December 10, 2008

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.