From Isack in Tabora

Hello friends around the world – this is Isack! I hope that you have been enjoying the stories from South Africa by Erik, James, Beruk, Jody, Charles, Ben and others. On my side I’m back at school. I’m studying at Uyui High School in Tabora region.

I am now very happy to tell you about my friends Bryony Kite and Nadia from London. Bryony is Jody friend. She came to Tabora with her friend Nadia to visit me, Roots & Shoots and the Orphanage. It was my first time to meet with them but we became good friends and we ate together most of the time and discussed different issues.

Nadia and Bryony are primary school teachers and when they were in Tabora, they used to come to school to teach students English. In the evening they would go to play with the kids at the orphanage, so when I came back from school I would meet with them at the orphanage and we would play with the kids. Bryony and Nadia don’t know how to speak Kiswahili, our national language, but most of time they asked me about different words so that they could use them to communicate with the kids. They played with kids from 1 to 5 years old; they loved the kids and the kids loved them too. In Tanzania, it is not usual to see people playing with kids in the orphanage like Bryony and Nadia, so from my side I learned something new. I think kids they feel happy to play and they need people like Bryony and Nadia who can play with them.

After playing with the kids Nadia, Bryony and me would go to the school to meet with Root & Shoots members. My dear friends, you can’t believe what Nadia, Bryony and I introduced as a new thing in Tabora…. we introduced a girl’s football team at the school! The first time when Nadia and Bryony came to our school they meet with Roots & Shoots members to discuss about Roots & Shoots Uyui High School action plan for 2008. Mr. Arimas, president of Roots & Shoots at the school, told them about the club’s sports plan - here at Uyui we have a plan to establish a Roots & Shoots football team. During the holiday we will be going to the villages to educate people about different issues then we will play football between Roots & Shoots team and village team from the place we visit. We have agreed that football is a way of joining people together and also we can teach them before the match. We believe that so many people will come because they like soccer.

Now, Nadia and Bryony have introduced a football team for girls!!! It is new because we had no girls playing football before but now we have been introduced to it by Jody’s friends, Bryony and Nadia. Nadia gave exercises to the girls and then Nadia and Bryony gave two footballs to the girls to use for practice.

Nadia and Bryony then went to visit Gombe National Park (the land of chimpanzees) in Kigoma and after that they went to Arusha to meet with Salley. Right now they are in Zanzibar after that they will travel back to London on Monday. I wish my new friends all the best and I hope that one day we will meet again. Thanks for introducing a football team here at our school. That is a gift for us. It is a golden chance because you show us new ways to go forward.

Thank you Jody for introducing me to Bryony and Nadia. Also thank you all for visiting our blog. You are welcome again and you can tell others to visit this blog too to here about different programs in Africa.

With love,

Isack Nyasilu