Russ has come to the conclusion that "every [peace corps volunteer] site is balanced" and I agree with him. Sure we may have a non-existent school community and no water but our town is full of great people and we have electricity. Sure other volunteers have an awesome view of Kilimanjaro and water, but they always are assumed to be tourists and the cost of living is higher.
NewbiesThe amount of wazungu in our district has more than quadrupled! 7 environmental PCVs just moved into the surrounding villages of our town. We knew about this a long time ago but didn't want to spoil any of it in case the mentals (short for environmentals) saw my blog - which they did. There are two married couples and three single volunteers whose sites are anywhere from 1 to 5 hours from our town. A few recently came to town and the farthest volunteer had to wake up at 2 am to catch the bus that passed a village where a married couple is placed then to pass another village where a single volunteer is placed only to sit on the bus for two hours (driver took a nap, smoked - we all don't get it but that's how it works everyday) until it finally left at 5 am for our town reaching here at 7 am or so. It will be nice to see other volunteers on a more regular basis. We've had a great time being the only PCVs in our town, but occasionally it's good to talk to other volunteers about frustrations, insights, etc. These mental volunteers are placed in very small villages without electricty (a given at signing up to be an environmental volunteer) or (in their cases) lots of water. So they come to town to charge their cell phones and buy veggies other than tomatoes and onions.
BunniesOne day we were joking with M. about raising rabbits. We had visited his parent's house and noticed all the animals they were raising - goats, sheep, chickens, kangas, pidgeons, and rabbits. A bunch of rabbits were just born so we admired them. A few weeks later M. says that his mom has been saving two rabbits just for us. So we went to her house and tried to convince her that no, it's okay, we really don't need the rabbits (she sells them) but she insisted. They were so cute so how could we say no. We chose two and took them home. So now we are the owners of two rabbits! Although we are not raising our rabbits to eat, they are our pets with names Manyunyu and Manyoya which mean mist/light rain and feathers/fur respectively. They gobble up leaves of sweet potatoes, cabbage, and spinach.
Stolen ItemsWell, we've closed the computer lab temporarily as my ipod shuffle was stolen. Russ was working in the lab, charging my ipod, when I called him and the students still wanted to continue using the computers so he gave the keys to a student lab monitor that was somewhat knowledgeable in computers. The next day we entered the lab to get my ipod, it was gone. Russ went to each class and told him he "lost" it and needs it back and there was a 5,000 shilling reward for the person who brought it back or they could just toss it into the math department at night if they were too afraid to bring it in person to us. It's gone. It's been two months.
Another time, we went to Dar es Salaam for something, July 4th I think, and when we returned our outside couch had been stolen. It was silly of us to leave it outside but we forgot and it disappeared.
2-year anniversaryOur 2-year wedding anniversary was on 8/8 and we went to the best chipsi mayai place in town. We bought a bottle of wine, some popcorn, and sat down at the eatery. We ordered two chipsi mayai and just absorbed the atmosphere. When the chipsi mayai came they were in shapes of hearts! Russ had given the owner a heart shaped piece of metal as a mold for the chipsi mayai. I hear the owner used the idea and made a frying pan in the shape of a heart for future customers.
Coaching SoccerSo I am coaching a soccer team of girls around the ages of 10-14 from a local primary school. The headmaster is good friends with Russ who is teaching his teachers how to use computers and mentioned that he would like to involve his students more in sports. I teach soocer every Tuesday and Thursday afternoons to about 40 girls using only one ball! I sort of co-coach every once in a while as a teacher helps me out explaining things in Kiswahili. It's fun and the girls are really getting better. All they want to do is play a match but I keep on telling them we can play a match once we've done some drills. Most can't pass a ball and don't even know the rules. I think back to when I was on various soccer teams and do drills that helped me. The main thing is that these girls are having fun and they laugh a lot and are not stuck at home cooking, cleaning, and taking care of their sibblings. It's quite unbelievable to some people that I, a woman, am teaching soccer (football), to other girls. Russ told someone in town why I didn't go to town with him and it took him a few minutes to realize that women play soccer too.
TODFor one whole week I was TOD, which stands for Teacher On Duty (or in Kiswahili is Mwalimu wa Zamu), with another teacher. Being TOD was a lot of work I must say. On a brisk Monday morning I showed up bright and early at 7:00 amand students started to trickle around the flag pole. At around 7:15 am they were mostly all there, separated by form (grade). The other TOD showed up and I told her this was my first time to be TOD so I would follow her this week because I didn't know what to do. The students sang the Tanzanaian National Anthem, another Tanzania national song, and our school song. Then there were announcements and the students on duty said those names of students who received letters. This happened every morning of the week. The academic master, who really runs the school, showed up sometime during the singing. Then the students were released and they swept the class rooms before the first period started at 7:40 am. So I asked the other TOD what to do next. I followed her to the dorms and then the kitchen where we talked to the cooks.
