"I'm at peace with the world. I'm completely serene. I've discovered my purpose in life. I know why I was put here and why everything exists...I am here so everybody can do what I want. Once everybody accepts it, they'll be serene too." That's Calvin and Hobbes, Joe's High School Yearbook quote.
My name is JP, and Joe Chow was my Friend.
After spending every day that summer together, Columbus Day weekend, my freshman year of college, was the first time we were all together in what seemed like ages. And Joe was grounded. And it was his birthday. Apparently it was part of the fallout of an incident Senior year involving Jag Sing's car and Joe's notoriously bad driving.
Regardless, we showed up at his house to wish him happy birthday, and when he came outside, Charlie Beale hit the gas while Ryan Ujazdowski, Tom Gaffney, and myself bodily picked Joe up, and threw him in the back seat. Tires squealing, Tom diving in the car as it sped off, Momma Chow staring in disbelief from the front door, me sitting on Joe's head, dousing him in beer. At least that is how I remember it. We had him call his mom and I broke it to her that her son would not be coming home that night. (find Donna) But she never liked me anyway.
Jimmy Stip introduced me to Joe our freshman year of High School as a buddy of his from the swim team. I quickly came to know Joe as a quiet, but funny kid who was much, much smarter than me.
I had the pleasure of doing Joe's first shot with him, on my back porch, that summer before College. I remember what it was, too- 151 mixed with some blue stuff. Daniel and Kyle had the pleasure of cleaning Joe's first shot off the bathroom floor later that same evening.
I could go in to the fact that I always considered Joe to be the smartest person I knew. I could go in to the fact that I was sure that he would be on the cutting edge of some scientific breakthrough that I could barely wrap my brain around, but I prefer to think of his field presence in pickup football- awkward, and his absurdly formulaic golf swing.
The fact that he joined the Peace Corps suprised me not at all. Some thing every one talks about, "oh yea, I'd love to go to Africa" Joe did. And he didn't just take. He saw Kilimanjaro, sure, but he was there to give of himself. And that doesn't surprise me.
I remember how he said my name and how he would laugh at ridiculous ideas with a snort, I remember how he would expand all the fingers on both his hands to stretch when he was getting bored or impatient.
I can't help but have a feeling of disillusionment with the world now. The kid I expected to either cure cancer or discover an alien civilization or maybe be President, whatever he felt like doing, is gone. Who's coattails am I going to ride? How are the rest of us supposed to go on when the best of us is gone?
We went on a trip to Appalachia in High School. We worked on houses and talked to the locals, and bonded with all the people who like, us, were down there to help. I knew Joe before this pretty well, and he was shy, by my standards anyway. But by the end of the week, well, it was like spring and the Joe tree had blossomed in my backyard. I have a picture of him from down there, still, somewhere, and it is how I think of him when someone says 'Joe Chow'. It's him, laying across a piano bench, cards in his hands. I fired it off on impulse, and he looked up just in time, smiled, and went right back to cards. Smiling, sitting strangely, invested in what he was doing, that was Joe for me. The strange sitting was of course just as important as the smiling.
People always try to spin this perfectly circular existence to the experience of life. People talk about death as the completion of a circle, but I'm sorry if I can't do that. A big god damn hole has been ripped in the fabric of my existence. Joe's life didn't end in some perfectly circular manner. He was headed forward, upward. His life was on the rise, his impact in the world was really just starting to be felt. Felt by his parents, who saw all their hard work coming to fruition, and it was in service to others, in teaching, of which there is no better calling. Felt by his students, who were getting a taste of his potential impact on the world, seeing the intelligent human being in front of them and grasping at every bit of information he could think to provide, to give them a fair shake. Felt by his brothers, a unit. A triangle is the strongest structure in nature, and three legs are the most balanced. They were hitting their stride, falling into unison, without losing the playful pettiness that makes siblings love each other so much. And felt by me, I mean, all I ever wanted was a few good drinking buddies. My standards for who I will share a beer with are quite high. Joe fit all of these standards, funny, smarter than me, wrote the answers on his math tests really big, fun- loving, shorter than me, can talk about movies (particularly shitty ones) to no end, but now he's gone. And so it seems we're all one short.
One of the last times I saw Joe, he was home for about a week or so, and we wanted to meet up, and on top of that, he hadn't had a good sandwich in months, so he picked me up and we went down to Arthur Ave in the Bronx, by Fordham Prep. We ordered sandwiches at the deli, and he got a provolone-loaded specialty sandwich while I went with my usual, ham and swiss with Mayo. Well, the ENTIRE lunch, he gave me shit. "We're on Arthur Avenue," He'd said, "You can get ham and swiss anywhere. This is the best Italian meats and cheese on the planet, and you're eating ham and swiss." He shook his head at me as I came back with the point that you could probably get better Italian meats and cheeses in Italy.
Little did I know that the kid that had taught me enough to pass Physics, Pre-Calc, AP Gov, and AP Physics by the skin of my teeth was passing one last lesson on to me. Take the opourtunities you are presented with. He sure did.
Sorry, but I can't provide closure here. I just don't know how I possibly could. I will instead say that there are a lot of people who have a giant, gaping hole ripped in their respective realities, a hole that nothing here on earth can patch. You are not alone in your pain, and it sucks.
Ok, end with a quote. This is straight from Joe himself. "JP, you're an idiot."
Calvin: I think we dream so we don't have to be apart so long. If we're in each other's dreams, we can play together all night.
Seriously though, See ya pal.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Friday, November 27, 2009
A Drinkup For Joe
A Drinkup For Joe
Type:
Party - Night of Mayhem
Network:
Global
Start Time:
Friday, November 27, 2009 at 10:00pm
End Time:
Saturday, November 28, 2009 at 1:00am
Location:
MJ Armstrong's
Street:
1st and 19th St
City/Town:
Manhattan, NY
View Map
Google
MapQuest
Microsoft
Yahoo
Description
We're going to have a party the friday after Thanksgiving, since a lot of people will be home. Everyone and everyone everyone knows is invited, particularly if you knew Joe or ever met him. The bar is giving us a great deal so that we can use the event to raise some money for the Joseph Lawrence Chow Memorial Scholarship. The details are:
Friday, the 27th of November
MJ Armstrong's Bar and Restaurant (Downstairs)
$40 open bar (beer, wine, and mixed well drinks)
from 10pm to 1am.
There will also be some light appetizers.
So call or bring anyone, and hopefully we'll see you there.
If you can't make it but still want to donate, you can mail checks to:
315 Westchester Ave
Yonkers, NY 10707
Make the checks out to Joseph Lawrence Chow Memorial Scholarship
Thanks everybody.
Type:
Party - Night of Mayhem
Network:
Global
Start Time:
Friday, November 27, 2009 at 10:00pm
End Time:
Saturday, November 28, 2009 at 1:00am
Location:
MJ Armstrong's
Street:
1st and 19th St
City/Town:
Manhattan, NY
View Map
MapQuest
Microsoft
Yahoo
Description
We're going to have a party the friday after Thanksgiving, since a lot of people will be home. Everyone and everyone everyone knows is invited, particularly if you knew Joe or ever met him. The bar is giving us a great deal so that we can use the event to raise some money for the Joseph Lawrence Chow Memorial Scholarship. The details are:
Friday, the 27th of November
MJ Armstrong's Bar and Restaurant (Downstairs)
$40 open bar (beer, wine, and mixed well drinks)
from 10pm to 1am.
There will also be some light appetizers.
So call or bring anyone, and hopefully we'll see you there.
If you can't make it but still want to donate, you can mail checks to:
315 Westchester Ave
Yonkers, NY 10707
Make the checks out to Joseph Lawrence Chow Memorial Scholarship
Thanks everybody.
A Drinkup For Joe
A Drinkup For Joe
Type:
Party - Night of Mayhem
Network:
Global
Start Time:
Friday, November 27, 2009 at 10:00pm
End Time:
Saturday, November 28, 2009 at 1:00am
Location:
MJ Armstrong's
Street:
1st and 19th St
City/Town:
Manhattan, NY
View Map
Google
MapQuest
Microsoft
Yahoo
Description
We're going to have a party the friday after Thanksgiving, since a lot of people will be home. Everyone and everyone everyone knows is invited, particularly if you knew Joe or ever met him. The bar is giving us a great deal so that we can use the event to raise some money for the Joseph Lawrence Chow Memorial Scholarship. The details are:
Friday, the 27th of November
MJ Armstrong's Bar and Restaurant (Downstairs)
$40 open bar (beer, wine, and mixed well drinks)
from 10pm to 1am.
There will also be some light appetizers.
So call or bring anyone, and hopefully we'll see you there.
If you can't make it but still want to donate, you can mail checks to:
315 Westchester Ave
Yonkers, NY 10707
Make the checks out to Joseph Lawrence Chow Memorial Scholarship
Thanks everybody.
Type:
Party - Night of Mayhem
Network:
Global
Start Time:
Friday, November 27, 2009 at 10:00pm
End Time:
Saturday, November 28, 2009 at 1:00am
Location:
MJ Armstrong's
Street:
1st and 19th St
City/Town:
Manhattan, NY
View Map
MapQuest
Microsoft
Yahoo
Description
We're going to have a party the friday after Thanksgiving, since a lot of people will be home. Everyone and everyone everyone knows is invited, particularly if you knew Joe or ever met him. The bar is giving us a great deal so that we can use the event to raise some money for the Joseph Lawrence Chow Memorial Scholarship. The details are:
Friday, the 27th of November
MJ Armstrong's Bar and Restaurant (Downstairs)
$40 open bar (beer, wine, and mixed well drinks)
from 10pm to 1am.
There will also be some light appetizers.
So call or bring anyone, and hopefully we'll see you there.
If you can't make it but still want to donate, you can mail checks to:
315 Westchester Ave
Yonkers, NY 10707
Make the checks out to Joseph Lawrence Chow Memorial Scholarship
Thanks everybody.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Joseph's Resume - we had just finished it
Experience
Peace Corps Tanzania/Kenya (2007-2009)
Math and Science Teacher
• Taught college-level Physics, Chemistry, and Mathematics courses in an underfunded magnet school. As the only Physics or Math teacher in Ndanda, my formal duties included
o Teaching over 30 class-hours per week.
o Responsibility for over 500 pupils at any given time.
o Writing and marking the mock physics and chemistry examinations for two entire regions.
o Conducting weekly experiments and tests for all physics, chemistry and math students.
o Preparing and administering daily practicals during school breaks.
o Assuming responsibility for all materials and textbooks in the math and physics departments.
