Time

Time is such an interesting concept.  It isn’t linear and it always seems to fly by at different rates, especially here in Africa.  I hadn’t even realized that it had been almost two months since my last blog post, but I was aware that a lot has happened since October.  But let’s see…where to start so I can fill in the gaps of the Peace Corps Tanzanian fabric of time?

Last month marked the closing of the school and the opening of another Peace Corps training, In-Service Training (IST).  One by one, each form of students at Mwatisi took their exams, and form after form, the school emptied, starting with Form IV NECTAs as I mentioned in my last post, Form II NECTAs the first week of November, and then the Annual District Exams for Forms I and III during the last week of November and first week of December.  Teaching peaked after Form IV left because I doubled the number of periods I taught for Form II so I could finish teaching the material for their NECTA, but once those were over, I could concentrate all of my time on the Form III students.  We were able to get through all of the material in the syllabus (Circles, Earth as a Sphere, and Accounts) by the time I had to leave for IST, but it felt like the longest week ever, because the students and I were experiencing symptoms of extreme “senioritis.”  Everyone was anxious for the holidays, but we pushed through it and we came out successful!

When I left my site two days before Thanksgiving, I was able to leave without feeling like I left anything unfinished, so that was great!  I left my dogs with a fellow teacher, who I knew would take very good care of them, and got on a Land Cruiser with my bags to Iringa.  I decided to break my bus ride from Mbeya to Morogoro in half by stopping in Iringa for a few days and go out to Ben’s site.  This was my very first Thanksgiving away from family, so I figured why not spend it with my PCV brother here?  He wasn’t going to be able to leave his site on Thanksgiving day so I decided to join him and cook a Thanksgiving feast for us!

For those that do not know, I am the signified cook for making fluffy mashed potatoes every year at Thanksgiving and I was determined to continue that tradition here in Tanzania, as well.  Also, Ben and I talked about getting another chicken to slaughter in place of a turkey, so I was pretty stoked to get another chance to eat fresh meat.  While Ben was busy at school, I spent the whole morning cooking a quasi-traditional Thanksgiving feast, all from scratch!  I ended up making stuffing, gravy, and creamed corn, which we had part of it with toast for lunch, then finished the Thanksgiving smorgasbord off with sweet potato casserole (with ghost-shaped marshmallows sent from Mom), sautéed chicken, and my fluffy mashed potatoes!

Our Thanksgiving lunch of creamed corn, stuffing, and gravy (left to right)

This sweet potato casserole (with Ghostmallows on top) did not last to dinner…

As usual [“kama kawa”], I feel the need to supplement the statement of slaughtering a chicken with a picture, especially since I was able to be the one to sacrifice its life to complete a delicious holiday dinner.  :)  You can find the other (slightly more graphic) pictures in my Picasa photostream above!  One of Ben’s neighbors gave us the chicken as a gift, so he wanted to help us out with it.  I just made it apparent that I wanted to be the one to do it.

I promise I am not a violent person…except maybe when it’s about food.

Our Thanksgiving spread

I was surprised how well everything turned out!  It felt just like home…except for the fact that it was really hot and I was in Tanzania lol.  I was really happy to get to spend Thanksgiving with family, and it was scrump-delicious!  We went to sleep that night with our bellies full and our hearts warm from the occasion.

Brother and sister at Thanksgiving in Tanzania

The next day, we got on a truck to Iringa town, after waiting by the road for about three hours.  Luckily, we occupied our time with quoting entire Disney movies, namely The Lion King – how appropriate hah.  That weekend we met up with other Mbeyans in our class, and then headed to Morogoro for the start of IST.

IST was a little less than two weeks long but it was incredibly jam-packed with training sessions on HIV/AIDS, Life Skills, Safety and Security (Gender and Sexuality), Permagardening, and one of my favorites (mainly because of the “flashy” introduction), Shika na Mikono [translates to “Take Hold with Hands”].  Shika na Mikono is the Hands-on Science initiative and group that is made up of PCVs that come to our trainings to provide us science and math folk with activities and practicals that we can do with our students.  I hope to be a part of this group later on in my service, but  we shall see!

Being back in Morogoro was so odd…  Although it was only three months since I was back there, it seemed like a different place.  I had gained three extra months of experience with the language, culture, and people, so I was returning to our “nest" as a more seasoned PCV.  No longer was I afraid or uncomfortable with speaking Swahili, handling my own interactions, and just walking around the bustling city on my own.  Of course, because there was a huge group of PCVs in one town, I actually rarely was on my own.  It was so wonderful, but also overwhelming, getting to see everyone in one place again!  Huge non-culturally-acceptable hugs were all around and we exchanged experiences from the past few months.  It was also a welcomed change to be fed SO MUCH and SO OFTEN, for FREE!!  :D

Our class also continued the tradition (which started three years ago) of having an IST Prom!  THAT was a blast and the planning started about a month before IST (shoutouts to Hannah and Amanda), and our dates were drawn randomly, which made it that much more interesting because we definitely had multiple same-sex pairs.  It was SO wicked seeing everyone’s coordination with their dates, though I do have to say that Brian and I totally pulled off the 90s look with our green and purple, his shiny shirt, and my bedazzled Robin Sparkles black denim jacket!  It was a night of fun and fancy free shenanigans, and everyone really let loose.  Prom night was a little bit like a blast from the past, for more than one reason, and fun nonetheless, so it was just the break I needed from time at site.

All of us being together that night reminded me of the fact that Peace Corps is like a time capsule.  While everyone else back at home in America seems to go on with their lives, us volunteers are having an entirely different concept of time.  In Tanzania, we experience many of the same things and can relate to one another, and it is like we are in our own little world where nothing else seems to matter except what we do here and now.  I’m not saying it’s a good or bad thing, but time just runs a little more strangely in Tanzania.  Some days will seem very long, but months go by very quickly.  And before we know it, our two years will be up!  So for now, I just take things day by day…as time goes by.

Science

I have always loved science because it is all around us, and I mean, I did major in Chemical Engineering after all, but I had never realize how much work it was to ‘simulate’ or singlehandedly prepare a full week of lab practicals for over 30 students at a time.

The week before last was the most exhausting, yet most productive week of my teaching responsibilities.  Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday were the Form IV NECTA lab practicals for Chemistry, Physics, and the second group of Biology, respectively.  When Eric was here, he was the only permanent science teacher at Mwatisi, which automatically made him the head of all the science departments.  I am already the head of the Math department, but now that he is gone, I am officially the head of all the science departments as well.  That also meant I was the main/only qualified teacher to prepare all the lab practicals.  I was entirely happy to do it, but it was extremely time consuming.  Luckily, I had done most of the practicals before (thanks to all the labs I took in university) and Eric was able to prepare me enough to do the prep work on my own, but just the time and effort alone was what Tanzanians would call a “kazi kubwa” [big job].

About one month before the NECTA practicals, every secondary school in the nation receives confidential instructions from the Tanzanian government about what materials and/or specimen are needed for each practical.  Then, 24 hours before each science subject practical, another set of confidential and advanced instructions are sent to the school so that the lab technician (in this case, me) is able to prepare the specific chemicals, solutions, or the labeling of specimen necessary.  Biology was the easiest to prepare because most of the specimen were already collected and prepared before we received the 24 hour instructions, Physics was not difficult either, but Chemistry (one of my favorite subjects in school) was so elaborate.

Since the Chemistry practical was on Tuesday morning, Monday and Tuesday were the most tiring for me.  I spent all of Monday in the lab from 7:50am to 6pm weighing and preparing all chemicals and solutions that would be used for the practicals, labeling equipment, and setting up the three stations for each of the three experiments the students would have to do: titration, qualitative analysis, and chemical reaction.  Mind you, almost all of the solutions had to be prepared and diluted to the specifications in the instructions.  I felt like a true scientist, or more like a mad scientist, mixing chemicals in a lab all day.  I even had a large, white lab coat that was passed down to me from Eric!  :D  The next day, I woke up at 5am to get down to the school, to start lighting up the jiko and kerosene burners to use a heat source for the hot water bath.  Please keep in mind that my school does not have electricity or a gas tank for Bunsen burners, so it had to be done manually.  There would be over 30 of the total 60 students in Form IV that would be taking this exam, so we had to have two 3-hour sessions.  As the lab tech, I had to be on call for everything so I was not able to teach my other periods during the practicals.  There were a couple of issues in the very first session but then I improvised and things seemed be getting better.  The second session was not as successful by the end of it because the kerosene burner’s wick lever was getting stuck.  Then after both sessions were finished, NECTA required me to perform the titration and chemical reaction experiments and answer the questions to create a marking scheme specific to our school’s resources.  Although the students were allotted 50 minutes for each experiment, I had to do both of them as quickly as possible and place it in the envelope before the invigilators (what are the equivalent of proctors in the states) could close the seal on the test papers’ envelope.  Once the invigilators left, I still had to clean up the lab and prepare for the next practical – Physics.

