Buckets

And now, a guest blog, from Mark:

Plastic buckets have become an important part of our lives. 

We wash clothes in buckets.  One bucket is for the washing and two more are for the double rinsing.  In the dry season we hang the clothes out to dry, where they are immediately covered with dust, and then dry quickly.  In the rainy season we hang clothes out to dry, the daily rains come, and we rush around to bring the clothes inside where we find places to hang them.  In a couple of days they are still wet, so we wear them anyway.

We bathe from a bucket.  A little hot water from the stove mixed with the cold natural water makes a refreshing bucket of bathwater.

We store water in buckets.  Fortunately, we are among the lucky ones who have water from an indoor tap.  Unfortunately, frequently the water to our tap in the house is turned off so we use the water stored in our buckets.

We purify water in buckets.  A chemical purifying process is taking place in our buckets right now, making our water safe to drink.

We appreciate and use our ten plastic buckets every day.

Our Renaissance Man

Bariki (which means "blessing") is the head guard at our school, but he is much more than that.  He is a handyman, and the first person to call, when we have a problem with locks, doors, water, electricity, masonry, plumbing, or almost anything.  He recently repaired the school's water supply pipes, ending our 3 1/2 days without water.

At the Lutheran church just outside our gates, Bariki sets up the sound system, directs the youth choir, and plays the organ.  He also plays other musical instruments.  During our Form 6 graduation ceremony in February, Bariki and 3 other musicians led the procession of graduating students.  He was playing the trombone.

(I tried to upload a photo here, but after 2 failed attempts that took 20 minutes each, I gave up).

Bariki is Maasai.  He usually wears Western-style clothes, but we occasionally see him in the colorful tribal shuka, or robe, when he is on guard duty.  Many Maasai men work as guards, and they can be impressive.  They get respect from man and beast.

Bariki speaks Swahili, and, I assume, the Maasai language.  He also speaks English better than we speak Swahili.  I don't know his academic skills, but at this point, almost nothing would surprise me.  He is our Renaissance man.

Entrepreneurship

This is a nation of small entrepreneurs.  Despite extensive government ownership (due to the father of the country introducing socialism after independence in the 1960s), 18th century economist Adam Smith would recognize the activities of the common people here as capitalistic.  In cities, towns, and villages, there are innumerable tiny shops selling an assortment of goods, from grocery staples to stationary to clothing, new and used.  Carpenters work out of small buildings or under a makeshift roof and take orders to build beds, tables, chairs, or whatever is needed.  People set up tables along the roadside to sell produce from their gardens.  Women set up charcoal stoves on street corners to fry fish or maandazi (muffins), or roast corn cobs, and sell them to passersby.  At the official marketplaces, people sell produce, shoes, jewelry, used clothing, household goods, and videos, much like a flea market in the States. 

Even middle-class people get into the act.  Some of the teachers at our school have sidelines selling phones, beauty products, vitamins, dresses, shoes, and purses.  (I know, this sounds like Avon, Pampered Chef, and Tupperware.)  There is a very nice house nearby on a path used by primary school students on their way to and from school.  The lady of the house (or possible the maid) sets up a display of snacks and drinks on the front porch every afternoon, to sell to the children after school.  

One of the surprising thing to me is the fact that vendors are allowed to hawk their wares to teachers in the staff lounge.  Yesterday, during our mid-morning break, a woman made a pitch for the health benefits of green tea, and invited the teachers to a seminar this weekend.  Other times, people have promoted magazine subscriptions, kitchenware, and even underwear!  Some of the Tanzanian teachers react with interest to these pitches, and all are tolerant of them.  As I was told, these people have to make a living, and they have a very small profit margin on their goods.

But this is all small potatoes stuff.  Business on a larger scale runs into barriers of bureaucracy and corruption.  A small business owner in Arusha tells us of the difficulties of getting permits.  He has a Facebook page but not a website, so as not to attract the attention of the authorities.  A permit for a website is costly, and leads officials to think that a person has money for taxes and bribes.

Another barrier is lack of capital.  The small entrepreneur can borrow funds from family and friends, but it is very difficult to get business loans from banks for a larger business.  International sources of funds often hesitate to supply them because of the corruption and bureaucratic inefficiency here.   Until the country can clean up those issues, the larger economy will not thrive.   

