safari ni hatua

Got a whole bunch of pictures up, finally, and from pretty much my entire Peace Corps experience.  I'm labeling them now - as my friend Eric noted, Tanzania is indeed an incredibly beautiful country.  Hopefully more people will take notice of the country, especially now that the government is really pushing tourism.  And really, when you think about what the country offers - Kilimanjaro, Zanzibar, and some of the best national parks on the continent - it's hard to see why the country *shouldn't* be attracting loads of people.

I'm also trying to upload a few examples of Tanzanian/African music to the site, so that those interested can get a feel for what it's like.  That might take a bit more time, as uploading a large music file using crappy internet is an exercise in frustration.  Probably will have to wait on the music until the next time I'm in Dar and can use the internet at the Peace Corps office :) 

So our Form 3 students did their chemistry midterm this past Saturday, and the results were hilarious, in a really sad kind of way. Out of 97 students studying chemistry, 22 of them passed, and 75 failed. That might seem bad in its own right, but when you take into consideration that an F here means a score of 0-20%, it goes way beyond bad and into the realm of "holy #@$#@%".

Now, I admit that the exam wasn't easy, at least by Tanzanian standards. My goal wasn't to try and throw the students' self-esteem in the dirt and then proceed to stomp all over it - in fact, almost all of the questions on the exam were taken nearly directly (with slight modification) from previous Form 4 national exams. But I am at constant odds with what my students think science is and what I think science is. They always want me to put more and more questions asking for definitions on exams (this one had none). They want multiple choice - this had one. They want matching - this had none. What they don't want are questions that probe their understanding of the subject, because those types of questions they fail miserably. Why? The obvious answer is that they don't understand chemistry, they simply want to memorize as much as possible. Which is a bad way to study science, because the more you understand, the *less* you have to memorize.

The result of this exam is that many of the students are not going to be allowed to continue to study chemistry, which is fine, because many of them really shouldn't be studying the subject anyway. The problem is that some students in Form 3 failed the Form 2 physics exam, but did passably well in chemistry. Normally secondary school students study physics and chemistry together, or none at all. But some students complained, so the school decided to let some of them study only chemistry. However, the condition was that at some point this year, students who did poorly on an exam would not be allowed to study chemistry any more. Turns out the academic master decided it was going to be this exam. The phrase "sucks to be you" comes to mind right about now.

My guess is that we won't get rid of all 75 students that failed, as only having 22 students left isn't even enough for one stream. So maybe we'll lower the bar to, oh I dunno, 10%? That still won't add that many students, as most got between 0% and 8%. I have to admit though, that marking this exam was probably the most fun I've had yet, as some of the answers students gave were so asinine as to make me crack up laughing. For example, one of the topics of the exam was electrolysis, and one question about electrolysis required students to fill in a table for a series of electrolytic cells. The first column asked the students to write which electrode (there are two in each cell) each electrolysis product would be produced at - the title of the column was "Electrode Produced at (cathode or anode)". Yet probably close to a third of the students wrote *numbers* in that column - genius!

I even had about 6 students leave the examination room after less than 10 minutes, each saying "nimeshindwa" (I have failed). That kind of annoyed me, because if you couldn't even answer one question on the exam, most likely that means you didn't read through your notes even once. And to be frank, I don't want to teach students who aren't interested in learning.

I'd be interested to know what our students are like compared to others - my guess would be that they're on the low end of the scale. They're not bad kids (we have basically no serious discipline issues), it's just that they're not good students. It seems like that's a common problem at private schools here, because generally the students that do well on their national exams go to government secondary schools, due to cost. Tuition at a government school is significantly cheaper than a private school - my school costs about 500,000 shillings per year, which is quite a lot of money, and probably an amount many rural Tanzanian families cannot afford to pay. A government school, on the other hand, might cost 70,000 shillings per year, which is significantly cheaper.

