Sekuco

Before working in the centers, we attended a week long orientation at the local college.  At this orientation, we learned about the centers and what they do, took basic Swahili classes, and learned about the many different cultures of the Usambara Mountains.  We were able to also interact with fellow college students who were attending classes there and share our stories about our college.  

Below is one of the long roads that we took on our way to Sekuco.  This one is nicely paved, but most of them were dirt and absolutely the most bumpy roads I have seen or been on.  I am surprised that my teeth did not rattle out of my jaw.

The traditional building are built out of grasses and wood.  We passed many traditional villages on our way to the Usambara Mountains.

As you can see, we were pretty packed in our long bus ride and tired.  We spent all day traveling, and finally arrived at Sekuco after dark.

These are the dormitories that we stayed in for a week.  We each got our own that included a shower and toilet.  They were recently built and very nice.

For our meals we all gathered in the cafeteria where they had traditional Tanzania food prepared for us. We also met here for our daily tea time that occurred twice a day.

How these people were able to build right into the mountain like this amazes me.  The picture below is the village in the neighboring peak to the University.  To build each house or building, it is all done by hand.  This even included digging the side of the mountain out to create a flat lot to build the house on.

Similar to Michigan, Sekuco has multiple campuses.  To get from one campus to the next, we had to walk down a dirt path through a forest that was scattered with monkeys in the trees.

This is their campus B where the library and class rooms are located.

In the library, students are able to use the books on the shelves and study for their classes.  On the shelves, I found the physics books that we use at Michigan.

On campus A are the dormitories and administrative offices.

In the main meeting room, we meet with the president of the University.  She gave us some background about the college and how quickly they are growing.  They started a few short years ago with a few hundred and now they are over a thousand.

When we road our bus up the mountain at night, we had no idea what the roads were like.  Not until the morning did we find out that the roads are the width of one car but for both ways.  On top of this, they had cliffs right on the edge right beyond the trees on the left side of the picture.

There were many great hiking paths up the mountain.  On our hiking adventures we met many locals who shared stories with us and were just excited that we came by.

In these mountain ranges, there was an assortment of wildlife.  This frog was chilling outside my dorm door.