That day alone took a toll on my energy, but I knew I still had two more practicals before the end of the week.  Luckily, the practical for Physics was only setting up for two questions: plane mirrors and Archimedes’ Principle.  It took much less time than Chemistry by a long shot, but there was a slight problem with the mirror stands that Eric and I ordered to be made by the local carpenter.  The order was not finished, so we had to borrow mirrors and stands from a nearby school, Mwakaleli Secondary School.  By the way, this type of situation (of borrowing and sharing resources in schools) happens very frequently.  Classic Tanzania…  Biology’s prep on Wednesday was very quick, entailing the making labels for each specimen (marked by letters) and making sure each work bench had enough of each.  Though I woke up at 5:30am for the Physics practical day and 6am for the Biology practical day, the practicals (two sessions each day) went quite smoothly and I was not required to do any marking schemes after the practicals!

Needless to say, the theme of the week before last was science, every waking hour of the day for a week. I truly felt like a scientist!  Although I was fatigued by Thursday evening, I had never felt more thankful of being an engineer and a woman of science.  My engineering degree and science classes over the years truly paid off, and I saw the direct results of science education.  That is one reason why I love doing what I do here – teaching science and math subjects, and simultaneously showing Tanzanians that science isn’t scary.  Most students are intimidated by science and engineering because they feel that they are unable to do it, but after speaking to a few students after the practicals, they seemed quite confident in how they did!  And as an advocate of science and engineering, I plan to continue promoting science by starting a couple of clubs at school that have been inspired by my experience in the SEEK (Student Engineers Educating Kids) organization that I was in during university.  I am hopeful, and more updates will come shortly!

Adieu

Initially, I was going to title this post as “Transition”, but the more I thought about it…”Adieu” has become more and more appropriate in describing the past couple of weeks.  “Adieu” directly translates to “to God” in French, but it is more commonly used in the expression “to bid adieu” to someone or something that is leaving.  In this case, it is bidding adieu to Eric, the PCV that I have been sharing a house with for the past couple of months and am replacing.  Also, I figured it was appropriate for the mood I have been in.  I have been missing France a lot lately and realized today that I had been referencing my study abroad experience in Toulouse, France more often than a couple of times just this past week.  I was even in the mood to watch Chocolat recently despite the fact that it meant I had to watch a movie about a ton of chocolate, which is more expensive and not in abundance in Tanzania unless you are in Dar or safi dukas.

Anyway, the main theme for the prior weeks has been a variety of send off dinners and parties for Eric’s leave to America and my welcome to my new home at Mwatisi.  A little less than two weeks ago, we (Steph, Eric, and I) went to eat dinner with the Mwakibambo family in Kandete village.  It was so sweet and it was so hard to watch Eric say bye to them.  I first need to interject with a short blurb about this amazing family.  They are quite possibly the most loving family I have ever met in Tanzania apart from my homestay family.  Mama Paulina and Baba Mwakibambo treat you like you are one of their own children, even if they meet you for the first time (Steph and I met them during our shadow week), and truly love you.  They both know English quite well and are so hospitable.  They also have one son (Lugano), who has two daughters (Sekela who is in Form I and Neema who is an adorable little girl in primary school, not sure what Standard).  Everyone treats you like you have always been around and being around them just warms your heart.  Needless to say, I can only imagine how difficult it was for Eric to have to leave this family.  I am sure I will feel the same way if not moreso, because I will have known them two full years rather than Eric’s span of knowing them since he met them at the end of his first year.  Luckily, Eric was able to go back to see them by himself later that week.

Eric, Steph, and me with the Makibambo family in Kandete

The next night, we three were invited to Mr. Chabwi’s house for dinner.  Chabwi was the awesome MC at the Mwatisi graduation and I have gotten to know him more because he is one of the founding members of the Kandete Community Center (KCC) project that Eric started working on with some of the Kandete community.  [I will be taking over that project now that Eric will be state-side, and I will expand on this in a later post.]  We had DELICIOUS “kiti moto” [pork], rice, pilau, beef stew, “mboga” [vegetables], bananas, and apples.  And then Steph, Eric, and I all received matching gifts from our local “fundi” [craftsman (in this case, tailor)], who is the chairman of KCC!  It was super sweet of them to give Steph and me a dress made of the same kitenge they used to make Eric a shirt.  :)

Then after being stuffed, Mr. Chabwi got us all a car and drove us straight to our homes, which was quite thoughtful of them.  We dropped Steph off first, but then on our way to mine and Eric’s house, the gas ran out and we were stuck on the road for about two hours in the cold waiting for someone from Kandete to bring us more petrol before we could continue on.  Eric and I fell asleep waiting in the car that was a nice barrier to the cold air outside, until our savior (piki driver) arrived with a tank of oil.  Once again, we were off and on our last leg to our house, half-awake half-stumbled our way to the house, and plopped ourselves onto our beds at around 2:30am, which is SO passed our bedtime of usually 10pm.  But truly, it’s the thought that counts!  :D

Then that weekend, was the big bash for Eric’s Going Away Party and my Housewarming Party!  It was so great and lots of our friends, both Peace Corps and Tanzanian, showed up to celebrate, play games, have bonfires, play music (Eric’s handmade drums and my ukulele), and eat terrific food.  OH, THE FOOD!  I am sure you can tell by now that I am obsessed with food…but anyway, that weekend, Eric and I pulled all the stops.  I had travelled to Tukuyu the weekend before to get a bucketful of avocados, a bucketful of potatoes, pasta, and a few other things, and Eric and I ordered chapatti, beef, and rice.  Here was the menu for that weekend:

Friday (Dinner):  Spaghetti and tomato sauce, toast
Saturday (Breakfast):  Peanut butter sandwiches, bananas
Saturday (Lunch):  Hashbrowns with green peppers and onions, eggs, toast
Saturday (Dinner):  Beef and veggie tacos using fresh meat (I spent over an hour grinding up in our meat grinder), guacamole, super delicious salsa, cheese (brought by PCVs from Mbeya), chips (brough by Marin), chapatti (as soft tacos), rice

It was SO successful!  Everyone loved our tacos!  Heck, I loved them.  But a disclaimer to this though was that I will not be able to eat like this every day, let alone every weekend.  This called for only special occasions and this was one.

Then after that weekend, NECTA exams for the Form IVs started and Eric had to start packing.  That was when it started to hit me – I was REALLY going to miss him.  He was a great housemate and although I was planning to live alone in country for two years, I never expected to grow so close to a person in just two months!  When he said goodbye to the teachers and the students that week, some tears were shed and I almost cried as the students sang him the school song.  It was truly heartbreaking, and I also realized that if I was close to crying now, I wonder how I will be after two years.

During the school’s goodbye though, the craziest thing happened – it started to rain.  There was a light sprinkle when the students started singing and by the end of the song, it was a steady rain.  As Eric finished his speech, the rain was coming down pretty hard and the students started to leave to go home.  It was as if the sky was mimicking the sadness felt by the students.  Very poetic actually…  Once all of the students left and the school was quiet again, the rain stopped suddenly.  We walked up the hill to go home, he finished packing, and the house was becoming emptier by the minute.  :(

Eric will be missed dearly by everyone, and I am glad I was able to say bye to him one last time in Mbeya this past weekend before he went on a bus to Dar.  I am now currently back at my site and am left with a slight emptiness that is new.  I am super happy I have the dogs (Amani and Orion) and cat (Felix) to keep me company, but it still feels like something is missing.  I am sure it may feel that for a little while, though luckily, I am going to be extremely busy taking care of Form IV NECTA lab practicals this week so I may not even notice hah.  I know it may take some time to get used to living alone now, but I am also looking forward to making what used to be “his house” and “our house” to become “my house” and finally “my home.”

Eric – I bid you adieu and thanks for being an awesome housemate and friend.  You will be missed dearly, but we had some great memories.  I wish you the best of luck and karibu kila mara!  Let the good times roll!

Graduation

One of the biggest days of your life is the day you graduate.  That doesn’t change when you are a student in Tanzania either.

