Saturday, September 20, 2008
Don't Go Chasing Waterfalls....
It has been confirmed: Tanzania is indeed a beautiful country. Last weekend I took a mini vacay to Matema Beach to meet some of the other volunteers in my area. Matema Beach is located on the shores of Lake Nyasa (or Lake Malawi if you’re talking about it from the Malawian side). Even though it is technically a lake, it is really a beach at heart. There’s a pretty good wind coming off the clear blue-green water that made little waves to float around in. The sandy shores are lined with huge green mountains and brightly colored fish splash around in the shallows. We even had a fire on the beach one night when it wasn’t too windy. We slept in a cozy little bungalow right by the water. (I feel like I’m writing a tourism brochure, but really, it was nice. We decided it would be a very romantic little honeymoon spot actually.)
On Saturday a few of us decided to hike up to a nearby waterfall. Good thing one of the guys I went with turned out to be Spiderman, because it was a pretty treacherous hike. Not so good for people who are scared of heights (i.e. me). Teri and I would have hobbled over like 2 rocks and we’d look up, and Spiderman would be able a mile ahead of us scaling a giant boulder. He even carried my bag for me in a part where I thought it was too steep and decided to swim through that part instead of fall to my death. Ok, it wasn’t the Grand Canyon or anything, but it was enough to be really scary. It was worth facing the fear and battling the fire ants that were all over everything on the way up once we made it though. The waterfall was beautiful and we were able to swim in a little pool underneath it for a while before heading back.
The hike contributed to the demise of my poor hands. Turns out my pitiful skin isn’t really cut out for life in Africa. I already had what I affectionately refer to as “fua marks” the day I left for the beach. Fua is the Swahili word for “to wash, as in an article of clothing.” The detergent here is pretty intense and I always end up with these little blisters on my knuckles and fingertips that look especially knarly when they start to scab over. Add to that the blisters that took up about half of my palm on both hands from clinging to rocks during the hike and the extra ones I added the day after I got home had to hoe my soil to plant some flowers…. Yeah, my hands are looking pretty rough. Every time my neighbors see them they apologize then show me their calloused hands and tell me I’ll get used to it. Everybody is a farmer here, so you can imagine how rough their hands are. I’m just hoping that the flowers actually grow so it will be worth it. I planted some orange and blue flowers in the front to represent the Gators and some sunflowers in the back and some pansies on the side so we’ll see how it goes. And as soon as these blisters heal I’m going to plant my vegetable garden and hopefully be able to eat my own food that I’ve grown for myself.
Things are starting to pick up around here in areas other than gardening as well. I start teaching at the secondary school on Monday, which is both scary and exciting. When I was making my lesson plans for my 9th grade biology class I noticed that there is a lot of time in the syllabus devoted to HIV/AIDS/STI education but it is not covered in their textbook at all. I figured that meant it was fate that I was supposed to teach that subject there seeing how that’s actually what I’m here to be teaching rather than Biology and Chemistry. So I used my Life Skills Manual and HIV in Tanzania book that I got from Peace Corps during training and planned several interactive games and discussions that hopefully the Headmaster will approve of and let me do. I figure it’s a great way to get my foot in the door and spark interest in the health topics I came here to teach. If there’s enough interest, I hope to be able to start a health club and a peer education group. I’m also thinking about doing a health bulletin board with a question box at the school.
I started my Swahili tutoring today. The Headmaster of the elementary school found a young girl, that’s probably about my age, that will help me with Swahili 8-12 Tues and Thurs. She initially said Saturday too, but I told her that was too much. I need at least one day when I don’t have anything to do and since I’m teaching Mon Wed Fri and I’m expected at church every Sunday, Saturday is the only day I have to go into town and such. We get a little bit of money from Peace Corps to pay for a tutor to help us improve our language skills throughout our service. And when I say a little, I mean 15,000 Tanzanian Shillings per month, which is a little less than $15.00. Imagine paying $15.00 a month for 32 hours of tutoring in the US. People want more than that for one hour.