• As head of the science department, oversaw a 4% rise in the school’s pass rate and received a government citation.
• Served as faculty advisor to the school’s FEMA branch, a national organization dedicated to fighting HIV/AIDS, promoting healthy lifestyles, and empowering youth. Activities included
o Organizing events, with about 100 participants from 5-7 secondary schools, designed to spread HIV/AIDS awareness. Specific duties involved applying for grants, arranging for lodging and meals, and coordinating with hospital workers and a local NGO.
o Organized weekly FEMA meetings. Activities included lessons, debates, and drama.
• Served as teacher of machines;:
o taught typing classes to interested faculty members on the only available computer.
o filled out all of the school’s electronic registration forms.
o typed the mock examinations in all subjects for two regions.
• Organized field trips to nearby sites, including a tour of a hospital laboratory and a geology walk.
• Integrated into two cultures by using community entry techniques and becoming proficient in Kiswahili.
New York Medical College, Valhalla, New York (2005, 2007)
Physiology Research Assistant
• Conducted experiments on pulmonary vasoconstriction and analyzed results.
• Publications:
a. “Protoporphyrin IX generation from d-aminolevulinic acid elicits pulmonary artery relaxation and soluble guanylate cyclase activation” Am J Physiol Lung Cell Mol Physiol 291: L337-L344, 2006
b. “Heme oxygenase-1 induction depletes heme and attenuates pulmonary artery relaxation and guanylate cyclase activation by nitric oxide” Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol 294: H1244–H1250, 2008
Anthony F. Veteran Pool, Greenburgh, New York (2001-2006)
Lifeguard/Swim Coach
• Organized practices and meets for a competitive swim team with over 100 children.
• Taught swim classes consisting of 8-20 children ages 5-12.
• Oversaw the team improve from fourth to first place over three years.
Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts (2004-2007)
Lifeguard
• Balanced a part time lifeguard job with classes and practices.
• Taught weekly swim lessons to children ages 4-13.
Education
Amherst College, Amherst, MA (2003-2007)
B.A., Double Major: Chemistry and History
• GPA: 3.53
Awards and Achievements______________________________________________________________
• GRE: 800 Math(94%), 710 Verbal(98%)
• MCAT: 32S (87%)
• 2003 Amherst College Harry de Forest Smith Classics Greek Scholar
Interests
Proficient classical pianist and pipe organist, languages (conversational in Swahili), marathon running, swimming (Varsity athlete), water polo, hiking, outdoors, reading.
Peace Corps Tanzania/Kenya (2007-2009)
Math and Science Teacher
• Taught college-level Physics, Chemistry, and Mathematics courses in an underfunded magnet school. As the only Physics or Math teacher in Ndanda, my formal duties included
o Teaching over 30 class-hours per week.
o Responsibility for over 500 pupils at any given time.
o Writing and marking the mock physics and chemistry examinations for two entire regions.
o Conducting weekly experiments and tests for all physics, chemistry and math students.
o Preparing and administering daily practicals during school breaks.
o Assuming responsibility for all materials and textbooks in the math and physics departments.
• As head of the science department, oversaw a 4% rise in the school’s pass rate and received a government citation.
• Served as faculty advisor to the school’s FEMA branch, a national organization dedicated to fighting HIV/AIDS, promoting healthy lifestyles, and empowering youth. Activities included
o Organizing events, with about 100 participants from 5-7 secondary schools, designed to spread HIV/AIDS awareness. Specific duties involved applying for grants, arranging for lodging and meals, and coordinating with hospital workers and a local NGO.
o Organized weekly FEMA meetings. Activities included lessons, debates, and drama.
• Served as teacher of machines;:
o taught typing classes to interested faculty members on the only available computer.
o filled out all of the school’s electronic registration forms.
o typed the mock examinations in all subjects for two regions.
• Organized field trips to nearby sites, including a tour of a hospital laboratory and a geology walk.
• Integrated into two cultures by using community entry techniques and becoming proficient in Kiswahili.
New York Medical College, Valhalla, New York (2005, 2007)
Physiology Research Assistant
• Conducted experiments on pulmonary vasoconstriction and analyzed results.
• Publications:
a. “Protoporphyrin IX generation from d-aminolevulinic acid elicits pulmonary artery relaxation and soluble guanylate cyclase activation” Am J Physiol Lung Cell Mol Physiol 291: L337-L344, 2006
b. “Heme oxygenase-1 induction depletes heme and attenuates pulmonary artery relaxation and guanylate cyclase activation by nitric oxide” Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol 294: H1244–H1250, 2008
Anthony F. Veteran Pool, Greenburgh, New York (2001-2006)
Lifeguard/Swim Coach
• Organized practices and meets for a competitive swim team with over 100 children.
• Taught swim classes consisting of 8-20 children ages 5-12.
• Oversaw the team improve from fourth to first place over three years.
Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts (2004-2007)
Lifeguard
• Balanced a part time lifeguard job with classes and practices.
• Taught weekly swim lessons to children ages 4-13.
Education
Amherst College, Amherst, MA (2003-2007)
B.A., Double Major: Chemistry and History
• GPA: 3.53
Awards and Achievements______________________________________________________________
• GRE: 800 Math(94%), 710 Verbal(98%)
• MCAT: 32S (87%)
• 2003 Amherst College Harry de Forest Smith Classics Greek Scholar
Interests
Proficient classical pianist and pipe organist, languages (conversational in Swahili), marathon running, swimming (Varsity athlete), water polo, hiking, outdoors, reading.
November 26, 2009
Today, I posted all of Joseph's journal entries onto his blog. He called the folder in his computer "blog", but I have no idea why he did not want those blogs posted, certainly nothing objectionable.
Reading the posts, I realize what an incredible two years Joseph had in the peace corp Tanzania. His death was due to a freak hiking accident, he just took the wrong trail, one that ended badly. It could have happened in the Hudson Highlands, but it didn't. In June when we went to visit, he had matured so much, and really had become a self confident young man.
This morning Ray, Kyle, Dan and I took our annual Thanksgiving Day hike up to the top of Anthony's Nose overlooking the Hudson and Bear Mountain Bridge. We have to give thanks that we had this wonderful human being for 23 years, and that he lived every moment of his life.
Reading the posts, I realize what an incredible two years Joseph had in the peace corp Tanzania. His death was due to a freak hiking accident, he just took the wrong trail, one that ended badly. It could have happened in the Hudson Highlands, but it didn't. In June when we went to visit, he had matured so much, and really had become a self confident young man.
This morning Ray, Kyle, Dan and I took our annual Thanksgiving Day hike up to the top of Anthony's Nose overlooking the Hudson and Bear Mountain Bridge. We have to give thanks that we had this wonderful human being for 23 years, and that he lived every moment of his life.
November 26, 2009
Peace Corps Mourns the Loss of Volunteer Joseph Chow
*
Contact
Press Office
*
Phone
202.692.2230
*
Fax
202.692.1379
*
Email
pressoffice@
peacecorps.gov
WASHINGTON, D.C., September 23, 2009
Peace Corps Volunteer Joseph ChowMagnifying glass iconPeace Corps Director Aaron S. Williams is saddened to announce the death of Peace Corps volunteer Joseph Chow in Tanzania. Joseph died in a rock climbing accident near the village of Mbuji in the Ruvuma region in the southern part of Tanzania.
"Joseph was active, creative and charming. He was always ready to lend a helping hand, to work and play, and to contribute to his community. His sudden passing is terribly painful for the entire Peace Corps family, including Joseph’s students, whose lives were changed by Joseph’s passion for teaching," said Director Williams. "Our thoughts go out to his family and friends around the world."
Joseph, 23, a native of Scarsdale, New York, had been serving as an education volunteer in the Ndanda Secondary School. He was scheduled to complete his Peace Corps service in November 2009.
After graduating from Amherst College in 2007, Joseph was invited to serve in Peace Corps/Kenya as a math and science teacher and arrived for his pre-service training in September 2007. He was sworn in as a volunteer in November and placed in the village of Ndalat to teach chemistry and physics at St. Clement Secondary School. Following the suspension of the Peace Corps/Kenya program in early 2008, Joseph volunteered to transfer to Tanzania to continue his service as an education volunteer. In February 2008, he began teaching college preparatory chemistry at Ndanda Secondary School in the Mtwara region of southern Tanzania.
Peace Corps Volunteer Joseph Chow teaching in TanzaniaMagnifying glass iconJoseph always put his students first. Although he was assigned to teach advanced chemistry as his only subject, Joseph recognized his students’ desire to study math and physics. Because few teachers taught those subjects, Joseph added advanced physics and math to his teaching schedule.
Raising HIV/AIDS awareness was another project that benefited from Joseph’s work ethic and commitment to his community. Joseph started an after-school health club with his students, organized community HIV testing and counseling, and developed both a 5 km race and a community theater program that raised HIV/AIDS awareness in his area. The events were successful and brought more than 400 students from several regional schools together.
In his 2007 Peace Corps aspiration statement, Joseph wrote that one of the reasons he decided to serve with Peace Corps was because he had never spent a long period of time in a different culture. He hoped to meet the challenges of teaching in a classroom in Africa and understood that the work he faced would be much more difficult than any work he had previously accomplished.
Joseph not only adapted to his new surroundings, he flourished.
Currently, there are 136 Peace Corps volunteers and 40 education trainees in Tanzania. The first group of volunteers arrived in Tanzania in 1962. More than 1,200 volunteers have worked in Tanzania in a variety of projects focused on health, the environment, and education.
*
Contact
Press Office
*
Phone
202.692.2230
*
Fax
202.692.1379
*
pressoffice@
peacecorps.gov
WASHINGTON, D.C., September 23, 2009
Peace Corps Volunteer Joseph ChowMagnifying glass iconPeace Corps Director Aaron S. Williams is saddened to announce the death of Peace Corps volunteer Joseph Chow in Tanzania. Joseph died in a rock climbing accident near the village of Mbuji in the Ruvuma region in the southern part of Tanzania.