Today I attended the graduation of the Form IV students of Mwatisi Secondary School.  I can definitely say that it was ENTIRELY different than any graduation I had ever been to in the states, both high school and university – and believe me, I have been to MANY graduation ceremonies just this past year!



For one, the school grounds are decorated by the teachers and the students the days (or in this case one day) prior to graduation, and there is a definite Tanzanian flair to it.  I was recruited by my mkuu to help paint the trees with a white limestone/water/paint mix using a brush that was pretty much two pieces of wood slapped together on a handle.  The teachers said I could do whatever I wanted, so I got some inspiration from Dr. Seuss and went crazy with it, or as crazy as I could be before my stomach started yelling at me to get fed.



As I admired my work and the work of the students, excitement started growing more and more inside of me, and I could not wait until the actual graduation day.  There were splashes of color everywhere.  The school grounds were decorated with various scraps and colors of “kitenge” (what is known as the fabric found commonly here in Tanzania) that were tied together and hung from the trees to create a banner of sorts.  Also, the students and teachers took the same paint mix that I used for some of the trees to paint the rocks lining the plants of the school.  Starting at the top of the hill behind the school was a railing made of bamboo that was striped with the white paint, ending at a pavilion for the teachers and guests of honor on the graduation grounds.





Finishing touches were made this morning before graduation started at 10am, including the stereos and speakers for the DJ and MC.  YES, you read correctly!  There is no live instrumental ensemble or stereo that plays the well-known graduation march, but instead there is a DJ and an MC that runs the show, because this graduation was a performance of sorts rather than the graduations in the U.S. that are riddled with speeches and names being called.  Here, it is much more than that.  It is a celebration of the end of an education and a bittersweet goodbye to those students that have worked to get where they are.  Now I must admit, not all graduations in Tanzania are like this, but I was lucky enough to be placed at a school that puts on a grand party for their graduates.  ;D

The graduation ceremony started at the front of the school where there are Scouts (similar to the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts of America combined with ROTC, I suppose) that led the procession through the school and down to the graduation grounds.  When the graduates reached their pavilion, which is separate from the guest and teacher pavilion, music was played and the students danced in place until every student arrives at their seats.  Another difference I saw was something I half expected and half did not want to be true – there was not a single parent in the audience or seating area below the two pavilions.  I do not think it was because the parents did not care, but more so the fact that they were arriving in true Tanzanian fashion…late.  When the MC, who was clad in what Americans would consider stereotypical African garb, started his introduction and after we (teachers, including myself) finished introducing ourselves in Kiswahili, I saw one parent in the entire audience.

As the ceremony and the performances went on throughout the morning, and more and more parents, families, and onlookers trickled in, the graduation accumulated a large crowd.  Performances were done by various student groups and individuals that were in honor of the Form IV graduates.  It actually seemed more like a talent show rather than a graduation, but still incredibly entertaining nonetheless!  There was a mix of acts from all Forms of students, most of which were students singing poems or songs they revised for the graduates, Bongo Flava, or rapping (some freestyle ones which were pretty impressive), and one that was a play and another was an acrobat/tumbling act which was cool.  Between every act was music being played and almost every graduate stood up to dance in place…that would rarely ever happen at a graduation in the states!  Also, everything was in Kiswahili, but luckily this was the second time I got to watch these acts.  Yesterday, while I taught only in the morning, I stayed at school until around 6pm helping decorate as well as watching the rehearsals for each act and listening to the teachers constructively critique the performances.  That was a first for me too…

After all the performances, a few speeches were made by Mkuu Kipangula, the school board director, a short one by Eric saying his goodbye, and a dodged bullet of a speech that I almost had to give in Kiswahili that I was not at all prepared for, the students were finally able to receive their faux graduation certificates (that was one thing very similar to my graduations in America).  What I thought was  really neat were the leis that many students received from their families as tokens of graduating.  While Americans receive flowers or gifts, the tokens of homemade and bought leis reminded me of the head pieces, wreaths, sashes, or pins that I have seen proud families adorn their graduates in Thailand.  It was awesome to see the varying traditions of different cultures on special occasions.  :)

Awards of excellence were given to students that excelled in academics, not only in Form IV but also the top student in each of the other Forms according to their Mock NECTA Exams and marks in school, and the finale consisted of all the graduates forming a semi-circle facing the teachers and singing goodbye.  It was truly heartwarming and although Eric would hate me for writing this, I actually saw him get choked up.  ;)  I don’t blame him – he was proud of his Form IV students, whom he has taught for two years, and they are finally graduating!  I am sure that when the time comes for my students to leave…I will probably cry…

I digress.  Once the ceremony was closed by the Mkuu, all was in calamity because Eric had started the precedence two years ago of taking pictures of students and their families and later printing them pictures the next time he would go into town…  Pictures cost money (350 Tsh/picture to be exact) and before the graduation ceremony even began that morning, I was volunteered (by Eric) to be the photographer because I was the only one between us that had a camera, so I took down names and money for how many pictures they wanted.  We did this for the sake of volunteering and not for profit, but man, we should have been paid because IT.WAS.CRAZY.  Once the ceremony was over, I had dozens of families and students urging me and almost tugging me in every direction to get their pictures taken – with Mwalimu Eric, without him, by themselves, with family – in every possible pose, no matter how odd it seemed to me.  (By the way, I have no earthly clue how Tanzanians come up with their poses sometimes…but it is pretty entertaining to watch.)  Of course, my camera died after a couple hours of taking hundreds of pictures, so I had to go back up to the house to charge my battery before the dance party.

Case in point…  :P

Unfortunately, I never made it back to the dance party before it was over at sundown, but it was apparently was quite fun, according to Eric.  To be honest, I was not too disappointed because although I love dancing, I did not know exactly how I would appear to the students if I danced like a fiend.  I am sure I will join in on the fun either next year or more likely the last year I am here, once they are more used to me and my quirkiness.  :P

All in all, HONGERA to the all graduates (at Mwatisi and other secondary schools) and So long, and thanks for all the fish!  [That is a quote…by the way…]

Firsts

The past couple of weeks have been the mark of many firsts.

For one, today was my first official day of teaching at Mwatisi!

It was a fantastic feeling to finally start teaching again.  I had forgotten how much I loved teaching when I was at Kihonda, and I was happy to find out that didn’t change here either.  Last week was the first week of school since the long hiatus from the Sensa [Census], but I was not able to figure out what I was going to be teaching until last Wednesday.  Instead, I just went and introduced myself to all the streams in each form and did not start lesson planning until this past weekend.  That being said, I am in a bit of a moral dilemma…

Currently, there is no physics teacher at my school and Eric, the PCV I’m replacing, is the only one teaching biology and chemistry.  Although the majority of my teaching was supposed to be math, I am going to be teaching mainly physics and a little math.  My time table until the end of this term will consist of me teaching Forms II (streams A through C) and IV (stream A) of physics and Form III (streams A and B) of math.  That does not seem much at first, but with about 40 students in each class, lesson plans, and tests and homework to grade, it can add up.  So here’s my dilemma:  I know I will not have the time or energy to do so, but I wish I could teach every form of physics.  Right now, the Form I’s and Form III’s are sitting idly in their classrooms with no teacher present during the time they would be learning physics.

I know I cannot be in multiple places at once unless I had Hermione’s Time Turner, which I have always coveted since I read about it in book three, so there is not much I can do.  Though there are four streams of Form I, I felt that taking on Forms II and IV would be the best option for their success because they have their NECTA exams coming up in October and I want to help them prepare for that as much as possible, seeing as they have no major resource for physics help.  Although I have made peace with my decision, I couldn’t help but feel bad for not being able to do more, so I told the other forms that I would be available to help answer any questions both academic and otherwise whenever I am not teaching.  So far, that has worked quite well!  It was the first time that I just felt like I wanted to do more but couldn’t…

In other news, this past week marked the first time that I have not showered more than twice in one week and have helped in the slaughtering of a chicken!  (To eat, of course!)  I apologize if both of those accounts have disgusted you in any way, but I must qualify that the first is due to lack of water and convenience to do so, since I do not have running water nor is the water less than incredibly cold without using an excess amount of kerosene to heat up coals.  The second is because how else would I be able to make chicken tortilla soup without a chicken?

