani. We left the house at 7.30 in the morning and arrived in Mikindani just after 9, due to the Daladala, it was decided we would talk to the bus station and get it from there as it is very uncomfortable standing and be squashed by all the people. We had to wait a while until the Daladala filled up in order to leave. Once in Mikindani we began the walk up the hill to the school as we thought it would be good for the Finnish students to see the school. We arrived eventually at the school to be told that they had National exams as well, so no teaching! So frustrating. After taking some pictures we walked back to the bus stand and went back to Mtwara.
This week we have been playing a lot of floorball in Shangani, it has been good to play again regularly and also that we are getting more people playing also. On Thursday and Friday 24th we played Mzungu – Bantu game as we have a good number of Mzungus now in Mtwara, we lost on the Thursday by one goal, but won the Friday game thankfully 15 – 12. We played for nearly an hour and a half non stop on Friday so it was great fun.
On Thursday night we were invited to Mikindani for a going away celebration of one Mzungu here from Belgium she has been doing her Masters which has involved travelling over and back in 3 month stints for two years so her time has come to an end. Her had arranged a food buffet for all of us. There were quite many Mzungus present that night. I didn't know Mikindani had some many of them.
On Friday SDA had a road trip to a “nearby” village called Nanymba, it is time now to start getting the FC Vito girls team ready for going to Finland next year so we where there to pick out some fo the girls that looked good and played well over the two games. It was really hot when we arrived there and unfortunately I was the designated referee for the games. I think everyone from the village came out to watch what was going on and sadly some of the on lookers where laughing at the girls when they made a mistake this happened a lot of times. It was something really annoying because no doubt the girls heard the laughing which wouldn't have made them feel any better.
When the games where over we had taken along small gifts for all the girls that played. Thanks to our now near endless supply of pens we gave all the girls four pens each which made them really happy and also a few pens for the teachers to thank them for there good work. Although they still requested sports equipment and other things for the work they have done.
The drive back to Mtwara was quite as most of us where tired after the long day, more trips next week to pick out more girls. Hopefully the girls can go a few steps better and claim the gold medal in the Helsinki Cup!
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