Dan and Sue in Tanzania: Mtera School Visit

The last school to visit was Mtera. Mtera Secondary School is in the rift valley and is near the Mtera Reservoir which has a major hydroelectric dam. The school is about 3 hours from Iringa on the road to Dodoma, the formal capital of Tanzania (Dar is the effective capital). A Chinese construction project is reconstructing the road to Dodoma which is a rough dirt track and construction was taking place almost the entire 120 KM to Mtera.

Semi wild Kanga birds hanging around the teacher houses

Water tank filled from deep well

Baobab tree near the headmaster's office

It is very hot and dry in Mtera and fortunately, it is the only DIRA school with electricity because of their location near the hydroelectric dam. They have a deep well with an electric pump that fills a concrete tank for their water supply. Unfortunately, monkeys have opened up the protective screen and are using the tank as their private indoor swimming pool. They need to secure the tank better and also get a larger capacity pump to provide enough clean water for the school.

The school is preparing rooms for a Global Volunteers visit in December. These accommodations would be useful for BKB volunteers as well. Mtera would be a good school for installing computers because they have electricity.

Henry (facing on right) with students doing analysis

I met with science teachers again and we prepared solutions and did the volumetric analysis practical with students. The science teacher, Henry Msungu, was from Kising'a and had attended Kising'a Secondary for O level and Songea Boys for A level. Although Henry was a Form VI graduate, he was competent in the laboratory. The other teachers were practice teachers temporarily at Mtera. I also met with the English teacher and left materials with him. Mtera has 15 teachers and a relatively new Headmaster who appears to be making a difference at the school.

Five Year improvement plan for Mtera

The next morning we drove down to the reservoir and watched fishermen in dugout canoes bringing in a net. The water in the reservoir is very low and the headmaster said that is due to increased use of water upriver for rice irrigation. At some point, the low water will impact electricity generation. We left early for Iringa before it got too hot and we lost our breaks because of a broken hydraulic line. The line was a metal tube and the solution was to crush the broken tube with rocks and add more fluid to restore the pressure so the breaks at least worked partially. While we were wondering if we would spend the night in the bush, we were passed by a Massai and a cart pulled by two donkeys who had no mechanical difficulties.