Now you ask, how do you slaughter a chicken?  Well first, you need to buy a live chicken, tie it to something like a pole or tree while you are preparing necessary items, and hope it doesn’t run away.  Then, with a very sharp knife and while holding down its wings under your foot and its head in your non-cutting hand, you do your best to decapitate it in one motion with a lot more pressure than you think you need to cut off a chicken head.  You really don’t want a chicken named Nick, as in Nearly Headless Nick…

In our case, the chicken [“kuku”] was executed by my site mate, Steph, who valiantly took a stab at the slaughtering (sorry for the pun) and was mostly successful, but then Eric stepped in to help finish the deed so it would suffer as little as possible.  It is actually a lot harder than it looks to sever a small chicken neck, but we were successful after a couple attempts.  At least we used a very sharp knife.  Steph and I both wanted to learn how to kill a chicken at some point during our service so as to know where our food actually came from, so we agreed that she would do it this time and I would be the one to do it next time, since I am sure I will want to eat chicken again at site before my two years are up.

After letting the blood drain out on the grass in front of my porch, we got the water boiling and immersed the chicken in the pot.  [Funny tangent, but I was actually able to explain Archimedes Principle to my Form II physics classes today by using the example of upthrust and water displacement in putting a chicken in boiling water!  Never thought I would have to use that, but it worked and they knew exactly what I was talking about!]  Once the body has been in the water for about 30 seconds to open up the pores, the three of us plucked the chicken, singed loose hairs, and proceeded to dissect the chicken innards and cut the chicken up to boil a little before adding it to our delicious soup.  Earlier that day, Eric and I made flour, sage, and Golden Chick Lotta Zing tortillas from scratch, and were frying them up while the soup was going.

All of our hard work paid off and the chicken tortilla soup with our individual servings of hot tortillas and an entire avocado were truly delectable!  :D

Mail

I am drifting very quickly into REM, but I wanted to get this out there before I forgot, so this will be trite.

I finally got my mail situation set up and I think I will be getting the key to my box "very soon."  As for now, I have updated my mailing and shipping address that is located at the link titled, "How can I send mail to Belle?" under Common Inquiries.  This will be my mailing address until the end of my service!

So please send me mail!  :D  Tukuyu is my banking town where I will most likely be travelling into about once a month to get my living allowance, check mail, run some errands, and maybe even meet up with other volunteers.

Usiku mwema!

Rhythm

Today was was the very first day since I arrived that it really hit me – I’m in Africa.

My day started with waking up from the light of the sun shining through my window ten minutes before my alarm was set to go off.  Though most mornings I wake up feeling slightly disoriented because of an odd, yet vivid dream I had and I forget where I am, this morning, I felt completely rested, except for the numbness in my arm that resulted from sleeping on it.  I finally had one full day alone at my site and in my house, so I was starting to get into the rhythm of things, or at least what I think most days will be feeling like for the next two years.  I went about my typical household duties of cooking my breakfast via charcoal “jiko” [stove], washing my clothes by hand, washing the dishes, sweeping the floor and porch, and going down the hill to my school to check in with my “mkuu” [headmistress].  I felt very much like Snow White living in her cottage in the forest minus the seven dwarves.  It was really quite nice to finally have my own space, at least for a little while until Eric comes back tomorrow, so I have been taking full advantage of the peace and quiet of alone time.

When I went down to the practically empty school save my mkuu, she had a surprise for me (aka told me about an event that was happening in a few hours that we were going to).  We were going to a traditional drum festival!  This was indeed a stupendous surprise and I had no idea what to expect, so I made sure to block off the rest of the day for it, which was incredibly easy since I had nothing else to do anyway.  :D

After much anticipation, I got a tap and a “hodi” on my door and we headed off to the drum festival.  My mkuu, Susan Kipangula, herself accompanied me to the festival.  It was quite an experience!  We arrived late since it had already started a few hours ago and the crowd was largely populated with children and intoxicated Tanzanians.  As expected, I was the only “mzungu” [white person] there, and I was the center of attention, even though there was an entire drum and dance performance going on in the center of everything.  It was exhilarating and terrifying at the same time because as I was watching the performers, I could feel the eyes of every person on me, including the performers.  To be honest, I did not feel as uncomfortable as I would have expected the 3-month-ago-me would have felt, because I had already grown accustomed to the Fish Bowl Effect – me as the fish.  That being said, my initial discomfort did not last long and was replaced almost immediately by the thrilling realization of “OH MY GOD, I’M IN AFRICA!”

It may seem slightly cliché that it took a traditional drum festival to make me feel like I was in Africa, but it was definitely the tipping point from an accumulation of things.  This was the first time I truly felt like it was me with only Tanzanians, and a whole lot of them too.  Most other times, it is just a few host country nationals (HCNs) or I am with another volunteer.  But this was different…  I was both overwhelmed with what was going on and overwhelmed with pure joy at getting to experience this during my first week at site!

A couple of Tanzanians led me to the front of the audience and I was standing inside the bamboo fence at one of the corners of the square performance floor.  As I took pictures and a couple of videos on my borrowed camera (thanks, Jen!), I was beaming like crazy.  It was surreal to actually be seeing a traditional drum festival in real life and not in documentaries or pictures!  I greeted a few men near me in the local language, Kinyakiwsa, which they were thoroughly surprised and impressed, and they continued to pass along the information that I am the new teacher at Mwatisi Secondary School.  I caught only parts of conversations about me in Kiswahili because I was so engrossed in the performances.

I was in my own little world as I watched the dancers (or what my mkuu called “drum players”) moving to the rhythm of the beating drums.  It was a competition between seven villages in the area and each performance had a different essence that reflected the origins of each village.  The first group we saw consisted of only males and their movements were very powerful and aggressive, whereas the second group consisted of male and female drum players who were more gracefully intense.  Dust from the stomping feet of the performers was kicked up into a massive cloud that hovered above us and I was close enough to feel the vibrations from the drums and the ground beneath me.  Not a single performer faltered in keeping with the rhythm or the other drum players, even when people from outside the square unexpectedly joined in and weaved between the performers.  I wished we could have stayed longer to see who won the competition and to enjoy the festivities, but the crowd was getting rowdy and the sun was setting.

As we walked back to the school and I alone to my house, I could still hear the sound of the drums bouncing off the mountains around me as I saw the sun fade into the night, and I thought, “I am going to love it here.”

Jedi

Alas, the Padawan has become a Jedi…yet this is only the beginning of her saga.

A long, long time ago…in a galaxy (or in this case, continent) far away, there was a young Padawan [Peace Corps Trainee] by the name of Belle.  She had never ventured to the land called Africa and was very nervous to travel to a new place.  She was extremely excited to go, but was not trained in the arts of Teaching.  After having experienced traveling in some strange, bewitched vehicle (known as a daladala) with the ability to fit more people than it looked to hold, she arrived at the training grounds in Morogoro.  The nine short weeks consisted of rigorous training in skill sets ranging from the tongue of Tanzania (Kiswahili) to voiding oneself in a choo (squatting toilet), from the methods of using hands for eating and washing garments to averting personal marital status questions, and from evading the common illnesses and ailments of the new environment to the technical components of teaching.

Hereby following the gathering of knowledge, Padawan Belle was sent to her assigned site for a trial run.  She fell in love with her location and was disappointed to have to go back to the training grounds for her final test – the dreaded LPI.  She was drained from the training, but she knew she was in the last stretch and was reaching the end of her days as a Padawan.  What she did not know was that the last week of training was her true test as to whether or not she would be a Jedi…that is, a Jedi of patience and servitude.

The day finally came when she would be initiated [sworn in] as a true Jedi.  She had already taken her LPI and passed with flying light saber colors and was ready for her shining day at the Ambassador’s home.  After she said her oath and pledged herself to represent her homeland of America while serving in this new land, the celebration commenced and she traveled the very next day to her site – her new home.

Just because she is now officially a Jedi [Peace Corps Volunteer], she still has much to learn until she becomes a Jedi Master.  Though for now, these are a few reasons as to what qualifies her as a Jedi, apart from her official rank:

• riding on a bus with tiny seats without A/C for over 15 hours (to get from Dar es Salaam to Tukuyu town)
• seeing the sun both rise and set while in the same bus mentioned previously, in the same day
• having a successful chimba dawa behind a tree stump (a two minute stop for people to go to the bathroom…usually on the side of the road)
• having a child throw up beside her on the floor and some on her foot while on a bus
• buying chapatti and various snacks through the window of a bus
• knowing when someone is ripping her off
• bargaining (the price) in Kiswahili
• becoming an expert in storing every possible necessary item in her bra – So long, pockets and wallets!
• understanding conversations in Kiswahili (on the daladala), especially when someone is talking about her
• successfully not getting pickpocketed, at least for now
• being able to have a disagreement in Kiswahili followed by an agreement with a hostel receptionist about price and payment
• being able to laugh at Tanzanian jokes
• learning how to cook Tanzanian food via a charcoal jiko [stove] – rice, vegetables, ugali, and most importantly, chapatti
• killing mosquitoes with one hand in midair
• hiking up a crater in Croc flats
• being interviewed on Tanzanian TV/news in Kiswahili

And there is more that this Jedi will learn as her saga continues…

For now, she will be in Mbeya town this week for the Peace Corps Super Regional Conference for the regions of Mbeya, Njombe, and Ruvuma!  May the Force be with her!

