New Year

Mwaka Mpya Njema!!  [“Happy New Year!!”]  :D  I know it has been a long while since my last blog post, but hopefully I can update you on everything that has unfolded in my life.  This’ll be a bit of a doozy!  [If you don’t want to read everything, I have a TL;DR for those that like it dry and uninteresting.]

As you may have noticed, this is the first two-worded post title.  Though not to worry, I am still keeping my promise that I will only allow myself one post per year with a dual word heading.  Besides, it seems only appropriate that this new year is started with a special post.  ;)

The past eight months – holy mackerel, I’ve been here that long?! – have truly flown by and were strewn with new experiences and opportunities.  For the first time in my life, I spent Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, and my birthday without at least one member of my family.  THAT was really different for me, but luckily I was surrounded by friends who have become close enough to family and I couldn’t be more blessed.  I spent Thanksgiving with my brother Ben, Christmas and New Year’s with my “mpacha” [twin] Steen, my birthday weekend with Steve, and my actual birthday with my amazing site mate Steph, who surprised me with a delicious cake, flowers, and a lovely earring hanger!  :D

I was curious to see how things were going to turn out after IST because I knew I was travelling, but I was not sure to where or with whom. Fortunately, everything just fell into place and I was able to frolic about the country for a while before heading back to my site one week before school started on January 14th.

I went to my very first Tanzanian wedding in mid-December!  My counterpart was getting married in Tukuyu, so after IST I took a quick hiatus from travelling to stop by his wedding celebration to congratulate him.  Unfortunately, I was not able to formally tell him congratulations at the wedding, but I was able to wave at him and snap a few pictures before the wedding bonanza swept them away to the dancing and ceremonial festivities.  A fellow PCV accompanied me, so I was not the only one being gawked at haha.  The wedding ceremony took place in a tiny chapel off one of the roads a ways out of town.  I missed this part due to the unavailability of transport in the pouring rain, but I did make it to the reception.  The reception was held outdoors, which is unusual for most Tanzanian weddings I think, but still very fun, with loud music and an MC.  The party was so alive when we got there and everyone, young and old, were dancing to their hearts’ content, despite the drizzling that would come and go.  My counterpart and his bride finally drove into the party, literally, and I was whisked off by the brother of the groom to be fed with a few select others that had to leave early.  After we were full of chicken, rice, and soda, they arranged travel for us back to the main village for us to get back to Mbeya town before it got too dark.

Literally being driven into the party

I uploaded pictures to my Picasa photostream, but once again I will not be able to go through them to write captions – I know, I need to get on the ball with going through some of them. Basically, the album called “Peace Corps: Year One (Episode 3)” which I just uploaded shows glimpses of some of my travels between IST and school starting up.  It starts with pictures of puppies living in Tracy’s courtyard, Jeremiah’s wedding, playing with LEGOs and eating pancakes at an ex-pat’s house in Mbeya, Apocalypse Day shenanigans of eating homemade hibiscus wine and cookies made with REAL BUTTER, and a food and fun montage of hanging out with Steve and his bearing gifts (mainly food AND ROOT BEER) from the states!

Gifts from Steve (aka Santa) – It was like Christmas all over again!

To be honest, I have been spoiled since IST and post-IST so it has been difficult getting back into the swing of things (living by myself, cooking, speaking Swahili, school work).  Nonetheless, I have willingly dived into the work and am once again reminded of how much I enjoy teaching.  The start of the term is always a little stressful because students are missing due to inability to pay school fees, teachers are not teaching due to lack of students and order, and the timetable was just a mess to try to figure out since the academic masters created the timetable before I was able to tell them which forms I was teaching.  Apparently, this year there were four streams of Form I, FIVE streams of Form II (because the majority of students failed the Form II NECTA), and two streams each of Forms III and IV. Jeremiah would teach Math Form II, III, and IV, and I would teach Math Form I, Physics Form III and IV, and Chemistry Form III and IV.  (I really wanted to stay with my Form III’s and IV’s because I taught them last year, and I wanted to see them through.)  Needless to say, after looking at the proposed timetable, I was supposed to be in four places at once, and so was my counterpart…

