Last week two other Peace Corps Volunteers, Matt and Jerusha, came to Ndanda to some of their kids swim lessons. Somehow new experiences like swimming and what not are tied up into HIV/AIDS education, but to me the links are pretty tenuous; anyway few of the children had been submerged in water before. I had told Matt to make them put their faces in buckets before they came, hoping to weed some of the less serious ones out, but they all easily passed that test.
Matt and Jerusha are both a bit older than me. Matt lives about 24 km away from Ndanda and is certainly the volunteer who I see the most often; the weekend before swimming lessons I visited him in his village, and returned home on his bicycle while giving his Tanzanian friend a lifti. There is no electricity in his village, but he bought a solar panel in Dar es Salaam and now has enough to power an ipod speaker and to give a small bit of light at night. He also charges his student’s cell phones and puts the proceeds into this health club.
The trip to Jerusha’s house involves a three-hour bus ride followed by another hour over paved roads; I haven’t seen her since my first week in the South. She had taken a different bus to Matt’s village, then the two of them led their nine children down the plateau to Ndanda; I met them at the swimming pool at about ten o’clock.
I run up to this pool almost every day. The monks dug it out to provide hydroelectric power for the Abbey and now guard it incessantly, keeping it clean and bilharzias-free. Google Ndanda Abbey, Tanzania and you can see a picture of it during the rainy season, when it is muddy and disgusting; I’ll also post some more pictures soon. It’s about 70m long and 25m wide, and people can stand only at the very edges; it is a lifeguard’s nightmare because of the deep bottom, steep edges and cloudy water. When I arrived a German friend, Adrian, had arrived along with a Tanzanian named Seafood (no joke) who he had met in Mtwara. Seafood had apparently met Jerusha at some bar there as well.
Swim lessons went like all swim lessons do, except I had to try to explain everything in Kiswahili. Matt and Jerusha did what I told them to. Seafood interrupted if my Kiswahili was breaking down, or if he thought he knew better than me. Adrian took pictures. Afterwards everyone walked back to my house, and we crashed while the kids wandered around Ndanda. The three “adults” spent about three hours cooking chili and rice while their students cleaned themselves.
Many of them had never used a real bathroom before, so I can’t be too angry; nevertheless, when they were finished washing, dirt covered the bathroom and the toilet was broken. Someone had opened up my contact case and dumped the contents on the floor. Worst of all they had used all of my shampoo and most of my deodorant. Everyone else was watching a movie, and I came out of the bathroom and threw the shampoo bottle against the wall, “Noone can use the bathroom! If you have to help yourself, go outside! Noone can use the bathroom!” Matt suggested smelling the kids to see who used up the shampoo, but then we realized they were all guilty; each child smelled like shampoo and fear. Jerusha told them they wouldn’t be welcome anywhere else if they acted this way. Matt turned off the movie – the power was off anyway – and everyone went to sleep.
The next day everyone left early. Matt remained and offered me some of his shampoo, but then remembered that the kids who stayed at his house smelled really nice too. Neither of us had ever been on the other side of that sort of situation before.
Seafood, no child, took all of Adrian’s shampoo also.
Monday, December 1, 2008
November 7, 2008
The last couple of days have been a bad time for my students. The government has an organization problem at the highest level, and has failed to pay for the student’s food in schools all across the country. I think our school may have saved up money in case of such a circumstance – this situation occurs every year – but by last Wednesday there was no money at all and the students didn’t eat anything. That night I was sitting outside when I heard a group of young men, obviously my charges, marching throughout Ndanda singing and yelling. At first I thought it was some sort of religious parade; the Christian students sing, loudly, every night at about 7:30. They didn’t sound angry and in fact the songs were identical to the songs they sing every Thursday when they’re running. When one of the nuns who lives next door told me they didn’t have any food, I wasn’t sure whether to believe her or not.
The next day, Thursday, I spent two hours at home preparing my lessons and then arrived to prepare a chemistry practical. Nobody told me anything was wrong; I didn’t hear any classes, but this all that unusual. I mixed chemicals for the next two hours and then went to teach mathematics, but there were no students in the classroom. Any school-wide meetings take place underneath a big tree outside the Physics lab, where I teach all my classes, and when I left the classroom I saw some Form VI’s sitting underneath the tree. “Come! Tell us a story!” I knew a handful of the students and whenever I do sit with a few students a handful of others will show up to see what’s going on.
They were hungry and, understandably, quite pissed. One of them, Pius, who is involved in student government somehow, explained that the situation to me. He asked if these sorts of things happen in America. He asked if he could come to my house so I could give him food (“ha ha! You’re funny!). He asked if I could take over as the teacher in charge of food and wellness. I was told there would be no classes this day, that the students were on strike. I was once again in a situation where I couldn’t do anything to help anybody; the solutions to these problems lay far outside Ndanda Secondary. After some thirty minutes I retreated back to the laboratory to prepare for an exam which would probably not occur.