Interwebs

Habari za asubuhi!  ["Good morning!"]

Since I have awesome interweb access right now because I am at Oasis hotel, I figured I'd write a little blog post.  I am currently taking advantage of my free time (and free internet) before I have to go to CCT because I finished my written technical exam and my LPI yesterday!  It feels amazing to be finally done!  Yesterday, after my finals, I yelled "Nimemaliza!" which means "I am done!"  :D

In addition to writing this fupi ["short"] post, I have added more pictures to my photostream, though most of them are not captioned just yet...AND I added a section on the left column of my blog that lists the known links to blogs of fellow PC friends that are in my training class!  Our training class has 47 people, but of course, not everyone has a blog.  Also, there is a plethora of distinct writing styles and voices, so they will give you a pretty well-rounded perspective of our experiences in Tanzania.  I may add a few more links to current PCVs but that may make the list a bit long.  That being said, I will probably reference other links throughout my blog posts.  For example, here is a fantastic and very true post about the "real Peace Corps" that I read before I arrived in Africa.  He is a volunteer who is currently serving in Ethiopia, and he is a great writer!  http://waidsworld.wordpress.com/2011/08/07/the-real-peace-corps/  Hope you enjoy it, as I bid you adieu.  :]

Finally

I have to apologize for the extended gap in time of updating my happenstances, so get ready for a lengthy entry.  First, I shall list the VERY important things that have FINALLY happened this past week or so, and then I will discuss them in detail.  If I have intrigued you enough by the synopses to read on, you may do so as you wish.

1) I have officially finished my internship teaching and am one step farther in my transformation from a padawan to a jedi.
2) I have taken my Final Written Kiswahili Examination (but not my Final Language Proficiency Interview, or LPI).
3) After suffering through limbo since I applied to the Peace Corps, I ACTUALLY now know exactly where I will be placed for the next two years!
4) For one week, I was able to shadow the current PCV, whom I will be replacing, at my physical site where I will be living and teaching.
4) My fellow PC trainees and I are FINALLY on the Airtel plan, which allows us unlimited minutes to talk to any other person in Tanzania on the Peace Corps Airtel plan, for a small charge of 3,000/= per month.

The past few days have a bit of a whirlwind to say the least, and I think I have started to feel the “rollercoaster effect” that every volunteer has referenced.

My initial state of being after my three week internship practicum was shock that it was already over and a little withdrawal from the students that I had become accustomed to seeing practically every day.  I was ready to get to my own site and have my own students rather than feeling like an alien substitute teacher, but I did miss some of my students, especially those that expressed a lot of interest and drive.  I tried not to play favorites, but I was going to miss two of the boys in my class very much (Hamfrey and Ephrahim).  Although they did not always have the correct answer, they both had amazing tenacity and asked a lot of questions and wanted more problems for me to go over.  I got to know a few students’ names throughout the three weeks because I had one of the class monitors or prefects [yes, I do think of Harry Potter a lot…] to give me the list of students’ names so I could call on them to participate in an exercise or problem I had on the board, as well as try to learn some names.  I had 53 students in my class, so I was not able to learn everyone’s name, but I got about a third of them down by my last day of teaching.  The experience was exhilarating because even though I was there for a short time, I felt like I played a part in their development of education and knowledge of anything non-Tanzanian.  I felt like practically every student wanted me there and wanted to learn, which is such a great feeling!
The last week, I gave them a short assessment on Monday, went over the test on Tuesday, and on Thursday I did a quick review of the material (by the way, I was teaching SI Units of Length, Mass, and Capacity) and held a Q & A session during the second half of class where they could ask me any questions – about me, America, anything.  At first, they asked about where I was from and then the questions started to veer towards music and they started asking if I knew different artists from America, all of which were African American.  None of their questions was a surprise to me, including one from Ephrahim:  “Do you have a boyfriend?”  I knew it was coming because it is extremely typical in Tanzanian culture, but I wasn’t sure who would be asking it.  I couldn’t suppress a smile, but did tell them the truth that I did not have one at the moment.  I left the class and said my good-bye as the whole class “awed” in unison.  It was all bittersweet when we (my CBT and me) gave the school gifts from PC and each said a line in Kiswahili to say thanks and all that jazz.  :)

The next day (Friday the 27th) was full of anticipation and anxiety, not for the Final Written Exam that was in the morning, but because immediately after the test was…OUR SITE ANNOUNCEMENTS!  I took the final and although that wasn’t the end of our language assessment, I was thrilled to get it done so I could focus on trying to not freak out about site announcements.  Site announcements could probably be the most important day of your Peace Corps service because it is the first time you obtain a concrete fact of your life for the next 2+ years, so of course, PC makes a big deal out of it.  They even brought musicians who had a drum circle!
After the Peace Corps stalled as much as possible until the last possible moment, the APCDs and Brian, the Director of Programming and Training, revealed a map of Tanzania and a plethora of sticky notes.  PC never ceases to amaze me how much they love to keep us on our toes…haha.



The way we were to commence the site announcements was that after the sticky is removed to expose an individual’s mugshot, Hilda (the head APCD) would read out a tidbit on that person’s site and then that person would choose another sticky note in that same region (or any other region if everyone in that region was called), and the process would continue from there.  They called Doug up first since he has "a lot of wisdom” and he miraculously chose his own!



Gradually, each person was called and there were less sticky notes on the board, I am certain that everyone was silently verifying their predictions of who would go where; however, on every person’s mind that hadn’t been called yet, they were thinking of only one thing while they applauded for those who knew their fate – “WHERE AM I GOING?!”

As expected, many of us were very happy and some were not so thrilled of their sites, but all in all, we FINALLY knew after a long, long wait!



I was the last person to get called in the Mbeya region, which was a little nerve-racking because Mbeya was my first choice and I had a strong feeling I was going to be placed there, but I was not 100% positive.  Once it was confirmed, I was ecstatic and the phone texting exploded like the Big Bang.  I easily went through about 70 text messages in less than 4 hours.



Here is the lowdown on my CBT and our whereabouts:
- Jasmine = Tanga
- Ben (and Kim) = Tanga
- Kristine = Ruvuma (Mbinga)
- Belle = Mbeya
- Jen = Kilimanjaro
- Ben = Iringa

The last person to get announced was Nick Allen Taylor in Mtwara and then the rest of the day at CCT was spent with travel and shadow week logistics.  Depending on the bus you were taking and where your site was, about half of us would leave on Saturday and the rest of us on Sunday.  I left on Sunday with Steph, who will be my future site mate.  She and I would be shadowing Eric Sandhurst, whom we had met before when he came to help out during technical lab practical sessions.  The two closest current volunteers to me, other than Eric, are Folake and Hannah, whom I have had quite a few pictures with and have gotten quite close to.  I WAS SO HAPPY!!  :D

Now that I was finally out of limbo, I was overjoyed and my energy was boosted even though I had not had much sleep from the night before.  Anxiety immediately changed to relief and excitement, and luckily I had the next day to take my time to take care of a few things in town and pack before boarding a bus to the Mbeya region on Sunday morning.  The Mbeya folk, minus Tracy and Siobhan who stopped in Mbeya Town, which is their banking town (my banking town is Tukuyu), arrived in Tukuyu and we were hosted by Hannah at her adorable home.  It was a full house (with Hannah, Marielle, Fo, and us PCTs, Mandy, Rachel, Steph, Willie, and me), and we had TACOS (HOMEMADE TORTILLAS), GUACAMOLE, CHEESE, AND HOMEMADE OREOS!!!!!  You cannot even fathom how much I missed Mexican food, and it was SO delectable!  I was unimaginably spoiled during shadow week, and that was just the start.
The next morning before Eric came to get Steph and me, Hannah and Mar made us HOMEMADE CINNAMON ROLLS.  Seriously…UNBELIEVABLY SCRUMPTUOUS!  Move over, Cinnabon!  After I scarfed down two whole ones, Steph, Eric, and I trekked to his house/my site, Mwatisi Secondary School in Mwakaleli village via a Land Cruiser and then walking up a pine tree ridden path.  YES, I have pine trees and pine cones…it feels more like Colorado than Africa, but I LOVE IT!  And there are virtually no mosquitoes, which was my number one concern during my site interview with Hilda.

