The semester before any national exam, all Tanzanian schools participate in a regional “mock” examination to prepare both students and teachers for the upcoming ordeal. The regional mock is not just another test; teachers from every school in region first meet to write the exam and then meet again to mark it. Our students sat for this examination in early November and now a marking panel has convened at Ndanda to correct them all.
I’ve come to associate inter-school examinations with chaos and an inordinate amount of work for the wazungu science teachers. I first arrived in Ndanda the day before the national chemistry practical; Erina was sick and nobody else was able to prepare stock solutions. My first full day in Ndanda was spent running around a rotting laboratory littered with broken glassware in which everything - chemicals, large bottles, small bottles, running water – was missing or mislabeled. Not coincidentally, many students failed that practical, and the school’s overall results were the worst in its 100 year history. Five months before I arrived, payment for the mock examination had caused student riots. For this current exam, the school failed to tell me about my work until the last possible moment; there was a public holiday and a three day weekend, and I had planned to go visit several other volunteers. I was standing in front of the second master with a leave form when he showed me this letter. “I think you should read this, and then you won’t need this paper.” Despite the public holiday, there was still work the next day, and instead of travelling I typed all the mock examinations in every subject for the entire region.
The grading session today went something like that. Yesterday another friend of Erina’s arrived. He works in one of the Mtwara A-level schools as a BAM (Basic Applied Math, taken by some science students) teacher, but his contract ends next Wednesday. He was sent to help grade BAM and possibly Advanced Mathematics. He informed me that the three of us were responsible for all the BAM, Mathematics and Physics students; no other teachers were coming because there are no other teachers. Repeat: there is not a single other A-level Physics or Math teacher in 300km. The immediate consequence of this is that the three of us have a ton of work, much more than any Tanzanian teacher, and we’re all pretty pissed about it. My headmaster, Mr. Lulukila, came into the grading hall this morning and saw the three of us sitting together. “The international table! Japan, America…” I cut him off and complained about the lack of graders. “Hamna shida, (no problems),” he replied. I tried to tell him it was a fucking big problem but he was already walking away.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
December 10
The semester before any national exam, all Tanzanian schools participate in a regional “mock” examination to prepare both students and teachers for the upcoming ordeal. The regional mock is not just another test; teachers from every school in region first meet to write the exam and then meet again to mark it. Our students sat for this examination in early November and now a marking panel has convened at Ndanda to correct them all.
I’ve come to associate inter-school examinations with chaos and an inordinate amount of work for the wazungu science teachers. I first arrived in Ndanda the day before the national chemistry practical; Erina was sick and nobody else was able to prepare stock solutions. My first full day in Ndanda was spent running around a rotting laboratory littered with broken glassware in which everything - chemicals, large bottles, small bottles, running water – was missing or mislabeled. Not coincidentally, many students failed that practical, and the school’s overall results were the worst in its 100 year history. Five months before I arrived, payment for the mock examination had caused student riots. For this current exam, the school failed to tell me about my work until the last possible moment; there was a public holiday and a three day weekend, and I had planned to go visit several other volunteers. I was standing in front of the second master with a leave form when he showed me this letter. “I think you should read this, and then you won’t need this paper.” Despite the public holiday, there was still work the next day, and instead of travelling I typed all the mock examinations in every subject for the entire region.
The grading session today went something like that. Yesterday another friend of Erina’s arrived. He works in one of the Mtwara A-level schools as a BAM (Basic Applied Math, taken by some science students) teacher, but his contract ends next Wednesday. He was sent to help grade BAM and possibly Advanced Mathematics. He informed me that the three of us were responsible for all the BAM, Mathematics and Physics students; no other teachers were coming because there are no other teachers. Repeat: there is not a single other A-level Physics or Math teacher in 300km. The immediate consequence of this is that the three of us have a ton of work, much more than any Tanzanian teacher, and we’re all pretty pissed about it. My headmaster, Mr. Lulukila, came into the grading hall this morning and saw the three of us sitting together. “The international table! Japan, America…” I cut him off and complained about the lack of graders. “Hamna shida, (no problems),” he replied. I tried to tell him it was a fucking big problem but he was already walking away.
I’ve come to associate inter-school examinations with chaos and an inordinate amount of work for the wazungu science teachers. I first arrived in Ndanda the day before the national chemistry practical; Erina was sick and nobody else was able to prepare stock solutions. My first full day in Ndanda was spent running around a rotting laboratory littered with broken glassware in which everything - chemicals, large bottles, small bottles, running water – was missing or mislabeled. Not coincidentally, many students failed that practical, and the school’s overall results were the worst in its 100 year history. Five months before I arrived, payment for the mock examination had caused student riots. For this current exam, the school failed to tell me about my work until the last possible moment; there was a public holiday and a three day weekend, and I had planned to go visit several other volunteers. I was standing in front of the second master with a leave form when he showed me this letter. “I think you should read this, and then you won’t need this paper.” Despite the public holiday, there was still work the next day, and instead of travelling I typed all the mock examinations in every subject for the entire region.
The grading session today went something like that. Yesterday another friend of Erina’s arrived. He works in one of the Mtwara A-level schools as a BAM (Basic Applied Math, taken by some science students) teacher, but his contract ends next Wednesday. He was sent to help grade BAM and possibly Advanced Mathematics. He informed me that the three of us were responsible for all the BAM, Mathematics and Physics students; no other teachers were coming because there are no other teachers. Repeat: there is not a single other A-level Physics or Math teacher in 300km. The immediate consequence of this is that the three of us have a ton of work, much more than any Tanzanian teacher, and we’re all pretty pissed about it. My headmaster, Mr. Lulukila, came into the grading hall this morning and saw the three of us sitting together. “The international table! Japan, America…” I cut him off and complained about the lack of graders. “Hamna shida, (no problems),” he replied. I tried to tell him it was a fucking big problem but he was already walking away.
December 7
December 7, 2008
The day that will live in infamy! Coincidentally, my best friend here is Japanese and in just this last week I’ve had five dinners with her and her friends. She has been talking about setting me up with one of her friends but I don’t think anything will come of it. I’ve been trying to learn Japanese as well, but I don’t think anything will come of that either.
Erina Niijima, like me, is 23 and came here after graduating University without really wanting to start a real job. Like me her future career choice bounces around a fair bit, and the last time I asked she was talking vaguely about being a travel writer. We eat together pretty frequently, it is much more fun to eat a nice meal with someone else than to eat alone, and we can eat full meals; maybe she cooks rice and I’ll barbecue pork or something. Several other Peace Corps Volunteers have Japanese counterparts but I don’t know any other pairs who are as close as we are.
Last weekend I went to Mtwara (perhaps more on that later) and came back with some tuna. I love Ndanda but I think I would trade this site for another one on the shore, near the beach; I’d like to get a little wooden dhow and sail back and forth during the evening, when there some wind. The two towns on the ocean near me, Lindi and Mtwara, both have fish markets on the beach. Fishing boats return to shore between 10:00 and 3:00 with a fresh catch. In Mtwara last Sunday they several large yellowfin tuna, a huge devil ray, a few other large fish whose name I’ve forgotten, along with the ubiquitous changu and dagaa. Fishermen were hacking the larger fish into steaks when I arrived. The Lindi fish market didn’t have the large fish but did have octopus, squid and tiger prawns, still wriggling on sandy wooden tables. A bag full of prawns costs about three dollars, as did a lenghth of tuna steak about the size of my forearm.
I put the tuna on ice and brought it back to Ndanda for dinner. One of Erina’s friends, another math teacher named Lisa, was visiting; Lisa lived near the shore in Japan too and knew how to cook seafood, and so we ate tekkamaki and grilled tuna in a mission town in Tanzania when the power was down.
I found Humphrey Mutaasa’s blog: http://humphrey-ndanda.blogspot.com/2008_09_01_archive.html
The day that will live in infamy! Coincidentally, my best friend here is Japanese and in just this last week I’ve had five dinners with her and her friends. She has been talking about setting me up with one of her friends but I don’t think anything will come of it. I’ve been trying to learn Japanese as well, but I don’t think anything will come of that either.
Erina Niijima, like me, is 23 and came here after graduating University without really wanting to start a real job. Like me her future career choice bounces around a fair bit, and the last time I asked she was talking vaguely about being a travel writer. We eat together pretty frequently, it is much more fun to eat a nice meal with someone else than to eat alone, and we can eat full meals; maybe she cooks rice and I’ll barbecue pork or something. Several other Peace Corps Volunteers have Japanese counterparts but I don’t know any other pairs who are as close as we are.
Last weekend I went to Mtwara (perhaps more on that later) and came back with some tuna. I love Ndanda but I think I would trade this site for another one on the shore, near the beach; I’d like to get a little wooden dhow and sail back and forth during the evening, when there some wind. The two towns on the ocean near me, Lindi and Mtwara, both have fish markets on the beach. Fishing boats return to shore between 10:00 and 3:00 with a fresh catch. In Mtwara last Sunday they several large yellowfin tuna, a huge devil ray, a few other large fish whose name I’ve forgotten, along with the ubiquitous changu and dagaa. Fishermen were hacking the larger fish into steaks when I arrived. The Lindi fish market didn’t have the large fish but did have octopus, squid and tiger prawns, still wriggling on sandy wooden tables. A bag full of prawns costs about three dollars, as did a lenghth of tuna steak about the size of my forearm.
I put the tuna on ice and brought it back to Ndanda for dinner. One of Erina’s friends, another math teacher named Lisa, was visiting; Lisa lived near the shore in Japan too and knew how to cook seafood, and so we ate tekkamaki and grilled tuna in a mission town in Tanzania when the power was down.
I found Humphrey Mutaasa’s blog: http://humphrey-ndanda.blogspot.com/2008_09_01_archive.html
December 3
December 3, 2008
I had a part for thanksgiving and thirteen volunteers showed up, making this one of the first things I’ve organized where more people attended than I was expecting. I had tried to get a turkey, but that ended in failure; a friend on the coast brought red snapper, and I cooked pork instead, along with stuffing and mashed potatoes. Amazingly there were pumpkins in the market that day – pumpkins aren’t in season, I haven’t seen them in months – and so we made pumpkin pie using Humphrey’s oven. Erina also made cucumber rolls. It turned out really well.
I had a part for thanksgiving and thirteen volunteers showed up, making this one of the first things I’ve organized where more people attended than I was expecting. I had tried to get a turkey, but that ended in failure; a friend on the coast brought red snapper, and I cooked pork instead, along with stuffing and mashed potatoes. Amazingly there were pumpkins in the market that day – pumpkins aren’t in season, I haven’t seen them in months – and so we made pumpkin pie using Humphrey’s oven. Erina also made cucumber rolls. It turned out really well.
December 3
December 3, 2008
I had a part for thanksgiving and thirteen volunteers showed up, making this one of the first things I’ve organized where more people attended than I was expecting. I had tried to get a turkey, but that ended in failure; a friend on the coast brought red snapper, and I cooked pork instead, along with stuffing and mashed potatoes. Amazingly there were pumpkins in the market that day – pumpkins aren’t in season, I haven’t seen them in months – and so we made pumpkin pie using Humphrey’s oven. Erina also made cucumber rolls. It turned out really well.
