This morning during breakfast we got to meet the entire 8 person team face to face! 11 weeks ago a few of us met in the team4tech Redwood City offices, but 3 from our team live in other parts of the world- Marta (an Italian living in Sydney), Terry (an American living in Hong Kong), and Joseph (a curriculum designer from Kenya). Maybe knowing what we are about to go through together for the next 2 weeks or maybe the fact that we all are pretty adaptive people...we all immediately felt a tie to one another and the openness in conversations and bonding happened right away.
We spent the hour after breakfast with a security briefing from World Vision (don't worry, Mom and Dad...all the typical stuff you taught us traveling over the years...nothing out of the ordinary). Then we spent the next 5 hours traveling to Singida where we will teach 14 teachers for the next week.
Surprisingly, the drive went by so fast! The scenery was ever changing from arid desert to lush agriculture to complications of barren rocks stacked on top of each other in the middle of nowhere. We passed so many simple villages with wood huts, desolate dwellings, and Boabab trees. The charm was everywhere and what was most stunning were the vibrant and colorful Sunday outfits everyone was wearing next to their primitive backdrops. People just stared from their lookout spots at the cars passing along the highway. Young children, no more than 9 yrs old, shepherded with confidence, herds of goats and cows. It was like looking at moments in time captured in National Geographic photos. My family calls these moments, "mental pictures". I will forever have them.
We are staying at a Catholic training center where dinner and breakfast are provided. I am very impressed at the diligence World Vision has gone through to ensure we are staying in a secure and comfortable place.
It has been a long day. We ended it with lesson planning for our first session tomorrow, dinner, and of course, a glass of wine.:)
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