Although the pine trees surrounding my house (which is now currently Eric’s) juxtaposes my generalizations of Africa, the scent and coolness in the air emanates the perpetual feeling that it’s Christmas (my favorite holiday), which is fantastic.  The house is huge!  I have three bedrooms (one of which is used as a walk-in closet and one is a guest room), a kitchen area, a sitting room, an indoor choo (squat toilet) and shower, and a large room that he uses for laundry and hanging up clothes to dry.  The pictures of “our” house are in my Picasa photostream at the top of this page.  I have electricity via a solar panel and battery that allow me to charge my various electronics.  My school is literally 30 seconds down the hill and I could even roll down it and I could be there in about 15 seconds, depending on how much I weighed at the time.  ;)
The school is building a new house about 50 meters away from Eric’s, and I may be living there instead of Eric’s during our 3-month overlap period, assuming it gets finished by the time I arrive at site.  In spite of the appeal of living in a large, furnished house with electricity, I would prefer to live in the new house because it would be my own space and it is a little more quaint.  No matter where I will be living, I just can’t wait to make it my home!  Also, if I lived at the new house, I have a slight veranda that looks over the school and Rungwe Mountain, and I appear to be living next to what looks similar to an unfinished castle.

Following the initial shock of how much I loved my site, I was able to meet my headmistress (mkuu), second master, and a few of the teachers.  I have yet to introduce myself to my students or the rest of the teachers but that was mostly due to the odd situation of the teacher’s strike that was going on about salary and the graduation rehearsals.  I was able to see the adequately stocked science lab and library, and I helped create a marking scheme for a chemistry exam.  I found out that there is currently no physics teacher so there is a high likelihood that I will be teaching physics in addition to math.  Yay!  :P 

The remainder of my shadow visit consisted of being surrounded by gorgeous scenery everywhere I walked, visiting Kandete village and town, spending a day at Steph’s site and school, which was about an hour scenic route with greetings, setting up my mailbox and meeting with the district council chair in Tukuyu, and topping it off by hiking up the Ngozi Crater with Eric, Steph, Rachel, Tracy, and Kat (pun intended).  The crater hike was BREATHTAKING, but it was incredibly difficult doing the hike in Croc flats - my other shoes are in Dar in the PC office…  There were three main phases: a gravel/sand road, a mossy tree tunnel path, and then a vertical path up to the peak of the crater.  I felt so out of shape, but much of my energy was spent walking carefully to try to make sure my shoes did not fall off.  Huffing and puffing up the mountain was definitely worth it once we arrived at the lookout at the top of the crater. Although I was sweating profusely and was exhausted, the view was amazing and not like anything I’d ever seen before.



In the center of the crater was Ngozi Crater Lake and Eric said it would be possible to camp at the bottom of the crater, but there may be crocodiles in the lake, which makes me a tad hesitant but interested nonetheless.  We soaked in the view and had a little pumzika [“rest” in Kiswahili] with snacks and water.  Then, we started to hike back down the mountain when the unthinkable happened!  Kat fell and sprained her ankle.  :O  Once she was able to get back on her feet, Eric ran down the mountain to try to find a car to get her back to the path entrance once us gals descended Phase 3 of the hike.  I was able to find Kat a walking stick that happened to be the perfect size, weight, and strength, and part of the way down, I wrapped her ankle with her extra shirt and some of Tracy’s bandage tape.  Rachel helped lead her down the mountain and all of us moseyed our way down, which was quite pleasant since we were able to go slow enough to take in all the natural habitat around us.  It took a while, but we finally made it down to Phase 2 and Eric found Kat a ride back to the entrance while we walked.  The whole hike from start to finish was just past five hours, including the slight shida [“problem”] we ran into.

Immediately after we left the crater, I got both the best news ever (that we are finally on the PC Airtel Plan) and the worst news ever (about the passing of my dog in America).  :(  She was 15 so she led a very long and enjoyable life, but it was still extremely painful to hear…  That was definitely the first time I felt absolutely drained of any emotion or energy, so I was happy to get a change of scenery the next day.  That night we spent the night at Hannah’s again and then we headed off to Iringa in the morning.  I was SO happy to see Kaka Ben (Ben Savonen)!  I didn’t realize how much I missed being around him until then.  :)  In Iringa, we met up with other PCTs and PCVs from the regions of Mbeya, Iringa, Njombe, and one that is located at the midpoint of Njombe and Songea.  The next couple of days were spent frolicking around Iringa, where I saw an uncomfortable amount of Europeans since I have been in country, and I was able to catch my first short glimpse of the Olympics!  After two very active days of dancing and hanging out, which was exactly what I needed, we got on a bus to come back to Morogoro on Sunday.

And that pretty much sums up my past week and a half!  The next couple of weeks will be pretty hectic with taking my LPI and then going to Dar for our Swearing-In Ceremony next week, so don’t be surprised if I don’t get a chance to post another update.  In the mean time, I have updated my wishlist and am in the process of uploading more pictures!

Until next time, maisha mazuri na kwaherini!

Elimu

I can't believe the day has come!  Tomorrow will be the last day of my teaching internship practicum (aka substituting) at the Kihonda Secondary School!  I have come to realize something the past few weeks of teaching one class (or what they call "streams" here in Tanzania) for three double-periods a week...

I LOVE TEACHING!  :)

It is a ton of fun, especially when I get to see the same students each week for 80 minutes at a time (each period is 40 minutes), and see their improvement after just one week.  I currently teach Form I, which is most equivalent to 8th graders; however, the education system here is quite different than the education system of the United States - I will get to that.  Teachers are held in very high regard because education is so important here and the current literacy rates are so low in Tanzania.  There is an entirely different perspective on education in Tanzania, so I feel like it is only appropriate to give an overview on the Tanzanian education background before I discuss my teaching experience thus far.

So, to fully understand the high demand of Peace Corps Education Volunteers in Tanzania (aka one of the reasons why I’m here), I must first explain the education system of Tanzania.

In Tanzania, the education [“elimu”] system is developed by two main ministries, which work closely together: the Tanzanian Ministry of Education and Vocational Training (MoEVT) and Prime Ministers Office Regional Administration and Local Government (PMO-RALG), which is more commonly known as TAMISEMI.  The MoEVT develops the nationwide curriculum.  The Tanzania Institute of Education (TIE), which is part of the MoEVT, requires that every school, public or private, must abide by its standard curriculum and syllabus.  Also, the MoEVT implements examinations through its agency called the National Examination Council of Tanzania (NECTA).  I will often refer to NECTA exams throughout my posts, since my students will have to take them at certain stages in their education career in order to move on to further education.  TAMISEMI manages the school infrastructure.  It employs and regulates human resources in schools, as well as works closely with community school buildings’ construction and asset acquirement.
Here is the breakdown of grades in Tanzania, equivalent to those in the states:

• Primary School:  Standard 1 through 7 = Grades 1-7 (instruction is in Kiswahili)
• O- Level (Ordinary Level) Secondary School:  Form I through IV = Grades 8-11 (instruction is supposed to be in English)
• A-Level (Advanced Level) Secondary School:  Form V and VI = Grades 12-13 (instruction is in English)

Every student is required to take NECTA exams after Standard 7, Form II, and Form IV.  The results of the NECTA exams are taken into account whether you are able to move on to further education, which school you attend, and the type of career opportunities you may have.  NECTA exams act as both exit and entrance exams.  The NECTA exams test all subjects (math, physics, chemistry, biology, Kiswahili, English, history, geography, and civics) and your score is averaged.  Your Standard 7 and Form II NECTA results are used to determine which school are able to attend, depending on how well you score.  Form II NECTA results used to determine if you could continue on to Form III, but now all students are able to continue through secondary school regardless of their results.  The Form IV NECTA results determine whether you get your O-Level certificate, but more importantly, if you are able to continue on to A-Level and the school you can attend, or if you go to a training college for other occupations, such as primary school teachers.  So now if I mention NECTA, there should be less confusion than before.