Not that government necessarily equals better in terms of education - there have been four new secondary schools opened in our district in the past 2 years, one of which is maybe a 5 minute walk from mine. The problem is that these schools don't have much of anything, including teachers, books, or any kind of science laboratories. I met a teacher from the neighboring school at our school shop one day, and my jaw almost hit the floor when he told me he was a teacher...he looked about 13 years old. He's an example of the government's "crash program" which takes Form 6 leavers and sends them through a short program (6 weeks I think?) that supposedly allows them to be teachers. My school has some young teachers as well, but we also have teachers for every subject, a computer lab, a semi-functional science lab, and a small-but-growing library. Yet we don't get top students, simply because they go to government schools.

So motivation is a bit of a problem, but there's only so much I can do. All of my students (there are two of us teaching Form 3 chemistry - I teach Form 3A, and the other teacher teaches Forms 3B and 3D) were taught everything they needed to know to solve the problems on the exam. I had even typed a list of about 100 questions from previous Form 4 national exams, and gave a copy to each student. I told them that the questions on the exam would be similar to the past exam questions I gave them, so if they were able to do the ones I typed for them, they would be able to do the midterm. I also came to the classrooms during preparation the night before the exam, to answer any questions the students might have. Only one student asked me questions.

So they're probably going to get a lecture from me when I return the exams, because I'm not sure what more I could have done. I gave them the resources and knowledge they needed to perform well, and I made myself available to answer questions. Sometimes students are afraid to ask teachers questions (hello getting beaten with a stick!), but I know the students aren't afraid of me, so the only reason I'm left with for why they don't ask questions outside of class is that they aren't studying.

Which I think is true, as I've been observing the students' habits a bit more lately. The Form 3 students are probably the best in the school, but the Form 2 students are really bad - if you sit by their classrooms you see students going in an out of the classrooms all day (going to another classroom, going to the bathroom, whatever). I'd say at least half of them are going to fail the Form 2 national exams, which means a lot of them won't be returning for Form 3. And during preparation time in the evening (from 8-10 pm), there's so much chatter coming from the classrooms that it's hard to believe much studying at all is getting done.

Part of the reason is that many of these students are interested in one thing above others: relationships. Granted, that's a normal part of any growing kid's life. However, there are two major problems here: one, I've read some studies that show that a very large percentage of secondary school students are already having sex (a much larger percentage than in the US), and two, the consequences of them doing so are much more serious here. If a girl gets pregnant here, she can say goodbye to school, as she will be going home moja kwa moja (straight away). And of course, there is the threat of HIV/AIDS, which is made worse by the fact that condom use is still not where it should be.

But to top it all off, it's a distraction. And here, it's a distraction that the students simply cannot afford, due to the uphill battle they're constantly fighting with the education system - lack of resources, bad teachers, and a language they don't understand (English). Any time they waste chatting up a fellow student or running off into the bushes to get it on is time that could have been spent studying, so that at least they could get the laughably low marks that they consider passing in this country.

There's especially something going on here between the Form 5 boys and the Form 2 girls, and it's really starting to bug me. Our Form 5 students aren't great students either, and I constantly see the Form 5 boys hanging around the Form 2 classrooms. I've been talking with a Form 5 student who is a friend of mine - really nice kid - and he's pointed out that some of the Form 5 boys have "girlfriends" in Form 2. I think what annoys me the most about it is that, by our standards, that kind of relationship is inappropriate. The Form 5 students are generally 19-20 years old (some much older), and the Form 2 students are around 14-16 years old. To me, that's an unacceptable age difference, as the Form 2 students really are still kids, while the Form 5 students are much more like adults.

It doesn't really surprise me, as age preferences for men here border on pedophilia (and often cross into it). Younger girls are apparently more attractive because "wako freshi" (they are fresh, which is basically saying they haven't become old enough to have nasty things like STIs, or to become unattractive from years of hard work/popping out babies like there's no tomorrow). It's probably also because it's easier for an older man to mentally dominate a young girl, so that he can make sure she does his bidding and nothing else.