"Joseph was active, creative and charming. He was always ready to lend a helping hand, to work and play, and to contribute to his community. His sudden passing is terribly painful for the entire Peace Corps family, including Joseph’s students, whose lives were changed by Joseph’s passion for teaching," said Director Williams. "Our thoughts go out to his family and friends around the world."
Joseph, 23, a native of Scarsdale, New York, had been serving as an education volunteer in the Ndanda Secondary School. He was scheduled to complete his Peace Corps service in November 2009.
After graduating from Amherst College in 2007, Joseph was invited to serve in Peace Corps/Kenya as a math and science teacher and arrived for his pre-service training in September 2007. He was sworn in as a volunteer in November and placed in the village of Ndalat to teach chemistry and physics at St. Clement Secondary School. Following the suspension of the Peace Corps/Kenya program in early 2008, Joseph volunteered to transfer to Tanzania to continue his service as an education volunteer. In February 2008, he began teaching college preparatory chemistry at Ndanda Secondary School in the Mtwara region of southern Tanzania.
Peace Corps Volunteer Joseph Chow teaching in TanzaniaMagnifying glass iconJoseph always put his students first. Although he was assigned to teach advanced chemistry as his only subject, Joseph recognized his students’ desire to study math and physics. Because few teachers taught those subjects, Joseph added advanced physics and math to his teaching schedule.
Raising HIV/AIDS awareness was another project that benefited from Joseph’s work ethic and commitment to his community. Joseph started an after-school health club with his students, organized community HIV testing and counseling, and developed both a 5 km race and a community theater program that raised HIV/AIDS awareness in his area. The events were successful and brought more than 400 students from several regional schools together.
In his 2007 Peace Corps aspiration statement, Joseph wrote that one of the reasons he decided to serve with Peace Corps was because he had never spent a long period of time in a different culture. He hoped to meet the challenges of teaching in a classroom in Africa and understood that the work he faced would be much more difficult than any work he had previously accomplished.
Joseph not only adapted to his new surroundings, he flourished.
Currently, there are 136 Peace Corps volunteers and 40 education trainees in Tanzania. The first group of volunteers arrived in Tanzania in 1962. More than 1,200 volunteers have worked in Tanzania in a variety of projects focused on health, the environment, and education.
August 8, 2009
We began staying with RPCVs in Dar es Salaam, and I spent the last few days with the head of malaria and TB and USAID. He had good stories from his volunteer days, mostly about collecting all sorts of rare artifacts and smuggling them out of Bolivia. His daughter works for the world wildlife fund on a short term contract.
Yesterday I went to the FEMA club office, and was given a lot of materials.
This morning I wanted to leave Dar es Salaam. But we couldn’t find a taxi early in the morning and we missed the bus by five minutes or so. I called someone who works for the company, and he told me to meet the bus in Temeke; so I chartered a taxi to temeke, but when we got there the bus was gone. Then they wanted to go to the next stop and the taxi driver wanted another thirty thousand schillings; I told him I only had three. We got to the stop and the bus was already gone, so I had to get more money from an ATM; the taxi driver is unhappy with his compensation but what I gave him – 23000 total – is more than fair. Anyway I’m stuck in Dar for another day, and am staying in a hotel with bev and steve.
Yesterday I went to the FEMA club office, and was given a lot of materials.
This morning I wanted to leave Dar es Salaam. But we couldn’t find a taxi early in the morning and we missed the bus by five minutes or so. I called someone who works for the company, and he told me to meet the bus in Temeke; so I chartered a taxi to temeke, but when we got there the bus was gone. Then they wanted to go to the next stop and the taxi driver wanted another thirty thousand schillings; I told him I only had three. We got to the stop and the bus was already gone, so I had to get more money from an ATM; the taxi driver is unhappy with his compensation but what I gave him – 23000 total – is more than fair. Anyway I’m stuck in Dar for another day, and am staying in a hotel with bev and steve.
August 2, 2009
My final peace corps conference, a seminar about our close of service. We talk about wrapping up our Peace Corps service and returning to life back in the states. I know, because I already went through a similar conference when I first transferred to Tanzania; but when I did it then I was pretty sure I was going to remain in Africa and the conference felt somewhat irrelevant. The trip up here was uneventful, and our bus even had seatbelts(!) but I’m thankful I’m only making this trip once or twice more before I return home. Met several other volunteers for dinner yesterday.
I spent most of the bus ride, and most of the last few days, steaming about falling attendance in some of my classes. The real kicker was that the same students go to class if a Tanzanian happens to be teaching, and now that we have a practice math teacher from university I have seen students who I thought had transferred months ago. In physics class not more than 10 students arrived any day this week. Once I arrived in Dar I wrote an open letter to the physics students outlining a new policy, and threatening to screw with the test scores of any student who fails to report to every class between now and the end of term.
I spent most of the bus ride, and most of the last few days, steaming about falling attendance in some of my classes. The real kicker was that the same students go to class if a Tanzanian happens to be teaching, and now that we have a practice math teacher from university I have seen students who I thought had transferred months ago. In physics class not more than 10 students arrived any day this week. Once I arrived in Dar I wrote an open letter to the physics students outlining a new policy, and threatening to screw with the test scores of any student who fails to report to every class between now and the end of term.
July 28, 2009
Last Saturday my kids threw another HIV/AIDS concert, this time only for the school. They planned this one almost entirely on their own; in fact they only part I had anything to do with, a short film screening followed by a short discussion, failed when the electricity grid was down (it was down for the entire weekend) and two other portable generators failed on me.
Because of these problems with the generator, the performance started late. First my students had organized a sort of question-and-answer debate about whether single sex schools contributed to a rise in HIV rates. Next they put on a skit about, with boys wrapped on kangas acting as girls. Next came some music, where one student rapped – without any backup or electrical equipment – about the danger of HIV. Next two more students put on a song, sexual, for some relief – then another skit, about why sex education was important. Two students, whose parents resisted sex education for cultural or religious reasons, ended up pregnant and infected with AIDS. Finally they put on another debate about school strikes, and had a short game to explain what FEMA was all about.
After the concert I had dinner with a bunch of the expats who work in the hospital – I told war stories, they told stories about the other faraway countries they had worked in, and we ate a lot of good food. It took me a long time to try to get close to theses other volunteers, and I mostly resisted for ideological reasons; this is Peace Corps, where I should hang out with the locals. I wish now I had tried to spend more time with them from the beginning.
Because of these problems with the generator, the performance started late. First my students had organized a sort of question-and-answer debate about whether single sex schools contributed to a rise in HIV rates. Next they put on a skit about, with boys wrapped on kangas acting as girls. Next came some music, where one student rapped – without any backup or electrical equipment – about the danger of HIV. Next two more students put on a song, sexual, for some relief – then another skit, about why sex education was important. Two students, whose parents resisted sex education for cultural or religious reasons, ended up pregnant and infected with AIDS. Finally they put on another debate about school strikes, and had a short game to explain what FEMA was all about.
After the concert I had dinner with a bunch of the expats who work in the hospital – I told war stories, they told stories about the other faraway countries they had worked in, and we ate a lot of good food. It took me a long time to try to get close to theses other volunteers, and I mostly resisted for ideological reasons; this is Peace Corps, where I should hang out with the locals. I wish now I had tried to spend more time with them from the beginning.
July 10, 2009
When my parents came they were depressed by the lack of decorations in my house and bought some vitenge, brightly-colored sheets, to hang up around my walls. Vitenge have short sayings on the bottom, which are meant to send messages, maybe like sports clothing in America. Unlike sports clothing vitenge are sometimes used to communicate directly with somebody; for example a woman whose husband drinks too much maybe would not confront the man directly but would wear a sheet saying “alcohol is unclean” or something.
So my parents bought some vitenge, choosing them by the colors. I had no idea what the Swahili expressions mean and didn’t even think about them when I bought them. Two students came to my house Wednesday night. One says “I’m behaving out of goodness, you out of vanity.” The other says “I regret I ever knew you.”
So my parents bought some vitenge, choosing them by the colors. I had no idea what the Swahili expressions mean and didn’t even think about them when I bought them. Two students came to my house Wednesday night. One says “I’m behaving out of goodness, you out of vanity.” The other says “I regret I ever knew you.”
July 7, 2009 - Saba Saba (7-7) Day
Churches have a huge amount of influence in Africa. Ndanda is like a 13th century mission, where the Abbey supplies all social services and acts as the only functioning government; for example the abbey bottles and sells its water, Ndanda Springs, and advertises that it is under church control.
This can lead to some awkward conversations. Moses, chairman of our health club, is also involved with the respect life organization and came to show me some papers fighting abortion, gay rights, condom use, and euthanasia. Apparently a (german) nun, sister Bridgette I think, had given a speech last year attacking all these issues – which is fine, but she grossly misrepresented most of them. I spent about an hour with Moses, trying to show him the other side of the issues, and since then a few other students have come to me with questions.
Along with the aid organizations and social services, the west also exports its problems, or at least skewers emphasis on local issues. No honest observer, either pro-choice or pro-life, can argue that abortion is one of Tanzania’s pressing issues. The government is corrupt or nonfunctioning, the schools and health systems are in tatters, transportation is a mess, some 10% of the population has HIV, and the majority of the population lives on less than 1$ a day. Set against all of these things, some of our problems fade into the background, and this is the first time I’ve heard an African mention abortion. Western ideologues come with money or information and try to spread opinions that have little relevance to local problems.
This can lead to some awkward conversations. Moses, chairman of our health club, is also involved with the respect life organization and came to show me some papers fighting abortion, gay rights, condom use, and euthanasia. Apparently a (german) nun, sister Bridgette I think, had given a speech last year attacking all these issues – which is fine, but she grossly misrepresented most of them. I spent about an hour with Moses, trying to show him the other side of the issues, and since then a few other students have come to me with questions.
Along with the aid organizations and social services, the west also exports its problems, or at least skewers emphasis on local issues. No honest observer, either pro-choice or pro-life, can argue that abortion is one of Tanzania’s pressing issues. The government is corrupt or nonfunctioning, the schools and health systems are in tatters, transportation is a mess, some 10% of the population has HIV, and the majority of the population lives on less than 1$ a day. Set against all of these things, some of our problems fade into the background, and this is the first time I’ve heard an African mention abortion. Western ideologues come with money or information and try to spread opinions that have little relevance to local problems.
