What's going on?!

So last time I wrote it was just before my family came and we had a crisis with one of the students. My mom, brother and I had a great time together (Philip’s first time!) and we dealt with the student crisis with loads of support. Now sweet Remy is at Ujamaa Children’s Home – check them out.

Instead of looking back at the last couple months which have been fairly uneventful, I figured it’s time to start giving you all some insight on the forward motions I’ve made. For months and months now I’ve been trying to create a vision. I have to go from small scale to big scale thinking, as I have Hill Crest and the project and another piece of land to play with soon! I have spent time in the community and realized that a great way to use the next piece of land will be to build a community within the community. A big center for adults to come learn English (an idea I stole from a school my friend volunteered at), take general health and first aid courses, learn about managing money, sustainable farming, a study center for children from unstable home environments to come and do their homework and get tutoring, and anything else that may pop up along the way. I thought building a school was dreaming big so this is next level! But I also believe it’s a completely attainable goal, especially because we can start…NOW! The project has one massive room that could be split into two classrooms but then I thought, why not use that to teach adults?! We have four classrooms already which will very comfortably hold around 125 children so we can use our massive room to start having English and Health Education classes! I also changed one small spare room into a sewing room because it is very small. This means we can hire a woman from a sewing training center (somewhere that finds widows and teaches them to sew so they can get a job and make an income) in Kisongo and hire her full time to make the school uniforms and even sew our very own items for me to take back to the US and sell! We will give her a nice cutting table and a quality sewing machine to work on. I’m so excited!

I’m really hopeful about this. I like the changes that I’ve made. They’re manageable and will make a difference and I won’t have to wait anymore! The project (name of school is still undecided, I’m open to suggestions hehe) will open as a school in January, giving me time to furnish the building, find students, find teachers, go home for a month, then hit the ground running to prep for our opening. But in the mean time we can start with the adults and I’m thrilled about that! I’ve been lucky enough to recruit friends to help me. A nurse is setting up the health education and first aid program, another friend just got her masters in ESL so she is going to lead our English classes, and another amazing woman is a social worker in the US and has been here several times and wants to move here long term, so she will be heading up our investigations/community outreach division! Then, as we feel things out and make sure we are running smoothly at the project, we will look into all the other programs and how we can build the community center to move the English and Health courses there and kick off the other programs as well. Oofta! I’m really lucky to have these friends on board to help me. They are just as excited as I am, are very supportive and will be amazing to work with. While I’m setting all these programs up, I’ve hired another friend who is a teacher in Denmark to take over at Hill Crest for a few months! Again, someone who has been here already and wants to spend more time here. I’m excited and know that she will bring new ideas and energy to Hill Crest and help make our teachers even more incredible humans than they already are.

Wait…are things looking up? Is that what you’re reading? A positive post?! Cue the sigh of relief, yes. Things are looking up. (touch wood) I’ve moved on and see a future here that has me very excited. Instead of being awake at night stewing about how horrible everything is and trying to convince myself that things will be okay, I’m up planning and thinking about other programs we can do and the products I want our seamstress to make and places in the US that can sell them and partnerships and volunteer opportunities and possible internships we could host and EVERYTHING! Because finally, I believe with every fiber of my being, that everything is okay and better than ever. Don’t get me wrong, I still get a little bit overwhelmed when I think about the fact that I was supposed to go home for good in January 2016 and yet two weeks ago I signed a two year contract for a house here…but I am so thrilled with the way things have progressed and so so SO excited for the future of Hill Crest, the project and the future community center!  To do all this, I had to register a company so look out for the website launch and your opportunity to sponsor any of the over 200 students that will be under our wings!

Love from TZ,

Kat