With my mornings starting to get busy, in the evenings my house is rapidly becoming the place to hang out. One little boy that’s maybe 9 years old and his little brother have been coming over every night for the past 2 weeks and I’m pretty sure its going to be a regular thing from now on. The come over around dusk and stay until a little past dark. They’re my favorites. They’re so sweet and polite. They just come sit on my couch and don’t say anything for like 2 hours. I’m starting to think that maybe I should feed them or something when the come over. I felt so bad the other day because it was really cold and I told them that they needed to wear a jacket and they told me they didn’t have one. Then I realized that they do wear the same thing everyday and its nothing very warm. I watched them when they left the other night and they just pulled their little arms inside of their short-sleeved shirts to keep warm. I guess it shouldn’t surprise me too much. I found out the other day that of the 300 students at the primary school in front of my house, 100 of them are orphans. That’s insane. I asked if it was due to AIDS, and they said that they don’t know. It probably is a major factor but just isn’t an acknowledged and talked about thing because of the stigma.
There’s also the crew of little boys that have been hanging around here since the first week I got here. They are all of my neighbors’ kids. Most of them are a little rowdier than the two mentioned in the previous paragraph, and they like to play in the dirt in front of my house which does not help with all the dust that accumulates daily in my house, but they’re growing on me. They crack me up how they go through my garbage and pull out the most random things to play with. It will just be something like a plastic bag or a Cheez-its box and they’ll think it’s the greatest thing ever. The saying “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure” really applies here. And I bought a bike last week and last night I let them play with that until the sun went down last night and they seemed to really have a good time with that. I’m a little worried they’re going to break something, but oh well, I guess I can always fix it if they do.
Another regular is a high school boy that likes to come by to read the biology book. Like that would ever happen in America. Imagine a 17 year old boy swinging by his teacher’s house to bring her a gift of potatoes and sit at her table and read a text book by candlelight, just because he wants to. I guess when you consider that I have the one text book for the whole school that covers biology 11th and 12th grade, you realize how valuable it actually is. It certainly makes me appreciate all of the resources I had throughout my education. Its crazy when you really stop and compare the two. In an American high school, often times there’s enough textbooks to have a class set and one to collect dust under your bed at home or grow mold in your locker. You have a library filled with books. Everything from updated encyclopedias and dictionaries, to biographies, to fiction. There’s generally more than one computer lab equipped with enough computers for an entire class to be on the internet at one time. There’s powerpoint, overheads, smartboards, DVD’s. There’s unlimited photocopies and stocked up science labs. We think 35 kids in one class is too many.
Here, an average class had about 90. There’s no electricity at the school, much less any tech equipment. There is no science lab. There’s no library. There’s only one textbook for the whole school and I have it. There’s no budget to make photocopies of notes or worksheets. You pretty much have a teacher, a blackboard, and a notebook. And yet they soak it up like sponges.
On Saturday a few of us decided to hike up to a nearby waterfall. Good thing one of the guys I went with turned out to be Spiderman, because it was a pretty treacherous hike. Not so good for people who are scared of heights (i.e. me). Teri and I would have hobbled over like 2 rocks and we’d look up, and Spiderman would be able a mile ahead of us scaling a giant boulder. He even carried my bag for me in a part where I thought it was too steep and decided to swim through that part instead of fall to my death. Ok, it wasn’t the Grand Canyon or anything, but it was enough to be really scary. It was worth facing the fear and battling the fire ants that were all over everything on the way up once we made it though. The waterfall was beautiful and we were able to swim in a little pool underneath it for a while before heading back.