I had a part for thanksgiving and thirteen volunteers showed up, making this one of the first things I’ve organized where more people attended than I was expecting. I had tried to get a turkey, but that ended in failure; a friend on the coast brought red snapper, and I cooked pork instead, along with stuffing and mashed potatoes. Amazingly there were pumpkins in the market that day – pumpkins aren’t in season, I haven’t seen them in months – and so we made pumpkin pie using Humphrey’s oven. Erina also made cucumber rolls. It turned out really well.
Monday, December 1, 2008
November 17
The Form VI’s are doing mock examinations now, and I had to supervise for most of the day. This meant studying Japanese for more than seven hours while occasionally looking up to see if anyone needs anything. Unlike most of my friends I don’t have a class full of cheaters; A-level schools are different.
JICA (Japanese International Cooperation Agency) volunteers have a program which gives scholarships to up to 1% of a school, if the students can demonstrate profound need and academic ability. Yesterday Erina was going through the final round of interviews and needed another teacher to help. She believed the headmaster was going to help us but he postponed while the students were waiting outside his office and the duty fell to me. Later he came into the room flanked by three members of the school board and various students. He was showing Ndanda to the District Commissioner, the same man who was here last week to explain the lack of food for the students.
Four students were sitting outside the chemistry laboratory waiting for the interview, and the fifth was inexplicably absent. The first student, Abdallah, was the son of cashew farmers. He failed Mathematics that term but had recently switched from a different class and promised to work hard and make up the grade. I’m his current math teacher and didn’t recognize him. As he was leaving I threw out a last question, “Who is you’re math teacher?” He passed.
The other four students were disheartening; on the one hand I couldn’t help but feeling a great deal of pity, but for all four I felt at least some reluctance to give money. They just didn’t care that much. One, Samson I think, had been a Physics and Chemistry student who had switched to different combinations after some time at school.
“Why did you switch?”
“I like so much Physics, Chemistry, and Mathematics. But the teachers here are don’t come to class, there are no books and we have a great problem with practicals at this school. These subjects, Physics and Chemistry, are very broad and I don’t have a chance of learning them with the amount of money I have.”
All of these statements are false; we can do practicals and there are plenty of books, if he had bothered to look. But the worst bit,
“You know you are talking to the Form V Physics teacher and the Form V Chemistry teacher. How can you say we don’t attend our classes?” Samson went back to his line about the subjects being too broad, but he couldn’t dig himself out of that hole.
I don’t remember the next two students’ names, but they were both studied English and so their English was atrocious. I could barely carry out a conversations with these two; I wanted to switch to Swahili but English was apparently a prerequisite for the award. Their grades were decent, but this means almost nothing for Arts students; the English syllabus is especially bad. I asked the first one what subjects he was studying in history and was met with only blank stares. “World History? History of Africa?” Nothing. I asked the following one about his classes, supposedly English medium, and also got no answers. I broke the rules and tried Swahili – again, nothing. He told us he admired the head of the opposition party, but when I pressed him on details I couldn’t get any.
The last student arrived an hour and half late, and Erina concluded he couldn’t need the money that badly. We gave three students, the first and the two non-English speakers, scholarships; truly they were all coming from difficult circumstances. However I would have liked to see at least the tiniest commitment to their education. I don’t quite understand how they and their families could sacrifice so much to get to A-level, but they wouldn’t put any work at all once they arrived here.
Today I met two more Benedictine Novices, Brother Gregory and Brother Philbert. I was playing around on the keyboard and the church and they wanted to hear; they’ve had some brief music lessons and can read a simple score, but they had very little experience with music in minor keys and were impressed with a certain unresolved chord progression.
JICA (Japanese International Cooperation Agency) volunteers have a program which gives scholarships to up to 1% of a school, if the students can demonstrate profound need and academic ability. Yesterday Erina was going through the final round of interviews and needed another teacher to help. She believed the headmaster was going to help us but he postponed while the students were waiting outside his office and the duty fell to me. Later he came into the room flanked by three members of the school board and various students. He was showing Ndanda to the District Commissioner, the same man who was here last week to explain the lack of food for the students.
Four students were sitting outside the chemistry laboratory waiting for the interview, and the fifth was inexplicably absent. The first student, Abdallah, was the son of cashew farmers. He failed Mathematics that term but had recently switched from a different class and promised to work hard and make up the grade. I’m his current math teacher and didn’t recognize him. As he was leaving I threw out a last question, “Who is you’re math teacher?” He passed.
The other four students were disheartening; on the one hand I couldn’t help but feeling a great deal of pity, but for all four I felt at least some reluctance to give money. They just didn’t care that much. One, Samson I think, had been a Physics and Chemistry student who had switched to different combinations after some time at school.
“Why did you switch?”
“I like so much Physics, Chemistry, and Mathematics. But the teachers here are don’t come to class, there are no books and we have a great problem with practicals at this school. These subjects, Physics and Chemistry, are very broad and I don’t have a chance of learning them with the amount of money I have.”
All of these statements are false; we can do practicals and there are plenty of books, if he had bothered to look. But the worst bit,
“You know you are talking to the Form V Physics teacher and the Form V Chemistry teacher. How can you say we don’t attend our classes?” Samson went back to his line about the subjects being too broad, but he couldn’t dig himself out of that hole.
I don’t remember the next two students’ names, but they were both studied English and so their English was atrocious. I could barely carry out a conversations with these two; I wanted to switch to Swahili but English was apparently a prerequisite for the award. Their grades were decent, but this means almost nothing for Arts students; the English syllabus is especially bad. I asked the first one what subjects he was studying in history and was met with only blank stares. “World History? History of Africa?” Nothing. I asked the following one about his classes, supposedly English medium, and also got no answers. I broke the rules and tried Swahili – again, nothing. He told us he admired the head of the opposition party, but when I pressed him on details I couldn’t get any.
The last student arrived an hour and half late, and Erina concluded he couldn’t need the money that badly. We gave three students, the first and the two non-English speakers, scholarships; truly they were all coming from difficult circumstances. However I would have liked to see at least the tiniest commitment to their education. I don’t quite understand how they and their families could sacrifice so much to get to A-level, but they wouldn’t put any work at all once they arrived here.
Today I met two more Benedictine Novices, Brother Gregory and Brother Philbert. I was playing around on the keyboard and the church and they wanted to hear; they’ve had some brief music lessons and can read a simple score, but they had very little experience with music in minor keys and were impressed with a certain unresolved chord progression.
November 15
I think I’ve already described the swimming pool near Ndanda Abbey as a sort of mzungu trap; when foreigners want to see animals they wait by the watering holes, and it’s the same when the locals want to see foreigners. I spend a lot of time there – I used to be a swimmer – and so I meet a lot of other assorted expats. Last Tuesday there were two American free-lance journalists, along with a Swiss electrician and a Tanzanian driver. The two Americans didn’t have assignments or even goals, and were just wandering around Tanzania looking for stories; one of them had just published an article in an obscure Californian newspaper. They told me they had come to stay in the Salvadorian Mission in Masasi, that they thought they would help set up a radio tower in exchange for their food and board. When they arrived they found the work would not begin for another six months, and I’m not exactly sure what they’re doing now. I couldn’t think of any stories to give them. Day-to-day life is interesting in Ndanda, but nothing really happens down here; no ethnic violence, no civil wars, and nothing else that might have some impact on the rest of the world. I think they’re leaving Tanzania in December sometime.
November 11
I’m living on school housing and my building is split into two homes, each designed to fit a single family. Cleophas Yamiseo arrived at the school a week after I did, and began living in my home during the beginning of the semester. He is married with three kids, Jessica, Angel and Daniel. I don’t know what his wife’s real name is but everybody calls her Mama Yamiseo. Besides Daniel, who is off at school for most of the year, I see this family on an hourly basis.
Cleophas is a history teacher. When we first met he pointed out the anti-American sections of the Tanzanian syllabus as if I would be impressed. But he did let me raid the Departmental library (The Caine Mutiny and The Perfect Storm were the only two novels) and I gave him some homemade wine. Then we watched a pirated version of Shaolin Soccer on his DVD player. I learned over the wine that he had attended a Seminary School, where he had learned Greek, Latin, and a little Hebrew. He is strongly involved with the music program at Ndanda Abbey and owns his own electric keyboard; he directs or accompanies one of the choirs at the masses and he recently recorded a CD of gospel music in Dar es Salaam. At first sight he seems jovial and he has a tendency to rush his sentences to the finish while smiling, as if he was embarrassed of what he’s trying to say. He also wears a light-purple button down shirt against dark purple pants; there is no one in the states quite like him. I learned last weekend that he badly wanted to be a priest, but the man in charge of selecting candidates picked a member of his own tribe. I told Cleophas that in America, nobody wants to join the clergy and they’ll take whoever they can get. “Here, very many people,” he replied, shaking his head.
Cleophas is a history teacher. When we first met he pointed out the anti-American sections of the Tanzanian syllabus as if I would be impressed. But he did let me raid the Departmental library (The Caine Mutiny and The Perfect Storm were the only two novels) and I gave him some homemade wine. Then we watched a pirated version of Shaolin Soccer on his DVD player. I learned over the wine that he had attended a Seminary School, where he had learned Greek, Latin, and a little Hebrew. He is strongly involved with the music program at Ndanda Abbey and owns his own electric keyboard; he directs or accompanies one of the choirs at the masses and he recently recorded a CD of gospel music in Dar es Salaam. At first sight he seems jovial and he has a tendency to rush his sentences to the finish while smiling, as if he was embarrassed of what he’s trying to say. He also wears a light-purple button down shirt against dark purple pants; there is no one in the states quite like him. I learned last weekend that he badly wanted to be a priest, but the man in charge of selecting candidates picked a member of his own tribe. I told Cleophas that in America, nobody wants to join the clergy and they’ll take whoever they can get. “Here, very many people,” he replied, shaking his head.
November 10
A lot of the vendors in the market are so used to mzungu that it’s impossible to get a reasonable price from them. For example, I’m trying to buy a large mortar and pestle to crush coffee beans. Matt got it in Nyambe for 2000 schillings; the guys here started at 15000. In any village bananas cost 20=/, in Ndanda they go for 200=/.
Yesterday I was going to buy groceries when I met Peter along with Andy and Joanna, two VSO lab techs from the Phillipines and Holland, respectively. They were standing outside their car surrounded by a group of Africans, and I my first thought was that Peter had hit one by accident. I got closer and they beckoned me over, my Swahili is better than theirs and apparently there was some breakdown in communication.
Mangoes here are collected in three ways. In secluded areas people wait until the mangoes fall and pick them off the ground, but so far this hasn’t worked for me. In most places kids run around and throw stones at anything that is remotely ripe; they take one bite, realize the fruit is no good and go for another stone. Most people in Ndanda hire somebody to go into the tree and shake down all the fruits at once, then they keep them all in a bucket until they’re ready. One laborer was shaking a mango tree when a baby owl fell out. Like a fishermen who stumbles upon a pearl, he figured that this owl was worth a lot of money to some white person and was trying to sell for fifty thousand schillings, what I make in a week and what he might make in a month.