Which reminds me of a funny conversation that came up when I was talking to some of the younger teachers outside one day. The topic came up (as it always does) of whether or not I was married, and when I said no they all started asking me if I wanted to marry a Tanzanian woman (these were male teachers, by the way). I said race/nationality made no difference to me, so why not? Then they all said how they wanted to marry a white girl. Which I found amusing, because your average American woman, for example, isn't going to put up with the crap that women here are expected to. I told them as much, saying an American woman probably wouldn't be happy sitting at home all day cleaning and cooking, while the man went out drinking with his buddies at night and slept around (yes, I know there are people in the US who might fit that description, but percentage-wise it's simply not the same).

So after further pestering I said I just hadn't found the right person yet, when they told me I should just marry any Tanzanian woman, and that I should do it soon-ish (like, within the next week). I then had to explain that for me, I would probably have to know someone for a long period of time before marrying her, including living with the person. I said that otherwise, if you marry too soon, you might not realize that the person has some personality traits you really don't like, etc. They responded to this by saying that a Tanzanian woman "hawezi kukusumbua" - she is unable to bother/disturb you. Which means that a Tanzanian woman would do whatever I wanted to, no questions asked, and therefore how could she do something that would anger me?

I left the conversation at that, because any further explaining on my part would have fallen on deaf ears, and probably would have given them the impression that I was going insane. For me, the simple fact that someone would do anything I wanted, no questions asked, *is* a disturbance. I don't want to marry someone who will "yes, honey" me to death, or who will be content cooking and cleaning for the rest of her life. I want to marry someone who will challenge me, who is at least as intelligent as I am, who will tell me when I'm being a jackass, and who wants to succeed on her own and not be dependent on me. Basically, the exact opposite of what your average Tanzanian man is looking for in a wife, and probably the exact opposite of what many Tanzanian girls think they should be like. That's why I would find it hard to marry a Tanzanian woman, because subservience is something I dislike - it's a shame too, because there are tons of beautiful, kind, welcoming women here. But for me, kindness isn't enough.

...back from that tangent, I think these goings-on between Form 5 boys and Form 2 girls are going to result in my first actual act of punishing a student. Like I said, our students are generally well-behaved, and I also am of the opinion that if you treat someone like a child (i.e. punish them for every little thing they do wrong) they will act like a child, and if you treat someone like an adult they will (hopefully) act like an adult. However, I recently came across the Form 5 student who is my friend giving a note to a Form 2 girl. When I asked to see the note and opened it, it read:

"Hey Ester,

It is my hope that you are fine and you are going well with your examinations. The aim of this message is to say goodbye we shall meet again. Tell even Beatrice your friend and tell her that we shall meet. To communicate use (phone number)" - Goodluck S.

Now, at first glance that might look like a simple letter between friends (Goodluck is a boy's name - yeah, I know), but in the context of Tanzanian society, that screams something else to me. After talking to the student who had been asked to pass the note on, he admitted that the boy who wrote this was interested in this girl, and possibly her friend that he mentioned in the letter as well. I got a bit angry about the letter, and the student who was given the letter begged me not to show it to another teacher (especially my neighbor, who is the second master). Why? Because they had been warned about writing love letters, but of course this kid was doing it anyway.

I did wind up showing it to my neighbor, but I told him that I wanted to give this boy (and the girl as well) punishment myself, because his punishment would be caning them, and that's entirely ineffectual. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do yet, as I haven't decided how I want to confront this boy - whether I want to come down hard on him and give him a punishment that will be much more severe than caning, or if I want to (most likely) waste my time trying to make him understand why getting involved with a girl while he is studying is a bad idea. My guess is that it will be some of both.

Another problem is that part of me doesn't even want to punish the kid, simply because what he's doing is natural human behavior, and why should I punish him for that? The problem is this: these students need to make sacrifices, sacrifices that students in the US would generally not have to make. There are so many more hurdles in these kids' path, and in order to navigate them successfully and have a real shot at breaking the cycle of poverty, they need to be working much harder. Anything that gets in the way of them studying will only help to ensure they spend the rest of their lives working on the shamba (farm). So there's a conflict between my desire to let them be human beings, and my desire to try and make them understand that they can't be distracted by other activities if they really want to succeed. It's also hard for me to ask these kids to make sacrifices when they already have so much less than kids in other countries.

