Derdians - Engineers point of view

Engineers experience of the activity

Initially, we were split up into groups, my team where informed that we were a group of engineers who where needed to build a bridge for a group of people known as the “Derdians”. This was a group of people who currently had to take a two day journey to reach the local markets, but after the successful construction of the bridge this journey would be cut down to only five hours. The task was that we had to teach the Derdians to build the bridge themselves, we thought this was going to be a relatively easy task until two of my fellow team mates went to visit Derdia. They said this was a very intense situation as upon their arrival they were surrounded by a group of eight people all trying to kiss them on the shoulder and all becoming furious when the gesture was not being returned. The Derdian people began shouting each time Kate and Yasmine tried to speak and shushing them, due to a lack of physical contact, the Derdian people found this very disrespectful. After quite some time Kate realised that the physical contact was needed and the engineers began to get some of the answers they needed or so they thought.

Kate and Yasmine then returned to our team and explained their ordeal, the main problem they described was when they asked a question the response was always yes sometimes just “yes” and at other times the answer was “yes” (with excessive head nodding) which meant no. It was very difficult to distinguish which was yes and which was no. However we were able to get some of the answers we needed, including whether or not we were allowed to use any form of supports underneath the bridge.

We then all returned to Derdia as a group, slightly cautious as we had been informed of the ways of the Derdian people, as expected they greeted us with a kiss on the shoulder. This took quite some time to get around everybody, we then got to work on explaining the process of building the bridge, this process involved a lot of shouting and was very time consuming. A problem arose which none of us had been introduced to was the fact that we asked Christian to draw and gave him a pencil, this is where most of the shouting began as boys are not allowed to touch pencils in their culture, 20 minutes later we had successfully built a bridge a lot less complex then we had originally planned but all in all it met the brief we had, successfully shorting the route for the Derdians.

To begin with we were confused as to why we had been given this activity to complete, but once it was completed we realised that some of the situations we had encountered in this challenge could come up in Tanzania due to the huge cultural differences. As a group we all realised that we had actually taken things from this experience some of these being that you have to constantly be adapting to your environment and be respectful to other people’s cultures. Overall this was an extremely well thought out activity and has made me understand that we need to be constantly adapting to new environments.

Robyn

12 Hour Walk

Why wouldn’t you want to raise money for the Tanzania link? On Saturday 20 August a 12 hour walk was held to raise money and awareness of the link. This is a great charity which helps support many projects out in Tanzania.

The aim of the 12 hour walk was to walk 95 miles in 12 hours. We set this target because the area of Tanzania is approximately 945,000 km squared. We knew this target would be hard to reach but we had to set something hard to make the event more likely to raise money.

Amazingly by 3pm we had managed to reach our target and had walked 95 miles! We were delighted as this was after only 7 hours. By the time it reached 8 pm and the 12 hours were up, we’d walked 220 miles! All of the people listed above did at least one lap and we also counted the laps walked by the dogs as well! The route was around the golf course in St.Bees with each lap being 2.5 miles. As we walked round we carried collection pots to try and get more donations. We also put collection  buckets in the pubs and cafe on route, I picked these up the next day. Throughout the day we had 28 people walking. 

We are yet to know the amount raised because not everyone has handed in their sponsorship money but so far we have collected around £150.

It was a really fun day and a great opportunity to see everyone from the link again and to have a good catch up whilst getting some exercise and fresh air. We were very lucky with the weather, there was only a few drops of rain throughout the day but at about 9 that night there was thunder and lightening and lots of rain. Almost everyone wore their link t-shirts, this showed that we were all part of the same team and helped to promote the charity. We also carried Tanzanian flags. Over the 12 hours we walked past lots of people in the village and were sometimes stopped by people asking what we were doing, so hopefully this helped promote the charity. 

We were very lucky to get to use the Scout hut in St. Bees for free which was great for dropping off bags and we always had someone there for health and safety reasons. It was also nice to have a rest and a drink and biscuit between laps. Each lap took about 50 minutes so people often had a 10 minute break between laps. We managed to keep someone walking for the whole 12 hours and, even though we had met our target at 3, we were determined to keep going for the whole 12 hours because it was a 12 hour walk.

I was very pleased with the outcome of the whole day, especially after all the worrying and preparation I had done in the lead up to the event.

Lucy Brock

Selection Weekend - Friday Overview

Friday 2nd October 2015. We set off for Gillerthwaite to meet with the group at 5pm. When we arrived we all got set up in our rooms, then met in the main living room to each write down a question that would be answered later on. While the first team was cooking, the rest of us went outside and relived our childhoods playing games such as 'hide and seek' 'black and buzz off' and 'splat bang'. Amy's team cooked dinner, which consisted of vegetable spaghetti bolognese and for dessert, custard, bananas and digestive biscuits, asante Amy's team!! After dinner, we all sat in the living room and each read out a question that we had wrote previously, this was a chance for us to air any worries with the leaders and for them to answer any questions we had about the outward trip. Next we were all split into 4 teams to participate in the Derdian team building challenge, 2 groups were Derdians and the other 2 groups were the engineers. Before bed we all sat in the living room chatting, needless to say the main topic of conversation was the outward visit and reminiscing about the inward visit! Then it was time for bed, ready for our next early morning.

Yasmin Hailes

Car boot sale

On the 16th of August I headed to Silloth Sunday market with my Mam, a car full of clothes, toys, games and books to sell at the car boot sale.  I hadn’t done a car boot sale before so this was all new to me.   I thought it would be an excellent way to raise some money for the link.  

I had spent all day on Saturday sorting through all my old books and toys then researching online so I had a more accurate idea of the prices I could charge.  

We arrived at the market at 9.30 and began to set up our stall.  The other stall holders were very helpful and gave us some good advice.  It was a lovely sunny day so the market was busy. The day was extremely enjoyable and although we didn’t sell everything we managed to raise £73 in total.

Becca Williamson  

New Trip Blog for 2015

Hello all,

The new trip blog will start posting here: http://crcl2015.blogspot.com make sure to subscribe!

Group Meeting - March

 On Sunday, March the 22nd, the Cumbria Rungwe Community Link gathered for yet another productive group meeting. Students took part in team building activities, such as speaking to one another in Swahili. Afterwards, we spent some time developing our journalistic skills, which will help in allowing us to promote ourselves, in social media and in the local news. We then split off into groups, where we explored the benefits and potential issues while hosting our visitors from Tanzania. The group are all looking forward to the arrival of the exchange students, even though our Swahili needs some work.

Luke 

ASDA bag pack!

On Saturday the 21st of March, we hosted a bag packing event at Asda Workington as another part of our fundraising. We spilt the day into two halves but some people volunteered to participate for the full day. This was from 10am to 4pm! This was a great day to talk to lots of people and let them know what we do, the benefits of doing it and why we all take part. Overall the day was a huge success as we were able to raise a total of £766.41!

Jack