Migration of the White Butterflies

Over the Hump

We have surpassed the half way point of our service now and I've heard it's all down hill from here. RPCVs have said the second year goes much quicker than the first and I'm beginning to realize that since we've been "over the hump" for three months now. In the past year, I've often had the "Peace Corps Days" when I dreamed I was back home with friends and family doing what I was doing before we left for the PC. It's happening more often now that I can see the end. I never realized how much I miss my own culture until I've been away from it for so long. The one thing I really miss doing is watching movies. Entertainment, in the way of movies, is really an American cultural pastime and I keep reading about new movies that have opened while we've been gone and can't wait to see them when I return.


White Butterflies

For a few days thousands of white butterflies migrated through the town. They were coming from the north and continuing in the same direction to the south. The butterflies stopped at flowers along their way and you could see them along ways away. The birds were quite happy to have them around and we were happy too to see such a sight.


Hail storm

On Friday, I got up at 7 am to get ready for class at 7:40 am. On Fridays my lesson isn't paid attention to like the other days because there are only two periods on Friday (the two that I teach) then there's religion then two exams. After class I rushed home to help mzee cook sambusas (meat pockets) as my good friend Shangaluka wanted to learn how to cook them and our mzee in an expert. We spent four hours and made about 40 sambusas from scratch. We dine on them with sodas and beer for lunch then took naps. At around 4 pm it started to get cool so I walked outside to find the mountains to the north and east leaching dark clouds upon our town. Russ quickly joined me after I told him he had to see for himself the impending storm. The winds picked up and small branches started to fall from our mango trees and the natural tall grass bent over 90 degrees. For sure we thought the electricity would go at any moment, but to our surprise it remained on. It was like any typical "flash flood" here except that the rain water and air temperature was very cold. As we filled out buckets on our porch from our gutter we heard the hail begin to pound on our aluminum roof. The sound got so loud that we scared each other in the house. Hail in Kiswahili is "mawe ya mvua" or "rain rocks." This was my first hail sighting in Africa and after it continued for a few minutes we couldn't help but to think of all the crops people have planted and hoped they were not destroyed. Our crops did fine - there were just a few holes in the leaves of our plants but the wind did more damage than the hail. Not only did it hail, but it also flooded like we've never seen before. The water was half way up one of our steps near the back door, but it never got any higher.

After the storm passed we could hear the "river" so we went to look at it. 99.9% of the time it is a dry "river" which really acts more like a huge drainage ditch from the mountain. It was raging and many people were watching it. Apparently when the rains had just started, a primary school boy tried to cross it and got swept away. They found his body a mile down the river. Also, the heavy rains took away all the work that the town did to rebuild the bridge that was destroyed by heavy rains a few months earlier. It was a somber mood in town that weekend.


Valentine's Day

For Valentine's Day, I got up early to make heart shaped pancakes for Russ and I then we both went to work like normal. After returning from work, and relaxing for a few hours, Russ asked if I was "ready." "Ready for what?" I asked, and he just smiled. We picked up Sajigwa and Shangaluka, parents of the twins, then went to a local hotel (the only place in town that serves decent food). We dined with another couple, Caroline and Gasper, the cook and manager of the hotel, and our friends, to make it a triple date for Valentine's Day. Russ told Caroline how to make mashed potatoes so we had comfort food from home (new and interesting to the Tanzanians) and a meat and banana stew, a typical Tanzanian meal from the north. She got the mashed potatoes spot on and Russ and I gobbled it up. This triple date with the Tanzanians for Valentine's Day was a first for them but they seemed to enjoy themselves. The power kept going out so we ate by candlelight. Valentine's Day is just starting to be recognized here. I heard if you asked anybody ten years ago about Valentine's Day they would have no clue what you were talking about.