I was in the laboratory with our new chemistry teacher, who cannot prepare solutions, and with our lab assistant, who also cannot prepare solutions and is in general worthless. Happily I already knew what to look for, I had written the mock examinations for the entire region, and after about an hour we were finished. During this time the district commissioner came from Lindi, the biggest “city” near us, and I watched him talk to his students from the chemistry lab. He was in the uncomfortable position of a leader explaining to his constituents why he had screwed them, and he wasn’t handling the pressure well. Sometime during his speech several riot police, bearing clubs, gas masks and assault rifles, vaporized; they kept out of immediate sight of the meeting but everyone knew about them. It started raining ten minutes after the meeting began and all my students ran for cover.
My first instinct was to get as far away from the cops as possible, but my students weren’t in a rioting mood and I wanted to see how the things worked out. Several of my form V’s were waiting in the corridors outside my classroom. The ones I talked to were angry and worried that the school would close; they lived very far from Ndanda and didn’t have the bus fare to make it back home. Random students walked past me and told me they were dying.
A legacy from its time as a mission school, Ndanda secondary has large hall which can function as an auditorium; the meeting continued there and again I remained, against my better judgment. As things turned out there were no problems, the students thought (correctly) I sympathized with them and were eager to share their problems. When the meeting began the District Comissioner kept on talking, smiling, and waving his arms and my students kept on asking him questions angrily; I didn’t understand everything but I knew he was promising food while those around me were complaining “politics! He’s just talking.” Our headmaster, who never before has missed a chance to articulate, stood quietly at the side, unwilling to take the blame for someone else’s mistakes. Afterwards a man, who I later learned is the police chief, stood up and urged the students not to resort to violence. He explained that after a short period they may have to close the school, but the students would have a deciding voice in any decision. Then everybody left.
Later I met an ex-teacher (Ngaga, who had left for an accounting job in Kigoma), who told me this sort of problem happens all the time, to all government students. Today when I arrived classes had resumed like normal so I assume the problem was fixed; almost all students sat for the lab practical.
The last time I had been in United Hall with such a crowd, the reason had been a meeting of the teacher’s union to discuss a strike. The teachers hadn’t been paid wages in several months, and some were still expecting moving allowances from a year ago. How can an education system even pretend to serve its country, if it cannot pay its teachers and it cannot feed its students?
The next day, Thursday, I spent two hours at home preparing my lessons and then arrived to prepare a chemistry practical. Nobody told me anything was wrong; I didn’t hear any classes, but this all that unusual. I mixed chemicals for the next two hours and then went to teach mathematics, but there were no students in the classroom. Any school-wide meetings take place underneath a big tree outside the Physics lab, where I teach all my classes, and when I left the classroom I saw some Form VI’s sitting underneath the tree. “Come! Tell us a story!” I knew a handful of the students and whenever I do sit with a few students a handful of others will show up to see what’s going on.
They were hungry and, understandably, quite pissed. One of them, Pius, who is involved in student government somehow, explained that the situation to me. He asked if these sorts of things happen in America. He asked if he could come to my house so I could give him food (“ha ha! You’re funny!). He asked if I could take over as the teacher in charge of food and wellness. I was told there would be no classes this day, that the students were on strike. I was once again in a situation where I couldn’t do anything to help anybody; the solutions to these problems lay far outside Ndanda Secondary. After some thirty minutes I retreated back to the laboratory to prepare for an exam which would probably not occur.
I was in the laboratory with our new chemistry teacher, who cannot prepare solutions, and with our lab assistant, who also cannot prepare solutions and is in general worthless. Happily I already knew what to look for, I had written the mock examinations for the entire region, and after about an hour we were finished. During this time the district commissioner came from Lindi, the biggest “city” near us, and I watched him talk to his students from the chemistry lab. He was in the uncomfortable position of a leader explaining to his constituents why he had screwed them, and he wasn’t handling the pressure well. Sometime during his speech several riot police, bearing clubs, gas masks and assault rifles, vaporized; they kept out of immediate sight of the meeting but everyone knew about them. It started raining ten minutes after the meeting began and all my students ran for cover.
My first instinct was to get as far away from the cops as possible, but my students weren’t in a rioting mood and I wanted to see how the things worked out. Several of my form V’s were waiting in the corridors outside my classroom. The ones I talked to were angry and worried that the school would close; they lived very far from Ndanda and didn’t have the bus fare to make it back home. Random students walked past me and told me they were dying.
A legacy from its time as a mission school, Ndanda secondary has large hall which can function as an auditorium; the meeting continued there and again I remained, against my better judgment. As things turned out there were no problems, the students thought (correctly) I sympathized with them and were eager to share their problems. When the meeting began the District Comissioner kept on talking, smiling, and waving his arms and my students kept on asking him questions angrily; I didn’t understand everything but I knew he was promising food while those around me were complaining “politics! He’s just talking.” Our headmaster, who never before has missed a chance to articulate, stood quietly at the side, unwilling to take the blame for someone else’s mistakes. Afterwards a man, who I later learned is the police chief, stood up and urged the students not to resort to violence. He explained that after a short period they may have to close the school, but the students would have a deciding voice in any decision. Then everybody left.
