Kibaya, Tanzania Leaving bustling Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’s coastal, main city on Sunday morning, I readied for the looooong ride to visit our grantee partner The Jifunze Project. After seven hours of scenic and smooth paved road, we hung a left onto an unmarked dirt road and proceeded on a slower, bumpier 59-mile ride to Kibaya. During the two hours of bumps and jostles, there was only one other village before our destination. Along the road, I saw many Maasai people, tall and proud, wrapped in their traditional red and blue robes, decked with intricate beadwork around the arms, neck, and ears. Several of them were herding their cattle in hopes of selling one or two at the monthly market; the price is up to 250,000 Tanzanian shillings (about $200). Their homesteads were not in sight, and when I asked where they lived, my colleague pointed deep into the bush and grasslands, where they had set up semi-permanent”boma” huts of sticks, mud, and cow dung. They stay in these homes for months, sometimes a year, until they move to a new place to find more grass and water for their cattle. I asked if and how their children went to school, and learned that schools are established within the Maasai lands, and children will walk sometimes many miles from their camps to attend. We finally reached Kibaya, a small town of about 5,000 residents. It did not have electricity until 1999 and was connected to the Internet just last year. I was told things have changed dramatically with those two developments. Still, out here, far from paved roads and noise pollution, it seemed peaceful enough to me. I fell soundly asleep in a simple, clean, and cozy guesthouse to the song of crickets and arose to the chorus of roosters. Kibaya is the home of our grantee partner Jifunze. Jifunze’s Community Education Resource Centre (CERC) serves about 2,500 residents and members with supplementary educational programs. Its early childhood program hosts each of Kibaya’s five kindergarten classes for a day of learning and play each week. The classroom is bright and cheerful, filled with books, puzzles, and learning aids. The early childhood expert teacher works with the local schoolteachers to enhance lesson plans, encourage appropriate play-learning, and develop learning aids with locally available materials. Primary and secondary students go to CERC for tutoring, study groups, and library resources. A computer center allows teachers, community residents, and students to learn and practice computers. When I entered a classroom, a younger group was just getting acquainted with the mouse and keyboard. Best of all, Jifunze’s CERC has the best playground I’ve seen in East Africa. The children’s laughter and playing was a refreshing contrast to the often serious, often challenged reality. The Jifunze oasis is a place to play and learn, as it should be. Jifunze’s learning center is paying special attention to its future sustainability. It has partnered with the district council to get teachers and other staff assigned and paid by the local government. It recently had official visits from the minister of education and prime minister, who called it a model for the region. It also completed its first strategic plan, which will help this beacon of light, at the end of a long road, stay bright.

Victoria Dunning is GFC’s Vice President for Programs