But this country isn't going to develop itself unless people are willing to work to develop it. No amount of Western cash is going to fix Tanzania's problems without a desire on the part of Tanzanians to help themselves. Part of that lack of desire I do think comes from a lack of a strong work ethic (which I would bet at least partly comes from the country's experiment in Socialism), but part of it also comes from Western donors, who come to the country, dump a large amount of cash, and leave. Never mind the beggar mentality that kind of giving creates, or that most of that money probably went into some corrupt politician's pocket - money was given, and therefore Western guilt about all of Africa's problems has somehow been assuaged.

What's the answer? We can certainly change our ways of providing assistance, but Tanzanians also need to change. If they don't want to change, then in 50 years this country will probably look similar to how it does today, and ultimately that's their choice. The biggest hurdle to changing peoples' attitudes is simply getting them to think about the future, which many of them don't. If a Tanzanian gets paid his salary today, chances are it's gone by the day after tomorrow. I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but saving is simply not something most people partake in. Why? They don't sit down and think that if they put away a small amount of money every week/month, that they will have a nice amount of money in case, for example, there is a drought and they can't grow food. Then, instead of starving to death, they could actually be able to purchase food for themselves.

It's the same reason why there are so many road accidents, why HIV/AIDS is such a problem, why students get such bad marks - they don't understand the consequences of their actions. For example, the first two students that I gave zeros to on an exam (for cheating) came up to me after class and begged me to forgive them. I asked them why I should forgive them, when I warned them several times during the exam to stop cheating, and that the next time I would give them zeros. Maybe they thought I was just blowing smoke up their asses, that I really wouldn't do it. Oops, I did! And then they scramble to ask for forgiveness. I'm normally a very easy-going person, but if you don't respect me, you will find I am a very unforgiving person. They know that cheating is bad behavior, they did it anyway, and then they want me to forgive them? Sorry, but no.

Part of that comes from Tanzanian society, I think - in a sense, Tanzanians are almost *too* nice, in that they forgive things that shouldn't be forgiven or excused. I see it with teachers all the time - they're quick to hit a student with a stick, but much less willing to give a "real" punishment, such as giving a student a zero on an exam. There is a boy in Form 3 who is one of the few students who I would say is truly a bad seed, and the other day we caught him making a lewd gesture at some Form 1 students, after having searched for him all morning (he wasn't in class, but in the toilet). The teachers were pretty sure he had been smoking pot, and he got a rather stern lecture, after which the academic master told him to collect his books, that he was going to be sent home and suspended. I thought great, this kid might be getting a real punishment for once - and then later that day I found out that they were just "scaring" him. What kind of message does that send to a student? The result isn't that he's going to be scared, it's that he's going to think the teachers are all too pansy to actually follow through and punish him for real. Sure, they'll beat him 5 or 6 times (which is useless, as the kids who get hit a lot are basically immune to it by now), but they won't give him the kind of punishment that actually might change his behavior. They think they're being "kali" (fierce), but they're not.

So thinking about the future - yeah. Of course, that's also hard when "mungu atasaidia" (God will help). I don't ever remember seeing a strong sense of determinism among religious people in Western countries, but here it's really rampant. For example, people will say "If God wishes, we will see each other tomorrow". And God is supposed to help with everything, but - granted, I'm no Bible expert - I feel like if God actually exists, he would only help people who want to help themselves. I guess that's just the Humanist in me.

Anyway, before I get too bitter (talking about religion usually does that to me), and before I break my own website with this ginormous post, I'll end there. Still really enjoying myself, and I have a nice little break from teaching due to midterms and a one-week vacation. Going to go visit my host mother in Dar for a few days, and then back here to help a priest from the church next door set up a small computer lab for the girls' school in the parish. Thankfully the power situation has been resolved, so there's usually electricity.

Oh, and since I probably won't post again before the 21st, happy one year anniversary to all the PCVs in my group! Pretty soon we're going to be the old farts of PC/TZ - stepping off the plane seems like only yesterday and a hundred years ago at the same time. It also means a brand new batch of newbies will be coming in, and I only hope that they all enjoy their Peace Corps experience as much as I have.