Later I met an ex-teacher (Ngaga, who had left for an accounting job in Kigoma), who told me this sort of problem happens all the time, to all government students. Today when I arrived classes had resumed like normal so I assume the problem was fixed; almost all students sat for the lab practical.
The last time I had been in United Hall with such a crowd, the reason had been a meeting of the teacher’s union to discuss a strike. The teachers hadn’t been paid wages in several months, and some were still expecting moving allowances from a year ago. How can an education system even pretend to serve its country, if it cannot pay its teachers and it cannot feed its students?
October 30
October 30
My computer crashed last week and I lost several entries. I’ll try to rewrite a couple of them now.
I suppose I should give some overview of the schools here. Education in Tanzania is based on the British system. Students study in primary school for seven years, in secondary school for four years, and then in a sort of post-secondary school for two years. Most university degrees take only three years afterwards. In Kenya and Tanzania everybody associated with the education system is preoccupied with the numbe of years in each level; if people asked me what education was like in America, I would say “eight-four-four” meaning eight years primary, four years secondary, and four years in University; students and teachers would immediately understand. I could say many other things, of course, but spitting back three numbers is a good way to change the topic. The first level of secondary schooling is called O-level; the second is advanced, or A-level. At the end of each tier of schooling, students take an exam to determine if they will continue to advance; no grades are awarded during the course of the year and this exam is the only record of the student’s achievement.
I’ve seen a lot of differing statistics on the percentages of eligiblechildren enrolled in school, but most likely some 70% of the population now will enter primary school and some 2-3% eventually finish A-level. Maybe one half of one percent of the population continues on into the university. Children cannot begin schooling before they are seven, and given the delays after each level of exams most people here are lucky to finish secondary school by the time they are 21; several of my students are older than me. The first president, Julius Nyerere, was obsessed with education and adopted the titel “Mwalimu” or teacher. I have a series of speeches, in English and Swahili, about his goals to create an egalitarian, socialist society through the education system. He failed, and now the school system is in tatters.
Primary school is taught in Swahili. Secondary schools are supposedly taught in English, although among most teachers fluency is very poor and even A-level English (!) classes use a mix of Swahili and English. Advanced students take only three core subjects, along with a weekly seminar “General Studies” and religion courses twice a week. Scienc estudents who don’t study mathematics as a core subject also take a course called Basic Applied Mathematics. Physics, Chemistry, and Biology classes are comparable to AP courses in America, except the material is somewhat broader than an AP or introductory University course. Mathematics students learn pre-calculus with some little smattering of derivatives and integrals midway through their second year. The syllabi are terrible.
October 23
I’m trying to get one of my students into an American university. Festus Ndalama is by far my best student, usually scoring 10-15 points higher than the next one on my chemistry exams; I understand his physics and mathematics results are also the best on his class. During the breaks he remains at school and studies, during weekends he studies, and the result is that he has managed to teach himself undergraduate science without any real qualified teachers or adequate textbooks. Our school had class meetings where the students air their greivances to their fellows and to the class teachers; most other students complained about the bad food, the lack of lab materials and the unqualified teachers; Festus stood up and castigated his fellows for not working hard enough. At O-level he studied at a seminary school, which are viewed as among the best in Tanzania; at this school his teachers forced him to speak only English, so he has no problems understanding me or his exams (which are written in English).
A few weeks after I first arrived I lent him a copy of Brian Greene’s The Elegant Universe. He finished it and could explain some of its concepts to me. After the first Chemistry exam I gave him an English dictionary and some books to study for the SAT’s. Last Wednesday we sat down to register at collegeboard.com.
Collegeboard.com asks all students to complete a profile of themselves, and of course the answers are directed at Americans. Festus had never used a computer before and so I had to fill out all the survey for him. Someof them seemed so ridiculous I didn’t even ask him questions and just checked “no”. Festus lives in Dar es Salaam; neither of his parents had studied past secondary school. He doesn’t have a cell phone and does not return home for holidays, and so I believe he is one of the poorer students here. He has no email address and I used mine; I’ve gotten three messages from collegeboard since then. I think the seventy dollar SAT application fee may put the test out of his price range, and I told him I’d front the money and he could pay me back if he made it to the States.
The experience was both moving and surreal. I tried to picture Festus Ndalama, now dressed in an ironed maroon uniform, walking around a frosty New England campus carrying a laptop. What would he think of a school cafeteria? A library? I do not know what the future holds for Festus, if he will make it to America. If our lab technician screws up the practical again Festus may very well not even make it to the University of Dar es Salaam. For now his focus is on the practice examination which begins next week, and the national examination starting in February.
October 25, 2008
Matthew Nagatani is another volunteer who lives about 20-25 km from my house, up on the Makonde Plateau. This plateau is dry and consequently poor; almost all the buildings I saw were made from dried mud or cow dung, with thatched roofs. Water was going for 800 schillings a bucket when I visited, more than what most people make in a day (1250 tzs = 1 dollar), and the rain which came Saturday was a godsend. Matt’s village, Nyambe, passes for a big town in the region; but almost no food is available besides rice, tomatoes, beans and onions; life here teaches all of us to appreciate things like vegetables. No other white people live close to him and so he is something of a celebrity. People remembered me as the crazy person who walked all the way from Ndanda.