Teaching

Teaching is going really well for me. My students did pretty well on their first exam. The average in both classes was around 55, which is a "C." There was one 100% and some cheating. How did I know there was cheating? Well, I made two different exams and on a few students' sheets the question and answer of a question on the other exam was written. I asked them why they cheated and it was because they said they didn't understand the material. I told them to ask me for help outside of class if they needed it. A week and a half went by and I gave my students a quiz. The quiz consisted of questions directly from their homework, I just changed the numbers. Most did really well, yet some are falling behind. I didn't say anything to those I though needed help. They came to me and asked for extra help! So I said they are welcome to ask questions if I'm in the office or they can do more problems from the book and I'll correct them. Since I had extra copies of the first exam, I have them the exam they didn't do on exam day. They didn't get it perfectly but they got a higher score than their first attempt. I really do enjoy teaching and am seriously thinking about pursuing it when I return home. I had to come to Africa and teach those who have nothing to learn than in teaching, I have everything.

East Side gets a visit

East Side visits

Russ and I rode our bikes out to visit James and Christy's site and Loni's site on the East Side of our town. We had not been out that way since the villagers were in the process of building their houses in the dry season. The bike ride was fairly easy and quite pleasant in the early morning as it was cool and breezy. We got to Loni's site (45 minute bike ride) and rested a bit then continued onto to James and Christy's site (30 minute bike ride from Loni's site) where they were painting a wall to make their house a bit more lively.

We helped out with painting, talked, and had chai. Chai is literally tea but for most Tanzanians it's breakfast usually taken around 10 am and consists of tea and fried finger foods. We toured their gardens and soon-to-be-finished water tank. We noticed that they've done a great job with their gardens and they just need a roof on their water tank for it to be completed.

Before we left to go back to Loni's site, we visited a friend of James and Christy's, an older man who builds a board for a local game. They had one made for themselves so we ordered one for ourselves. When we get it, in a month or so, I'll take pictures and tell how it's played.

We rode back to Loni's site around 2 pm or so and it was quite hot. We stopped at her house and had peaches and avocado a very rare treat in our town. Angus brought some back for us when he went to Iringa for a conference and we thought it would be nice to share it with other volunteers. Hopefully there will be avocados in our town soon, but I've never seen a peach at our market. We then made our way home in the early afternoon and relaxed the rest of the day.

Gardening
The longer rainy season has begun and that means it rains once every three days, which has been happening for the last week. That's just long enough between rains that I don't have to water our garden. I now understand the meaning of a "pumpkin patch" and "watermelon patch" as our pumpkins, squash, and watermelon plants are taking over our entire garden! I thinned (trimmed) the pumpkin leaves, which we ate (tasty!), but I still need to thin out more leaves otherwise because it's so damp under the patch of leaves fungus will start to grow. We transferred many plants, especially tomato, from our compost to our garden. Compost is a great source of seedlings we realized. All of the tomato and papaya plants which were transferred into our garden are doing great. Just the other day I noticed that our tomato plants are flowering and we already have some large okra ready to pick and eat from our okra plants. We've been eating cucumber and beans as those plants have already started producing.

Teaching
The amount of students in my classes keep increasing. In two of my three classes the number of students is approaching 40 in each class. This makes it a bit difficult to do "fun things" but I'm learning all of their names, to their great surprise, and I am animated in class, which they find amusing. Teaching is going well and I enjoy seeing the light bulb go off in my students' heads. One day, I gave them some homework problems on the board then noticed that a few students finished quite quickly. To keep them busy, I put a more difficult problem, from a past national exam, on the board for a challenge. I had one way of doing it but when I saw the way one student did it, I was so proud I let him explain to the class his solution. Unlike last year, my students this year love to "play teacher" and explain solutions on the board in front of their classmates. No shame here, which is great because it takes the spotlight off me and then I'm not the one lecturing all the time. They are taking their first maths exam at the moment so I get to go home and grade them soon. I typed up two different exams for the same subject to minimize cheating. We'll see how they do.