End of Year Musings

The school year has come to an end.  Exams ended last week, and I have finished grading nearly 200 tests and marking and equal number of report cards.  Now we have a holiday until January.

We arrived at our school in the middle of last school year, so this is the first time I have spent a full year with my students.  It's fun to see how they have grown in that time.  Some of the boys have shot up noticeably.  I was taller than most of my students in January, and now perhaps a third of the boys tower over me.  Some of them never will, however, the result of early childhood malnutrition and disease.

I always swore I would never teach high school, yet here I am, and I love my students.  They are cheerful and curious (about me, if not about their studies).  They don't sass, as it's unthinkable in this culture to talk back to an authority figure, but they do tune out when they are bored or overwhelmed.

It being the end of the term and a time of assessment, I have been wondering how much of a difference we have made here.  We have completed a rainwater harvesting project at the school, but the rains have not started in earnest yet, so we have not been able to judge its benefits.  As for our teaching--who knows?  The bright kids could learn from any teacher, and I don't feel I have been able to reach the slowest ones.  (Me, two weeks ago:  "What is 9 plus 7?"  Student:  "3.")  We do provide them with teachers, though, and without us the school would have to scramble to cover the classes.  Mark and I form one-half of the math department for our school of 800 students, and there are very few Tanzanian math teachers available. 

In addition, we are the first Americans most of our students have ever meet.  Unlike tourists who can be only glimpsed riding in Land Cruisers on their way to the wildlife parks, the students, teachers, and townspeople can see us shopping for produce in their markets, riding daladalas, and washing our laundry on our doorstep.  They can talk to us casually, ask questions, and get to know us.  (I had a wide-ranging conversation with two teachers last week which started when I told them about Thanksgiving.  The subjects touched on were religion in America, the separation of church and state, volunteerism, the status of blacks in America, and what Mark and I will do when we return to the States, among others.)  The Peace Corps believes, and I hope it is true, that this person-to-person communication is as powerful a mission as our primary job of teaching math.  It's what keeps me going on those frustrating days when students are unresponsive, the electricity is out, and there is not even a trickle of water coming from the tap.

GHSP Volunteers

Aid organizations of various kinds are thick on the ground here in Tanzania.  Faith-based groups run clinics, schools, and orphanages.  Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) work on everything from building cross-cultural awareness (like in my last post to this blog) to saving an endangered species.  And, of course, foreign government groups like the Peace Corps and the UK's VSO focus on education, environment, community development and health.  One unique new program is the Global Health service Partnership (GHSP).  This a public-private partnership between the Peace Corps and SEED, part of Massachusetts General Hospital's global health center. 

The volunteers are doctors and nurses who have chosen to train doctors and nurses in developing countries with limited resources.  They are posted in medical schools and hospitals and are teaching a new generation of medical professionals, which are sorely needed in this part of the world.  Currently, the program is up and running in Tanzania, Uganda, and Malawi.

We went to Mwanza a few weeks ago and met with the volunteers.  They have been in Tanzania for 3 months now, and were brought together for a conference to give them a chance to compare experiences and best practices with one another, ask questions, blow off steam, and get a second wind.  Mark and I were asked to give a presentation to the conference participants on the Tanzanian education system.  The volunteers wanted to know the educational background of their students.  I hope that the information we supplied gave them some insight into their students, who, the volunteers report, have difficulty with critical thinking and analysis.  Students here have learned by rote all of their lives, and tend to rely on that, even those in medical schools, who are among the brightest in the country.

The GHSP volunteers differ from regular Peace Corps volunteers in significant areas.  First, they are recruited by SEED and given professional support by that organization.  They have committed to a volunteer stint of one year, rather than the 27 months of a Peace Corps volunteer.  And, while the Peace Corps has health sector volunteers who work with communities' health education (raising awareness of HIV/AIDS and malaria prevention, or promoting maternal and baby care) GHSP volunteers teach medical /nursing students in hospital settings and get involved in delivering babies and treating illness.

