Steve and Barnabas in Tanzania

I am currently working on several projects to prepare for the team coming over in September so they can have "shovel ready" work projects.  Unfortunately none of that is too glamorous.  So I am going to clean off some photos of work/play projects I have been doing lately. The last of the tools I purchased with the generous donations to the electric tool fund was a jigsaw.  I am very excited about what I can do with that and my new find of plywood.  For those of you who don't do facebook, a Peace Corp friend helped me track down a source of plywood.  It is the boxes they ship motorcycles into town in and since they ship a good many in I am hoping it will be a steady stream.  It is thin plywood but I am still excited about the project I can do.   The giraffe above and attempted elephant below though were my first jigsaw projects using some of the scrap wood from other projects.  Both were cut free hand (no template or drawing) out...

Welcome back to Conversations with Barnabas Bear. A couple of items up front, the conversation is fictional (hopefully that was obvious) but are pulled from some of my conversations and observations during my time here in Tanzania.  The main purpose of these is to help everyone get to know the people in Tanzania a little bit better while having a little bit of fun.  I would love some feedback on these so I know if I should continue and if so what types of conversations Barnabas needs to be having.  The stories are told from Barnaba’s point of view and because of that they are in English though I try to reflect some of the problems with the English translation. Today I got to spend time with Alec (best I guess to spell the name as he got really quiet every time he said it) while he was getting water for his family.  He does this at least once a week and sometimes twice.  He has 2 each 6 to 7 gallon containers and one that is around a gallon.  He...

As I read that title I imagine myself sounding like Leonard off the Big Bang Theory when they went to encourage Middle School girls to enter science related fields. Yes,  I know I am late posting this week.  I appreciate the reminders.  The reason is that I attended the Singida Science Conference 2016 put on by the Peace Corp Volunteers in Kinampanda.  This is a village area that I drive through to get to my site.  It is the last village on the ridge line before I head down into the valley.   This was my fourth science/math conference put on by the Peace Corp Volunteers.  They plan the activities, set a schedule, create budgets, negotiate for locations not only to have the conference but also to house the students and transport them and one teacher counterpart.  There are two main type Peace Corp Volunteers.  One group does work along the lines of agriculture or health.  The other group are assigned secondary schools to teach in. ...