Verbal Oddities

Many things are just a little different here, and some of them are verbal.

First, there are what I call "Britishisms".  It's not just the spelling of words like metre and colour, but words that strike my American ear strangely.  Like "revision", which is used as I use "review".  When I first heard, "I am doing revisions with my class today", I thought, "Huh?  What are you changing?"     Another one is "invigilate", which is used as I would use "proctor"--to supervise students taking a test.

And, of course, there is the often-used phrase "doing our level best", which is at least understandable.  As a math teacher, I even like it better than the American claim of giving 110% of one's effort.    

Then there are words that give me pause because they are not used with the same implication as at home.  The usage of "somehow" and "somewhere" are the biggest offenders.  As in, "I live down there, somewhere."  The speaker does know where he lives, but doesn't feel like being specific.  Or, "Somehow, I am a student teacher."  The speaker isn't casting doubt on his abilities or making a statement about how he came to be a student teacher.  It just seems to be a meaningless tag word, like some of us use "so".

So,...finally, there are the gasps.  When I am talking with a person, usually a woman, she will often utter short gasps.  It's startling, to say the least, because what I am saying is not frightening or momentous.  It took awhile, but I finally realized that the gasps are just acknowledgement, like we would say "uh-huh".

But all of these expressions are becoming more familiar, so don't be surprised if you hear me utter them, when I return home in 18 months' time.  Of course, I might also be spouting Swahili occasionally too, calling mangoes "maembe" and chicken "kuku".  (Great word for chicken, don't you think?)

Tutaonana!

What We Eat

 

I was recently asked what we eat, here.  The short answer is:  lots of rice.  But we also eat other things.

Our school provides lunch and a mid-morning tea break (Thank you British colonialism!) on school days. Tea is hot, sweet tea with maandazi, which can best be described as deep-fried plain muffins. Two days a week at lunch we eat beans and rice and two days a week we eat pilau, which is seasoned rice with a few small bits of beef in it. On Wednesdays we eat ugali, which is corn meal cooked with water until it has the look and consistency of stiff, grainy mashed potatoes. This is served with beef and gravy. The beef chunks come complete with bones and cartilage. Side dishes are always either overcooked greens or a cabbage salad. Often bananas or orange slices are served as well. These lunches are a nice, convenient perk, if a bit tedious.

 
Breakfast at home is usually a peanut butter sandwich and sometimes a boiled egg. For dinner I cook pasta primavera or hot dogs (available at our local shop and called "sausages".) I often cook thinly-sliced pan-fried potatoes with scrambled eggs. Once in a while I can get ground beef, which I can make into hamburger patties or serve in a tomato sauce over pasta. I have started buying a chicken on weekends, especially if we don't make the trip into Arusha. (See the blog titled "Chicken and Eggs").

When we do get to the big city we treat ourselves to a nice meal. There are a number of good restaurants in Arusha. Our favorite is an Indian place where we usually order chicken dishes.  The proprietor is an amiable and friendly man who went to a university in the UK, and  took over the restaurant when his father died.  His newest project is origami folding of paper napkins.  Last time we ate there the colorful napkins looked like short-sleeved sport shirts.

There is a lot of fresh produce available here. We eat mangoes, bananas, pineapples, papaya, watermelon, and even plums and grapes when they are in season. We can also get yogurt.

All in all, not a bad diet. I miss eating fish. Fresh-water fish is the best bet here in our small town, but it is mainly available deep-fried by mamas on street corners. I miss salmon filets. And sushi. And Thai food. And cheese. And nice, greasy Italian subs. Does that make me a spoiled American? Maybe, but there it is.

Education in Tanzania

There has been wailing and gnashing of teeth in the teachers' lounge during the past week.  The results of the Form IV national exams came out, and over 80% of our school's Form IV students had failing marks.  Overall national results were not much better:  60% of the 400,000 public and private school students who took the exam failed.  These scores are much worse than in previous years, although there has been a noticeable decline during that time.  The questions now being raised in the political and education sectors are predictable: why is this happening, and what can we do about it.

I have only been in this country 9 months, so I probably do not totally understand the intricacies of the situation, but the following is my opinion of some of the causes.