We were impressed with the GHSP volunteers.  They are all committed and experienced, and the program has the potential to make a significant positive impact on  health care in this country.           

A Special Trip

One  of the teachers and two of the students from our school went to the Netherlands recently,  on a trip sponsored by an NGO whose mission is to expose young people to different cultures.,  The NGO has sent European students to Tanzania several times, and brought students from Peru, Tanzania, and Asia to the Netherlands for two weeks this November.

The teacher and students have never been out of Tanzania before this trip.  Since I have spent the last 18 months recording my impressions of this country, I was especially interested in the teacher's reactions to visiting a first-world country.

Here are some of the things he had to say, with my comments:

·       People would see them and say, "Jambo, Tanzania!".  (That reminded me of the way Tanzanians who don't know us see our white faces and say, "Mzungu (white person)!  My friend!"  or how little children will say, "howareyouhowareyouhowareyou..." mindlessly until we are out of sight.)

·       He was amazed that Amsterdam is below sea level:  "Can you imagine?"  (I think it's amazing, too.)

·       He was impressed by the trains.  They are fast ("Zip-zip!") and the ride is smooth.  Very different from bus rides here, most of which are not fast, and which are very bumpy, especially over dirt roads.  (The road between our town and Arusha is being resurfaced, so there is a dirt road detour of at least 10 km.  After a bone-rattling trip into the city and back I feel wobbly for hours.)

·       They toured churches, and he found them beautiful and huge, but sadly only holding a few elderly worshippers.  (Religious devotion is much more a vibrant, living thing here in Tanzania.)

·       They visited schools, and he remarked on the fact that they had special education classes for slow learners,  (Here in Tanzania, such children are lumped with the rest to sink or swim.  They mostly sink, but are promoted from year to year anyway, until they fail national exams at the end of 7th grade or their sophomore year in high school.)

·       They were given cheese sandwiches for lunch.  He didn't use the term, but his reaction was "Eeew!"  (Cheese is rare and expensive here, and most Tanzanians have never eaten it.  Some find the smell, texture, and taste disgusting.  They  are used to hearty meals of beans and rice or ugali, which is made of corneal and is similar to polenta.)

I'm sure he had many other new experiences that he is still processing.  What an opportunity for him and for the students!  I expect they will remember this trip for the rest of their lives, and that it will alter, if only slightly, their worldview.

It Takes a Village ... to Finance a Wedding

We went to the wedding of a good friend last weekend.  Lemjini is one of our "counterparts" --- Tanzanian colleagues who have been asked to help us fit into the school and community.  Lemjini is also the head of the math department at our school.  Since we both teach math we see a lot of him.

A couple of months ago he asked us to be on his wedding committee, and we accepted.  Weddings are planned and financed differently in Tanzania than in the States.  Here, a wedding committee's main task is to collect contributions from the groom's family and friends for the wedding expenses.  The groom comes up with an estimated budget for the event, including reception venue, food, entertainment, cars, bridal gown, and so on.  Lemjini estimated he would spend $3500 to $4000.  Each member of the committee is expected to contribute at least $37.  Obviously, the larger the committee, the better.  But the contributions do not stop with the committee.  One of our first tasks was to order contribution cards.  These cards look almost like invitations.  They state who is getting married and when, and invite the recipient to contribute.  The committee members hand out the cards to anyone who knows the groom, even remotely.  People who choose to contribute (usually about $12) will later receive an actual wedding invitation.  If they don't contribute, so sorry, but they will not be invited. unless they are very close family members of the bride and groom.

 The groom is expected to pay for a significant portion of the expenses himself, perhaps as much as half.  And, he also must pay the "bride price".  (He is not actually purchasing the bride, but compensating her parents for the loss of her services and companionship.  A subtle difference, but a real one.)  The bride price varies from about 10 cows, or the equivalent, for a 14-year old girl, to 50 cows for a fair-skinned young woman.  (Yes, that is what I said:  fair-skinned.  Racism, or rather, color-ism exists here, despite beliefs to the contrary.)   A cow is worth about $400.  That is about 8 months of income at the minimum wage, or 2 months of salary for a public primary school teacher.  We didn't ask what Lemjini paid in bride price, as we thought it would be rude.