The others were perplexed. Why would anybody want an owl in the first place, and what could possibly make him worth so much money? Peter thought he would sell it for witchcraft of some sort, and that its various body parts would fetch money that way. The laborer told me it would eat chickens. But I understood badly; it would live near a chicken coop and eat all the rats and nasty animals that disturb chickens. I told him we didn’t have any chickens, but still there was no reduction in price. Obviously none of us were going to buy him, how do you feed a baby owl? But it was adorable, with soft feathers and huge owl eyes. We wanted a picture and Peter gave a cigarette, but it was no deal; 2000=/ cash or nothing. We were all put off by his ridiculous and everybody left. When I was returning from the market one of his friends tried to negotiate a deal with me, but the man holding the owl scoffed at any reasonable price and wouldn’t even look at me. I asked him who else would even be interested in a baby owl and he replied, implausibly, that one of the nuns would pay the quoted price. So the Benedictine Sisters are driving up the prices of Ndanda’s raptors.
I ran into Andy and Joanna again at dinner and we talked about how we ended up in backwoods Tanzania. “In America,” I told them, “you can’t bargain for owls.”
Yesterday I was going to buy groceries when I met Peter along with Andy and Joanna, two VSO lab techs from the Phillipines and Holland, respectively. They were standing outside their car surrounded by a group of Africans, and I my first thought was that Peter had hit one by accident. I got closer and they beckoned me over, my Swahili is better than theirs and apparently there was some breakdown in communication.
Mangoes here are collected in three ways. In secluded areas people wait until the mangoes fall and pick them off the ground, but so far this hasn’t worked for me. In most places kids run around and throw stones at anything that is remotely ripe; they take one bite, realize the fruit is no good and go for another stone. Most people in Ndanda hire somebody to go into the tree and shake down all the fruits at once, then they keep them all in a bucket until they’re ready. One laborer was shaking a mango tree when a baby owl fell out. Like a fishermen who stumbles upon a pearl, he figured that this owl was worth a lot of money to some white person and was trying to sell for fifty thousand schillings, what I make in a week and what he might make in a month.
The others were perplexed. Why would anybody want an owl in the first place, and what could possibly make him worth so much money? Peter thought he would sell it for witchcraft of some sort, and that its various body parts would fetch money that way. The laborer told me it would eat chickens. But I understood badly; it would live near a chicken coop and eat all the rats and nasty animals that disturb chickens. I told him we didn’t have any chickens, but still there was no reduction in price. Obviously none of us were going to buy him, how do you feed a baby owl? But it was adorable, with soft feathers and huge owl eyes. We wanted a picture and Peter gave a cigarette, but it was no deal; 2000=/ cash or nothing. We were all put off by his ridiculous and everybody left. When I was returning from the market one of his friends tried to negotiate a deal with me, but the man holding the owl scoffed at any reasonable price and wouldn’t even look at me. I asked him who else would even be interested in a baby owl and he replied, implausibly, that one of the nuns would pay the quoted price. So the Benedictine Sisters are driving up the prices of Ndanda’s raptors.
I ran into Andy and Joanna again at dinner and we talked about how we ended up in backwoods Tanzania. “In America,” I told them, “you can’t bargain for owls.”
November 8
Last week two other Peace Corps Volunteers, Matt and Jerusha, came to Ndanda to some of their kids swim lessons. Somehow new experiences like swimming and what not are tied up into HIV/AIDS education, but to me the links are pretty tenuous; anyway few of the children had been submerged in water before. I had told Matt to make them put their faces in buckets before they came, hoping to weed some of the less serious ones out, but they all easily passed that test.
Matt and Jerusha are both a bit older than me. Matt lives about 24 km away from Ndanda and is certainly the volunteer who I see the most often; the weekend before swimming lessons I visited him in his village, and returned home on his bicycle while giving his Tanzanian friend a lifti. There is no electricity in his village, but he bought a solar panel in Dar es Salaam and now has enough to power an ipod speaker and to give a small bit of light at night. He also charges his student’s cell phones and puts the proceeds into this health club.
The trip to Jerusha’s house involves a three-hour bus ride followed by another hour over paved roads; I haven’t seen her since my first week in the South. She had taken a different bus to Matt’s village, then the two of them led their nine children down the plateau to Ndanda; I met them at the swimming pool at about ten o’clock.
I run up to this pool almost every day. The monks dug it out to provide hydroelectric power for the Abbey and now guard it incessantly, keeping it clean and bilharzias-free. Google Ndanda Abbey, Tanzania and you can see a picture of it during the rainy season, when it is muddy and disgusting; I’ll also post some more pictures soon. It’s about 70m long and 25m wide, and people can stand only at the very edges; it is a lifeguard’s nightmare because of the deep bottom, steep edges and cloudy water. When I arrived a German friend, Adrian, had arrived along with a Tanzanian named Seafood (no joke) who he had met in Mtwara. Seafood had apparently met Jerusha at some bar there as well.
Swim lessons went like all swim lessons do, except I had to try to explain everything in Kiswahili. Matt and Jerusha did what I told them to. Seafood interrupted if my Kiswahili was breaking down, or if he thought he knew better than me. Adrian took pictures. Afterwards everyone walked back to my house, and we crashed while the kids wandered around Ndanda. The three “adults” spent about three hours cooking chili and rice while their students cleaned themselves.
Many of them had never used a real bathroom before, so I can’t be too angry; nevertheless, when they were finished washing, dirt covered the bathroom and the toilet was broken. Someone had opened up my contact case and dumped the contents on the floor. Worst of all they had used all of my shampoo and most of my deodorant. Everyone else was watching a movie, and I came out of the bathroom and threw the shampoo bottle against the wall, “Noone can use the bathroom! If you have to help yourself, go outside! Noone can use the bathroom!” Matt suggested smelling the kids to see who used up the shampoo, but then we realized they were all guilty; each child smelled like shampoo and fear. Jerusha told them they wouldn’t be welcome anywhere else if they acted this way. Matt turned off the movie – the power was off anyway – and everyone went to sleep.
The next day everyone left early. Matt remained and offered me some of his shampoo, but then remembered that the kids who stayed at his house smelled really nice too. Neither of us had ever been on the other side of that sort of situation before.
Seafood, no child, took all of Adrian’s shampoo also.
Matt and Jerusha are both a bit older than me. Matt lives about 24 km away from Ndanda and is certainly the volunteer who I see the most often; the weekend before swimming lessons I visited him in his village, and returned home on his bicycle while giving his Tanzanian friend a lifti. There is no electricity in his village, but he bought a solar panel in Dar es Salaam and now has enough to power an ipod speaker and to give a small bit of light at night. He also charges his student’s cell phones and puts the proceeds into this health club.
The trip to Jerusha’s house involves a three-hour bus ride followed by another hour over paved roads; I haven’t seen her since my first week in the South. She had taken a different bus to Matt’s village, then the two of them led their nine children down the plateau to Ndanda; I met them at the swimming pool at about ten o’clock.
I run up to this pool almost every day. The monks dug it out to provide hydroelectric power for the Abbey and now guard it incessantly, keeping it clean and bilharzias-free. Google Ndanda Abbey, Tanzania and you can see a picture of it during the rainy season, when it is muddy and disgusting; I’ll also post some more pictures soon. It’s about 70m long and 25m wide, and people can stand only at the very edges; it is a lifeguard’s nightmare because of the deep bottom, steep edges and cloudy water. When I arrived a German friend, Adrian, had arrived along with a Tanzanian named Seafood (no joke) who he had met in Mtwara. Seafood had apparently met Jerusha at some bar there as well.
Swim lessons went like all swim lessons do, except I had to try to explain everything in Kiswahili. Matt and Jerusha did what I told them to. Seafood interrupted if my Kiswahili was breaking down, or if he thought he knew better than me. Adrian took pictures. Afterwards everyone walked back to my house, and we crashed while the kids wandered around Ndanda. The three “adults” spent about three hours cooking chili and rice while their students cleaned themselves.
Many of them had never used a real bathroom before, so I can’t be too angry; nevertheless, when they were finished washing, dirt covered the bathroom and the toilet was broken. Someone had opened up my contact case and dumped the contents on the floor. Worst of all they had used all of my shampoo and most of my deodorant. Everyone else was watching a movie, and I came out of the bathroom and threw the shampoo bottle against the wall, “Noone can use the bathroom! If you have to help yourself, go outside! Noone can use the bathroom!” Matt suggested smelling the kids to see who used up the shampoo, but then we realized they were all guilty; each child smelled like shampoo and fear. Jerusha told them they wouldn’t be welcome anywhere else if they acted this way. Matt turned off the movie – the power was off anyway – and everyone went to sleep.
The next day everyone left early. Matt remained and offered me some of his shampoo, but then remembered that the kids who stayed at his house smelled really nice too. Neither of us had ever been on the other side of that sort of situation before.
Seafood, no child, took all of Adrian’s shampoo also.
November 7, 2008
The last couple of days have been a bad time for my students. The government has an organization problem at the highest level, and has failed to pay for the student’s food in schools all across the country. I think our school may have saved up money in case of such a circumstance – this situation occurs every year – but by last Wednesday there was no money at all and the students didn’t eat anything. That night I was sitting outside when I heard a group of young men, obviously my charges, marching throughout Ndanda singing and yelling. At first I thought it was some sort of religious parade; the Christian students sing, loudly, every night at about 7:30. They didn’t sound angry and in fact the songs were identical to the songs they sing every Thursday when they’re running. When one of the nuns who lives next door told me they didn’t have any food, I wasn’t sure whether to believe her or not.
The next day, Thursday, I spent two hours at home preparing my lessons and then arrived to prepare a chemistry practical. Nobody told me anything was wrong; I didn’t hear any classes, but this all that unusual. I mixed chemicals for the next two hours and then went to teach mathematics, but there were no students in the classroom. Any school-wide meetings take place underneath a big tree outside the Physics lab, where I teach all my classes, and when I left the classroom I saw some Form VI’s sitting underneath the tree. “Come! Tell us a story!” I knew a handful of the students and whenever I do sit with a few students a handful of others will show up to see what’s going on.
They were hungry and, understandably, quite pissed. One of them, Pius, who is involved in student government somehow, explained that the situation to me. He asked if these sorts of things happen in America. He asked if he could come to my house so I could give him food (“ha ha! You’re funny!). He asked if I could take over as the teacher in charge of food and wellness. I was told there would be no classes this day, that the students were on strike. I was once again in a situation where I couldn’t do anything to help anybody; the solutions to these problems lay far outside Ndanda Secondary. After some thirty minutes I retreated back to the laboratory to prepare for an exam which would probably not occur.
I was in the laboratory with our new chemistry teacher, who cannot prepare solutions, and with our lab assistant, who also cannot prepare solutions and is in general worthless. Happily I already knew what to look for, I had written the mock examinations for the entire region, and after about an hour we were finished. During this time the district commissioner came from Lindi, the biggest “city” near us, and I watched him talk to his students from the chemistry lab. He was in the uncomfortable position of a leader explaining to his constituents why he had screwed them, and he wasn’t handling the pressure well. Sometime during his speech several riot police, bearing clubs, gas masks and assault rifles, vaporized; they kept out of immediate sight of the meeting but everyone knew about them. It started raining ten minutes after the meeting began and all my students ran for cover.