Although NECTA exams are much more important than any assessments given by teachers during regular classes, I still gave my students a short, 30 minute test this past Monday just to see if what I taught them actually sunk in and if I need to reevaluate my teaching methods.  :)  I should also mention at this time that in Tanzanian schools, students where uniforms, no matter if the schools are private or government (public).  Also, most students do not (actually none of mine) have textbooks, let alone exercise books (or notebooks).  Learning resources and supplies are lacking, and even though my internship school is a relatively good school (as in students strive to be accepted to Kihonda Secondary School), a couple students in my class do not have pens or paper to write anything down.  There tends to be a lot of sharing of materials in class, which can be difficult to regulate during tests.

Another important note is that students stay in one classroom and the teachers move around.  For example, I teach Stream 1F (Form I, Stream F) three times a week, so when it is time for class to start, I gather my things - chalk, my duster, books, my lesson plan, and lesson notes - and walk to the class.  Once I walk into the room and get ready for class to begin, the class prefect [yes, I definitely think of Harry Potter a lot when I am teaching here in Tanzania] claps once and the whole class stands up and greets me in unison, "Good Morning, Madame (Belle)!  How are you?" and I respond, "Fine, thank you!  How are you doing this morning?"  Then, after I tell them to sit down, I begin my lesson.  :]  It's actually pretty awesome.  I also think of Harry Potter a lot because each school has a Headmaster or Head of School, which we call "mkuu" in Kiswahili, a Second Master or Assistant Head of School, and the usual department heads and teachers on duty.

I know I did not exactly share much of my specific teaching experience in this post, but I didn't want this post to be longer than it already is.  So, I promise I will do another entry tomorrow after my last class day!  Tomorrow is our last day at Kihonda Secondary School, so I am sure I will have more to talk about the day's activities.  SPOILER ALERT: I will be asking my students if they have any questions for me about America, etc. tomorrow, and we (my CBT) will be giving a short thank you/goodbye speech in Kiswahili to the whole school during the day, so that should be interesting!

Mikumi

After much internal debate, I came to the conclusion to post a short story, in relation to the multitude of events that occurred the weekend of Mikumi.

Once upon a time (about two weeks ago), 47 Peace Corps Trainees (PCTs) went to a wonderful place called Mikumi National Park.  It was legend that once you go to Mikumi, strange things happen and you will never be the same.  [Actually, that's not entirely true, but interesting things do always happen at Mikumi, and this year's trip was not an exception.]  Year after year, previous PCTs will fall in the same trap and seize the opportunity of Mikumi to...let's just say...be very free.  Indeed, it was the first time all of us were able to truly feel like ourselves since we have been in country and been able to wear jeans (without being professionally and culturally inappropriate)!  Needless to say, I was just as thrilled to get to wear jeans instead of a skirt again as I was thrilled to get to go on a legitimate African safari!  :D

In the morn of our trip ["safari" in Kiswahili], CBTs from far and wide congregated at our usual rendezvous point at CCT, and boarded two buses that would take us on our 2-3 hour voyage to Mikumi.  Along the way, I sat in the back row with three other gentleman, who had too much liquid to drink and had to take a premature leak into plastic flasks.  Now, do not worry, I made sure to switch with another passenger who also needed to relieve themselves and tried to give the males their privacy, while staying as far away from them as possible.  That was exciting in itself, but the best part came when casual wagers were taken as to which animals we would feast our eyes upon first.  I tried my luck with gazelles, and lo and behold, was I right!  Our caravan encountered a ridiculous number of gazelles and giraffes throughout the day, as well as some zebras, baboons, and glimpses of a few elephants.

Of all the animals that we encountered, the hippopotamus was my favorite, mainly because we were able to get out of our buses and walk out to take photographs of them at the Hippo Pool.  My other favorite portion of the safari was the ginormous baobab tree!  My monkey-like tendencies broke free and I climbed the tree up to one of the higher branches and soaked in the African vista.  It was breathtaking, and although I wanted to see a lion ["simba" in Kiswahili], it was worth the trip just to get to climb in the tree and see the animals up close.

After we got back to Genesis and had dinner out by the main road, the shenanigans began.  Music and spirits may have played principal roles in the birthday celebrations of Kristine, but the main event was yet to occur. Once the tomfoolery started to wade and the night sky was illuminated only by the stars, and after I had very unexpected, in-depth conversations with two persons, I was able to get so shut eye....or so I thought....

Just as I was slipping into my slumber while tucking in my mosquito net, I hear two people, one male and one female running into the room and the male shouting for the female to go shower immediately, "Go! Go in the shower now! Oh my God, it smells so bad!"  The male ran outside of our room and started to gag and kept shouting and saying that he needed to go shower to get the smell off.  I was thoroughly perplexed and more than a little exhausted when the smell hit me like a wall.  I took a good whiff of it before I almost started to gag myself, and as I got out of my net and bed to go check on the gagging male outside, I hear a voice from the restroom saying, "Belle, I need help! I don't know what to do...it just *gag* it just smells SO BAD!"

**Warning: If you have a weak stomach, do not continue reading!!**

Here's what happened.  The girl, who shall not be named for obvious reasons, was talking to the boy and while they were walking in the dark - because there are practically no lights except for around where the rooms are - and away from the rest of the group, the girl's foot is snagged on a stack of bamboo sticks, and she stumbles into a very large, very deep sewage drain pit latrine.  I thought bats flying up and around me in a pit latrine in Panama was bad...this is MUCH MUCH worse.  She was literally nose deep in liquefied excrement.  The boy thought she was terrified of drowning because she was not able to get out of the pit, but then he realized the magnitude of the terror as he grabbed her hand, pulled her out, and the stench reached his nostrils.  He got only a small spot on his shorts, but she was covered from below the nose, down.  While screaming for him to help her after she fell in, she may have gotten some of it in her mouth.  I still cringe at it, and just writing about this now brings back that horrid, putrid smell.

After a couple hours of me helping her emotionally, psychologically, and physically cleanse herself and our room as much as possible of the stench, she was able to relay to me (and a few others) what had happened and the boy and I were able to clear our belongings out of the room and air the room out.  I had to sleep in a separate room that night, and it amazes me that the three of us were able to keep all of our food and everything down.  The next morning, the news spread like wildfire, and everyone at some point, took a tour to the scene of the crime before we left Mikumi to go back to our non-Mikumi lives.

To this day, the three of us (the girl, the boy, and myself) are still sensitive to the smell, which is the absolute worse smell I have ever had the horrifying privilege to encounter.  As for the rest of the group, not a single person wasn't touched in some way, shape, or form by the magic of Mikumi...and so the legend is true, you will never be the same once you go to Mikumi.


**Disclaimer: generalizations of the group and emotions may have been exaggerated slightly to make the storytelling of this tale more interesting, but the events that occurred are concrete and did indeed happen.

Kihonda

Per request of my family back in the states, I will try to give you an idea of what a day in the life of Belle in Tanzania is like.  Though I guess this whole blog kind of does that doesn't it?

I live in a village called Kihonda with my host family, which consists of a mama [mother], baba [father], dada [sister], and three kaka [brother].  My mama’s name is Feliciana but I usually refer to her as Mama or Mama Katemana.  My baba is Simoni, and as for my wadogo [siblings] they are: Robert (21), Romanus (18), and the twins, James (13) and Jennifer (13).  As of yesterday, I have met all members of the family except for James, including my baba mkubwa (uncle/baba’s older brother).  James is still at boarding school, so I will not be able to meet him by the time I leave for my site.  Mama works in community development for the local municipal government and Baba researches at the Kihonda University and does machine operation, I think.  Robert is studying Computer Engineering at a university in Dar es Salaam and Romanus is about to finish secondary school.  James and Jennifer both go to boarding school, but James will not be done until later, so most of my evenings have been spent hanging out with Jennifer.  She is awesome!  :)

My family is so abso-bloomin-lutely nice and hospitable.  Everyone speaks English very well except for our house dada, who speaks practically no English.  But I try to practice my Kiswahili with her, so it’s pretty cool.  My house is really nice and quite modern, as in I actually have a Western toilet, electricity, a TV, fridge, freezer, and sometimes running water.  The water does turn off intermittently, especially during weekends when I need it the most for washing clothes, so we have to store water in our tank in the back.  Don’t worry, I still have to take bucket showers, need to boil some water to take warm showers, and have to wash my clothes by hand.  It still is a good transition for going from American living to Tanzanian village living, which is really good because I really doubt I will have electricity at my site.