I can imagine my friends with daughters in the U.S. thinking that this is a pretty good deal, but the family and friends of the bride have expenses too.  First, there is the "Send Off" party, sort of a pre-wedding reception that primarily includes the brides' side of the community.  The groom does show up, but few others from his family.  Traditionally, this event was when the bride was taught how to be a good wife.  Then, there is a Kitchen Party, similar to a bridal shower.  Again, the bride is taught the essentials of running a household.   These may have been necessary cultural and instructional events in a society where girls were married around the age of 14 (which does still happen in some rural communities), but Lemjini's bride is in her 20s, and I'm sure she needs no instruction.  But they are good excuses for a party, and the brides' family and friends finance them both.

Besides contributions, gifts are expected from guests to the wedding as well.  In our school, there is a social welfare committee which uses money deducted monthly from staff salaries to buy gifts for wedding, babies, and funerals.  Most of the staff is young and healthy, so we have many of the first two, but few of the last.

Wedding contributions can be a burden for people who have many young friends.  In our school there have been 3 weddings since August and there will be one more in November.  Two of our friends confided in me that they were strapped for cash because of it.  On the other hand, people can confidently expect help when they themselves marry.

So, what about Lemjini's wedding?  It was beautiful.  All our hard work and anxiety over collecting enough money resulted in a lovely event.  Nice venue, good food, and a bride and groom who were obviously enchanted with one another.  What more could anyone ask?

Zanzibar

On our way to a conference in Dar es Salaam, we spent two days in Zanzibar's Stone Town.  Zanzibar is a collection of islands just off the mainland of Tanzania.  It was united with the rest of the country (then called Tanganyika) in the early 1960s, but it still feels like a very different place.  The population is predominately Muslim, and the ethnic groups seem to include more people of Arab descent than on the mainland.

Stonetown feels ancient, with its twisty streets, many only wide enough for 1 car.  No sidewalks in the interior, so we had to flatten ourselves against a wall when one drove through.  The town is in fact very old.  It has a long history as a trading center of slaves and spices.  We visited the old slave market where the victims of the trade were held in horrifyingly small, filthy and dark underground rooms.  The property is now owned by the Anglican Church, and visitors are guided through for a small fee.

We also went to a pleasanter site, a spice farm.  Along with about a dozen other, mostly European, tourists, our guide led us through a demonstration farm of mixed plantings.  He identified varieties and gave us each some to sniff.  The plants included lemongrass, ginger, turmeric (which looks similar to ginger, but is a pale orange), cardamom, annatto, pepper, cinnamon, and many others.  Which, of course, we were given the opportunity to buy at the end of the tour, when we ate a delicious lunch flavored with some of the spices we had seen.

On return to Stonetown, we rested in our hotel room on the Zanzibari bed--elaborately carved with inset painted tiles.  The beds are built high, and our mattress top must have been 3 feet off the ground.  In the morning, with birds chirping in the trees and vines outside our window and surrounded by the mosquito net suspended from a wooden frame, I felt like I was in a tree house.

One aspect of visiting Zanzibar I especially enjoyed was the availability of seafood.  We don't get much of it in our small town in the interior of the country, only occasional frozen fish from Lake Victoria.  So, I ate prawns for the first time in more than a year and a half.  There are good restaurants in Stonetown, which caters to tourists.  Our favorite is "Lazuli", where Zanzabari food meets California (by my definition).  Smoothies and seafood, expertly prepared with fresh, local ingredients, and delicately flavored with herbs and spices.

The second evening, we climbed to the rooftop bar (6th floor, no elevator) of the Maru Maru Hotel, for the best view of the sunset in Stonetown.  We ordered drinks and listened to a small band play.  While we were there they did a very odd rendition of "Guantanamera", sung with a Swahili accent.                