My computer crashed last week and I lost several entries. I’ll try to rewrite a couple of them now.
I suppose I should give some overview of the schools here. Education in Tanzania is based on the British system. Students study in primary school for seven years, in secondary school for four years, and then in a sort of post-secondary school for two years. Most university degrees take only three years afterwards. In Kenya and Tanzania everybody associated with the education system is preoccupied with the numbe of years in each level; if people asked me what education was like in America, I would say “eight-four-four” meaning eight years primary, four years secondary, and four years in University; students and teachers would immediately understand. I could say many other things, of course, but spitting back three numbers is a good way to change the topic. The first level of secondary schooling is called O-level; the second is advanced, or A-level. At the end of each tier of schooling, students take an exam to determine if they will continue to advance; no grades are awarded during the course of the year and this exam is the only record of the student’s achievement.
I’ve seen a lot of differing statistics on the percentages of eligiblechildren enrolled in school, but most likely some 70% of the population now will enter primary school and some 2-3% eventually finish A-level. Maybe one half of one percent of the population continues on into the university. Children cannot begin schooling before they are seven, and given the delays after each level of exams most people here are lucky to finish secondary school by the time they are 21; several of my students are older than me. The first president, Julius Nyerere, was obsessed with education and adopted the titel “Mwalimu” or teacher. I have a series of speeches, in English and Swahili, about his goals to create an egalitarian, socialist society through the education system. He failed, and now the school system is in tatters.
Primary school is taught in Swahili. Secondary schools are supposedly taught in English, although among most teachers fluency is very poor and even A-level English (!) classes use a mix of Swahili and English. Advanced students take only three core subjects, along with a weekly seminar “General Studies” and religion courses twice a week. Scienc estudents who don’t study mathematics as a core subject also take a course called Basic Applied Mathematics. Physics, Chemistry, and Biology classes are comparable to AP courses in America, except the material is somewhat broader than an AP or introductory University course. Mathematics students learn pre-calculus with some little smattering of derivatives and integrals midway through their second year. The syllabi are terrible.
October 23
I’m trying to get one of my students into an American university. Festus Ndalama is by far my best student, usually scoring 10-15 points higher than the next one on my chemistry exams; I understand his physics and mathematics results are also the best on his class. During the breaks he remains at school and studies, during weekends he studies, and the result is that he has managed to teach himself undergraduate science without any real qualified teachers or adequate textbooks. Our school had class meetings where the students air their greivances to their fellows and to the class teachers; most other students complained about the bad food, the lack of lab materials and the unqualified teachers; Festus stood up and castigated his fellows for not working hard enough. At O-level he studied at a seminary school, which are viewed as among the best in Tanzania; at this school his teachers forced him to speak only English, so he has no problems understanding me or his exams (which are written in English).
A few weeks after I first arrived I lent him a copy of Brian Greene’s The Elegant Universe. He finished it and could explain some of its concepts to me. After the first Chemistry exam I gave him an English dictionary and some books to study for the SAT’s. Last Wednesday we sat down to register at collegeboard.com.
Collegeboard.com asks all students to complete a profile of themselves, and of course the answers are directed at Americans. Festus had never used a computer before and so I had to fill out all the survey for him. Someof them seemed so ridiculous I didn’t even ask him questions and just checked “no”. Festus lives in Dar es Salaam; neither of his parents had studied past secondary school. He doesn’t have a cell phone and does not return home for holidays, and so I believe he is one of the poorer students here. He has no email address and I used mine; I’ve gotten three messages from collegeboard since then. I think the seventy dollar SAT application fee may put the test out of his price range, and I told him I’d front the money and he could pay me back if he made it to the States.
The experience was both moving and surreal. I tried to picture Festus Ndalama, now dressed in an ironed maroon uniform, walking around a frosty New England campus carrying a laptop. What would he think of a school cafeteria? A library? I do not know what the future holds for Festus, if he will make it to America. If our lab technician screws up the practical again Festus may very well not even make it to the University of Dar es Salaam. For now his focus is on the practice examination which begins next week, and the national examination starting in February.
October 25, 2008
Matthew Nagatani is another volunteer who lives about 20-25 km from my house, up on the Makonde Plateau. This plateau is dry and consequently poor; almost all the buildings I saw were made from dried mud or cow dung, with thatched roofs. Water was going for 800 schillings a bucket when I visited, more than what most people make in a day (1250 tzs = 1 dollar), and the rain which came Saturday was a godsend. Matt’s village, Nyambe, passes for a big town in the region; but almost no food is available besides rice, tomatoes, beans and onions; life here teaches all of us to appreciate things like vegetables. No other white people live close to him and so he is something of a celebrity. People remembered me as the crazy person who walked all the way from Ndanda.
October 30
October 30
My computer crashed last week and I lost several entries. I’ll try to rewrite a couple of them now.