My first instinct was to get as far away from the cops as possible, but my students weren’t in a rioting mood and I wanted to see how the things worked out. Several of my form V’s were waiting in the corridors outside my classroom. The ones I talked to were angry and worried that the school would close; they lived very far from Ndanda and didn’t have the bus fare to make it back home. Random students walked past me and told me they were dying.
A legacy from its time as a mission school, Ndanda secondary has large hall which can function as an auditorium; the meeting continued there and again I remained, against my better judgment. As things turned out there were no problems, the students thought (correctly) I sympathized with them and were eager to share their problems. When the meeting began the District Comissioner kept on talking, smiling, and waving his arms and my students kept on asking him questions angrily; I didn’t understand everything but I knew he was promising food while those around me were complaining “politics! He’s just talking.” Our headmaster, who never before has missed a chance to articulate, stood quietly at the side, unwilling to take the blame for someone else’s mistakes. Afterwards a man, who I later learned is the police chief, stood up and urged the students not to resort to violence. He explained that after a short period they may have to close the school, but the students would have a deciding voice in any decision. Then everybody left.
Later I met an ex-teacher (Ngaga, who had left for an accounting job in Kigoma), who told me this sort of problem happens all the time, to all government students. Today when I arrived classes had resumed like normal so I assume the problem was fixed; almost all students sat for the lab practical.
The last time I had been in United Hall with such a crowd, the reason had been a meeting of the teacher’s union to discuss a strike. The teachers hadn’t been paid wages in several months, and some were still expecting moving allowances from a year ago. How can an education system even pretend to serve its country, if it cannot pay its teachers and it cannot feed its students?
The next day, Thursday, I spent two hours at home preparing my lessons and then arrived to prepare a chemistry practical. Nobody told me anything was wrong; I didn’t hear any classes, but this all that unusual. I mixed chemicals for the next two hours and then went to teach mathematics, but there were no students in the classroom. Any school-wide meetings take place underneath a big tree outside the Physics lab, where I teach all my classes, and when I left the classroom I saw some Form VI’s sitting underneath the tree. “Come! Tell us a story!” I knew a handful of the students and whenever I do sit with a few students a handful of others will show up to see what’s going on.
They were hungry and, understandably, quite pissed. One of them, Pius, who is involved in student government somehow, explained that the situation to me. He asked if these sorts of things happen in America. He asked if he could come to my house so I could give him food (“ha ha! You’re funny!). He asked if I could take over as the teacher in charge of food and wellness. I was told there would be no classes this day, that the students were on strike. I was once again in a situation where I couldn’t do anything to help anybody; the solutions to these problems lay far outside Ndanda Secondary. After some thirty minutes I retreated back to the laboratory to prepare for an exam which would probably not occur.
I was in the laboratory with our new chemistry teacher, who cannot prepare solutions, and with our lab assistant, who also cannot prepare solutions and is in general worthless. Happily I already knew what to look for, I had written the mock examinations for the entire region, and after about an hour we were finished. During this time the district commissioner came from Lindi, the biggest “city” near us, and I watched him talk to his students from the chemistry lab. He was in the uncomfortable position of a leader explaining to his constituents why he had screwed them, and he wasn’t handling the pressure well. Sometime during his speech several riot police, bearing clubs, gas masks and assault rifles, vaporized; they kept out of immediate sight of the meeting but everyone knew about them. It started raining ten minutes after the meeting began and all my students ran for cover.
My first instinct was to get as far away from the cops as possible, but my students weren’t in a rioting mood and I wanted to see how the things worked out. Several of my form V’s were waiting in the corridors outside my classroom. The ones I talked to were angry and worried that the school would close; they lived very far from Ndanda and didn’t have the bus fare to make it back home. Random students walked past me and told me they were dying.
A legacy from its time as a mission school, Ndanda secondary has large hall which can function as an auditorium; the meeting continued there and again I remained, against my better judgment. As things turned out there were no problems, the students thought (correctly) I sympathized with them and were eager to share their problems. When the meeting began the District Comissioner kept on talking, smiling, and waving his arms and my students kept on asking him questions angrily; I didn’t understand everything but I knew he was promising food while those around me were complaining “politics! He’s just talking.” Our headmaster, who never before has missed a chance to articulate, stood quietly at the side, unwilling to take the blame for someone else’s mistakes. Afterwards a man, who I later learned is the police chief, stood up and urged the students not to resort to violence. He explained that after a short period they may have to close the school, but the students would have a deciding voice in any decision. Then everybody left.
Later I met an ex-teacher (Ngaga, who had left for an accounting job in Kigoma), who told me this sort of problem happens all the time, to all government students. Today when I arrived classes had resumed like normal so I assume the problem was fixed; almost all students sat for the lab practical.
The last time I had been in United Hall with such a crowd, the reason had been a meeting of the teacher’s union to discuss a strike. The teachers hadn’t been paid wages in several months, and some were still expecting moving allowances from a year ago. How can an education system even pretend to serve its country, if it cannot pay its teachers and it cannot feed its students?
October 30
October 30
My computer crashed last week and I lost several entries. I’ll try to rewrite a couple of them now.
I suppose I should give some overview of the schools here. Education in Tanzania is based on the British system. Students study in primary school for seven years, in secondary school for four years, and then in a sort of post-secondary school for two years. Most university degrees take only three years afterwards. In Kenya and Tanzania everybody associated with the education system is preoccupied with the numbe of years in each level; if people asked me what education was like in America, I would say “eight-four-four” meaning eight years primary, four years secondary, and four years in University; students and teachers would immediately understand. I could say many other things, of course, but spitting back three numbers is a good way to change the topic. The first level of secondary schooling is called O-level; the second is advanced, or A-level. At the end of each tier of schooling, students take an exam to determine if they will continue to advance; no grades are awarded during the course of the year and this exam is the only record of the student’s achievement.
I’ve seen a lot of differing statistics on the percentages of eligiblechildren enrolled in school, but most likely some 70% of the population now will enter primary school and some 2-3% eventually finish A-level. Maybe one half of one percent of the population continues on into the university. Children cannot begin schooling before they are seven, and given the delays after each level of exams most people here are lucky to finish secondary school by the time they are 21; several of my students are older than me. The first president, Julius Nyerere, was obsessed with education and adopted the titel “Mwalimu” or teacher. I have a series of speeches, in English and Swahili, about his goals to create an egalitarian, socialist society through the education system. He failed, and now the school system is in tatters.
Primary school is taught in Swahili. Secondary schools are supposedly taught in English, although among most teachers fluency is very poor and even A-level English (!) classes use a mix of Swahili and English. Advanced students take only three core subjects, along with a weekly seminar “General Studies” and religion courses twice a week. Scienc estudents who don’t study mathematics as a core subject also take a course called Basic Applied Mathematics. Physics, Chemistry, and Biology classes are comparable to AP courses in America, except the material is somewhat broader than an AP or introductory University course. Mathematics students learn pre-calculus with some little smattering of derivatives and integrals midway through their second year. The syllabi are terrible.
October 23
I’m trying to get one of my students into an American university. Festus Ndalama is by far my best student, usually scoring 10-15 points higher than the next one on my chemistry exams; I understand his physics and mathematics results are also the best on his class. During the breaks he remains at school and studies, during weekends he studies, and the result is that he has managed to teach himself undergraduate science without any real qualified teachers or adequate textbooks. Our school had class meetings where the students air their greivances to their fellows and to the class teachers; most other students complained about the bad food, the lack of lab materials and the unqualified teachers; Festus stood up and castigated his fellows for not working hard enough. At O-level he studied at a seminary school, which are viewed as among the best in Tanzania; at this school his teachers forced him to speak only English, so he has no problems understanding me or his exams (which are written in English).
A few weeks after I first arrived I lent him a copy of Brian Greene’s The Elegant Universe. He finished it and could explain some of its concepts to me. After the first Chemistry exam I gave him an English dictionary and some books to study for the SAT’s. Last Wednesday we sat down to register at collegeboard.com.
Collegeboard.com asks all students to complete a profile of themselves, and of course the answers are directed at Americans. Festus had never used a computer before and so I had to fill out all the survey for him. Someof them seemed so ridiculous I didn’t even ask him questions and just checked “no”. Festus lives in Dar es Salaam; neither of his parents had studied past secondary school. He doesn’t have a cell phone and does not return home for holidays, and so I believe he is one of the poorer students here. He has no email address and I used mine; I’ve gotten three messages from collegeboard since then. I think the seventy dollar SAT application fee may put the test out of his price range, and I told him I’d front the money and he could pay me back if he made it to the States.
The experience was both moving and surreal. I tried to picture Festus Ndalama, now dressed in an ironed maroon uniform, walking around a frosty New England campus carrying a laptop. What would he think of a school cafeteria? A library? I do not know what the future holds for Festus, if he will make it to America. If our lab technician screws up the practical again Festus may very well not even make it to the University of Dar es Salaam. For now his focus is on the practice examination which begins next week, and the national examination starting in February.
October 25, 2008
Matthew Nagatani is another volunteer who lives about 20-25 km from my house, up on the Makonde Plateau. This plateau is dry and consequently poor; almost all the buildings I saw were made from dried mud or cow dung, with thatched roofs. Water was going for 800 schillings a bucket when I visited, more than what most people make in a day (1250 tzs = 1 dollar), and the rain which came Saturday was a godsend. Matt’s village, Nyambe, passes for a big town in the region; but almost no food is available besides rice, tomatoes, beans and onions; life here teaches all of us to appreciate things like vegetables. No other white people live close to him and so he is something of a celebrity. People remembered me as the crazy person who walked all the way from Ndanda.
My computer crashed last week and I lost several entries. I’ll try to rewrite a couple of them now.
I suppose I should give some overview of the schools here. Education in Tanzania is based on the British system. Students study in primary school for seven years, in secondary school for four years, and then in a sort of post-secondary school for two years. Most university degrees take only three years afterwards. In Kenya and Tanzania everybody associated with the education system is preoccupied with the numbe of years in each level; if people asked me what education was like in America, I would say “eight-four-four” meaning eight years primary, four years secondary, and four years in University; students and teachers would immediately understand. I could say many other things, of course, but spitting back three numbers is a good way to change the topic. The first level of secondary schooling is called O-level; the second is advanced, or A-level. At the end of each tier of schooling, students take an exam to determine if they will continue to advance; no grades are awarded during the course of the year and this exam is the only record of the student’s achievement.
I’ve seen a lot of differing statistics on the percentages of eligiblechildren enrolled in school, but most likely some 70% of the population now will enter primary school and some 2-3% eventually finish A-level. Maybe one half of one percent of the population continues on into the university. Children cannot begin schooling before they are seven, and given the delays after each level of exams most people here are lucky to finish secondary school by the time they are 21; several of my students are older than me. The first president, Julius Nyerere, was obsessed with education and adopted the titel “Mwalimu” or teacher. I have a series of speeches, in English and Swahili, about his goals to create an egalitarian, socialist society through the education system. He failed, and now the school system is in tatters.