July 4, 2009
Yuko Otake is a JICA nurse who works in the closet town, Masasi; I had trouble remembering what her name was at first until she told me it meant “tall bamboo pole.” But after Erina left I got in touch with as many of her friends as I could, and ended up with her number; we ate lunch together today.
And what a lunch it was. As a program, JICA’s biggest weakness is lack of language, and Yuko knows neither English or Kiswahili. If I didn’t know this beforehand I figured out over our phone messages, when we couldn’t figure out what time to meet – I tried some Japanese but that only made her more confused. When I arrived we walked around buying flour and juice, when I found out we were going to eat lunch with a bunch of her friends at a (Japanese) civil engineer’s house. None of them know English or Swahili that well either but Yuko’s was worse, she couldn’t translate conversations for me. At one point, after not understanding their conversation for some two hours, the host asked my age. I’m at least three years younger than everyone else in the room. The meal ended when I had to run off to catch the last bus and had to ride standing and crammed between some thirty other passengers.
And what a lunch it was. As a program, JICA’s biggest weakness is lack of language, and Yuko knows neither English or Kiswahili. If I didn’t know this beforehand I figured out over our phone messages, when we couldn’t figure out what time to meet – I tried some Japanese but that only made her more confused. When I arrived we walked around buying flour and juice, when I found out we were going to eat lunch with a bunch of her friends at a (Japanese) civil engineer’s house. None of them know English or Swahili that well either but Yuko’s was worse, she couldn’t translate conversations for me. At one point, after not understanding their conversation for some two hours, the host asked my age. I’m at least three years younger than everyone else in the room. The meal ended when I had to run off to catch the last bus and had to ride standing and crammed between some thirty other passengers.
June 2, 2009
Last Saturday Erina put on an exhibition about Hiroshima and Nagasaki with a bunch of her JICA friends. The head JICA office keeps a lot of posters and materials for this sort of thing, and also materials like origami paper and little Japanese toys to teach about Japanese culture – two of Erina’s friends wore traditional dresses (kimonos?).
Her exhibition was packed – even in a pretty big hall we couldn’t fit all the students at one time and had them come in shifts. One Tanzanian student, Moses, who was helping us, had to hold on to the door with both hands to keep a huge mass of students from pressing inwards.
Her exhibition was packed – even in a pretty big hall we couldn’t fit all the students at one time and had them come in shifts. One Tanzanian student, Moses, who was helping us, had to hold on to the door with both hands to keep a huge mass of students from pressing inwards.
March 20, 2009
Msangeni – Arrived a few hours ago for Martha’s murder mystery birthday party.
Stayed at Dylan’s apartment with him and Max on Saturday night, then took a fast ferry back the next morning. I met a Canadian couple, friends of Dylan, at a bar in Z-bar and got to hear about their trip to Mafia island – they got to snorkel with whale sharks. I spent the next couple days in Dar es Salaam and got to meet lots of wide-eyed college kids studying development or doing little projects in the surrounding area. I also rode back on the ferry with a British girl who spent three months volunteering in a school in Moshi – she had to pay – and then went on a vacation. Peace Corps volunteers can be snotty about tourists and other aid workers who don’t go through the same training and hardships that we do, and I’m no exception. This is not a fair opinion though; volunteering is a luxury and most people aren’t able to take twenty seven months to do the sort of things that we do. Volunteering is more about developing oneself rather than serving others, and this is especially true of PCVs. That said, almost all short-term projects I hear of are quite inane.
I took the GREs on Monday at the University of Dar es Salaam. The University campus is quite nice, reminiscent of campuses everywhere with modern architecture, attractive students and plenty of cars. I arrived two hours early but the starting time was entirely flexible; I took the test in a tiny room with two computers, and I was the only student present at the time. Scores came up immediately after the exam, 800 on the math section and scored 710 on the verbal.
Tuesday I stopped by the Peace Corps office with the intention of talking with James, one of my bosses who taught A-level before he was hired with us. James was sick and my visit was basically wasted; I had to rush to the bus station and was ripped off buying a ticket to Lushoto. I lost my temper buying the tickets and flipped out at the bus office – the guy who sold me the ticket took off, but if I had found him I very well might have struck him. My bus didn’t leave until 2:30, I arrived in Lushoto (actually Nyasa, small stop outside of town) at 8:30 and had to walk 5 km in the dark to Randee and John’s site.
Randee and John are professional teachers very close to retirement age. They are planning on working when they go back home, but only for a year or two and Peace Corps timing doesn’t really seem to make sense for them. Their experience comes in handy – Randee’s students have improved dramatically since she showed up, and she has a ton of pointers for the rest of us kids. They were placed in a beautiful house near a functioning private school.
I visited Lushoto because of its reputation as one of the nicest places in the country. The weather is cool but never cold, the area gets plenty of rain, and almost anything can grow on the hill slopes or broad valleys. The ground animals have been crowded out by all the people, but a lot of birds still live in the area and I saw more bats than at any other outdoor site. Lushoto is incredibly beautiful, like a huge garden.
Stayed at Dylan’s apartment with him and Max on Saturday night, then took a fast ferry back the next morning. I met a Canadian couple, friends of Dylan, at a bar in Z-bar and got to hear about their trip to Mafia island – they got to snorkel with whale sharks. I spent the next couple days in Dar es Salaam and got to meet lots of wide-eyed college kids studying development or doing little projects in the surrounding area. I also rode back on the ferry with a British girl who spent three months volunteering in a school in Moshi – she had to pay – and then went on a vacation. Peace Corps volunteers can be snotty about tourists and other aid workers who don’t go through the same training and hardships that we do, and I’m no exception. This is not a fair opinion though; volunteering is a luxury and most people aren’t able to take twenty seven months to do the sort of things that we do. Volunteering is more about developing oneself rather than serving others, and this is especially true of PCVs. That said, almost all short-term projects I hear of are quite inane.
I took the GREs on Monday at the University of Dar es Salaam. The University campus is quite nice, reminiscent of campuses everywhere with modern architecture, attractive students and plenty of cars. I arrived two hours early but the starting time was entirely flexible; I took the test in a tiny room with two computers, and I was the only student present at the time. Scores came up immediately after the exam, 800 on the math section and scored 710 on the verbal.
Tuesday I stopped by the Peace Corps office with the intention of talking with James, one of my bosses who taught A-level before he was hired with us. James was sick and my visit was basically wasted; I had to rush to the bus station and was ripped off buying a ticket to Lushoto. I lost my temper buying the tickets and flipped out at the bus office – the guy who sold me the ticket took off, but if I had found him I very well might have struck him. My bus didn’t leave until 2:30, I arrived in Lushoto (actually Nyasa, small stop outside of town) at 8:30 and had to walk 5 km in the dark to Randee and John’s site.
Randee and John are professional teachers very close to retirement age. They are planning on working when they go back home, but only for a year or two and Peace Corps timing doesn’t really seem to make sense for them. Their experience comes in handy – Randee’s students have improved dramatically since she showed up, and she has a ton of pointers for the rest of us kids. They were placed in a beautiful house near a functioning private school.
I visited Lushoto because of its reputation as one of the nicest places in the country. The weather is cool but never cold, the area gets plenty of rain, and almost anything can grow on the hill slopes or broad valleys. The ground animals have been crowded out by all the people, but a lot of birds still live in the area and I saw more bats than at any other outdoor site. Lushoto is incredibly beautiful, like a huge garden.
March 14, 2009
Unguja: I just took the ferry back from Pemba today. I was staying with J. Michael Trichter, a ed volunteer who extended for another year and wants to extend again for another five months; he fell in love with Pemba and his site and my guess is he has changed a lot since he arrived. I had never met him before I showed up at the island, but he had sent out a blanket email inviting all volunteers to come visit him. I’m very glad I did to, Pemba is beautiful. He lives in the port town, Mikoani, but I also went to Chake, the biggest town on the island. The feeling is that of a country that was once more developed but has fallen into decay; the island is very hot and wet, there are old apartment buildings originally constructed by the communists as well as decaying stone roads and pathways. His school has a really nice computer lab, complete with internet; it is as good as most American labs, but power is very unreliable so his hours are somewhat restricted. Yesterday I went to Misali, an island national park. Misali is an hour and fifteen minute boat ride from Mkoani, and has gorgeous coral and fishes; I didn’t see anything really big but the reefs were worth it. The food was delicious, a lot of octopus and squid along with excellent breads and lots of coconut rice.
I’m in stone town, in Unguja (main island of Zanzibar) now. It is something like Europe, with lots of narrow stone alleyways and a ton of white people; Dylan says we don’t greet each other because tourists want to think they are in a very exotic location. His site is nice also; we went spear fishing – octopus hunting with some of his neighbors the day before I left for Pemba. I also went biking around his site. I made it to Zanzibar’s national forest, walked around a mangrove swamp, saw a sea turtle rehabilitation program, and stood next to a Zanzibari Colobus monkey. Back to Dar es Salaam tomorrow! I hope to return to the islands before I leave. I
I’m in stone town, in Unguja (main island of Zanzibar) now. It is something like Europe, with lots of narrow stone alleyways and a ton of white people; Dylan says we don’t greet each other because tourists want to think they are in a very exotic location. His site is nice also; we went spear fishing – octopus hunting with some of his neighbors the day before I left for Pemba. I also went biking around his site. I made it to Zanzibar’s national forest, walked around a mangrove swamp, saw a sea turtle rehabilitation program, and stood next to a Zanzibari Colobus monkey. Back to Dar es Salaam tomorrow! I hope to return to the islands before I leave. I
March 7, 2009
Dar es Salaam – left Monduli this morning. I was able to take some short walks around Kate’s site but I didn’t get to do a 10 hour monster hike like I had planned; nevertheless the last few days went well. Kate is very interesting; she is older than the rest of us volunteers but she is also a child of the sixties, who has traveled all around the world. As mentioned her house is on a mountain; civilization recedes a kilometer or so uphill and eventually the land blends into Kilimanjaro’s protected area. The land is rich, with plenty of water, and heavily forested. The Germans introduced some coniferous trees and also (I think) Eucalyptus. Monduli and the surrounding area also gets a lot of precipitation and the environment does not feel Tanzanian. Yesterday Kate didn’t have work, so we hiked together to the market area and went to see the waterfalls, a tourist attraction.