I suppose I should give some overview of the schools here. Education in Tanzania is based on the British system. Students study in primary school for seven years, in secondary school for four years, and then in a sort of post-secondary school for two years. Most university degrees take only three years afterwards. In Kenya and Tanzania everybody associated with the education system is preoccupied with the numbe of years in each level; if people asked me what education was like in America, I would say “eight-four-four” meaning eight years primary, four years secondary, and four years in University; students and teachers would immediately understand. I could say many other things, of course, but spitting back three numbers is a good way to change the topic. The first level of secondary schooling is called O-level; the second is advanced, or A-level. At the end of each tier of schooling, students take an exam to determine if they will continue to advance; no grades are awarded during the course of the year and this exam is the only record of the student’s achievement.
I’ve seen a lot of differing statistics on the percentages of eligiblechildren enrolled in school, but most likely some 70% of the population now will enter primary school and some 2-3% eventually finish A-level. Maybe one half of one percent of the population continues on into the university. Children cannot begin schooling before they are seven, and given the delays after each level of exams most people here are lucky to finish secondary school by the time they are 21; several of my students are older than me. The first president, Julius Nyerere, was obsessed with education and adopted the titel “Mwalimu” or teacher. I have a series of speeches, in English and Swahili, about his goals to create an egalitarian, socialist society through the education system. He failed, and now the school system is in tatters.
Primary school is taught in Swahili. Secondary schools are supposedly taught in English, although among most teachers fluency is very poor and even A-level English (!) classes use a mix of Swahili and English. Advanced students take only three core subjects, along with a weekly seminar “General Studies” and religion courses twice a week. Scienc estudents who don’t study mathematics as a core subject also take a course called Basic Applied Mathematics. Physics, Chemistry, and Biology classes are comparable to AP courses in America, except the material is somewhat broader than an AP or introductory University course. Mathematics students learn pre-calculus with some little smattering of derivatives and integrals midway through their second year. The syllabi are terrible.
October 23
I’m trying to get one of my students into an American university. Festus Ndalama is by far my best student, usually scoring 10-15 points higher than the next one on my chemistry exams; I understand his physics and mathematics results are also the best on his class. During the breaks he remains at school and studies, during weekends he studies, and the result is that he has managed to teach himself undergraduate science without any real qualified teachers or adequate textbooks. Our school had class meetings where the students air their greivances to their fellows and to the class teachers; most other students complained about the bad food, the lack of lab materials and the unqualified teachers; Festus stood up and castigated his fellows for not working hard enough. At O-level he studied at a seminary school, which are viewed as among the best in Tanzania; at this school his teachers forced him to speak only English, so he has no problems understanding me or his exams (which are written in English).
A few weeks after I first arrived I lent him a copy of Brian Greene’s The Elegant Universe. He finished it and could explain some of its concepts to me. After the first Chemistry exam I gave him an English dictionary and some books to study for the SAT’s. Last Wednesday we sat down to register at collegeboard.com.
Collegeboard.com asks all students to complete a profile of themselves, and of course the answers are directed at Americans. Festus had never used a computer before and so I had to fill out all the survey for him. Someof them seemed so ridiculous I didn’t even ask him questions and just checked “no”. Festus lives in Dar es Salaam; neither of his parents had studied past secondary school. He doesn’t have a cell phone and does not return home for holidays, and so I believe he is one of the poorer students here. He has no email address and I used mine; I’ve gotten three messages from collegeboard since then. I think the seventy dollar SAT application fee may put the test out of his price range, and I told him I’d front the money and he could pay me back if he made it to the States.
The experience was both moving and surreal. I tried to picture Festus Ndalama, now dressed in an ironed maroon uniform, walking around a frosty New England campus carrying a laptop. What would he think of a school cafeteria? A library? I do not know what the future holds for Festus, if he will make it to America. If our lab technician screws up the practical again Festus may very well not even make it to the University of Dar es Salaam. For now his focus is on the practice examination which begins next week, and the national examination starting in February.
October 25, 2008
Matthew Nagatani is another volunteer who lives about 20-25 km from my house, up on the Makonde Plateau. This plateau is dry and consequently poor; almost all the buildings I saw were made from dried mud or cow dung, with thatched roofs. Water was going for 800 schillings a bucket when I visited, more than what most people make in a day (1250 tzs = 1 dollar), and the rain which came Saturday was a godsend. Matt’s village, Nyambe, passes for a big town in the region; but almost no food is available besides rice, tomatoes, beans and onions; life here teaches all of us to appreciate things like vegetables. No other white people live close to him and so he is something of a celebrity. People remembered me as the crazy person who walked all the way from Ndanda.
My computer crashed last week and I lost several entries. I’ll try to rewrite a couple of them now.