Primary school is taught in Swahili. Secondary schools are supposedly taught in English, although among most teachers fluency is very poor and even A-level English (!) classes use a mix of Swahili and English. Advanced students take only three core subjects, along with a weekly seminar “General Studies” and religion courses twice a week. Scienc estudents who don’t study mathematics as a core subject also take a course called Basic Applied Mathematics. Physics, Chemistry, and Biology classes are comparable to AP courses in America, except the material is somewhat broader than an AP or introductory University course. Mathematics students learn pre-calculus with some little smattering of derivatives and integrals midway through their second year. The syllabi are terrible.
October 23
I’m trying to get one of my students into an American university. Festus Ndalama is by far my best student, usually scoring 10-15 points higher than the next one on my chemistry exams; I understand his physics and mathematics results are also the best on his class. During the breaks he remains at school and studies, during weekends he studies, and the result is that he has managed to teach himself undergraduate science without any real qualified teachers or adequate textbooks. Our school had class meetings where the students air their greivances to their fellows and to the class teachers; most other students complained about the bad food, the lack of lab materials and the unqualified teachers; Festus stood up and castigated his fellows for not working hard enough. At O-level he studied at a seminary school, which are viewed as among the best in Tanzania; at this school his teachers forced him to speak only English, so he has no problems understanding me or his exams (which are written in English).
A few weeks after I first arrived I lent him a copy of Brian Greene’s The Elegant Universe. He finished it and could explain some of its concepts to me. After the first Chemistry exam I gave him an English dictionary and some books to study for the SAT’s. Last Wednesday we sat down to register at collegeboard.com.
Collegeboard.com asks all students to complete a profile of themselves, and of course the answers are directed at Americans. Festus had never used a computer before and so I had to fill out all the survey for him. Someof them seemed so ridiculous I didn’t even ask him questions and just checked “no”. Festus lives in Dar es Salaam; neither of his parents had studied past secondary school. He doesn’t have a cell phone and does not return home for holidays, and so I believe he is one of the poorer students here. He has no email address and I used mine; I’ve gotten three messages from collegeboard since then. I think the seventy dollar SAT application fee may put the test out of his price range, and I told him I’d front the money and he could pay me back if he made it to the States.
The experience was both moving and surreal. I tried to picture Festus Ndalama, now dressed in an ironed maroon uniform, walking around a frosty New England campus carrying a laptop. What would he think of a school cafeteria? A library? I do not know what the future holds for Festus, if he will make it to America. If our lab technician screws up the practical again Festus may very well not even make it to the University of Dar es Salaam. For now his focus is on the practice examination which begins next week, and the national examination starting in February.
October 25, 2008
Matthew Nagatani is another volunteer who lives about 20-25 km from my house, up on the Makonde Plateau. This plateau is dry and consequently poor; almost all the buildings I saw were made from dried mud or cow dung, with thatched roofs. Water was going for 800 schillings a bucket when I visited, more than what most people make in a day (1250 tzs = 1 dollar), and the rain which came Saturday was a godsend. Matt’s village, Nyambe, passes for a big town in the region; but almost no food is available besides rice, tomatoes, beans and onions; life here teaches all of us to appreciate things like vegetables. No other white people live close to him and so he is something of a celebrity. People remembered me as the crazy person who walked all the way from Ndanda.
October 30
October 30
My computer crashed last week and I lost several entries. I’ll try to rewrite a couple of them now.
I suppose I should give some overview of the schools here. Education in Tanzania is based on the British system. Students study in primary school for seven years, in secondary school for four years, and then in a sort of post-secondary school for two years. Most university degrees take only three years afterwards. In Kenya and Tanzania everybody associated with the education system is preoccupied with the numbe of years in each level; if people asked me what education was like in America, I would say “eight-four-four” meaning eight years primary, four years secondary, and four years in University; students and teachers would immediately understand. I could say many other things, of course, but spitting back three numbers is a good way to change the topic. The first level of secondary schooling is called O-level; the second is advanced, or A-level. At the end of each tier of schooling, students take an exam to determine if they will continue to advance; no grades are awarded during the course of the year and this exam is the only record of the student’s achievement.
I’ve seen a lot of differing statistics on the percentages of eligiblechildren enrolled in school, but most likely some 70% of the population now will enter primary school and some 2-3% eventually finish A-level. Maybe one half of one percent of the population continues on into the university. Children cannot begin schooling before they are seven, and given the delays after each level of exams most people here are lucky to finish secondary school by the time they are 21; several of my students are older than me. The first president, Julius Nyerere, was obsessed with education and adopted the titel “Mwalimu” or teacher. I have a series of speeches, in English and Swahili, about his goals to create an egalitarian, socialist society through the education system. He failed, and now the school system is in tatters.
Primary school is taught in Swahili. Secondary schools are supposedly taught in English, although among most teachers fluency is very poor and even A-level English (!) classes use a mix of Swahili and English. Advanced students take only three core subjects, along with a weekly seminar “General Studies” and religion courses twice a week. Scienc estudents who don’t study mathematics as a core subject also take a course called Basic Applied Mathematics. Physics, Chemistry, and Biology classes are comparable to AP courses in America, except the material is somewhat broader than an AP or introductory University course. Mathematics students learn pre-calculus with some little smattering of derivatives and integrals midway through their second year. The syllabi are terrible.
October 23
I’m trying to get one of my students into an American university. Festus Ndalama is by far my best student, usually scoring 10-15 points higher than the next one on my chemistry exams; I understand his physics and mathematics results are also the best on his class. During the breaks he remains at school and studies, during weekends he studies, and the result is that he has managed to teach himself undergraduate science without any real qualified teachers or adequate textbooks. Our school had class meetings where the students air their greivances to their fellows and to the class teachers; most other students complained about the bad food, the lack of lab materials and the unqualified teachers; Festus stood up and castigated his fellows for not working hard enough. At O-level he studied at a seminary school, which are viewed as among the best in Tanzania; at this school his teachers forced him to speak only English, so he has no problems understanding me or his exams (which are written in English).
A few weeks after I first arrived I lent him a copy of Brian Greene’s The Elegant Universe. He finished it and could explain some of its concepts to me. After the first Chemistry exam I gave him an English dictionary and some books to study for the SAT’s. Last Wednesday we sat down to register at collegeboard.com.
Collegeboard.com asks all students to complete a profile of themselves, and of course the answers are directed at Americans. Festus had never used a computer before and so I had to fill out all the survey for him. Someof them seemed so ridiculous I didn’t even ask him questions and just checked “no”. Festus lives in Dar es Salaam; neither of his parents had studied past secondary school. He doesn’t have a cell phone and does not return home for holidays, and so I believe he is one of the poorer students here. He has no email address and I used mine; I’ve gotten three messages from collegeboard since then. I think the seventy dollar SAT application fee may put the test out of his price range, and I told him I’d front the money and he could pay me back if he made it to the States.
The experience was both moving and surreal. I tried to picture Festus Ndalama, now dressed in an ironed maroon uniform, walking around a frosty New England campus carrying a laptop. What would he think of a school cafeteria? A library? I do not know what the future holds for Festus, if he will make it to America. If our lab technician screws up the practical again Festus may very well not even make it to the University of Dar es Salaam. For now his focus is on the practice examination which begins next week, and the national examination starting in February.
October 25, 2008
Matthew Nagatani is another volunteer who lives about 20-25 km from my house, up on the Makonde Plateau. This plateau is dry and consequently poor; almost all the buildings I saw were made from dried mud or cow dung, with thatched roofs. Water was going for 800 schillings a bucket when I visited, more than what most people make in a day (1250 tzs = 1 dollar), and the rain which came Saturday was a godsend. Matt’s village, Nyambe, passes for a big town in the region; but almost no food is available besides rice, tomatoes, beans and onions; life here teaches all of us to appreciate things like vegetables. No other white people live close to him and so he is something of a celebrity. People remembered me as the crazy person who walked all the way from Ndanda.
My computer crashed last week and I lost several entries. I’ll try to rewrite a couple of them now.
I suppose I should give some overview of the schools here. Education in Tanzania is based on the British system. Students study in primary school for seven years, in secondary school for four years, and then in a sort of post-secondary school for two years. Most university degrees take only three years afterwards. In Kenya and Tanzania everybody associated with the education system is preoccupied with the numbe of years in each level; if people asked me what education was like in America, I would say “eight-four-four” meaning eight years primary, four years secondary, and four years in University; students and teachers would immediately understand. I could say many other things, of course, but spitting back three numbers is a good way to change the topic. The first level of secondary schooling is called O-level; the second is advanced, or A-level. At the end of each tier of schooling, students take an exam to determine if they will continue to advance; no grades are awarded during the course of the year and this exam is the only record of the student’s achievement.
I’ve seen a lot of differing statistics on the percentages of eligiblechildren enrolled in school, but most likely some 70% of the population now will enter primary school and some 2-3% eventually finish A-level. Maybe one half of one percent of the population continues on into the university. Children cannot begin schooling before they are seven, and given the delays after each level of exams most people here are lucky to finish secondary school by the time they are 21; several of my students are older than me. The first president, Julius Nyerere, was obsessed with education and adopted the titel “Mwalimu” or teacher. I have a series of speeches, in English and Swahili, about his goals to create an egalitarian, socialist society through the education system. He failed, and now the school system is in tatters.
Primary school is taught in Swahili. Secondary schools are supposedly taught in English, although among most teachers fluency is very poor and even A-level English (!) classes use a mix of Swahili and English. Advanced students take only three core subjects, along with a weekly seminar “General Studies” and religion courses twice a week. Scienc estudents who don’t study mathematics as a core subject also take a course called Basic Applied Mathematics. Physics, Chemistry, and Biology classes are comparable to AP courses in America, except the material is somewhat broader than an AP or introductory University course. Mathematics students learn pre-calculus with some little smattering of derivatives and integrals midway through their second year. The syllabi are terrible.
October 23
I’m trying to get one of my students into an American university. Festus Ndalama is by far my best student, usually scoring 10-15 points higher than the next one on my chemistry exams; I understand his physics and mathematics results are also the best on his class. During the breaks he remains at school and studies, during weekends he studies, and the result is that he has managed to teach himself undergraduate science without any real qualified teachers or adequate textbooks. Our school had class meetings where the students air their greivances to their fellows and to the class teachers; most other students complained about the bad food, the lack of lab materials and the unqualified teachers; Festus stood up and castigated his fellows for not working hard enough. At O-level he studied at a seminary school, which are viewed as among the best in Tanzania; at this school his teachers forced him to speak only English, so he has no problems understanding me or his exams (which are written in English).
A few weeks after I first arrived I lent him a copy of Brian Greene’s The Elegant Universe. He finished it and could explain some of its concepts to me. After the first Chemistry exam I gave him an English dictionary and some books to study for the SAT’s. Last Wednesday we sat down to register at collegeboard.com.