The hike contributed to the demise of my poor hands. Turns out my pitiful skin isn’t really cut out for life in Africa. I already had what I affectionately refer to as “fua marks” the day I left for the beach. Fua is the Swahili word for “to wash, as in an article of clothing.” The detergent here is pretty intense and I always end up with these little blisters on my knuckles and fingertips that look especially knarly when they start to scab over. Add to that the blisters that took up about half of my palm on both hands from clinging to rocks during the hike and the extra ones I added the day after I got home had to hoe my soil to plant some flowers…. Yeah, my hands are looking pretty rough. Every time my neighbors see them they apologize then show me their calloused hands and tell me I’ll get used to it. Everybody is a farmer here, so you can imagine how rough their hands are. I’m just hoping that the flowers actually grow so it will be worth it. I planted some orange and blue flowers in the front to represent the Gators and some sunflowers in the back and some pansies on the side so we’ll see how it goes. And as soon as these blisters heal I’m going to plant my vegetable garden and hopefully be able to eat my own food that I’ve grown for myself.
Things are starting to pick up around here in areas other than gardening as well. I start teaching at the secondary school on Monday, which is both scary and exciting. When I was making my lesson plans for my 9th grade biology class I noticed that there is a lot of time in the syllabus devoted to HIV/AIDS/STI education but it is not covered in their textbook at all. I figured that meant it was fate that I was supposed to teach that subject there seeing how that’s actually what I’m here to be teaching rather than Biology and Chemistry. So I used my Life Skills Manual and HIV in Tanzania book that I got from Peace Corps during training and planned several interactive games and discussions that hopefully the Headmaster will approve of and let me do. I figure it’s a great way to get my foot in the door and spark interest in the health topics I came here to teach. If there’s enough interest, I hope to be able to start a health club and a peer education group. I’m also thinking about doing a health bulletin board with a question box at the school.
I started my Swahili tutoring today. The Headmaster of the elementary school found a young girl, that’s probably about my age, that will help me with Swahili 8-12 Tues and Thurs. She initially said Saturday too, but I told her that was too much. I need at least one day when I don’t have anything to do and since I’m teaching Mon Wed Fri and I’m expected at church every Sunday, Saturday is the only day I have to go into town and such. We get a little bit of money from Peace Corps to pay for a tutor to help us improve our language skills throughout our service. And when I say a little, I mean 15,000 Tanzanian Shillings per month, which is a little less than $15.00. Imagine paying $15.00 a month for 32 hours of tutoring in the US. People want more than that for one hour.
With my mornings starting to get busy, in the evenings my house is rapidly becoming the place to hang out. One little boy that’s maybe 9 years old and his little brother have been coming over every night for the past 2 weeks and I’m pretty sure its going to be a regular thing from now on. The come over around dusk and stay until a little past dark. They’re my favorites. They’re so sweet and polite. They just come sit on my couch and don’t say anything for like 2 hours. I’m starting to think that maybe I should feed them or something when the come over. I felt so bad the other day because it was really cold and I told them that they needed to wear a jacket and they told me they didn’t have one. Then I realized that they do wear the same thing everyday and its nothing very warm. I watched them when they left the other night and they just pulled their little arms inside of their short-sleeved shirts to keep warm. I guess it shouldn’t surprise me too much. I found out the other day that of the 300 students at the primary school in front of my house, 100 of them are orphans. That’s insane. I asked if it was due to AIDS, and they said that they don’t know. It probably is a major factor but just isn’t an acknowledged and talked about thing because of the stigma.
There’s also the crew of little boys that have been hanging around here since the first week I got here. They are all of my neighbors’ kids. Most of them are a little rowdier than the two mentioned in the previous paragraph, and they like to play in the dirt in front of my house which does not help with all the dust that accumulates daily in my house, but they’re growing on me. They crack me up how they go through my garbage and pull out the most random things to play with. It will just be something like a plastic bag or a Cheez-its box and they’ll think it’s the greatest thing ever. The saying “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure” really applies here. And I bought a bike last week and last night I let them play with that until the sun went down last night and they seemed to really have a good time with that. I’m a little worried they’re going to break something, but oh well, I guess I can always fix it if they do.