Today I rode back to Dar and am staying in a cheap, crappy guesti. I finished Deception Point by Dan Brown all on the bus ride. It was stupid
Today I rode back to Dar and am staying in a cheap, crappy guesti. I finished Deception Point by Dan Brown all on the bus ride. It was stupid
March 5, 2009
Mboni – At Kate Yusi’s site right now. Her house is on a hill near Marangu, which happens to be the gate to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro; the people here (Chagga) grow lots of bananas, and the area is mountainous – her site is also relatively cold. Kate is an older volunteer, who had figured out a retirement plan before she left but whose stocks were hit badly in the credit crisis, so she’s not quite sure what’s going to happen after Peace Corps.
Spent yesterday in with Jacob and Kit. Jacob has a nice house, self-contained and walled off, on a cul de sac next to the teacher’s college he works at. The teaching colleges in this country are very poorly run - in a given year there may only be four or five months of classes, and the students are the ones who failed out of secondary schools. Kit finished Peace Corps last year and moved in with Jacob, and now works at a new foreign-run secondary school 9 km from Jacob’s house. She walks back and forth every day, followed by her students and primary school kids. I didn’t catch the name of her school but I got the impression it won’t be around for very long. The head of school and three of four teachers are foreigners, and none of them are paid anything at all so I can’t see this school continuing to attract foreign talent. This is the school’s first year, so there is only one form; I don’t think they’ll be able to handle another grade of students unless they expand rapidly. So far it has been successful though; her students are form ones and all know English exceptionally well.
Their house is in Edward Lowassa’s home district – Lowassa was a very corrupt Prime Minister who was paid off to resign last February, after a big scandal (Richmond) broke out. He peppered his home district with cash and development, so while he left Dar es Salaam in disgrace his people threw a huge welcome party for him. Their village feels something like rural Bulgaria, with tree-lined roads and brick buildings.
Last Sunday I ran the Kilimanjaro marathon. A bunch of volunteers came up to do it; Jacob, Leiha and I ran the whole thing (Tom walked). I was told after the fact that the course was difficult, one of the harder marathons out there. The first half was hilly but manageable, and I think I finished it in an hour and forty five minutes. The third quarter of the race was a long, 10 km uphill climb that killed my legs – I was going to crash anyway – and the whole thing took 4:21, which I’m told is a good time for a first marathon like this. I don’t know if I’ll continue to do lots of these, I think it may be too hard on my joints. Jacob ran barefoot but the asphalt was rough and ate up his feet; he had to buy sandals on the last quarter.
Spent yesterday in with Jacob and Kit. Jacob has a nice house, self-contained and walled off, on a cul de sac next to the teacher’s college he works at. The teaching colleges in this country are very poorly run - in a given year there may only be four or five months of classes, and the students are the ones who failed out of secondary schools. Kit finished Peace Corps last year and moved in with Jacob, and now works at a new foreign-run secondary school 9 km from Jacob’s house. She walks back and forth every day, followed by her students and primary school kids. I didn’t catch the name of her school but I got the impression it won’t be around for very long. The head of school and three of four teachers are foreigners, and none of them are paid anything at all so I can’t see this school continuing to attract foreign talent. This is the school’s first year, so there is only one form; I don’t think they’ll be able to handle another grade of students unless they expand rapidly. So far it has been successful though; her students are form ones and all know English exceptionally well.
Their house is in Edward Lowassa’s home district – Lowassa was a very corrupt Prime Minister who was paid off to resign last February, after a big scandal (Richmond) broke out. He peppered his home district with cash and development, so while he left Dar es Salaam in disgrace his people threw a huge welcome party for him. Their village feels something like rural Bulgaria, with tree-lined roads and brick buildings.
Last Sunday I ran the Kilimanjaro marathon. A bunch of volunteers came up to do it; Jacob, Leiha and I ran the whole thing (Tom walked). I was told after the fact that the course was difficult, one of the harder marathons out there. The first half was hilly but manageable, and I think I finished it in an hour and forty five minutes. The third quarter of the race was a long, 10 km uphill climb that killed my legs – I was going to crash anyway – and the whole thing took 4:21, which I’m told is a good time for a first marathon like this. I don’t know if I’ll continue to do lots of these, I think it may be too hard on my joints. Jacob ran barefoot but the asphalt was rough and ate up his feet; he had to buy sandals on the last quarter.
March 2, 2009
Endamarariek – Endamarariek is about an hour drive outside of Karatu, a town two hours away from Arusha in Tanzania’s section of the Rift Valley. I’m currently in Florian Secondary School visiting Kristen, a volunteer who I only met once. Karatu is very much like Eldoret; it has wide, unforested plains interspersed with occasional hills. The ground is all red dirt, which makes good building material; on the trip here I saw numerous brick firing ovens. It is also the town closest to Ngorongoro crater and so attracts a few tourists; we passed through another national park on the way over here, and I saw a baboon run across the road, dodging our car.
The plan is to stay here tomorrow and hike around the surrounding area. Wednesday I’m going back towards Moshi and hope to arrive at Kate Yusi’s site sometime in the afternoon; I’ll hike there again Thursday, then head to Dar es Salaam on Friday and try to get to Zanzibar by Saturday afternoon. Will stay in Zanzibar until maybe next Monday, then I’ll head out to Pemba and stay there for a few days. Eventually I’ll make it back to Zanzibar and then hope to get a night ferry on either Saturday or Sunday. The GRE is Monday afternoon. After I take the test nothing is quite clear but I’ll probably go back towards Moshi for Martha’s murder mystery birthday party the next Saturday and will pass the time in between in Tanga and Lushoto
The plan is to stay here tomorrow and hike around the surrounding area. Wednesday I’m going back towards Moshi and hope to arrive at Kate Yusi’s site sometime in the afternoon; I’ll hike there again Thursday, then head to Dar es Salaam on Friday and try to get to Zanzibar by Saturday afternoon. Will stay in Zanzibar until maybe next Monday, then I’ll head out to Pemba and stay there for a few days. Eventually I’ll make it back to Zanzibar and then hope to get a night ferry on either Saturday or Sunday. The GRE is Monday afternoon. After I take the test nothing is quite clear but I’ll probably go back towards Moshi for Martha’s murder mystery birthday party the next Saturday and will pass the time in between in Tanga and Lushoto
January 19, 2009
If time is the coin of our lives, being a Peace Corps Volunteer is like being given a two year blank-check. Iana, my investment banker ex, once told me she wouldn’t watch a movie a twice because she didn’t have the time; my life here is about finding ways to kill time (like blogging). Any whim which has the vaguest sense of organization is dubbed a “secondary project;” some of these are ludicrous, like feng shui classes on the beach in the Caribbean. Others are quite impressive indeed; I met one volunteer, an engineer placed in a town with dire water problems, who has taught her village how to calculate the amount of water flowing off roofs and how to control it and any other runoff once it gets to the ground. I’ve tried sponsoring projects in the last year, all with my students, but they were all buried by lack of interest and competing responsibilities.
At a meeting last week in Dar es Salaam I met a lot of other teachers and heard about their lives. All their stories made me feel sufficiently guilty to try helping out again, to become a “super volunteer,” and to start a health club with my students.
At a meeting last week in Dar es Salaam I met a lot of other teachers and heard about their lives. All their stories made me feel sufficiently guilty to try helping out again, to become a “super volunteer,” and to start a health club with my students.
February 26, 2009
Dar es Salaam – Heat, humidity and disrepair decay everything in this country but the roads seem to rot fastest. Every successive trip to Dar es Salaam is worse than the last; the bus is bumpier, the journey takes longer and the people are stinkier. The trip today took eleven hours, not counting an extra two hours waiting for the bus at the stage. It arrived after dark and so my search for a hotel was frightening; wandering alone in dark alleys in the slums of Dar es Salaam, in a section of a city I know to be dangerous, guided by penniless young men and carrying over a thousand dollars worth of cash and electronics. The hotel I’m staying at now doesn’t even have a name, but it’s cheap and the beds are comfortable. It’s also close to Ubongo, the central bus station, so I don’t need to worry about a taxi tomorrow.
The last few days have been a flurry of overseeing exams, grading, and saying goodbye. Because I left Ndanda a week early I had to grade fast and leave a lot of work to other teachers; I tried to trade, grading extra exams in exchange for them filling in the rest of the report cards but I don’t think they’ll hold up to their end of the bargain, and I would be surprised if my students are not missing their reports.
Diane, the British VSO health worker, is now gone; but two Swiss families have been placed here instead. Both families have young children who seem to be adjusting to Africa, although one has had a mild case of malaria already.
The last few days have been a flurry of overseeing exams, grading, and saying goodbye. Because I left Ndanda a week early I had to grade fast and leave a lot of work to other teachers; I tried to trade, grading extra exams in exchange for them filling in the rest of the report cards but I don’t think they’ll hold up to their end of the bargain, and I would be surprised if my students are not missing their reports.
Diane, the British VSO health worker, is now gone; but two Swiss families have been placed here instead. Both families have young children who seem to be adjusting to Africa, although one has had a mild case of malaria already.
February 22, 2009
When I was away earlier a storm blew down my fence and the papaya tree in my backyard. I’ve given up gardening and was going to let it stay down, but my neighbor, mama Jessica, kept on pushing – I don’t think she likes it when my property is messy. She introduced me to this fundi (person who makes things), and the next day the laborer carried some logs to prop up the fence. He needed money for twine – I didn’t have any change, so I gave him ten thousand schillings (the total price for the job) while my neighbor’s husband was watching. He accepted the money touching his elbow, a sign of a respect for employers, and I knew he wasn’t planning on coming back.
On Thursday I came back from school and the fundi was there. Mama Jessica was yelling at him, talking really fast, and I gathered that she had searched around his village and forced him to come back to work; she was talking about calling the police and her own ten thousand and so forth. The fundi said he had a problem – they always have problems – but he showed us his back, scattered with big white blotches. I thought of Kaposi’s Sarcoma, a sure sign of HIV. The fundi fixed one section of the fence by digging ditches in the ground and tying the fence to stakes, then propping up weak sections with other pieces of logs. It started raining before he finished though and he said he would come back. He’s still missing, of course.