Collegeboard.com asks all students to complete a profile of themselves, and of course the answers are directed at Americans. Festus had never used a computer before and so I had to fill out all the survey for him. Someof them seemed so ridiculous I didn’t even ask him questions and just checked “no”. Festus lives in Dar es Salaam; neither of his parents had studied past secondary school. He doesn’t have a cell phone and does not return home for holidays, and so I believe he is one of the poorer students here. He has no email address and I used mine; I’ve gotten three messages from collegeboard since then. I think the seventy dollar SAT application fee may put the test out of his price range, and I told him I’d front the money and he could pay me back if he made it to the States.
The experience was both moving and surreal. I tried to picture Festus Ndalama, now dressed in an ironed maroon uniform, walking around a frosty New England campus carrying a laptop. What would he think of a school cafeteria? A library? I do not know what the future holds for Festus, if he will make it to America. If our lab technician screws up the practical again Festus may very well not even make it to the University of Dar es Salaam. For now his focus is on the practice examination which begins next week, and the national examination starting in February.
October 25, 2008
Matthew Nagatani is another volunteer who lives about 20-25 km from my house, up on the Makonde Plateau. This plateau is dry and consequently poor; almost all the buildings I saw were made from dried mud or cow dung, with thatched roofs. Water was going for 800 schillings a bucket when I visited, more than what most people make in a day (1250 tzs = 1 dollar), and the rain which came Saturday was a godsend. Matt’s village, Nyambe, passes for a big town in the region; but almost no food is available besides rice, tomatoes, beans and onions; life here teaches all of us to appreciate things like vegetables. No other white people live close to him and so he is something of a celebrity. People remembered me as the crazy person who walked all the way from Ndanda.
November 4, 2008
The elections here are a big deal, maybe even bigger than they are in America. The Africans are excited for Obama, of course, and the people in Kenya were crazy about him; but somehow the other volunteers are even more obsessed with him.
Humphrey is a Ugandan VSO accountant who lives across the street and works in the hospital. Thursday last week my power died and I went to Subiako to eat dinner, not wanting to eat in the dark. Humphrey was there too, buying vouchers so he could keep his businesses in Uganda in line. We stayed at this mgahawa for about three hours and as we drank the subject of the American elections came up. He had woken up at 5:00 in the morning to watch the final debate, and told me that Mccain looked pretty good but he was still excited about Obama. “I’m a big Obama supporter too,” I told Humphrey, “but whoever wins, you’re bound to be disappointed.” I understand American elections affect the entire world and so everybody cares, but i was surprised by the scale of other people's interest.
Humphrey is a Ugandan VSO accountant who lives across the street and works in the hospital. Thursday last week my power died and I went to Subiako to eat dinner, not wanting to eat in the dark. Humphrey was there too, buying vouchers so he could keep his businesses in Uganda in line. We stayed at this mgahawa for about three hours and as we drank the subject of the American elections came up. He had woken up at 5:00 in the morning to watch the final debate, and told me that Mccain looked pretty good but he was still excited about Obama. “I’m a big Obama supporter too,” I told Humphrey, “but whoever wins, you’re bound to be disappointed.” I understand American elections affect the entire world and so everybody cares, but i was surprised by the scale of other people's interest.
Friday, October 17, 2008
October 10: Ndanda
I’m leaving for a goodbye party after I write this post.
There has been one other goodbye party before this, which took place two weeks before I left Tanzania for break and was held in honor of the Economics teacher, Mr. Nganga. Another counterpart, Juma Kiwone, was also leaving but for some reason he didn’t tell the school administration of his impending departure. I’m not terribly close with any of the other teachers but I had spent more time with Nganga and Kiwone than most of the others; Kiwone also taught chemistry and in fact had attended a brief Peace Corps teacher training session with me. He is very small, around 5’, wears western long-sleeve collared shirts rather than the local tailored variety and was contemplating buying a car a few weeks before he left. He was a miserable chemistry teacher who could not prepare stock solutions by himself, and I cannot believe he was selected to attend further science studies rather than some other, more competent candidate. The students frequently complained that he could not answer any of their questions instead yelled back at the one brazen enough to ask. Nevertheless I liked him, he helped me out when I first moved into my new home and would always smile.
Nganga hated teaching. Like so many other teachers here he was a university graduate who grabbed the first job he could find, which unfortunately meant coming to Ndanda. He had grown up in Dar es Salaam, the capital, and I don’t think he liked being in the hinterland. At one point Nganga was very active in the teacher’s union but he was disillusioned by the time I met him, and he now works as an accountant in some other province. He had a second job at the Abbey Secondary School and also owned a little shop nearby which charged exorbitant rates for basic goods. In his free time he was usually hanging out with the carving guys outside his shop or looking after his child. Nganga wasn’t at his own goodbye party, and in fact I’m not even sure if he was informed there would be a party until he had already left for Dar.
I arrived at the party with my neighbor, Mama Yamiseo, thirty minutes after the starting time. Apparently this was still too early; when we arrived the stereos were blasting music but only three of us were sitting there – Erina, my JICA besti, had arrived before we did. Us two foreigners tried to get Mama Yamiseo to tell us all the gossip about the other teacher’s wives but I don’t think she understood us. From time to time other teachers poked their heads in, realized no one was around, and left, not wanting to be the lame ones who got to the party first. The DJ’s continued keep the music at full volume.
I had been assigned to security by the party planners. Most of the teacher tasks around the school are pretty ambiguous and usually I can get out them by having no idea of what’s going on. This night I had no such luck, however, and security detail apparently meant waiting outside and collecting tickets. Other teachers, staff members, and community members sauntered in and after about an hour it was assumed all the guests had arrived and I was allowed to come inside. I’m amazed how similar the whole affair was to an American party, right down to the style of music that was played (Swahili pop music and a little Celine Dion.)
I turned 23 today.
There has been one other goodbye party before this, which took place two weeks before I left Tanzania for break and was held in honor of the Economics teacher, Mr. Nganga. Another counterpart, Juma Kiwone, was also leaving but for some reason he didn’t tell the school administration of his impending departure. I’m not terribly close with any of the other teachers but I had spent more time with Nganga and Kiwone than most of the others; Kiwone also taught chemistry and in fact had attended a brief Peace Corps teacher training session with me. He is very small, around 5’, wears western long-sleeve collared shirts rather than the local tailored variety and was contemplating buying a car a few weeks before he left. He was a miserable chemistry teacher who could not prepare stock solutions by himself, and I cannot believe he was selected to attend further science studies rather than some other, more competent candidate. The students frequently complained that he could not answer any of their questions instead yelled back at the one brazen enough to ask. Nevertheless I liked him, he helped me out when I first moved into my new home and would always smile.
Nganga hated teaching. Like so many other teachers here he was a university graduate who grabbed the first job he could find, which unfortunately meant coming to Ndanda. He had grown up in Dar es Salaam, the capital, and I don’t think he liked being in the hinterland. At one point Nganga was very active in the teacher’s union but he was disillusioned by the time I met him, and he now works as an accountant in some other province. He had a second job at the Abbey Secondary School and also owned a little shop nearby which charged exorbitant rates for basic goods. In his free time he was usually hanging out with the carving guys outside his shop or looking after his child. Nganga wasn’t at his own goodbye party, and in fact I’m not even sure if he was informed there would be a party until he had already left for Dar.
I arrived at the party with my neighbor, Mama Yamiseo, thirty minutes after the starting time. Apparently this was still too early; when we arrived the stereos were blasting music but only three of us were sitting there – Erina, my JICA besti, had arrived before we did. Us two foreigners tried to get Mama Yamiseo to tell us all the gossip about the other teacher’s wives but I don’t think she understood us. From time to time other teachers poked their heads in, realized no one was around, and left, not wanting to be the lame ones who got to the party first. The DJ’s continued keep the music at full volume.
I had been assigned to security by the party planners. Most of the teacher tasks around the school are pretty ambiguous and usually I can get out them by having no idea of what’s going on. This night I had no such luck, however, and security detail apparently meant waiting outside and collecting tickets. Other teachers, staff members, and community members sauntered in and after about an hour it was assumed all the guests had arrived and I was allowed to come inside. I’m amazed how similar the whole affair was to an American party, right down to the style of music that was played (Swahili pop music and a little Celine Dion.)
I turned 23 today.
October 9th: Ndanda
October 9, 2008: Ndanda
I ran into the director of the hospital today while I was buying eggs at the mission kitchen. Peter is from the Netherlands; even after numerous stints around the third-world he is shocked and dismayed by Tanzania’s health care system. Lindi and Mtwara districts, the “Deep South,” have a bad reputation across the rest of the country. My headmaster himself told me of the myth of the “undeveloped south” when he explained the teacher shortages the school was facing. The economics teacher, who has since left for greener pastures, explained the people’s laziness, “But we are Tanzanians, while the Arab influence has corrupted these people.” With underdevelopment comes poor health care and often the (foreign) doctors across the street wonder at the other surrounding hospitals; no electricity or clean water, critical shortages of sanitary equipment, absent doctors, incompetent nurses, and corrupt staff are the most common complaints.
Even before I arrived in Ndanda I had expected to hear about all these problems, which have their parallels in the school system. Peter has a new target, Bush’s PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief) which has invested several hundred million dollars in Tanzania. I myself must fill out PEPFAR report forms twice a year and in fact I completed my second one today, writing zeroes in every single box. The problem with PEPFAR is that such a vast amount of foreign money co-opts the local health care system. The budget of any PEPFAR program is astronomical compared to any Tanzanian scheme, so these programs have their pick of the best and brightest in country. Talented doctors will not work in the rural areas; even in cities they rarely care for patients and instead fill out the ranks of foreign aid. I believe Ndanda hospital pays somewhat better than the nearby government hospitals but Peter tells me they’ve also had a hard time keeping staff recently.
Peter also conveys a more general ambivalence about foreign aid schemes, an ambivalence which every foreigner in this country has expressed at one point or another. My new Peace Corps sitemate came to visit on Monday and wondered whether we were not just engaged in some new form of imperialism. A German dentist, who has been working on and off in Ndanda for some twenty years, believes that his presence may have been good for a few select people, but it was bad for the nation. The refrain is always the same; African problems need African solutions, development in Tanzania will take place on the country’s own terms.
The power has been out for a while and my computer is almost dead, so no more ranting.
I ran into the director of the hospital today while I was buying eggs at the mission kitchen. Peter is from the Netherlands; even after numerous stints around the third-world he is shocked and dismayed by Tanzania’s health care system. Lindi and Mtwara districts, the “Deep South,” have a bad reputation across the rest of the country. My headmaster himself told me of the myth of the “undeveloped south” when he explained the teacher shortages the school was facing. The economics teacher, who has since left for greener pastures, explained the people’s laziness, “But we are Tanzanians, while the Arab influence has corrupted these people.” With underdevelopment comes poor health care and often the (foreign) doctors across the street wonder at the other surrounding hospitals; no electricity or clean water, critical shortages of sanitary equipment, absent doctors, incompetent nurses, and corrupt staff are the most common complaints.
