EXPEDITION LIFE 

Accommodation
Food
A Day In The Life
Who Else Is Going?
Weather

Accommodation
Orientation Days: 
When volunteers first arrive in Tanzania you will be met at Kilimanjaro Airport and taken to Arusha. We stay in a simple backpackers with a nice bar area for spare moments between orientation talks and activities. There are ample hot showers and loos with a large restaurant area for evening meals. There is a telephone here and internet.

Project Site:
On project site accommodation will be basic but comfortable with stunning views of the surrounding hillsides. The team will be staying in a simple building, with beds, in the middle of the Babati district. Washing facilities are limited, with simple bucket showers and long drop toilets. Water is limited and has to be collected each day from the borehole near to the accommodation. Food is prepared in a basic kitchen area over gas stoves.

Weekends Off:
On weekends off we will return to Babati for a hot shower and cool beer. We stay in a comfy guesthouse which is close to town and some great markets as well for you to see some more of this fascinating town.

Food
There are two types of food that you will be eating whilst in Africa.  Firstly food that you and your team will cook for each other and secondly traditional food that you will eat every now and then when invited to someone’s house or at the end of a project phase when it\\\'s common for a goat or chickens to be roasted for a large party.

A typical daily meal might be;
Breakfast: Porridge with raisins, golden syrup or sugar. Tea/coffee.
Lunch: Local freshly cooked Tanzanian lunch – consisting of rice or pap with a vegetable stew, tomatoes, peas and beans.
Dinner: Large rice or potato base dish with vegetable stew and/or chicken.

Vegetarians
Don’t forget that most meat we eat is as organic as it comes – the term ‘freerange’ applies to almost all the meat you will be given up here.  Don\\\'t panic if you don\\\'t want to relax your eating habits though, as we can easily cater for vegetarians.

A Day In The Life
What will I be doing?
The Livingstone Tanzania Trust works as a self-help charity working with the local community; they help them develop what they need and not what they think they need.

We want them to actively participate in the work so that they have a sense of ownership at the end, thus ensuring a greater degree of sustainability. Because our work is community based the community provides unskilled labour free, so volunteers are not doing anyone out of a job. It is important to stress that the people who build the buildings are skilled craftsmen and community participation and volunteer participation is not reducing the number of craftsmen that would normally be employed.

The community benefit by having volunteers make a contribution to the cost of the buildings that they would otherwise have to save for many years to make; by having volunteers represent them so that they can carry on working on their farms; by having a better school for their children; by having the cash injection into their community that is spent in the local community.

You\'ll be given the opportunity to totally immerse yourself into the local community and learn about the culture, the way of life, understand the problems faced in developing countries, develop new skills and interests and above all make new friends. 

Activities:
Laying bricks to make walls
Building and erect the roof
Laying a floor
Mixing cement with the team
Painting the walls
Sanding and painting metal windows and doors
Plastering the walls
Harvesting and selling
Setting up conversational groups with pupils from several schools
Planting trees, seeds
Shopping and cooking as the locals do
Visiting the Barbaig in their traditional houses
Climbing Mt Hanang
Playing football, netball, volleyball and rounders with students
Teaching English (where this is a skill of yours)
Helping to educate the community on rubbish management
Teaching IT skills (where this is a skill of yours)

Below is an example of what the most typical day is like working in Tanzania.
06:00 Wake up call by the volunteer leader. Time to wash & dress for the day.

06:30 Gather for breakfast which has been prepared by the ‘cooking team’ for the day who would have been up since 5.30 am preparing breakfast and lunch packs. 

07:15 Volunteers gather to pick up whatever kit they are using for the day’s projects. This could be work gloves and hard hat for construction site or just a large reserve of energy and ideas for working with the children in the local schools or helping out with the school farm.

07:30 Usually we try to be on site by this time. It\'s a short walk from where you\'ll be staying. 

12 noon Volunteers tend to have lunch around noon when the bulk of the day’s work has been done. It’s nice to have a couple of apples with you for breaks and to keep the energy levels up during the morning, or sometimes we get lucky and will have chapati’s or porridge as a mid-morning snack cooked by some of the local ladies.

15:00-16:00 On building projects we tend to have longish days on site as there is a real pressure to complete any building projects before the team leaves. Volunteers on cooking duty need to start preparing dinner at 4 o’clock which usually takes two hours. The rest of the team will have an hour or two in the afternoon to do some hand washing, letter writing or just snoozing in the sun.

18:00 Showers and Dinner is served

19:00 Usually there is a group meeting every evening after dinner to make sure that everyone is happy about what work they will be joining in on the next day. The volunteer leader for the day will usually be in charge of this session and its an opportunity to rotate onto different projects if you want a break or to voice your preference for staying on a project you are particularly enjoying. These meetings are usually relaxed and informal, but if you have any issues you are unhappy about this is the chance to bring it up. It’s also a chance to chat to each other about what happened with each group that day and to write up the team logbook.

21:00 If you stay awake until 9pm that shows real stamina!  As there is no electricity teams tend to head to bed soon after 8pm, to get some kip in for the next day on project…

Who Else Is Going?
Your team will be between 6-16 people. The age range is 25years+ but regardless of age, all volunteers have one thing in common – an enthusiasm to experience the real Africa, spend time with communities in rural Tanzania and to make a positive impact on the local children and families in Babati.

Weather
The cool, dry season in Africa is from April > September. During this time the weather tends to be cool and dry. It’s not unusual to experience a drizzle and clouds early in morning, which then gets burnt off as the sun rises higher in the sky. However, most of the time the weather will be hot, around 15-20 degrees, cooling down at night!