On days that I have to go to CCT, which is about 16 km away from Kihonda, I usually wake up around 6am, eat breakfast, walk to the daladala stop (standi) at 7am,  and take two daladalas to get to CCT.  The first daladala goes to town, then I take another one to our stop at CCT, and I walk another 10 minutes to CCT at around 8am.  The whole trip takes about 45-50 minutes from the time I leave my house and the time I arrive at CCT.  Then the whole day is spent in sessions run by Peace Corps staff and trainers (current PCVs), with three breaks in between (chai aka tea time at 10am, lunch at 12:30pm, and soda time at 3:30pm).  We are done each day at around 4:30 or 5pm and then we either go to Dragonaire’s restaurant, Rombo bar, or usually back home via another two daladalas.

On days that I have to go to CBT (Community Based Training) at Kihonda Secondary School, I can wake up at around 7am, get ready, eat breakfast, and leave the house at 7:40am.  I arrive at school at 8am and we go ahead and start language.  The day is jam-packed with language, with a couple of breaks for chai and lunch.  My brain is most definitely fried almost after every day at CBT because of language training, but it feels great to know that I can survive quite well in Tanzania after only 2 real weeks of Kiswahili.
I love my family here and I am really starting to feel at home here in Tanzania.  I got some Tanzanian music from my brother Robert last night before he left to go back to Dar this morning (he just came to visit this weekend) and am super pumped to share it with other PCTs.  AND I am so excited to say that I am watching the Euro Cup final with Romanus (Roma for short), Jennifer, my dad, and my uncle.  SO happy…reminds me a lot of home.  Dad, I’m going for Spain all the way!  Viva España!  :P
Also, I will be going into town tomorrow to use the hi-speed wifi at the Oasis hotel, so hopefully I will be able to upload quite a few pictures!  Yay, proof of my existence!

Daladala

Here in Tanzania is a common mode of transportation called a “daladala”.  Imagine a small bus that more closely resembles a van, which is literally packed to the brim with adults, elderly folk, babies, students, and the occasional mzungu [white person/foreigner], which right now is typically a fellow PCT.  :P  Tanzanians usually say, “you can always fit one more in a daladala,” and it is too true.

A daladala is the prime environment for many pick-pockets, since you are squished up against someone else and there is little room for personal space, if any.  By the way, there is no sense of personal space here, as it is in many places in Europe; however, the people here are usually very friendly once you greet them in Kiswahili.  :)  About 65% of the time, I will receive a smile or a surprised-excited look on someone’s face when I say “Habari za leo?” [How are you today?], “Shikamoo” (which is a way of greeting elders with respect), or “Mambo” (to kids).  For the other 35% of the time…I have interesting experiences.

The first time I had to ride a daladala was in Dar during our walk-around the city so we could get a glimpse of Tanzanian culture.  It was a Sunday, so the daladala was spacious in TZ standards, as in every seat was filled but no one was standing. Luckily, our wonderful PC staff warned us and said it was not a true daladala experience, so I was prepared for what ensued, or so I thought.

For those of you that know me, I tend to have unique experiences which usually result in thrilling tales.  After being in the country for less than three weeks, all of the following has happened to me inside or in proximity to a daladala: 1) I witnessed a pick-pocketing of my friend (I will not name him so he does not bathe in further shame :P), 2) I have been called a twin to the only other female Asian PCT (Kristine) and both of us were thought to know kung-fu, 3) I was touched on the face through a window by a man outside of the daladala who called me Mchina (Chinese person) right as the daladala was leaving that stop, 4) a man indirectly proposed to me because he wanted to go to America, 5) the most adorable baby with the longest eyelashes I have ever seen played with me and my face (I was okay with this face-touching) and he danced between his mama and me on the seat, 6) said baby was breastfed by his mama in the seat I was sharing with her, and 6) I fell off the daladala when I was stepping off at my stop and EVERYONE saw me (mamas on the daladala, pikipiki drivers, and my fellow PCTs that were lucky enough to witness it) and then some followed up by saying “pole sana” [very sorry] while I attempted to avert my eyes from everywhere but the ground.

In case you were wondering, 1, 2, 4, and 6 are very common according to PC so that was not particularly surprising, even though I did happen to experience them first before the rest of our training class, go figure.  On the other hand, my resources (TZ locals and PCVs) tell me that 3 is very weird.  They had never heard of that ever in their time here so…yay me!  -.-  I did clean my face thoroughly both times I was touched – unintentionally and intentionally – and my left foot was only strained so I have healed quickly, though my pride hasn’t quite yet.  Haha jk.

Seriously, I’m healthy and feeling great.  I do miss my American home, but every day I am starting to feel more and more at home here.  Still cannot believe that it has already been about two weeks here!  I will try to post some pictures tonight if my internet connection permits it!!  Anyway, until next time, usiku mwema! [Good night!]

Nyingi

Mambo?!  [What’s up?!]  I have been taking an unintentionally long hiatus from writing due to the lack of internet access and time to type everything that has gone on in the past week and a half.  I FINALLY GOT MY INTERNET MODEM TO WORK, SO YAY!!  BUT, this doesn’t mean that I will have internet all the time everywhere.

Anyway…if you are not ready to read this lengthy post, you are now warned.  [By the way, “nyingi” means “a lot” in Swahili.]

So I believe I left off my story while I was in the United States…

Staging in Philly was awesome!  Philly was of course a little rainy but the weather was SO NICE and COOL compared to the heat and humidity in Texas.  When I first arrived to the hotel in downtown Philly and lugged my bags to my room, I had just put my things away when my roommate arrived – the very FIRST fellow PCT (Peace Corps Trainee) I met.  Her name is Kristine, or Steen for short, and she was immediately trailed by Zach (the second PCT I met).  It was nice to meet them almost right away because I didn’t even have a chance to feel lonely or homesick.  J  To be honest, although I miss my family and friends very much, every day here has been so jam-packed that I haven’t had much time to feel homesick just yet.  I am sure that will happen at some unbeknownst point during my two years and it may even turn into a blog post.  :P

But for now, that introduction was just the first (two) of many more – 44 more PCTs, to be exact!  [In case your math skills are a little rusty, that amounts to a total of 47 PCTs, including myself.]  That night I went to dinner with 11 other PCTs at a brick oven pizza place  and then drinks at the downstairs pub with another eight or so PCTs whom I have become pretty close with.  That night, I discovered that there are two other PCTs from TEXAS, the Lone Star State!!  :D  One of them is even from Dallas (Nicole) and we even have a mutual friend, but need I remind you, we did not know each other previously.  I was starting to feel more and more comfortable with everyone as the night went on and we were even excited to meet the rest of the trainees that would arrive the next day!  All of us were already planning the next night’s dinner/drink plans, since we were all planning on staying up before we left for JFK airport at 2am anyway.

Needless to say, after that night, I knew I was going to LOVE this group, and after the following day of presentations, ice breakers, skits, and other group activities, we all became a huge family – my family.  :]  We all bonded relatively quickly during the next 24 hours, which included delirious conversations due to staying up all night, a night bus ride to New York, a 6-hour camp out at JFK airport waiting to check in for a flight at 11:15am, and two birthday celebrations on the long plane ride to Johannesburg, South Africa then another one to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania!

We finally arrived in Dar at around 6:30pm, took about an hour and a half to get out of the plane, through customs, baggage claim, and in two buses that took us to Msimbazi Center (our training center for about five days).  After we got our lifeline drug – anti-malarial pills – we took our first bucket showers and slept.  The next few days of being confined to the inside of the Msimbazi Center gate were spent doing introductions and overviews of safety and security, health, cross cultural, and language.  Oh, and more drugs (aka vaccinations).  I wish I could say all the vaccinations were done in Dar, but I cannot.  We were shot up four more times once we arrived in Morogoro, the region of our other training center.  We did get to go outside of the gate twice, once for a Dar walk-around where we walked around the city and once for a tour at the Peace Corps office.

The morning of June 13^th we left Dar and took a 3.5 hour bus ride to Morogoro to stay with our host families!!  We got to CCT (Christian Council of Tanzania), our training grounds for the next nine weeks, had lunch, and dispersed to our host family villages!  Each village has 4-6 PCTs staying there and each village has at least one secondary school, which is where our internship will be.  I am staying in Kihonda with 11 other PCTs but only five of them will be teaching at Kihonda Secondary School with me.  The other six will be teaching at Educare, another school in Kihonda.  From now until the end of training, we alternate weeks we spend going to CCT and CBT (Community-Based Training) here in Kihonda.  I am writing this during my lunch during training, so I will go into more detail on my host family and training in the next post, which should be sooner than it was between my last post and this one.

Lala Salama!  [Sleep well!]