A couple lessons came out of this. First, never trust any laborers here with a single schilling. Most people are like that, they won’t pay back their debts to a richer man unless that man has some pressing problem, and in a sense money is (loosely) communal. This fundi was ripping me off completely though, charging double the going rate and then running away without doing any work. The Yamiseo’s had been getting on my nerves for a while, constantly borrowing things and yelling at me when any bit of the yard wasn’t clean; it’s good to know now that they’ll also look after me.
On Thursday I came back from school and the fundi was there. Mama Jessica was yelling at him, talking really fast, and I gathered that she had searched around his village and forced him to come back to work; she was talking about calling the police and her own ten thousand and so forth. The fundi said he had a problem – they always have problems – but he showed us his back, scattered with big white blotches. I thought of Kaposi’s Sarcoma, a sure sign of HIV. The fundi fixed one section of the fence by digging ditches in the ground and tying the fence to stakes, then propping up weak sections with other pieces of logs. It started raining before he finished though and he said he would come back. He’s still missing, of course.
A couple lessons came out of this. First, never trust any laborers here with a single schilling. Most people are like that, they won’t pay back their debts to a richer man unless that man has some pressing problem, and in a sense money is (loosely) communal. This fundi was ripping me off completely though, charging double the going rate and then running away without doing any work. The Yamiseo’s had been getting on my nerves for a while, constantly borrowing things and yelling at me when any bit of the yard wasn’t clean; it’s good to know now that they’ll also look after me.
Feb 15, 2009 C
At the beginning of this month I was at a PEPFAR conference in Dodoma, the capital. Our hotel was right next to the parliament building, a modernist monstrosity designed by some Chinese architect, and several MPs would come to the bar afterwards to hang out. Successful Africans, without exception, are incredibly arrogant. If an African is a university graduate he will tell you; if he has an email address he will tell you and if can do something unusual, like karate, he will let you know. At this hotel I met an architect who happened to have his drawings with him; he insisted I look at them, opened them up and commented on how much mathematics he had to learn in order to create such pictures. Of course, the MPs at VETA (our hotel) were the worst. Five minutes after we met one ex-minister, he had told us four times he had traveled to New York and Washington DC. These men aren’t bad people, they treated us and our Tanzanian friends well, but they love to talk about themselves.
The inflated self-image of these politicians’ contrasts with the views of educated Tanzanians; anyone who reads newspapers see their leaders as glorified crooks. I got a text message from one of my colleagues : “I can see you I’m here talking with a politician who usually uses his good words to cheat people .” This particular politician happened to be a particularly fat, snotty and ill-mannered, but my colleague put up with him and got a free soda.
One of the first things one notices, sitting in Dodoma next to the seat of the government, is the huge gap between what the government says and the situation on the ground. Government directives are not followed and nobody cares; government money is stolen and the thief walks around in broad daylight; government workers do nothing and nobody can make them work.
The inflated self-image of these politicians’ contrasts with the views of educated Tanzanians; anyone who reads newspapers see their leaders as glorified crooks. I got a text message from one of my colleagues : “I can see you I’m here talking with a politician who usually uses his good words to cheat people .” This particular politician happened to be a particularly fat, snotty and ill-mannered, but my colleague put up with him and got a free soda.
One of the first things one notices, sitting in Dodoma next to the seat of the government, is the huge gap between what the government says and the situation on the ground. Government directives are not followed and nobody cares; government money is stolen and the thief walks around in broad daylight; government workers do nothing and nobody can make them work.
Feb 15, 2009 B
Peace Corps Volunteers are “on the front lines” in the battle against HIV/AIDS and in the trenches the view is not pretty. Public health efforts reveal Africa’s gravest weaknesses; overreliance on foreigners, disorganization and incompetence at all levels of the government, widespread ignorance caused by politicians and religious figures, gender inequality and a host of bizarre cultural practices are issues that spring immediately to mind.
What is my job in this noble fight? I help out with the school’s FEMA (Female/Male) club, teaching my student’s “life skills,” a worldwide strategy which tries to prevent teenagers from having sex. I’ll train some of the best students as “peer educators,” so they can bridge the age gap between myself and my students. Activities involve playing games, drama, organized sport events, musical performances; all things that are worthwhile for their own sake, but the only way to get money for an event is to connect it tangentially to HIV/AIDS. FEMA is a countrywide organization best known for its magazines aimed at youth; as most teenagers don’t have much money the only way to distribute a youth-oriented magazine is to connect it to HIV and look for foreign funding. “Life skills” is such a broad term as to almost meaningless, and it’s not clear there is any learning at all taking place.
In Tanzania, Peace Corps supports a public health program, made of liberal arts majors with the thinnest real-world credentials (at least I have a chemistry degree). Health volunteers run FEMA clubs like mine. They go to district health meetings and listen to officials. They try to teach improved farming methods and do things with orphans. Mostly, though, health volunteers do nothing because they have no real job and people in their communities have things to do; a large number of health volunteers end up teaching science in nearby secondary schools, just like the rest of us, out of sheer boredom.
What is my job in this noble fight? I help out with the school’s FEMA (Female/Male) club, teaching my student’s “life skills,” a worldwide strategy which tries to prevent teenagers from having sex. I’ll train some of the best students as “peer educators,” so they can bridge the age gap between myself and my students. Activities involve playing games, drama, organized sport events, musical performances; all things that are worthwhile for their own sake, but the only way to get money for an event is to connect it tangentially to HIV/AIDS. FEMA is a countrywide organization best known for its magazines aimed at youth; as most teenagers don’t have much money the only way to distribute a youth-oriented magazine is to connect it to HIV and look for foreign funding. “Life skills” is such a broad term as to almost meaningless, and it’s not clear there is any learning at all taking place.
In Tanzania, Peace Corps supports a public health program, made of liberal arts majors with the thinnest real-world credentials (at least I have a chemistry degree). Health volunteers run FEMA clubs like mine. They go to district health meetings and listen to officials. They try to teach improved farming methods and do things with orphans. Mostly, though, health volunteers do nothing because they have no real job and people in their communities have things to do; a large number of health volunteers end up teaching science in nearby secondary schools, just like the rest of us, out of sheer boredom.
Feb 1, 2009 A
PEPFAR, or the President’s Emergency Plan For Aids Relief, is Bush’s billion-dollar attempt to buy approval in the third world. It donates money to local NGO’s (nongovernmental organizations)which like to work with PLWHAs (people living with HIV/AIDS), OVCs (orphans and vulnerable children) and of course society at large. Other organizations doling out money are UNAID and UNESCO (two branches of the UN), USAID (America’s foreign aid program), JICA (Japan’s foreign aid program), KICA (Korea’s foreign aid program), DED (Germany’s foreign aid program), VSO (Volunteer Service Organization, a sort of British Peace Corps), and an endless list of faith-based initiatives, development programs and university exchange programs. Bureaucracies love acronyms; my Kiswahili instructors were not called to as teachers but LCFs, “language and culture facilitators.” As a result of the prolific number of bureaucracies here educated Tanzanians have learned “burea-speak” and English-language newspapers are almost incomprehensible.
Tanzania is a country of peace, a country free of ethnic or religious strife, and this attracts aid organizations. Aid organizations are also attracted by Kilimanjaro, elephants and beaches; I would guess Tanzania, which positioned itself comfortably between the two superpowers during the cold war, has received more non-military foreign aid than any other country on the planet. The result has not been development but dependency; educated Tanzanians do frightfully little work, the “jobs” that pay are the endless number of conferences they attend on subjects ranging from girls’ soccer leagues to dental hygiene. The best and the brightest become desk officers at some NGO or another, where they organize conferences on girls’ soccer leagues and dental hygiene; talented people are snatched up by foreign aid organizations and local societies must make do with the rest. This is a catastrophe for health and education; there aren’t many doctors to begin with in Tanzania, and those who aren’t sitting behind a desk are usually attending conferences. The result is a weird, inverted society in which jobs in commerce or industry or farming, jobs that create wealth, are despised. In America the money is in business or finance; people become teachers or social workers because they want to benefit society somehow. Here business and agriculture are frustrated by government hostility. People become teachers or nurses because they can go missing for months and still draw a regular salary, the best jobs are in foreign development organizations which benefit nobody.
Tanzania is a country of peace, a country free of ethnic or religious strife, and this attracts aid organizations. Aid organizations are also attracted by Kilimanjaro, elephants and beaches; I would guess Tanzania, which positioned itself comfortably between the two superpowers during the cold war, has received more non-military foreign aid than any other country on the planet. The result has not been development but dependency; educated Tanzanians do frightfully little work, the “jobs” that pay are the endless number of conferences they attend on subjects ranging from girls’ soccer leagues to dental hygiene. The best and the brightest become desk officers at some NGO or another, where they organize conferences on girls’ soccer leagues and dental hygiene; talented people are snatched up by foreign aid organizations and local societies must make do with the rest. This is a catastrophe for health and education; there aren’t many doctors to begin with in Tanzania, and those who aren’t sitting behind a desk are usually attending conferences. The result is a weird, inverted society in which jobs in commerce or industry or farming, jobs that create wealth, are despised. In America the money is in business or finance; people become teachers or social workers because they want to benefit society somehow. Here business and agriculture are frustrated by government hostility. People become teachers or nurses because they can go missing for months and still draw a regular salary, the best jobs are in foreign development organizations which benefit nobody.
December 30, 2008
I went to mass on Christmas Eve. On Christian holidays the services are longer and there are a lot more of them; the one on December 24th is a retelling of Christ’s birth. The ceremony is something like a Greek drama, where acted scenes are broken up by soliloquies and choral interludes; also like Greek plays, the audience knows the plot and the ritual serves only as a reminder. A big electric star was placed over the church, and when Jesus was born the star shone and the crowd went wild. That night I ate with my foreign neighbors and their guests, eight people hailing from five countries. The food was eclectic but very good.
I didn’t do much on Christmas day. The teachers are drawn from across the country, thus they don’t have networks of extended family here and don’t do much in the way of celebrating holidays. I went to see my students while they were eating; they were somewhat depressed, unhappy with their food and wanted to be at home. Afterwards I visited my mkuu’s (headmaster)’s house, ate pilau and watched terrible Christmas music videos with a few of the local bigshots. Then I dropped by my neighbor’s house but had already missed dinner – only Cleophas, the father, was present, watching Tanzanian soap operas. He tried to explaining the plot to me, and I gathered there was a pregnant woman who could not get an abortion, but all the other details escaped me.