I suppose I should give some overview of the schools here. Education in Tanzania is based on the British system. Students study in primary school for seven years, in secondary school for four years, and then in a sort of post-secondary school for two years. Most university degrees take only three years afterwards. In Kenya and Tanzania everybody associated with the education system is preoccupied with the numbe of years in each level; if people asked me what education was like in America, I would say “eight-four-four” meaning eight years primary, four years secondary, and four years in University; students and teachers would immediately understand. I could say many other things, of course, but spitting back three numbers is a good way to change the topic. The first level of secondary schooling is called O-level; the second is advanced, or A-level. At the end of each tier of schooling, students take an exam to determine if they will continue to advance; no grades are awarded during the course of the year and this exam is the only record of the student’s achievement.
I’ve seen a lot of differing statistics on the percentages of eligiblechildren enrolled in school, but most likely some 70% of the population now will enter primary school and some 2-3% eventually finish A-level. Maybe one half of one percent of the population continues on into the university. Children cannot begin schooling before they are seven, and given the delays after each level of exams most people here are lucky to finish secondary school by the time they are 21; several of my students are older than me. The first president, Julius Nyerere, was obsessed with education and adopted the titel “Mwalimu” or teacher. I have a series of speeches, in English and Swahili, about his goals to create an egalitarian, socialist society through the education system. He failed, and now the school system is in tatters.
Primary school is taught in Swahili. Secondary schools are supposedly taught in English, although among most teachers fluency is very poor and even A-level English (!) classes use a mix of Swahili and English. Advanced students take only three core subjects, along with a weekly seminar “General Studies” and religion courses twice a week. Scienc estudents who don’t study mathematics as a core subject also take a course called Basic Applied Mathematics. Physics, Chemistry, and Biology classes are comparable to AP courses in America, except the material is somewhat broader than an AP or introductory University course. Mathematics students learn pre-calculus with some little smattering of derivatives and integrals midway through their second year. The syllabi are terrible.
October 23
I’m trying to get one of my students into an American university. Festus Ndalama is by far my best student, usually scoring 10-15 points higher than the next one on my chemistry exams; I understand his physics and mathematics results are also the best on his class. During the breaks he remains at school and studies, during weekends he studies, and the result is that he has managed to teach himself undergraduate science without any real qualified teachers or adequate textbooks. Our school had class meetings where the students air their greivances to their fellows and to the class teachers; most other students complained about the bad food, the lack of lab materials and the unqualified teachers; Festus stood up and castigated his fellows for not working hard enough. At O-level he studied at a seminary school, which are viewed as among the best in Tanzania; at this school his teachers forced him to speak only English, so he has no problems understanding me or his exams (which are written in English).
A few weeks after I first arrived I lent him a copy of Brian Greene’s The Elegant Universe. He finished it and could explain some of its concepts to me. After the first Chemistry exam I gave him an English dictionary and some books to study for the SAT’s. Last Wednesday we sat down to register at collegeboard.com.
Collegeboard.com asks all students to complete a profile of themselves, and of course the answers are directed at Americans. Festus had never used a computer before and so I had to fill out all the survey for him. Someof them seemed so ridiculous I didn’t even ask him questions and just checked “no”. Festus lives in Dar es Salaam; neither of his parents had studied past secondary school. He doesn’t have a cell phone and does not return home for holidays, and so I believe he is one of the poorer students here. He has no email address and I used mine; I’ve gotten three messages from collegeboard since then. I think the seventy dollar SAT application fee may put the test out of his price range, and I told him I’d front the money and he could pay me back if he made it to the States.
The experience was both moving and surreal. I tried to picture Festus Ndalama, now dressed in an ironed maroon uniform, walking around a frosty New England campus carrying a laptop. What would he think of a school cafeteria? A library? I do not know what the future holds for Festus, if he will make it to America. If our lab technician screws up the practical again Festus may very well not even make it to the University of Dar es Salaam. For now his focus is on the practice examination which begins next week, and the national examination starting in February.
October 25, 2008
Matthew Nagatani is another volunteer who lives about 20-25 km from my house, up on the Makonde Plateau. This plateau is dry and consequently poor; almost all the buildings I saw were made from dried mud or cow dung, with thatched roofs. Water was going for 800 schillings a bucket when I visited, more than what most people make in a day (1250 tzs = 1 dollar), and the rain which came Saturday was a godsend. Matt’s village, Nyambe, passes for a big town in the region; but almost no food is available besides rice, tomatoes, beans and onions; life here teaches all of us to appreciate things like vegetables. No other white people live close to him and so he is something of a celebrity. People remembered me as the crazy person who walked all the way from Ndanda.
November 4, 2008
The elections here are a big deal, maybe even bigger than they are in America. The Africans are excited for Obama, of course, and the people in Kenya were crazy about him; but somehow the other volunteers are even more obsessed with him.
Humphrey is a Ugandan VSO accountant who lives across the street and works in the hospital. Thursday last week my power died and I went to Subiako to eat dinner, not wanting to eat in the dark. Humphrey was there too, buying vouchers so he could keep his businesses in Uganda in line. We stayed at this mgahawa for about three hours and as we drank the subject of the American elections came up. He had woken up at 5:00 in the morning to watch the final debate, and told me that Mccain looked pretty good but he was still excited about Obama. “I’m a big Obama supporter too,” I told Humphrey, “but whoever wins, you’re bound to be disappointed.” I understand American elections affect the entire world and so everybody cares, but i was surprised by the scale of other people's interest.