Finally, I'm uploading a picture of the view of Kilimanjaro from my school (literally out my front door). I'm in the middle of reorganizing the pictures, so bear with me a bit, as it's hard to do massive picture uploading from here at school. But I'll try and get a few more up after the Kili pic within the next few days. Hope you're all doing well!

More than 10 months done, closing in on the one year mark...absolutely crazy to think about.  Been almost a month since my mom and cousin left, but it seems like just the other day that we were sucking dust on the roads of the Serengeti.  Was overall a great trip - had a couple days in Dar, then went to Zanzibar, the national parks (Tarangire, Serengeti, Ngorongoro, and Manyara), my host sister's in Arusha, and then my school.  Dar was...Dar, with the exception that the Kempinski hotel is insane.  Maybe my standards have been lowered, but I don't think so - probably the nicest hotel I've stayed in in my entire life. 

Zanzibar was nice, though maybe I was expecting a bit too much from it.  The beaches are gorgeous, and the hotel we stayed at was amazing, but Stone Town didn't quite live up to my expectations.  I think most of my gripe with Zanzibar is that it felt way too touristy.  Everything about the place, most noticeably peoples' attitudes, just left me with a less-than-stellar reaction.  For example, here in my village young kids will greet me by saying "shikamoo" (the respectful greeting used for elders), or even "good morning/afternoon/evening" (though usually it's good morning, no matter the time of day).  On Zanzibar, kids yell "jambo" (a greeting reserved exclusively for tourists) at you while sticking their hand out so you can give them something.  And I know that kind of attitude isn't present only on Zanzibar, to be sure - one of the reasons I go to Moshi so infrequently is that I get tired of being called mzungu - but it was much stronger and more obvious on Zanzibar.  A result of tourism, and in some ways not all that surprising, but still, it kind of tarnished my image of the place.

The national parks were great all-around, and it was nice I think spending less time in each park but going to more than 1 or 2 parks, because the variation in scenery is worth it.  Tarangire has loads of baobab trees, the Serengeti has flat, grass-covered plains that stretch as far as you can see, the Ngorongoro crater is simply awe-inspiring, and Manyara had a more closed-in, foresty feel to it.  It was a lot of driving, to be sure.  Part of me likes driving, because you see more than you would have if you had flown, but the drive out to the Serengeti I definitely could have lived without.  From the south of Tarangire to the western Serengeti was almost 12 hours, and the roads in the Serengeti are awful this time of year (no rain = massive dust).  Maybe driving one way wouldn't have been so bad, especially if we had started from Ngorongoro instead of Tarangire, but flying at least one way would have been a better idea.

I think my favorite park was Tarangire, and I believe my mom felt the same as well.  Partly because I liked the scenery second-best after Ngorongoro, partly because we saw a wide variety of animals in a small area, and partly because it wasn't stuffed full of people.  In both Ngorongoro and the Serengeti, a "rare" animal sighting (i.e. rhinos or any of the cats) will usually net a huge crowd of Land Cruisers parked right near the animal(s), making it feel more like you're at a circus than observing wildlife in its natual environment.  Tarangire and Manyara were much quieter, which is nice.  After you've seen all the animals for the first time and the shock value wears off, the surroundings for watching the animals become more important, and that's when the presence of too many other people can get annoying.

Manyara was enjoyable, and kind of a relaxing, quiet end to our safari.  Like Tarangire in that there were few people, though there were less animals than Tarangire.

The Serengeti was impressive simply because of the size of it all - where we stayed (in the western part, only maybe 50 km from Lake Victoria) there were plenty of trees, but in the eastern and central parts of the park, it's just flat, open, treeless space.  We were also there during the annual wildebeest migration, which was very interesting.  By then both animals (zebras migrate along with the wildebeest) were old hat, but seeing herds of literally thousands of animals was awesome.

I was surprised we didn't see more animals than we did in Ngorongoro, but the scenery in the crater would be worth it on its own even without the animals.  I also got two of my best videos there - one of a pair of lions hunting, and a hilarious one of some baboons playing on top of a water storage tank at the entrance to the park.  My other favorite video came from Tarangire, which was of two giraffes fighting.