Another regular is a high school boy that likes to come by to read the biology book. Like that would ever happen in America. Imagine a 17 year old boy swinging by his teacher’s house to bring her a gift of potatoes and sit at her table and read a text book by candlelight, just because he wants to. I guess when you consider that I have the one text book for the whole school that covers biology 11th and 12th grade, you realize how valuable it actually is. It certainly makes me appreciate all of the resources I had throughout my education. Its crazy when you really stop and compare the two. In an American high school, often times there’s enough textbooks to have a class set and one to collect dust under your bed at home or grow mold in your locker. You have a library filled with books. Everything from updated encyclopedias and dictionaries, to biographies, to fiction. There’s generally more than one computer lab equipped with enough computers for an entire class to be on the internet at one time. There’s powerpoint, overheads, smartboards, DVD’s. There’s unlimited photocopies and stocked up science labs. We think 35 kids in one class is too many.
Here, an average class had about 90. There’s no electricity at the school, much less any tech equipment. There is no science lab. There’s no library. There’s only one textbook for the whole school and I have it. There’s no budget to make photocopies of notes or worksheets. You pretty much have a teacher, a blackboard, and a notebook. And yet they soak it up like sponges.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Homemaking vs homesickness
I’ve been in an interesting dilemma of emotions this past week; I am starting to get used to living on my own here in Kimondo, but still feeling homesick too. I was rereading the letters some people gave me before I left and looking at pictures and hearing about how the football games are going and such and it really made me miss home. Its easy to get into that negative space when you start to ask yourself what it is that you are doing here in those moments. It seems crazy to leave everything that I know and all the people who love me back home to come here and live all alone for 2 years.
But then again, I’m starting to integrate little by little here into my new home.
I’m finding things to keep me busy. I’ve pretty much turned into Martha Stewart, or a retired grandma, whichever you prefer. I’ve been cooking all kinds of stuff. I’ve made rosemary sourdough bread, pineapple upside down cake, eggplant parmesan and I’m planning on making some cinnamon rolls today. I guess it’s a stress relief tactic, or maybe it just gives me something to do. I made some picture frames yesterday, which makes the place feel a little more homey. I worked on some cross-stitching this morning. I started that baby blanket about 4 years ago for my friend who was having a baby and then the baby grew up before I finished and I quit working on it. I decided that I’m not coming home until that thing is done. Maybe I can give it to my own children by the time I finish it!
I started my garden yesterday. Its really hard work! I only got one seed bed made and I plan on making 5 or 6. But I got so filthy dirty and tired and blistery after just one, we’ll just have to see how that goes. I did get my compost pile made though. My neighbor came over to help me and said he wanted to learn how to make it so he could make his own because fertilizer is so expensive. It made me feel useful to be able to teach something already.
Speaking of teaching, apparently I’m going to start teaching at the high school in Igoma in two weeks. I’m going to be teaching 9th grade Chemistry and Biology and 11th grade biology, which should be interesting seeing how I have zero training on how to teach and I’m going to be teaching in English to a bunch of kids that don’t really know English. I feel like life is playing some cruel joke on me by making me teach Chemistry, the one subject that I hate with a burning black passion. I tried to tell them that I suck at Chemistry and that I didn’t want to teach it, but they don’t have a Chemistry teacher right now so they got me to agree to at least try to teach 9th grade. I looked at the book and it doesn’t seem too complicated (and by the book, I mean THE book. There is only one text book for the whole school and it is a 13 year old paper back and I have it to make lesson plans.) So not only is there the whole language problem, but I have absolutely nothing to teach with. There is no electricity at the school so its not like I can make a powerpoint presentation or show videos. There isn’t really a lab with beakers and Bunsen burners so we can’t really do experiments. There’s not even a budget for me to make photocopies of worksheets. All I have is a chalkboard. I’m going to try to figure out some type of fun things they could work on it groups or just use some of my living allowance to make worksheets and such, because I just don’t see how they are supposed to learn by just copying what I write on the chalkboard, especially if they don’t know English well enough to know what it means. All secondary schools are supposed to be taught in English here, but the most of the kids just don’t know it well enough to learn that way. I’m going to have to use English for now, but when I learn more Swahili I think that I will start using that to teach. And the icing on the difficult cake is that the classes are huge. The teacher who was making my schedule was saying that there aren’t that many 11th graders so I could combine them and just teach one class. I thought that sounded good so I would have to wake up at the crack of dawn to get there at 7:40 to teach the first class, but then he told me that there were 87! I decided that I would just teach 2 classes rather than try to deal with 87 kids at once, which is apparently a small class here.