Humphrey is a Ugandan VSO accountant who lives across the street and works in the hospital. Thursday last week my power died and I went to Subiako to eat dinner, not wanting to eat in the dark. Humphrey was there too, buying vouchers so he could keep his businesses in Uganda in line. We stayed at this mgahawa for about three hours and as we drank the subject of the American elections came up. He had woken up at 5:00 in the morning to watch the final debate, and told me that Mccain looked pretty good but he was still excited about Obama. “I’m a big Obama supporter too,” I told Humphrey, “but whoever wins, you’re bound to be disappointed.” I understand American elections affect the entire world and so everybody cares, but i was surprised by the scale of other people's interest.
Friday, October 17, 2008
October 10: Ndanda
I’m leaving for a goodbye party after I write this post.
There has been one other goodbye party before this, which took place two weeks before I left Tanzania for break and was held in honor of the Economics teacher, Mr. Nganga. Another counterpart, Juma Kiwone, was also leaving but for some reason he didn’t tell the school administration of his impending departure. I’m not terribly close with any of the other teachers but I had spent more time with Nganga and Kiwone than most of the others; Kiwone also taught chemistry and in fact had attended a brief Peace Corps teacher training session with me. He is very small, around 5’, wears western long-sleeve collared shirts rather than the local tailored variety and was contemplating buying a car a few weeks before he left. He was a miserable chemistry teacher who could not prepare stock solutions by himself, and I cannot believe he was selected to attend further science studies rather than some other, more competent candidate. The students frequently complained that he could not answer any of their questions instead yelled back at the one brazen enough to ask. Nevertheless I liked him, he helped me out when I first moved into my new home and would always smile.
Nganga hated teaching. Like so many other teachers here he was a university graduate who grabbed the first job he could find, which unfortunately meant coming to Ndanda. He had grown up in Dar es Salaam, the capital, and I don’t think he liked being in the hinterland. At one point Nganga was very active in the teacher’s union but he was disillusioned by the time I met him, and he now works as an accountant in some other province. He had a second job at the Abbey Secondary School and also owned a little shop nearby which charged exorbitant rates for basic goods. In his free time he was usually hanging out with the carving guys outside his shop or looking after his child. Nganga wasn’t at his own goodbye party, and in fact I’m not even sure if he was informed there would be a party until he had already left for Dar.
I arrived at the party with my neighbor, Mama Yamiseo, thirty minutes after the starting time. Apparently this was still too early; when we arrived the stereos were blasting music but only three of us were sitting there – Erina, my JICA besti, had arrived before we did. Us two foreigners tried to get Mama Yamiseo to tell us all the gossip about the other teacher’s wives but I don’t think she understood us. From time to time other teachers poked their heads in, realized no one was around, and left, not wanting to be the lame ones who got to the party first. The DJ’s continued keep the music at full volume.
I had been assigned to security by the party planners. Most of the teacher tasks around the school are pretty ambiguous and usually I can get out them by having no idea of what’s going on. This night I had no such luck, however, and security detail apparently meant waiting outside and collecting tickets. Other teachers, staff members, and community members sauntered in and after about an hour it was assumed all the guests had arrived and I was allowed to come inside. I’m amazed how similar the whole affair was to an American party, right down to the style of music that was played (Swahili pop music and a little Celine Dion.)
I turned 23 today.
There has been one other goodbye party before this, which took place two weeks before I left Tanzania for break and was held in honor of the Economics teacher, Mr. Nganga. Another counterpart, Juma Kiwone, was also leaving but for some reason he didn’t tell the school administration of his impending departure. I’m not terribly close with any of the other teachers but I had spent more time with Nganga and Kiwone than most of the others; Kiwone also taught chemistry and in fact had attended a brief Peace Corps teacher training session with me. He is very small, around 5’, wears western long-sleeve collared shirts rather than the local tailored variety and was contemplating buying a car a few weeks before he left. He was a miserable chemistry teacher who could not prepare stock solutions by himself, and I cannot believe he was selected to attend further science studies rather than some other, more competent candidate. The students frequently complained that he could not answer any of their questions instead yelled back at the one brazen enough to ask. Nevertheless I liked him, he helped me out when I first moved into my new home and would always smile.
Nganga hated teaching. Like so many other teachers here he was a university graduate who grabbed the first job he could find, which unfortunately meant coming to Ndanda. He had grown up in Dar es Salaam, the capital, and I don’t think he liked being in the hinterland. At one point Nganga was very active in the teacher’s union but he was disillusioned by the time I met him, and he now works as an accountant in some other province. He had a second job at the Abbey Secondary School and also owned a little shop nearby which charged exorbitant rates for basic goods. In his free time he was usually hanging out with the carving guys outside his shop or looking after his child. Nganga wasn’t at his own goodbye party, and in fact I’m not even sure if he was informed there would be a party until he had already left for Dar.