Luckily, being the head of all the science departments and the only science teacher at my school, I volunteered, more like convinced, the academic masters that I change only the math and science classes to prevent from cloning myself and Jeremiah.  He left it entirely in my hands, which I was undoubtedly thankful for, and after toiling away with Excel, sticky notes, and combining streams together, I created a timetable that got his periods down from 52 to 34 and my periods down from 42 to 30, and I don’t have to teach on Fridays!  YAY!  :)

My methodology of rearranging math and science classes

**NERD ALERT:  I actually really enjoyed doing this rearranging bit – it was just like a king size, logic puzzle!  Unfortunately, I had to do it twice because they failed to give me the most recently updated one the first time around.**

With all the possible stressors that were springing up at school and my mindset not quite acclimated to being back at home, I started adopting some new antics to keep me sane – not that I’m on the verge of going insane or anything though – one of which is…WINE MAKING! Prior to leaving for IST I started brewing my own bucket wine!! I made my first batch out of pineapple, orange, and the wild orange berries that grow on the path near my house. It was a spontaneous decision because I had so much leftover pineapple, the oranges were getting very ripe, and I had just had my first berry picking. What else was I going to do with all that? – NOT eat it! I used a recipe from Eric (the PCV I replaced) since he made a lot of wine too, and after a few weeks of fermenting, I was able to filter it before IST and bottle it all once I got back.

Wine all bottled up

The yield was about nine liters of wine and last weekend I finally tasted it. It was great! I was pleasantly surprised that it tasted like a white wine that I would be inclined to buy! It wasn’t too sweet, but you could still taste the pineapple in it and it had a nice bite to it. All in all, SUCCESS!! :D

Tasting of Belle’s First Edition Wine: 42

Another new thing that came with the new year was the first I had ever heard of Baseline.  Baseline is an orientation course for Form I students that happens during the first 6-8 weeks of the first term, which goes over three main sections: Language, Social Science, and Math and Sciences.  Of course, since Jeremiah and I are the only Math/Science teachers at Mwatisi, we are sharing the load of each teaching 16 units to all four streams (127 students) every day, in addition to our normal classes.  Okay, I’m making it sound a lot more painful than it really is, but I do have to say, it is a lot of work!  Instead of having a couple free periods during the week, I currently have to teach Baseline during every period that is available so we can finish the course within the allotted time of two months.  Then after the course, I can start teaching Math Form I and go back to my normal timetable.  HOWEVER, one wickedly awesome thing does come out of this – I have brainwashed taught all of the Form I students to yell FIGHT!! when I yell TEXAS!!, with the Hook ‘em horns, mind you.  It.is.fantastic!  Even my teachers have called me out on it, and they love it too.  :P  My excuse for teaching them is that instead of hearing the drone of “Good morning, Madam.  We are fine,” every time I enter a classroom, I get a burst of energy from my class yelling FIGHT!  I tell them that it is a good way for them to not be afraid to project and use their voices.  So far, it has helped their confidence in the classroom, so I’d say it works!  It also kind of works as punishment too…  If they come in late to a classroom or are disrupting class, I will make those individual students yell Texas!, Fight! with me in front of everyone until they are as loud as me, which takes a while.  On the other end of the spectrum, for my Form I’s that love it, I tell them we won’t do it if they are misbehaving.  WHO’DA THUNK I’d be doing this here in Africa?!

Signing out for now and The Eyes of Texas Are Upon YOU!

[TL;DR – After IST, I travelled a bit and celebrated the holidays with fellow PCVs.  Got back to my site to celebrate my birthday, then school started and I was back in the Tanzanian lifestyle (both the good and the bad).  Currently teaching Math I, Physics III and IV, and Chemistry III and IV, in addition to Form I Baseline.  Lot of mess of timetable, but I got it fixed and now I am making wine, so…s’all good.  See pictures in my photostream.  I taught my students Texas! Fight!]

P.S. Thank you SOOO SO SO MUCH for the birthday wishes, letters, and gifts!  You have no idea how much it means to me to get Christmas cards and letters from home.  It makes it seem less far away.  :]