In Ndalat, my home in Kenya, the locals would drink a lot – what’s a holiday without drinking? – and climb the hills which marked the village, from where they could see a good section of Africa’s Great Rift Valley. Presumably they went to church as well.
I didn’t do much on Christmas day. The teachers are drawn from across the country, thus they don’t have networks of extended family here and don’t do much in the way of celebrating holidays. I went to see my students while they were eating; they were somewhat depressed, unhappy with their food and wanted to be at home. Afterwards I visited my mkuu’s (headmaster)’s house, ate pilau and watched terrible Christmas music videos with a few of the local bigshots. Then I dropped by my neighbor’s house but had already missed dinner – only Cleophas, the father, was present, watching Tanzanian soap operas. He tried to explaining the plot to me, and I gathered there was a pregnant woman who could not get an abortion, but all the other details escaped me.
In Ndalat, my home in Kenya, the locals would drink a lot – what’s a holiday without drinking? – and climb the hills which marked the village, from where they could see a good section of Africa’s Great Rift Valley. Presumably they went to church as well.
December 29, 2008
The European missionaries have done their job well, and Africans – at least the Kenyans and Tanzanians I’ve encountered – are much more religious than westerners. Churches are always packed even though ceremonies last twice as long as they do in America. Christians are more self- righteous than Muslims, and Protestants more so than Catholics; in Kenya I met a member of a new African sect, Joseph Barnabas I think, who had a red cross stitched to every piece of clothing he owned. On one of my first nights at my new site he was arguing with my host, in a language I didn’t understand, about excessive priestly salaries; he tried half-heartedly to convert me (“you will be the first white member of our Church!”) but as a Catholic in a Catholic area such practices were frowned upon.
Africa has been cursed with a plague of televangelists, who sermonize 24/7 on a third of the channels available with a satellite dish. Sadly many of these persons come from America. In Kenya a televangelist ran –unsuccessfully, thank God – for president. I saw him on television in front of a mass rally trying to faith heal people, shouting religious gibberish at his congregation. My mama laughed at him.
As a measure of spirituality let’s look at the people I’ve known. I’ve been pretty close with three African families; my homestay family in Kitui, my host and his extended family in Ndalat and now my next-door neighbors. All three fathers were associated with the Christian clergy at one point in their lives. Justus in Kitui was a Reverend of the Africa Inland Church, William Cheruyiot had been a Catholic priest before he left to start a family, and Cleophas next door badly wanted to be a priest and had studied in a seminary, but he was rejected, allegedly because of tribalism. Three fathers, three padres.
Africa has been cursed with a plague of televangelists, who sermonize 24/7 on a third of the channels available with a satellite dish. Sadly many of these persons come from America. In Kenya a televangelist ran –unsuccessfully, thank God – for president. I saw him on television in front of a mass rally trying to faith heal people, shouting religious gibberish at his congregation. My mama laughed at him.
As a measure of spirituality let’s look at the people I’ve known. I’ve been pretty close with three African families; my homestay family in Kitui, my host and his extended family in Ndalat and now my next-door neighbors. All three fathers were associated with the Christian clergy at one point in their lives. Justus in Kitui was a Reverend of the Africa Inland Church, William Cheruyiot had been a Catholic priest before he left to start a family, and Cleophas next door badly wanted to be a priest and had studied in a seminary, but he was rejected, allegedly because of tribalism. Three fathers, three padres.
December 28, 2008
Aaron Snow and I came from Kenya together. I was overjoyed when we were sent to the same region of the country together, but in fact I rarely see him. He lives in a Seminary school 19 km from the main road and no public buses operate near him; the only way in or out of his site is on his school’s landrover. To get food, he must walk for a half hour and choose from rice, beans, or maize flour - the local delicacy is samaki mchango, “sand fish,” meaning rat – but Aaron is a tough kid, tougher than anyone else in our training class and he loves Rondo. I went to visit him last weekend, just before Christmas.
Rondo may be isolated but it is gorgeous, situated on a plateau overlooking a vast stretch of wilderness. Aaron showed me his garden, where he is growing all the local staples, and his new chickens. One of them lays an egg every day. I pay up the nose for my eggs, but at least I won’t get bird flu when the next epidemic rolls around. We spent most of the weekend with one of his other teachers, who graduated from Rondo three years ago and is now plans to enter university next year. On Sunday we went to the nearby village to hang out, where Aaron chatted with all the babas and showed me the newsletter project he had started, Mazingira ya Rondo. Mazingira loosely means environment, but it doesn’t have the same natural connotations and if a native Swahili speaker asks about the environment of America he wants to know about more than, say, animals. This particular newsletter, written mostly by his students, included a section on HIV-AIDS, an interview with a primary school teacher and a short section on Barack Obama.
At night in Rondo we wandered from staff house to staff house. Starlight and fireflies, about ten times as many as on a typical New York Independence Day, compensated for the lack of electricity. Constellations seem stupid when the stars are not so bright – why a dipper? – but if you find Orion’s belt, the rest of him does fall into place immediately. I left early Monday morning.
The trip was both uplifting and depressing at the same time. Aaron is beautifully integrated into his community, he speaks excellent Swahili and his secondary projects, apparently, are moving forward. I had just discovered my Physics students had learned nothing over the entire semester. Such trips function either as an impetus to try harder or a impetus to give up; I think I’m leaning more towards the latter.
Rondo may be isolated but it is gorgeous, situated on a plateau overlooking a vast stretch of wilderness. Aaron showed me his garden, where he is growing all the local staples, and his new chickens. One of them lays an egg every day. I pay up the nose for my eggs, but at least I won’t get bird flu when the next epidemic rolls around. We spent most of the weekend with one of his other teachers, who graduated from Rondo three years ago and is now plans to enter university next year. On Sunday we went to the nearby village to hang out, where Aaron chatted with all the babas and showed me the newsletter project he had started, Mazingira ya Rondo. Mazingira loosely means environment, but it doesn’t have the same natural connotations and if a native Swahili speaker asks about the environment of America he wants to know about more than, say, animals. This particular newsletter, written mostly by his students, included a section on HIV-AIDS, an interview with a primary school teacher and a short section on Barack Obama.
At night in Rondo we wandered from staff house to staff house. Starlight and fireflies, about ten times as many as on a typical New York Independence Day, compensated for the lack of electricity. Constellations seem stupid when the stars are not so bright – why a dipper? – but if you find Orion’s belt, the rest of him does fall into place immediately. I left early Monday morning.
The trip was both uplifting and depressing at the same time. Aaron is beautifully integrated into his community, he speaks excellent Swahili and his secondary projects, apparently, are moving forward. I had just discovered my Physics students had learned nothing over the entire semester. Such trips function either as an impetus to try harder or a impetus to give up; I think I’m leaning more towards the latter.
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.
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 8, 2008
A-level science courses are fun because my students have progressed to a relatively advanced level, and I can talk about subjects in ways that interest me. A-level is also challenging for the same reason; the students are bright (at least some of them), the exams are difficult and the syllabus is incredibly broad. Often I teach myself topics the night before I teach my class, and sometimes my lack of experience is painfully obvious. Going off on tangents can provoke interest, but often they end up in places I don’t expect, places I’m not prepared for, and in the end I look moderately stupid in front of my class.
My Physics class has been learning about waves for the greater part of this term; we’re starting a chapter on thermodynamics after Christmas. At the beginning of the year I told my students I would try to derive every equation I wrote on the board, and I had been successful until the end of last week. The equation is for the Doppler Effect, which explains why the sirens on an approaching ambulance are higher-pitched than the sirens on a departing ambulance. The equation for the Doppler effect looks like this:
Light is different:
The two equations look similar, but they’re really not. The question was whether I could pull this past my students without any awkward questions; but as soon as the equation went on the board a couple hands went up. Ramadhani Nkucha is one of the students who seems to breeze through class without working at all, although he has turned in every assignment I’ve handed out. He rarely speaks in class. “Why?” he asks.
So could I avoid a pointless foray into relativity, a subject which I don’t really understand? Even in this class of Tanzania’s best and brightest, at most five students would walk away with some inkling of what I was talking about, but the class wasn’t buying the “light is different” line. I had no choice. Mentally cursing the syllabus which forced me into this situation, I ran towards Ramadhani and threw my eraser at him. “Say I throw this thing at 5 m/s. If I’m running away from you instead at 2 m/s, what is the velocity of the eraser?” The class got it, 5-2 = 3 m/s.
“But now, instead of throwing a ball I shine a flashlight on you. How fast is the light moving now?” The answer was written on the board, c = 2.99 x 108 m/s. “Now I run away from you at 5 m/s; what is the speed of the flashlight now?” A chorus of voices shouted out 2.99 x 108 m/s – 2 m/s and were dismayed when I told them they were wrong. The speed of light in a vacuum is constant; it is marginally slower while travelling through air or water. Why is light slower in air or water, anyway, given that it doesn’t need any medium? I was confused myself; but I had them on the run. “Light is different. We think in terms of fixed space and time, and define velocity as the ratio of the two. For light the ratio is fixed, but the space and time parameters can change.” I talked about time dilation and length contraction and the twins paradox. I talked about black holes and the beginning of the universe; most students had a healthy skepticism of the big bang. I tried to get my students to figure out how we could find a black hole, which emits no light whatsoever.
And that was that, the next day we were back to talking about diffraction patterns. I realized most Tanzanian students have never internalized their advanced science courses before. All of my chemistry students can define the “wave-particle duality of matter,” using terms they don’t understand; but they haven’t grasped the implications, for example that their books are made up of energy waves. They can recite the theory of evolution but they don’t see any conflict with a fundamentalist brand of religion. Perhaps a few of them got something out of my lecture on relativity; I was not particularly coherent.
