At the beginning of February, I left for Iringa in Tanzania, and I’ve now been living here for over two months. It was going to be my first time in Africa, and I honestly didn’t know what to expect.

The country is so different from the Netherlands (My home country), and through the projects, you can teach the people here something while also learning a lot from them. That’s the beauty of volunteering.

Once I arrived in Iringa after the nine-hour bus ride, I was warmly welcomed by the other volunteers. That’s also where I met Vivian, the contact person from Volunteer Worldwide. After that, I got a tour of the city and the projects. There are various projects, such as a street children’s shelter, a home for teenage mothers, a primary school, a daycare centre, and more. You can combine several projects here since they’re very flexible, but of course, it can also be useful to focus on just one project.

You can go to the projects on your own or with other volunteers. At the moment, there’s a really fun group of Dutch and Belgian volunteers at the volunteer house, which makes weekends great for going out and taking trips together. We’ve also organised a few fundraising activities to buy new playground equipment and food, and we even painted the classrooms at one of the projects.

Iringa itself is fantastic. It’s located at a fairly high altitude, so the climate is better than in other parts of Tanzania. The city isn’t very big, so you get to know a lot of places and people quickly. I don’t feel unsafe at all, and both the boys and girls go to the market on their own during the day. You do get used to all the staring after a while :)

I’m having an amazing time here, and I would definitely recommend everyone to go to Tanzania. The country is so different, and through the projects, you can teach the people here something while also learning a lot from them.

That’s the beauty of volunteering. Don’t expect to move mountains or solve all the problems at once – every little bit helps, and they really appreciate it here. Keep an open mind, and you’ll learn so much, discover how incredibly friendly the people are, and see that life doesn’t have to be so stressful.