The kitchen is completely black from decades of using charcoal and firewood to cook three large meals a day for hundreds of students. The lady chef said she had been working in the kitchen for more than 20 years. Wow. The chefs said there was no water for the student's breakfast, uji (porridge), so we needed to find the form on duty to fetch water. After teaching I returned to the kitchen just before chai (breakfast) for the students, to taste the uji and supervise the students as they got their food. So I was there and tasted the uji which was made of millet or sometimes corn flour with sugar and water. It's poured into large sufurias (cooking pots) labeled with numbers. Each sufuria contains enough food for 10 students. We checked out everything and it all looked good so we rang the bell (hit two metal pieces together) and the students poured in to collect their sufurias. I watched the students as they poured the uji into their own containers (thermuses, bowls, cups, hot pots, etc.) and dump the rest into the buckets of waiting beggars outside the cafeteria. For some reason the students don't like to eat in the cafeteria. They like to eat outside so they fill their containers up with food then head out. Apparently as a TOD I'm supposed to stop them but how can I, when I was usually by myself, stop 600 students from exiting the cafeteria that won't even hold them all in, let alone where there are not enough places to sit inside. Some students take their sufuria and the 10 of them stand and eat at a table. Anyway, that went well so I was told to return at 2 pm or so just before lunch.
I taught a few more classes then walked back down to the kitchen. Beans and ugali (millet or corn flour and water mixed to the consistency of polenta). The beans tasted great as they added salt. The ugali was the worst grade you could probably buy. This time each group of students received two sufurias, one with beans and one with ugali. The same routine happened and then I was told to come back at 6 pm just before dinner. At 6 pm I entered the kitchen and talked with the cooks as they were shoveling the food, beans and rice, into sufurias. I tasted the beans, the same, and the rice, which had some oil in it. The student's came and collected their sufurias and the same routine continued. I noticed that after the students had their fill they dumped their leftover beans, rice, ugali, into the buckets of the beggars outside. I asked the cooks about the beggars and she said they have no other choice, as she scraped the cooking pots of burnt rice and put it into a sufuria for them. This routine of breakfast, lunch, and dinner, continued throughout the rest of the week, with some issues here and there.
Well, I found myself alone at many meal times throughout the week. Apparently the other TOD went to Dar and didn't bother to tell me. I was asked why the TOD book wasn't being filled out so I explained to them that this was my first time as TOD and I told the other TOD I would follow her. When she did return from Dar later in the week she still didn't come to some meal times. Anyway, one afternoon an issue arose. One of the sufurias with rice was taken, the rice removed, and put back. So the students whose sufuria it belonged to started to complain that other students stole their rice. This was one of the times I was by myself. So I went with the students on duty to find the store keeper to allow the students on duty to take more food out of storage to feed the 10 students who didn't get rice. We went to the academic office where we called him, went to his office, the store room, where he said he needed the issue written down, then we returned to the academic master who said that was ridiculous and we went back to the store room and he talked with the store keeper who then gave permission to take a kilo of rice or so. So that issue was settled. Throughout the week the students complained about fetching water but it had to be done or nobody would eat. Many times students are pulled out of class to fetch water. This happens all around the country. Everyday the students eat uji for breakfast, rice or ugali and beans for lunch, and rice or ugali and beans for dinner, except for Wednesday lunch when they get meat and spinach stew. Pictures in our gallery soon.
TeachingThe past week has been quite the roller coaster. On Monday morning I woke up bright and early for my 7:40 am class with the science students of form 3. I got to the math department where I picked up my box of chalk and headed to the classroom only to find it locked with all the students inside the room busy writing/reading/studying. I knocked on the door and tried to force it open saying "hello?" only to find that it was locked from the inside. I asked a student inside if I needed a key to get in, he said no, just to push harder. Which I did, but the door wouldn't budge. None of the students came to the door to let me in, they just continued with their studies. So, I said ok, I'm outta here and went back to the math department to continue lesson planning for another class. When I saw my fellow math teachers I told them about the situation and they thought it best I don't teach them anymore. I asked if I was doing something wrong - I would be more than happy to take any advice and change the way I teach or anything - but they assured me it wasn't me, but the students. "It's the students - they are not disciplined" or "the headmaster of this school does not discipline the students" were two common excuses I heard. I went ahead with the day and taught a few streams of form 4 classes then was on my way to the copier to make copies for my form 3 art students of a worksheet about Sequences and Series as we just finished the topic and thought they would appreciate some extra questions to practice. The road I take to the copier, 1 minute away, goes along the outside of the school so you can see the classrooms from the road. I was walking along and heard "Mzungu! Mzungu!" from the form 3 building. (This happened to Russ a few weeks before and he turned around to enter the classroom to correct them saying he is not to be called Mzungu but Mr. Russ or Mwalimu Russ.) Ok, I have gotten used to this word and I know it will never stop being used. I understand little children when they say it - they're excited to see me - but when the high school students you've been teaching for the last nine months yell it out the window as I pass by off campus with such a degrogitory connotation it made me angry. (Even my own headmaster has called me this, granted one time was when he was intoxicated). I decided to shrug it off.