Even before I arrived in Ndanda I had expected to hear about all these problems, which have their parallels in the school system. Peter has a new target, Bush’s PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief) which has invested several hundred million dollars in Tanzania. I myself must fill out PEPFAR report forms twice a year and in fact I completed my second one today, writing zeroes in every single box. The problem with PEPFAR is that such a vast amount of foreign money co-opts the local health care system. The budget of any PEPFAR program is astronomical compared to any Tanzanian scheme, so these programs have their pick of the best and brightest in country. Talented doctors will not work in the rural areas; even in cities they rarely care for patients and instead fill out the ranks of foreign aid. I believe Ndanda hospital pays somewhat better than the nearby government hospitals but Peter tells me they’ve also had a hard time keeping staff recently.
Peter also conveys a more general ambivalence about foreign aid schemes, an ambivalence which every foreigner in this country has expressed at one point or another. My new Peace Corps sitemate came to visit on Monday and wondered whether we were not just engaged in some new form of imperialism. A German dentist, who has been working on and off in Ndanda for some twenty years, believes that his presence may have been good for a few select people, but it was bad for the nation. The refrain is always the same; African problems need African solutions, development in Tanzania will take place on the country’s own terms.
The power has been out for a while and my computer is almost dead, so no more ranting.
October 2nd, Tanga
Tanga is a sweaty city on the Indian Ocean midway between Dar es Salaam and Mombasa. Unlike all the other sweaty African cities out there, Tanga is close to the site of Matt Summers, who was my best friend in Kenya and a Williams graduate. We spent the first day of Eid in his village at one of his colleague’s house watching kung-fu movies while our hosts finished their prayers. Thursday we left for Tanga in search of Indian food.
In Tanga I met Peter, a German doctor who has taken a liking to Peace Corps Volunteers and lets us stay at his house when we’re in town. His house is close to the ocean, a big draw for me, and at about 4:00 in the afternoon Matt and I reckoned the sun was no longer a danger and ventured out to the beach. Most beaches are populated by a handful of teenage boys working out and playing soccer, but most Africans tend to avoid the water and so I was surprised to find several hundred people of all ages swimming around. I stayed in for about half an hour and tried to teach a teenager named Omary rotary breathing.
About an hour after we returned Peter came home. He also had just come from the ocean and commented on the number of people. It was not just several hundred in the water, however; he estimated some 10 000 people dressed up in their nicest clothes and came to look out at the water. Matt and I went back out to have a look, but by then it was dark and everyone was leaving. The atmosphere was like the aftermath of a baseball game. I don’t know what the significance of this gathering was.
The Indian food was delicious.
In Tanga I met Peter, a German doctor who has taken a liking to Peace Corps Volunteers and lets us stay at his house when we’re in town. His house is close to the ocean, a big draw for me, and at about 4:00 in the afternoon Matt and I reckoned the sun was no longer a danger and ventured out to the beach. Most beaches are populated by a handful of teenage boys working out and playing soccer, but most Africans tend to avoid the water and so I was surprised to find several hundred people of all ages swimming around. I stayed in for about half an hour and tried to teach a teenager named Omary rotary breathing.
About an hour after we returned Peter came home. He also had just come from the ocean and commented on the number of people. It was not just several hundred in the water, however; he estimated some 10 000 people dressed up in their nicest clothes and came to look out at the water. Matt and I went back out to have a look, but by then it was dark and everyone was leaving. The atmosphere was like the aftermath of a baseball game. I don’t know what the significance of this gathering was.
The Indian food was delicious.
September 1st: Tanga
I got off the plane, bade farewell to my new Italian missionary friend (“what language do they speak here?”) and waltzed past customs. I looked for a bathroom in the baggage claim section but my hopes of getting one last flush in before a week on the road were dashed, and I resigned myself to a whole day of my breath smelling like microwaved chicken tarragnone and strawberry yogurt. It was 7:40 in the morning and already hot. Outside a gang of taxi drivers were looking for customers, but it seemed like most of my fellow traveller and already had rides. I was the only target. The asking price of the trip, about 25 dollars, had more than doubled since I had left last month, meaning that despite my conversational Swahili these guys took me for yet another clueless mzungu. After ten minutes I threatened to take a public minivan and one of the drivers asked his fellows if any were willing to take me for the still exorbitant price of 15 dollars.
I wanted to talk with the my new friend and get used to Swahili again, but he tried to get a more money by complaining about the rising price of gasoline and the scarcity of gullible passengers, so I got annoyed and shut up. I was tired anyway, having forgone sleep in order to watch Robert Downey Jr.’s masterpiece Ironman consecutively three or four times.
Even at 8:00 in the morning Dar is muggy and hot and a bad place to get stuck in traffic while sitting in a shaking Ford Taurus. African drivers have a healthy disrespect for traffic laws, but the lack of directions and badly-organized street network would flummox even the best group of drivers. One intersection was backed up for many blocks because all four directions of traffic had tried to go at the same time and consequently blocked the center. In the absence of a cop several drivers got out and tried to clear the way. They managed to get three or four cars out of the way before the driver of one of the minibuses decided to ignore them and drive into the center of the intersection again. The line behind him followed, so he couldn’t back up; all the other vehicles rushed to claim whatever piece of the center they could, and the directors got back in their cars and joined the free-for-all. We took another road, and I don’t know how the jam was resolved.
It took almost two hours to travel the 8 miles or so from the airport to the bus stand. I paid my driver the initial 25 dollars he had asked for – he deserved it – and inquired about a ticket to my next destination. The touts informed me that the price had also doubled but that their bus was leaving immediately. We waited for two hours for the bus to fill up. Happily I could take cheer in the the prospects for the trip, a 5+ hour affair inside a sweltering bus overflowing with stinky Africans and, if I was lucky, a couple of goats. And the music is terrible. Karibu Tanzania!
I wanted to talk with the my new friend and get used to Swahili again, but he tried to get a more money by complaining about the rising price of gasoline and the scarcity of gullible passengers, so I got annoyed and shut up. I was tired anyway, having forgone sleep in order to watch Robert Downey Jr.’s masterpiece Ironman consecutively three or four times.
Even at 8:00 in the morning Dar is muggy and hot and a bad place to get stuck in traffic while sitting in a shaking Ford Taurus. African drivers have a healthy disrespect for traffic laws, but the lack of directions and badly-organized street network would flummox even the best group of drivers. One intersection was backed up for many blocks because all four directions of traffic had tried to go at the same time and consequently blocked the center. In the absence of a cop several drivers got out and tried to clear the way. They managed to get three or four cars out of the way before the driver of one of the minibuses decided to ignore them and drive into the center of the intersection again. The line behind him followed, so he couldn’t back up; all the other vehicles rushed to claim whatever piece of the center they could, and the directors got back in their cars and joined the free-for-all. We took another road, and I don’t know how the jam was resolved.
It took almost two hours to travel the 8 miles or so from the airport to the bus stand. I paid my driver the initial 25 dollars he had asked for – he deserved it – and inquired about a ticket to my next destination. The touts informed me that the price had also doubled but that their bus was leaving immediately. We waited for two hours for the bus to fill up. Happily I could take cheer in the the prospects for the trip, a 5+ hour affair inside a sweltering bus overflowing with stinky Africans and, if I was lucky, a couple of goats. And the music is terrible. Karibu Tanzania!
Saturday, March 29, 2008
I should probably talk about all the animals here at one point. Probably the wildlife highlight so far, much more so than the solitary giraffe ambling in the desert, are the monkeys; in Kakamega and also in Ndanda, monkeys jump back in forth among the trees, looking for bananas. Last week I was cut off by a troop of maybe 25 baboons wandering through the jungle behind the mission. It was cool but also a little scary, as apparently they can be dangerous if provoked and I was on alone and on foot. I kept my distance.
Of course most of the creatures I see are not nearly as exciting. Butterflies (kipepeo or "little fan") of all colors are always flapping around, termites build tunnels of dirt up my walls, huge grasshoppers leap across my lawn and wasps with huge, threatening stingers buzz around my office. Last week I saw a small spider with a huge pair of fangs- on closer inspection i saw the fangs were on the wrong end of the body, a decoy to warn off predators. Long lines of army ants march across the jungle and occasionally swarm through people's houses ("surround your bed with kerosene and wait for them to leave...") I have three or four geckos living with me, who feast on all these little ndudus. All these bugs are at the same time fascinating and repulsive.
Back in training my next-door neighbor came to class with a good story. He had arrived home and found a great comotion around his choo (outdoor toilet). "We saw something in the bathroom," said his baba. "We don't know what it is, but it had more than a hundred legs and it was at least a half a meter long."
Of course most of the creatures I see are not nearly as exciting. Butterflies (kipepeo or "little fan") of all colors are always flapping around, termites build tunnels of dirt up my walls, huge grasshoppers leap across my lawn and wasps with huge, threatening stingers buzz around my office. Last week I saw a small spider with a huge pair of fangs- on closer inspection i saw the fangs were on the wrong end of the body, a decoy to warn off predators. Long lines of army ants march across the jungle and occasionally swarm through people's houses ("surround your bed with kerosene and wait for them to leave...") I have three or four geckos living with me, who feast on all these little ndudus. All these bugs are at the same time fascinating and repulsive.
Back in training my next-door neighbor came to class with a good story. He had arrived home and found a great comotion around his choo (outdoor toilet). "We saw something in the bathroom," said his baba. "We don't know what it is, but it had more than a hundred legs and it was at least a half a meter long."
Sunday, March 23, 2008
March 16, Palm Sunday, Ndanda - I just returned from a trip to Masasi, about 30 km away. I rode in a dalla-dalla, a minivan, with some 25 other people, threegoats, two chickens, five leaky jerrycans of gasoline, three sacks of maize flour and a six foot stack of buckets. We stopped every 500 meters so the tout could try to flag down new passengers, and the driver leaned on the horn for the entire hour-long ride. as there were no seatbelts i broke one of peace corps traveling policies, but at lease i wasn't hanging the side of the vehicle like several other passengers. the ride cost about 90 cents.
I'm a chemistry teacher stationed at ndanda secondary school in Tanzania's deep south. Ndanda is a mission town complete with two secondary and several technical schools, a water-bottling company, a towering white church and a modern hospital (the only functional hospital in hundreds of miles.) My school, once one of the best in the country, was nationalized in the 1970s and since has gone through a long, steady decline. The laboratories are rotting and nobody knows who has the key to the library. There are not enough school supplies and the textbooks are fourty years old. teachers often skip all their classes and then charge students extra for tuition after hours; last term there were 13 teachers for 720 students. The (ex) second master stole about 2000 dollars, so for the last three weeks of the term students ate porridge for breakfast, lunch and dinner. problems here are far beyond the ability of any one person, no matter how dedicated, to fix.
When I first arrived in Africa I was repelled by what seemed to be crushing poverty and ugliness. There were no Mcdonalds or SUVs. Women here cook with charcoal and burn garbage in pits, electricity is a rare luxury and clean water does not exist. It took about a month to adopt to life here, studying Swahili by candlelight and drinking warm coca cola at the nearest hotel. NGOs here drive around in jeeps and gape at the locals, but if you ever get the chance to come here, walk around the market and drink chai with the villagers and ride dalla-dallas - its a lifestyle you'll never forget. Safari Njema! (travel well!)