When we left the following morning, we took the fast ferry to Dar es Salaam.  We paid the extra couple of dollars to sit in the VIP section, which has the most luxurious seating I have seen in any transportation anywhere.  We were entertained with game shows and a Charlie Chaplin film on a large screen for the duration of the 2 hour ride, after the opening announcement of passenger regulations--no smoking, spitting, fighting, bad language, or stealing!  An amusing end to our weekend in Zanzibar.    

From Inside a Zanzibari bed 

 

A Visit From a Friend

Our friend Linda came to visit us here a couple of weeks ago.  We met Linda in graduate school, some 40 years ago.  Even though she lives across the country (the U.S., that is) we have managed to keep in touch all these years.

 Linda flew in to Kilimanjaro International Airport, and on our advice tried to take the airline's shuttle to Moshi, where we were to meet her at the booking office.  Only, as it turned out, she was the only passenger headed in that direction.  There was some talk about the shuttle waiting for the next plane to arrive before leaving, which was clearly not an optimal solution for her or us.  But, finally, the airline's private car took her to the office for the same low price of $10. 

We spent a couple of days in Moshi, allowing her to rest and get a good view of Mt. Kilimanjaro.  On the second day we went to the hot springs nearby with a car, driver, guide, and box lunches.  We took the main road west for about 10 miles, and then went off road through an arid, bumpy, dusty region for another 12 or so miles.  Just when I was wondering if we were headed to the right place, a large group of palm trees appeared.  We drove into their midst, and parked next to the spring.  It's called a hot spring, but it's really only warm.  The water is clear, with a slightly blue glow, and it bubbles up from an underground cave.   Mark and Linda paddled around for a time.  I am more of a beach bunny than a swimmer, so I sat on the rocks and dangled my feet.  The pool where we swam extends off in a couple of directions, and Mark wanted to explore one of them, but he was advised not to do so by a local attendant, because crocodiles live there(!)  While we were doing that, our driver and guide set up a table and chairs for us and got out our box lunches.  It was a lovely and different way to spend a day.

The following day we took Linda out to our site via bus and daladala, where she was able to enjoy the delights of bucket baths, flickering electricity, doing laundry by hand, and sleeping under a mosquito net.  We took her to the colorful Sunday marketplace.  She sat in on a class of mine and one of Mark's the day before she left, and took many photos of the school.  She said she enjoyed the visit.  I know that we did.     

 

Hot Spring

 

Me and some of my students

Earthquake

We had an earthquake one day this week.

We live near volcanoes, inactive and active, and also near the Great Rift Valley, so it is an area that has had a lot of seismic activity in the past.  And, apparently, some in the present.  We have noticed cracks in buildings - our house has one across the front porch and another (patched) in the living room floor.  The staff room of the school has a crack in the wall that is as much as 1/4 inch wide.  I didn't know if this was due to earthquakes or merely shoddy construction.  Now, I think it is a combination of the two.

I was teaching one of my math classes when the quake hit, starting to write an assignment on the blackboard.  The tremor lasted 3 to 4 seconds, which seemed like a long time.  Long enough for a flatlander like me to realize what was going on and think, "Oh, ___!"

My 47 students all started screaming and most of them rushed to the door, which was closed.  They knocked over desks and chairs in their panic, and pushed and shoved at the door (which opens inward).  My yelling "Don't push!" went unheeded.  Soon, a male teacher outside managed to get the door open, and they poured out.  I turned to survey the room and saw 2 or 3 boys jumping out of the windows.

There was no damage to the building, and after a few minutes we all returned to the classroom.  I gave my kids a little talk about keeping calm and exiting the room safely, but I don't think my words of wisdom registered.  What this school needs is earthquake drills.  I talked to the assistant headmaster about it on Friday, and he liked the idea.  So, now I have the assignment to research the best way to do it, and to start implementation.