I also went to visit the dispensary (small health clinic) in Igoma last week and I’m going to try to see if I can get involved volunteering there as well. I found out some interesting info, like the fact that all services are free for pregnant women and children under 5 and all other services are only 500 shillings (less than 50 cents) which includes seeing the doctor and any medicine that you need. That’s amazing. And that the doctor also serves as the dentist, treating oral diseases and pulling teeth and such, which I thought was interesting.
I’m trying to start talking to more people. I started off just trying to take a little walk everyday, using buying kerosene as an excuse. I’ve made friends with a couple of ladies that sit up on the hill where the little string of stores are and peel potatoes everyday. They are teaching me Safwa, which is the local tribal language. There’s also usually a group of kids that come by pretty much everyday just to say hi and sit with me for a little while. I must admit, it was kind of annoying at first. This group of little boys would just come in my house and just stand there watching me and following me around. It was kind of awkward. There was the whole lonely but never alone dilemma going on. And then small groups of students from the primary school started coming by after school to say hi. And I realize that is what this is all about. I’m starting to get used to just sitting around doing nothing and saying nothing with people. Awkward silences don’t exist here apparently.
So while I am still missing home, which I don’t think will ever completely go away, I think that I’m going to make it here. I’m setting up my house. I’m talking to my neighbors more. I’m going to start working soon. I just have to keep reminding myself, holy crap, I’m living in Africa right now! What an amazing experience. Home will always be there when I get back.
But then again, I’m starting to integrate little by little here into my new home.
I’m finding things to keep me busy. I’ve pretty much turned into Martha Stewart, or a retired grandma, whichever you prefer. I’ve been cooking all kinds of stuff. I’ve made rosemary sourdough bread, pineapple upside down cake, eggplant parmesan and I’m planning on making some cinnamon rolls today. I guess it’s a stress relief tactic, or maybe it just gives me something to do. I made some picture frames yesterday, which makes the place feel a little more homey. I worked on some cross-stitching this morning. I started that baby blanket about 4 years ago for my friend who was having a baby and then the baby grew up before I finished and I quit working on it. I decided that I’m not coming home until that thing is done. Maybe I can give it to my own children by the time I finish it!
I started my garden yesterday. Its really hard work! I only got one seed bed made and I plan on making 5 or 6. But I got so filthy dirty and tired and blistery after just one, we’ll just have to see how that goes. I did get my compost pile made though. My neighbor came over to help me and said he wanted to learn how to make it so he could make his own because fertilizer is so expensive. It made me feel useful to be able to teach something already.