My Physics class has been learning about waves for the greater part of this term; we’re starting a chapter on thermodynamics after Christmas. At the beginning of the year I told my students I would try to derive every equation I wrote on the board, and I had been successful until the end of last week. The equation is for the Doppler Effect, which explains why the sirens on an approaching ambulance are higher-pitched than the sirens on a departing ambulance. The equation for the Doppler effect looks like this:
Light is different:
The two equations look similar, but they’re really not. The question was whether I could pull this past my students without any awkward questions; but as soon as the equation went on the board a couple hands went up. Ramadhani Nkucha is one of the students who seems to breeze through class without working at all, although he has turned in every assignment I’ve handed out. He rarely speaks in class. “Why?” he asks.
So could I avoid a pointless foray into relativity, a subject which I don’t really understand? Even in this class of Tanzania’s best and brightest, at most five students would walk away with some inkling of what I was talking about, but the class wasn’t buying the “light is different” line. I had no choice. Mentally cursing the syllabus which forced me into this situation, I ran towards Ramadhani and threw my eraser at him. “Say I throw this thing at 5 m/s. If I’m running away from you instead at 2 m/s, what is the velocity of the eraser?” The class got it, 5-2 = 3 m/s.
“But now, instead of throwing a ball I shine a flashlight on you. How fast is the light moving now?” The answer was written on the board, c = 2.99 x 108 m/s. “Now I run away from you at 5 m/s; what is the speed of the flashlight now?” A chorus of voices shouted out 2.99 x 108 m/s – 2 m/s and were dismayed when I told them they were wrong. The speed of light in a vacuum is constant; it is marginally slower while travelling through air or water. Why is light slower in air or water, anyway, given that it doesn’t need any medium? I was confused myself; but I had them on the run. “Light is different. We think in terms of fixed space and time, and define velocity as the ratio of the two. For light the ratio is fixed, but the space and time parameters can change.” I talked about time dilation and length contraction and the twins paradox. I talked about black holes and the beginning of the universe; most students had a healthy skepticism of the big bang. I tried to get my students to figure out how we could find a black hole, which emits no light whatsoever.
And that was that, the next day we were back to talking about diffraction patterns. I realized most Tanzanian students have never internalized their advanced science courses before. All of my chemistry students can define the “wave-particle duality of matter,” using terms they don’t understand; but they haven’t grasped the implications, for example that their books are made up of energy waves. They can recite the theory of evolution but they don’t see any conflict with a fundamentalist brand of religion. Perhaps a few of them got something out of my lecture on relativity; I was not particularly coherent.
December 7, 2008 Again
I started buying Kiswahili newspapers as soon as I got to site, in order to practice, and they always annoy me. A typical newspaper runs three types of stories; an investigation has traced corruption to the highest levels of government but is powerless to do anything about it, or another section of Africa is collapsing (The Democratic Republic of the Congo is the flavor of the month, with Zimbabwe also making regular appearances) or the paper decides to run some ridiculous article on America and the western world. Remember when pictures circulated of Obama wearing the dress of an African Muslim? Tanzanians do, because one newspaper (Mwananchi or Citizen) devoted an entire two-page spread to an issue that was almost completely disregarded in America.
What do we have today? The front page…
The accused of the EPA Want Their Millions: They have agreed to return some fees.
Another Albino is killed in Kigoma: Albinos body parts are used by witchdoctors for sorcery.
The Union is touched again by Zanzibar: Tanzania is made up of two separate countries, the mainland Tanganyika and the Zanzibar peninsula. The union was something of a shotgun marriage, and each side is unhappy with the other one.
The foreign affairs section, happily buried in the middle of the paper, today includes sections on Zimbabwe (demonstrations in Harare), Nigeria (the minister for combating corruption received death threats) and Mogadishu (starvation looms).
I’ve read a lot of books since getting here; the one which looms largest is Paul Theroux’s Dark Star Safari, which begins “All news out of Africa is bad.” Pick up any newspaper and here and it seems as if the four horsemen of the apocalypse are running rampant throughout the continent.
What do we have today? The front page…
The accused of the EPA Want Their Millions: They have agreed to return some fees.
Another Albino is killed in Kigoma: Albinos body parts are used by witchdoctors for sorcery.
The Union is touched again by Zanzibar: Tanzania is made up of two separate countries, the mainland Tanganyika and the Zanzibar peninsula. The union was something of a shotgun marriage, and each side is unhappy with the other one.
The foreign affairs section, happily buried in the middle of the paper, today includes sections on Zimbabwe (demonstrations in Harare), Nigeria (the minister for combating corruption received death threats) and Mogadishu (starvation looms).
I’ve read a lot of books since getting here; the one which looms largest is Paul Theroux’s Dark Star Safari, which begins “All news out of Africa is bad.” Pick up any newspaper and here and it seems as if the four horsemen of the apocalypse are running rampant throughout the continent.
December 7, 2008 3X
I’ve spent more time with my students lately, for some reason or another. Mwendesha is a Form VI from Mwanza, up in the north near Lake Victoria, who is studies Physics, Chemistry and Biology; he wants to be a doctor. He is one of my best students . Obviously Tanzanians speak English differently than Americans, but his habits of speaking are strange even for an African; his sentences are grammatically correct but longer than they need be and they trail off towards the end. As a result his speech has a lyrical lilt, which, coupled with a mellow smile, is disarming.
I haven’t seen Mwendesha in a
I haven’t seen Mwendesha in a
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
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, 2008
I had a party 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.
Humphrey Mutaashta is a VSO accountant from Uganda. He’s
Humphrey Mutaashta is a VSO accountant from Uganda. He’s
October 30, 2009
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.
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 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 23, 2008
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.
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.
August 8, 2009
We began staying with RPCVs in Dar es Salaam, and I spent the last few days with the head of malaria and TB and USAID. He had good stories from his volunteer days, mostly about collecting all sorts of rare artifacts and smuggling them out of Bolivia. His daughter works for the world wildlife fund on a short term contract.
Yesterday I went to the FEMA club office, and was given a lot of materials.
This morning I wanted to leave Dar es Salaam. But we couldn’t find a taxi early in the morning and we missed the bus by five minutes or so. I called someone who works for the company, and he told me to meet the bus in Temeke; so I chartered a taxi to temeke, but when we got there the bus was gone. Then they wanted to go to the next stop and the taxi driver wanted another thirty thousand schillings; I told him I only had three. We got to the stop and the bus was already gone, so I had to get more money from an ATM; the taxi driver is unhappy with his compensation but what I gave him – 23000 total – is more than fair. Anyway I’m stuck in Dar for another day, and am staying in a hotel with bev and steve.
Yesterday I went to the FEMA club office, and was given a lot of materials.
This morning I wanted to leave Dar es Salaam. But we couldn’t find a taxi early in the morning and we missed the bus by five minutes or so. I called someone who works for the company, and he told me to meet the bus in Temeke; so I chartered a taxi to temeke, but when we got there the bus was gone. Then they wanted to go to the next stop and the taxi driver wanted another thirty thousand schillings; I told him I only had three. We got to the stop and the bus was already gone, so I had to get more money from an ATM; the taxi driver is unhappy with his compensation but what I gave him – 23000 total – is more than fair. Anyway I’m stuck in Dar for another day, and am staying in a hotel with bev and steve.
August 2, 2009
My final peace corps conference, a seminar about our close of service. We talk about wrapping up our Peace Corps service and returning to life back in the states. I know, because I already went through a similar conference when I first transferred to Tanzania; but when I did it then I was pretty sure I was going to remain in Africa and the conference felt somewhat irrelevant. The trip up here was uneventful, and our bus even had seatbelts(!) but I’m thankful I’m only making this trip once or twice more before I return home. Met several other volunteers for dinner yesterday.
I spent most of the bus ride, and most of the last few days, steaming about falling attendance in some of my classes. The real kicker was that the same students go to class if a Tanzanian happens to be teaching, and now that we have a practice math teacher from university I have seen students who I thought had transferred months ago. In physics class not more than 10 students arrived any day this week. Once I arrived in Dar I wrote an open letter to the physics students outlining a new policy, and threatening to screw with the test scores of any student who fails to report to every class between now and the end of term.
I spent most of the bus ride, and most of the last few days, steaming about falling attendance in some of my classes. The real kicker was that the same students go to class if a Tanzanian happens to be teaching, and now that we have a practice math teacher from university I have seen students who I thought had transferred months ago. In physics class not more than 10 students arrived any day this week. Once I arrived in Dar I wrote an open letter to the physics students outlining a new policy, and threatening to screw with the test scores of any student who fails to report to every class between now and the end of term.
April 24, 2009
I just started teaching this week. After a period of travel and a month of inaction the school year started without warning (classes supposedly began two weeks ago but the first day is pretty flexible). The school dropped all the math and physics classes on me, so I have more classes than any four other teachers combined. For the first time since I left America I feel like I’ve been working, waking up at 5:30 to prepare classes and standing in front of students for six hours a day. My situation has been immensely complicated by the erratic electricity (see below) – but we should get a mathematics teacher within the next few weeks, brining my courseload back to a normal level.
I find teaching material the second time around isn’t nearly as interesting, and I enjoy my form VI classes much more than my form V. Part of that are the students, the older students are more comfortable in the classroom, answer questions more readily… and there are a lot less of them. I’m not so impressed with the new ones, but we’ll give them some time.
I realize I haven’t update for over two months, ever since the marathon in Kilimanjaro. Mostly I’ve been busy, and when I have had free time the power was dead – for the last three weeks we’ve only had some six hours of electricity a day, mostly at night. I’ve spent a lot more time with my VSO friends across the street, partly because they have reliable electricity and food processors and lots of other goodies that I can’t usually get here.
Erina returned last week, but she plans on spending every weekend from here on out away from site – she likes traveling. My students are also gradually returning to school, if not to class.
I find teaching material the second time around isn’t nearly as interesting, and I enjoy my form VI classes much more than my form V. Part of that are the students, the older students are more comfortable in the classroom, answer questions more readily… and there are a lot less of them. I’m not so impressed with the new ones, but we’ll give them some time.
I realize I haven’t update for over two months, ever since the marathon in Kilimanjaro. Mostly I’ve been busy, and when I have had free time the power was dead – for the last three weeks we’ve only had some six hours of electricity a day, mostly at night. I’ve spent a lot more time with my VSO friends across the street, partly because they have reliable electricity and food processors and lots of other goodies that I can’t usually get here.
Erina returned last week, but she plans on spending every weekend from here on out away from site – she likes traveling. My students are also gradually returning to school, if not to class.
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