Well the next day I got ready to teach my form 3 art class, which started after chai. I saw my fellow math teacher who urged me not to go right when the bell rang but wait a few minutes as it takes the students that long to get back in the classrooms. So I chatted with him for a few minutes then said I have a class to teach and headed out. Many of the students were standing outside the form 3 and form 2 and form 1 classrooms just talking. I stepped into my classroom, where there were only three students inside, and started to handout the worksheet I printed out and copied for them. Five to ten minutes pass and the students are still outside of the classroom. I look outside to two girls and say we've got to start class and they run away. Hmm...ok. So I ask the students inside the classroom why are the others standing outside. They did not know. So I go outside to see my whole class just standing around and talking. I tell them to enter the classroom as they have math to learn. They say ok, so I go back into the classroom. I wait a few more minutes and nobody comes into the classroom. Twenty minutes have passed since the bell rang - half of a period - so I exit the classroom and go to the math department where I find my fellow math teacher/discipline master and tell him what just happened. He got up and I followed him to the classroom. When the students saw him they all dashed madly back into the classrooms. He asked why they didn't enter the classroom when I asked them to. No answer. He asked what the problem was. They said they don't understand me as a teacher and want a different teacher. We leave. He says these students don't like math and that I'm not the problem but the students are the problem. The students got a differenct math teacher, but not the one they wanted. He said the students are not disciplined and spoiled. What I think it is is that these students don't have a good foundation for mathematics and are just pushed to the next level even though they do not understand how to add or subtract. Do you think you would enjoy trigonometry if you couldn't add fractions? So now I'm only teaching form 4 classes. My schedule will change in three weeks as the form 4 students graduate and leave mid-term (why? - don't ask) and I will teach form 1 and possibly a stream or two of form 2. I keep hearing the students are different at other schools. At the school my fellow math teacher came from the students begged him for extra questions and night sessions. And I've seen this at other schools, for example, where the students go to a pcv's house in the evening when the dorms didn't have electricity to study and ask chemistry questions.
Meanwhile, the local teacher's training college just got satellite internet! The computers haven't arrived, and probably won't for a long time yet, but there are two computers that can be used for internet. It's not very fast, but good enough to check email and upload blog entries. Yippie!
Health ClubI tried for three weeks to start up the health club on campus. The first month was no good as there were very few students at school. The second month was no good as everyday there were competitions soccer/volley ball/netball matches going on. So I tried the third month but the teachers said the students are afraid to teach about health issues. Also in the third month the students in forms 2 and 4 are preparing for exams and form 4 is preparing for graduation so they are busy. What the "health club" is working on is a play for the form 4 graduation. They do one at every graduation and they practice on their own time. However, just this week I met a man in town who started his own ngo that helps educates people on HIV/AIDS through seminars and workshops sponsored by bigger ngos. He is excited to work with us and actually wants to create a health club at every secondary school in our town. I think he will be a great resource and advise me on how to go about starting a club at our school.
HobbiesCooking is always a hobby for me. I've learned to cook so many great Tanzanian foods. The latest lesson was on how to cook coconut maandazi. Russ and I went to a friend's house where his wife instructed us on how to make coconut milk and then the dough for the maanadazi (like malasadas, doughnut type things, with much less sugar). I have yet to try it myself at home but perhaps someday.
We can buy popcorn kernels in town and we bought some to make popcorn at home. Apparently the store we buy it from goes to Dar to get the kernels which are shipped from Argentina. Anyway, we have successfully made carmel corn. We heat up some butter and sugar and pour it onto the cooked popcorn. Now we need to get some peanuts and we'll have some real carmel corn!
With all the beautiful material around I have been urged to sew. So sometimes I have gone to a fellow teacher's house where she instructs me on how to sew. So far, together, we've sewn a cell phone case, coin purse, and a skirt. It takes a while to get used to the sewing wheel - it's not electric.
Up nextRuss's dad is coming in two weeks! We're excited to have him visit our site and take him on a few hikes up the surrounding mountains. He's also bringing some American goodies that are not necessary, but provide comfort.