Speaking of teaching, apparently I’m going to start teaching at the high school in Igoma in two weeks. I’m going to be teaching 9th grade Chemistry and Biology and 11th grade biology, which should be interesting seeing how I have zero training on how to teach and I’m going to be teaching in English to a bunch of kids that don’t really know English. I feel like life is playing some cruel joke on me by making me teach Chemistry, the one subject that I hate with a burning black passion. I tried to tell them that I suck at Chemistry and that I didn’t want to teach it, but they don’t have a Chemistry teacher right now so they got me to agree to at least try to teach 9th grade. I looked at the book and it doesn’t seem too complicated (and by the book, I mean THE book. There is only one text book for the whole school and it is a 13 year old paper back and I have it to make lesson plans.) So not only is there the whole language problem, but I have absolutely nothing to teach with. There is no electricity at the school so its not like I can make a powerpoint presentation or show videos. There isn’t really a lab with beakers and Bunsen burners so we can’t really do experiments. There’s not even a budget for me to make photocopies of worksheets. All I have is a chalkboard. I’m going to try to figure out some type of fun things they could work on it groups or just use some of my living allowance to make worksheets and such, because I just don’t see how they are supposed to learn by just copying what I write on the chalkboard, especially if they don’t know English well enough to know what it means. All secondary schools are supposed to be taught in English here, but the most of the kids just don’t know it well enough to learn that way. I’m going to have to use English for now, but when I learn more Swahili I think that I will start using that to teach. And the icing on the difficult cake is that the classes are huge. The teacher who was making my schedule was saying that there aren’t that many 11th graders so I could combine them and just teach one class. I thought that sounded good so I would have to wake up at the crack of dawn to get there at 7:40 to teach the first class, but then he told me that there were 87! I decided that I would just teach 2 classes rather than try to deal with 87 kids at once, which is apparently a small class here.
I also went to visit the dispensary (small health clinic) in Igoma last week and I’m going to try to see if I can get involved volunteering there as well. I found out some interesting info, like the fact that all services are free for pregnant women and children under 5 and all other services are only 500 shillings (less than 50 cents) which includes seeing the doctor and any medicine that you need. That’s amazing. And that the doctor also serves as the dentist, treating oral diseases and pulling teeth and such, which I thought was interesting.
I’m trying to start talking to more people. I started off just trying to take a little walk everyday, using buying kerosene as an excuse. I’ve made friends with a couple of ladies that sit up on the hill where the little string of stores are and peel potatoes everyday. They are teaching me Safwa, which is the local tribal language. There’s also usually a group of kids that come by pretty much everyday just to say hi and sit with me for a little while. I must admit, it was kind of annoying at first. This group of little boys would just come in my house and just stand there watching me and following me around. It was kind of awkward. There was the whole lonely but never alone dilemma going on. And then small groups of students from the primary school started coming by after school to say hi. And I realize that is what this is all about. I’m starting to get used to just sitting around doing nothing and saying nothing with people. Awkward silences don’t exist here apparently.
So while I am still missing home, which I don’t think will ever completely go away, I think that I’m going to make it here. I’m setting up my house. I’m talking to my neighbors more. I’m going to start working soon. I just have to keep reminding myself, holy crap, I’m living in Africa right now! What an amazing experience. Home will always be there when I get back.
I went to a soccer game yesterday and it actually ended up serving as an ok substitute for gameday Gainesville. Our village played another village up the road on the soccer field right out in front of my house. It was a pretty tight game most of the way, with the score tied at 1-1. Then right near the end of the game, the goalkeeper on the other team let a pretty easy attempt at scoring past him and Kimondo secured the win. Then our fans went singing and dancing over to the other side and stood in front of the other fans rubbing it in as much as possible. One lady standing next to me kept saying "Jaribu tena. Karibu tena" (Try Again, You're Welcome Again). I've heard from my fellow PCV's here that Gator fans are well known for being obnoxious in ways such as this (hey we can't help that we win everything) so it brought the feeling of The Swamp to Tanzania. That feeling was also helped along by all the drunk men hobbling along the sidelines. The action got even better when the ref made a controversial, and probably unneccessary penalty call against the losing village in the final minutes of the game. After that, an all out brawl broke out. I'm not exaggerating. The other team was chasing after the ref trying to hit him and the fans from both sides starting going at it in indivual little skirmishes all over the place. It was crazy. But it was ok. Just a bunch a crazed fans, you know how it is. I wasn't in danger or anything. Just a little something to make the place feel more like home. :)
PS- I'm trying to upload a video tour of my house, but its taking forever so stayed tuned til next time I guess.
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