I'm a chemistry teacher stationed at ndanda secondary school in Tanzania's deep south. Ndanda is a mission town complete with two secondary and several technical schools, a water-bottling company, a towering white church and a modern hospital (the only functional hospital in hundreds of miles.) My school, once one of the best in the country, was nationalized in the 1970s and since has gone through a long, steady decline. The laboratories are rotting and nobody knows who has the key to the library. There are not enough school supplies and the textbooks are fourty years old. teachers often skip all their classes and then charge students extra for tuition after hours; last term there were 13 teachers for 720 students. The (ex) second master stole about 2000 dollars, so for the last three weeks of the term students ate porridge for breakfast, lunch and dinner. problems here are far beyond the ability of any one person, no matter how dedicated, to fix.
When I first arrived in Africa I was repelled by what seemed to be crushing poverty and ugliness. There were no Mcdonalds or SUVs. Women here cook with charcoal and burn garbage in pits, electricity is a rare luxury and clean water does not exist. It took about a month to adopt to life here, studying Swahili by candlelight and drinking warm coca cola at the nearest hotel. NGOs here drive around in jeeps and gape at the locals, but if you ever get the chance to come here, walk around the market and drink chai with the villagers and ride dalla-dallas - its a lifestyle you'll never forget. Safari Njema! (travel well!)
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
January 29, Dar es Salaam
I've taken up running since I've gotten to East Africa. In Kitui I woke up before anyone else, so I escaped both the heat and the stares of my Kamba neighbors; in Ndalat, land of the long distance runners, I (occasionally) ran in the late afternoon. One day a local athlete, Edward, invited me to his house for chai. Edward is 27 years old, married, and still lives in a little hut made of clay and cowdung. Both he and his sister are world-class marathon runners; his younger brother is a medical student at the University of Texas (?) where he got an athletic scholarship. After the usual greetings in vernacular he comments on the quality of my shoes and asks me about my training.
-"What training?" I forgot I had ran past his house that morning.
-"I ran twenty-five kilometers this morning. Later this afternoon...twenty. Every morning, twenty or twenty five kilometers - afternoon training is optional but twenty kilometers every morning."
At no point in our conversation did Edward express even a hint of mockery, but after a few cups of chai with him and his sister I stopped running past his house, in fact I stopped running period. I tried biking once or twice (according to Edward, "Ah! Very good exercise!") but couldn't quite get into a routine. Two days before I left Ndalat I saw another runner flying past me and swore that I would get my ass in gear after christmas. In Kakamega, mainly out of sheer boredom, I ran up and down the block while riot police fired gunshots in the air. The Indian women seemed largely unimpressed but the security guard, Bernard was more conversational.
- "Ah! Mzoezi wa Mwili! (exercises for the body)" Luo people often begin their conversations with Ah!
He also never expressed anything apart from the utmost friendliness, but I never felt comfortable running around Africans. Even in Dar es Salaam where beach jogging is common and where I can keep up with the locals, I do my damndest to avoid crowds.
-"What training?" I forgot I had ran past his house that morning.
-"I ran twenty-five kilometers this morning. Later this afternoon...twenty. Every morning, twenty or twenty five kilometers - afternoon training is optional but twenty kilometers every morning."
At no point in our conversation did Edward express even a hint of mockery, but after a few cups of chai with him and his sister I stopped running past his house, in fact I stopped running period. I tried biking once or twice (according to Edward, "Ah! Very good exercise!") but couldn't quite get into a routine. Two days before I left Ndalat I saw another runner flying past me and swore that I would get my ass in gear after christmas. In Kakamega, mainly out of sheer boredom, I ran up and down the block while riot police fired gunshots in the air. The Indian women seemed largely unimpressed but the security guard, Bernard was more conversational.
- "Ah! Mzoezi wa Mwili! (exercises for the body)" Luo people often begin their conversations with Ah!
He also never expressed anything apart from the utmost friendliness, but I never felt comfortable running around Africans. Even in Dar es Salaam where beach jogging is common and where I can keep up with the locals, I do my damndest to avoid crowds.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
January 22 Email
Mambo,
Mom finally convinced me to send out an email informing you all that I am, in fact, alive and comfortable, waiting out Kenya's turmoil in Dar es Salaam.
In training we had one session where our teachers, all from various tribes, described their cultures and the stereotypes about themselves; the Luos were the academics, the Kikuyu were businessmen, the Nandi could run fast, etc. At the time we all laughed and the teachers didn't take themselves too seriously; however I realized over the next couple weeks a strong undercurrent of resentment among even the most educated Kenyans. The politicians never even mentioned the tribes by name and created grand names like Party of National Unity or Orange Democratic Movement, but their support came entirely from monolithic ethnic voting blocs. American analysts predicted the election would involve some violence, although not as much as those of '92 or '97. Observers believed that the elections could be a watershed for Africa and the entire country was hopeful.
Thirteen of us gathered for the holidays in Kakamega forest, the last remaining rainforest in Kenya, and ate Christmas dinner in small outdoor bandas where Colobus monkeys stole our bananas. The next day we returned to Kakamega city, where one volunteer lived in a gated compound with electricity, running water, a gas stove, refridgerator, DVD projector; all the comforts the rest of us wished we had in our own homes. Even so I wanted to leave before New Year's Day - the boys in my village were finishing month-long initiation ceremonies and their extended families would be celebrating. The elections, on the 27th, went smoothly but the Electoral Commission was slow to release the votes and people became anxious. The thirteen of us were from the three western provinces which overwhelmingly supported ODM and its opposition candidate, Raila Odinga, and we believed things would turn ugly if he did not win.
An hour after the electoral commission announced Pres. Mwai Kibaki winner rioters burned down two small shops and a church across the street - apparently they were owned by PNU supporters. Police came the day afterwards and while the rest of Kenya burned Kakamega was filled with tense silence. Meanwhile the political situation continued to deteriorate and other parts of the country were still racked by violence. In Eldoret, my hometown, 30 people burned to death while seeking refuge in a church. Riots in Kisumu, Mombasa, Kisii, Migori, and Kibera all received international attention yet no intervention could bring the two sides to talk to each other.
We passed the time eating and playing cards and were always perfectly safe - even when we left the compound thugs and policemen both told us they had no problems with us, that we were guests. One soldier asked my friend to buy him a soda. After a couple days the police left, shops reopened, people cautiously resumed their lives. Because of the ongoing violence elsewhere and the political impasse in Nairobi however there was no question of us leaving; occasional gunshots did not bother us but we were afraid we would not return to our sites.
After ten days Peace Corps decided to temporarily shut down western Kenya and flew us to Dar es Salaam. They put us up in a hotel on the beach and tried to keep us busy while we waited for news. After about a week our director told us we would not be able to return immediately to Kenya, that we could try to transfer to another country or we could go home and wait for the country to clear up. As of this writing there are no plans to shut down the country altogether but it will be some time before the three western provinces reopen.
Kibaki and Raila are still at odds; recently Raila's ODM party won Speaker of the House and tensions cooled somewhat. Both sides continue to spout rhetoric but there are signs the violence is beginning to subside and I believe the vast majority of Kenyans are embarrassed and exasperated by their leaders. My host family remains in their village outside Eldoret and wants me to return; I still haven't called them told them I won't be coming back. I'm trying to transfer into Tanzania, but if I don't find a spot there I'll return home and wait for Kenya to reopen or try for a position in another country.
kwa heri,
Joseph
Mom finally convinced me to send out an email informing you all that I am, in fact, alive and comfortable, waiting out Kenya's turmoil in Dar es Salaam.
In training we had one session where our teachers, all from various tribes, described their cultures and the stereotypes about themselves; the Luos were the academics, the Kikuyu were businessmen, the Nandi could run fast, etc. At the time we all laughed and the teachers didn't take themselves too seriously; however I realized over the next couple weeks a strong undercurrent of resentment among even the most educated Kenyans. The politicians never even mentioned the tribes by name and created grand names like Party of National Unity or Orange Democratic Movement, but their support came entirely from monolithic ethnic voting blocs. American analysts predicted the election would involve some violence, although not as much as those of '92 or '97. Observers believed that the elections could be a watershed for Africa and the entire country was hopeful.
Thirteen of us gathered for the holidays in Kakamega forest, the last remaining rainforest in Kenya, and ate Christmas dinner in small outdoor bandas where Colobus monkeys stole our bananas. The next day we returned to Kakamega city, where one volunteer lived in a gated compound with electricity, running water, a gas stove, refridgerator, DVD projector; all the comforts the rest of us wished we had in our own homes. Even so I wanted to leave before New Year's Day - the boys in my village were finishing month-long initiation ceremonies and their extended families would be celebrating. The elections, on the 27th, went smoothly but the Electoral Commission was slow to release the votes and people became anxious. The thirteen of us were from the three western provinces which overwhelmingly supported ODM and its opposition candidate, Raila Odinga, and we believed things would turn ugly if he did not win.
An hour after the electoral commission announced Pres. Mwai Kibaki winner rioters burned down two small shops and a church across the street - apparently they were owned by PNU supporters. Police came the day afterwards and while the rest of Kenya burned Kakamega was filled with tense silence. Meanwhile the political situation continued to deteriorate and other parts of the country were still racked by violence. In Eldoret, my hometown, 30 people burned to death while seeking refuge in a church. Riots in Kisumu, Mombasa, Kisii, Migori, and Kibera all received international attention yet no intervention could bring the two sides to talk to each other.
We passed the time eating and playing cards and were always perfectly safe - even when we left the compound thugs and policemen both told us they had no problems with us, that we were guests. One soldier asked my friend to buy him a soda. After a couple days the police left, shops reopened, people cautiously resumed their lives. Because of the ongoing violence elsewhere and the political impasse in Nairobi however there was no question of us leaving; occasional gunshots did not bother us but we were afraid we would not return to our sites.
After ten days Peace Corps decided to temporarily shut down western Kenya and flew us to Dar es Salaam. They put us up in a hotel on the beach and tried to keep us busy while we waited for news. After about a week our director told us we would not be able to return immediately to Kenya, that we could try to transfer to another country or we could go home and wait for the country to clear up. As of this writing there are no plans to shut down the country altogether but it will be some time before the three western provinces reopen.
Kibaki and Raila are still at odds; recently Raila's ODM party won Speaker of the House and tensions cooled somewhat. Both sides continue to spout rhetoric but there are signs the violence is beginning to subside and I believe the vast majority of Kenyans are embarrassed and exasperated by their leaders. My host family remains in their village outside Eldoret and wants me to return; I still haven't called them told them I won't be coming back. I'm trying to transfer into Tanzania, but if I don't find a spot there I'll return home and wait for Kenya to reopen or try for a position in another country.
kwa heri,
Joseph
1/27, Dar es Salaam
Mwakaribishwa, or "you're all welcome," is a line taken from a omnipresent Kenyan song, the first verse:
Jambo! Jambo Bwana!
Habari gani! Nzuri sana!
Wageni! Mwakaribishwa!
Kenya Yetu! Hakuna Matata!
Jambo! Jambo Bwana!
Habari gani! Nzuri sana!
Wageni! Mwakaribishwa!
Kenya Yetu! Hakuna Matata!
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