Government policy has focused on a bricks-and mortar approach to getting students in school.  Many secondary schools have been built in rural areas.  Staffing those schools with trained teachers has of necessity lagged behind.  Filling those schools with students actually prepared for secondary school has lagged further.  I don't have first-hand knowledge of the primary schools, but I see their results.  Quite a few students lack basic skills. 

There is little immediate, lasting penalty to students for failure.  In the States we call it "social promotion".  Here, they don't call it anything, they just pass students on.  A student who gets all "F"s on the annual report card is still be promoted to the next grade.  This seems nuts to me. I teach math, which is a subject that builds on what is previously learned.  A student who receives an "F" in math cannot possibly grasp more complicated topics in the subject.  

There are periodic national exams which, in some cases, determine if a student can proceed to the next educational level.  There is one such exam at the end of primary school with 250 total points.  Our school accepts students who score above 70 points on the test.  There is another national exam at the end of Form II.  Starting just last year, failure on this exam means that the student must repeat the form.  A second failure and he or she must leave secondary school.  Options after that include vocational training or going back to the farm, literally.    

Rote learning is taught; critical thinking is not, at least at lower educational levels.  My students are very good at copying every single word I put on the board into their exercise books (they have to do so, as they have no textbooks), but 10 minutes later some of them cannot solve simple problems using the guidelines I have just written.  And, given a word problem, many cannot even decide how to approach it.  This, I have concluded, is more than a language difficulty.

There are lesser issues:  Burnt-out and indifferent teachers (although most in our school are conscientious), no books for students, a culture that does not value reading, students assigned to work duty (chopping wood or cleaning the campus) during class hours.  These have bothered me a great deal from time to time, but I think those I previously discussed are the root causes of the problem.

Can Peace Corps teachers make an impact?  Certainly not in a national sense.  What I hope to do is make a difference for at least a handful of individuals.  The people of Tanzania must do the rest.   

Hair

Most of the people of Tanzania are black Africans.  (No surprise, there.)  People whose ancestors are from India live in the larger cities and people of Arab descent live along the coast and the former trade routes, but in our area almost everyone is a black Tanzanian.  The result is that the local barbers and hairdressers have no experience cutting Caucasian hair, and are loathe to try, for fear of botching the job.

Mark was able to find an Indian barber in a large city who gives him a good, if short, haircut.  I had the same man cut my hair, to my regret.  He said he knows how to layer hair, but he does not, and he cut waaay too much off.  (I am so nearsighted that when I take my glasses off for hair styling, I don't know the result until it's too late.)  I am resigned to letting my hair just grow long for the next year and a half.

Almost all of the Tanzanian men that we have seen wear their hair very short, even shaved.  (I find it interesting that the "Afro" look that was popular in the States in the '60s and '70s isn't worn here in East Africa.)  Public school students, girls as well as boys, are also required to have their hair sheared very short.  This is a rule that is very practical--with a dusty environment and water in short supply, shaved hair is easier to keep clean.  A side consequence is that when the youngest students are seated at their desks, all in uniforms and with identical haircuts, I sometimes can't tell the girls from the boys without peeking to see if they are wearing skirts or trousers.  Of course, the Muslim girls are allowed to wear scarves if they so choose, and that helps with identification.

Tanzanian women also tend to have short hair, although there is a great deal of variation.  Traditional Maasai women shave their heads, and so do some others.  Many other women presumably cut their hair very short, but it's hard to be sure because their heads are wrapped in headscarves in public.  The most variation is found among middle-class women--those with enough disposable income to spend on style.  Some of the teachers at our school wear their hair short, but others let it grow longer and pull it back into a knot or ponytail.  Some have their hair permed or straightened.  Still others favor cornrows, hair extensions, and (gasp!) wigs.  The last two options only slowly came to my consciousness.  Early on in our homestay family I watched my "sister" braiding a little girl's hair--or so I thought.  She was actually weaving in braided hair extensions.  I also watched a neighbor here go from narrow to fat cornrows and then to straightened hair before realizing she was wearing a succession of wigs. 

Okay, so I'm dim.  But people's experience and expectations color their perceptions.  Just a couple of days ago I was walking with a group of my female students when one of them asked, "Madam, is that your hair or a wig?"  I said, "My hair, of course."  She then stepped forward and lifted my bangs to see if they were really attached to my scalp.  "It is your hair!" she exclaimed.