I arrived at the party with my neighbor, Mama Yamiseo, thirty minutes after the starting time. Apparently this was still too early; when we arrived the stereos were blasting music but only three of us were sitting there – Erina, my JICA besti, had arrived before we did. Us two foreigners tried to get Mama Yamiseo to tell us all the gossip about the other teacher’s wives but I don’t think she understood us. From time to time other teachers poked their heads in, realized no one was around, and left, not wanting to be the lame ones who got to the party first. The DJ’s continued keep the music at full volume.
I had been assigned to security by the party planners. Most of the teacher tasks around the school are pretty ambiguous and usually I can get out them by having no idea of what’s going on. This night I had no such luck, however, and security detail apparently meant waiting outside and collecting tickets. Other teachers, staff members, and community members sauntered in and after about an hour it was assumed all the guests had arrived and I was allowed to come inside. I’m amazed how similar the whole affair was to an American party, right down to the style of music that was played (Swahili pop music and a little Celine Dion.)
I turned 23 today.
October 9th: Ndanda
October 9, 2008: Ndanda
I ran into the director of the hospital today while I was buying eggs at the mission kitchen. Peter is from the Netherlands; even after numerous stints around the third-world he is shocked and dismayed by Tanzania’s health care system. Lindi and Mtwara districts, the “Deep South,” have a bad reputation across the rest of the country. My headmaster himself told me of the myth of the “undeveloped south” when he explained the teacher shortages the school was facing. The economics teacher, who has since left for greener pastures, explained the people’s laziness, “But we are Tanzanians, while the Arab influence has corrupted these people.” With underdevelopment comes poor health care and often the (foreign) doctors across the street wonder at the other surrounding hospitals; no electricity or clean water, critical shortages of sanitary equipment, absent doctors, incompetent nurses, and corrupt staff are the most common complaints.
Even before I arrived in Ndanda I had expected to hear about all these problems, which have their parallels in the school system. Peter has a new target, Bush’s PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief) which has invested several hundred million dollars in Tanzania. I myself must fill out PEPFAR report forms twice a year and in fact I completed my second one today, writing zeroes in every single box. The problem with PEPFAR is that such a vast amount of foreign money co-opts the local health care system. The budget of any PEPFAR program is astronomical compared to any Tanzanian scheme, so these programs have their pick of the best and brightest in country. Talented doctors will not work in the rural areas; even in cities they rarely care for patients and instead fill out the ranks of foreign aid. I believe Ndanda hospital pays somewhat better than the nearby government hospitals but Peter tells me they’ve also had a hard time keeping staff recently.
Peter also conveys a more general ambivalence about foreign aid schemes, an ambivalence which every foreigner in this country has expressed at one point or another. My new Peace Corps sitemate came to visit on Monday and wondered whether we were not just engaged in some new form of imperialism. A German dentist, who has been working on and off in Ndanda for some twenty years, believes that his presence may have been good for a few select people, but it was bad for the nation. The refrain is always the same; African problems need African solutions, development in Tanzania will take place on the country’s own terms.
The power has been out for a while and my computer is almost dead, so no more ranting.
I ran into the director of the hospital today while I was buying eggs at the mission kitchen. Peter is from the Netherlands; even after numerous stints around the third-world he is shocked and dismayed by Tanzania’s health care system. Lindi and Mtwara districts, the “Deep South,” have a bad reputation across the rest of the country. My headmaster himself told me of the myth of the “undeveloped south” when he explained the teacher shortages the school was facing. The economics teacher, who has since left for greener pastures, explained the people’s laziness, “But we are Tanzanians, while the Arab influence has corrupted these people.” With underdevelopment comes poor health care and often the (foreign) doctors across the street wonder at the other surrounding hospitals; no electricity or clean water, critical shortages of sanitary equipment, absent doctors, incompetent nurses, and corrupt staff are the most common complaints.
Even before I arrived in Ndanda I had expected to hear about all these problems, which have their parallels in the school system. Peter has a new target, Bush’s PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief) which has invested several hundred million dollars in Tanzania. I myself must fill out PEPFAR report forms twice a year and in fact I completed my second one today, writing zeroes in every single box. The problem with PEPFAR is that such a vast amount of foreign money co-opts the local health care system. The budget of any PEPFAR program is astronomical compared to any Tanzanian scheme, so these programs have their pick of the best and brightest in country. Talented doctors will not work in the rural areas; even in cities they rarely care for patients and instead fill out the ranks of foreign aid. I believe Ndanda hospital pays somewhat better than the nearby government hospitals but Peter tells me they’ve also had a hard time keeping staff recently.
Peter also conveys a more general ambivalence about foreign aid schemes, an ambivalence which every foreigner in this country has expressed at one point or another. My new Peace Corps sitemate came to visit on Monday and wondered whether we were not just engaged in some new form of imperialism. A German dentist, who has been working on and off in Ndanda for some twenty years, believes that his presence may have been good for a few select people, but it was bad for the nation. The refrain is always the same; African problems need African solutions, development in Tanzania will take place on the country’s own terms.
The power has been out for a while and my computer is almost dead, so no more ranting.
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