Also, if any of you reading this are planning a safari, let me know and I can give you the name of our guide.  Really, really nice guy, and was not only knowledgeable, but also seemed to genuinely enjoy nature and care about the animals.  Some guides will get right up close to the animals (which is neither good for the animals nor safe), but he was always careful to create as little disturbance as possible.  A good guide can really make or break your trip, so it was fortunate that we got a really good one.

The only sad part of the trip was that, instead of going to Morogoro to visit my host mother's house, we had to go visit her in the hospital in Dar.  I had heard that she had an operation on her stomach a short while after IST, and after talking to her a few times, she said she was being transferred to Muhimbili Hospital, which is the national hospital in Dar.  She was still there by the time my mom and cousin arrived, so we wound up staying an extra day on Zanzibar (instead of going to Morogoro), and visited her in the hospital instead.

The original operation she had was, as I later found out, for an intestinal obstruction, which is a really dangerous condition that will kill you quite fast without surgery.  But while they were performing the operation, they noticed some sort of growths in the GI area (still not sure exactly where), which after some testing they determined to be cancer.  Needless to say that was really disheartening to hear, as my immediate reaction was that this woman doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of surviving.  However, she is now going to the Ocean Road hospital, which is I believe the only cancer institute in the country, and she's getting chemotherapy.  She's going to have to take it for 6 months, after which they will do more tests to determine whether or not the cancer is gone, but my hope is that they caught the cancer early enough (since she hadn't shown any outward symptoms of it yet) that the chemo will cure her. 

It isn't going to be pleasant for her - I went to visit her shortly after she had her first treatment, and it's safe to say that this cure is almost worse than the disease.  She was vomiting all the time, and just generally didn't have much energy for doing anything.  It was sad seeing a woman who was always happy and laughing in such a depressing state, but it seems like the side-effects get better the more time passes from the time of treatment.  It's also a very expensive treatment - each dose costs almost 200,000 shillings (which is a PCV's monthly living allowance here, or about $160), which is a crazy amount of money for your average Tanzanian.  I was talking to a teacher here at school about it, and she said that if she ever got cancer she would just wait at home to die, because there is no way she could afford treatment like that.  Thankfully my host mother's family (including her sisters, daughters, and sons-in-law) are almost all working professionals - many of them in the healthcare field - so they have a fair amount of money.  Even still, it's straining their money quite a bit, so I'm helping them pay for the chemo.  My host family has never asked me for anything, which is why I knew that when one of my host sisters asked if there was something I could give them to help pay for the medicine, that they must be struggling to get enough money.  A rather sad situation, but if I am able to provide the assistance that allows her to get better, then my entire time here in Tanzania will have been worth it.

Otherwise, school continues to go really well.  Teaching's going to get a bit more tiresome, as I've started teaching the computer studies syllabus - this means a lot of time spent in the actual classroom writing on a blackboard, not having them in the computer lab.  Writing on a board and talking for 34 periods a week instead of more self-guided work with computers is a bit difficult, but I need to prepare the kids for the national exam.  Also I don't have much choice anyway, as they are paving the road that runs from Marangu up to Tarakea (on the border with Kenya), and they have to move the electric poles farther away from the road, because the paved road is going to be wider than the dirt one.  Guess what happens every time they move poles?  Yep, they shut the power off.  So most days, the power is off from 9am until 8pm - makes using the computers a wee bit difficult.

The President of Tanzania (Jakaya Kikwete) went to Tarakea on Sunday, so I got to see him in his car as he drove by.  He was supposed to come by at 10am, but in typical Tanzanian fashion he didn't actually arrive until about 11:30.  So we were all lined up on the road for an hour and a half, and then he drove by in 30 seconds.  But he had the window open and was waving as he went by, so I did actually get a glimpse of him. 

The health club is going more smoothly now, because the school finally decided to return to the old schedule and make the last period of the day for clubs or other activities (Thursday is clubs, and other days are sports/cleanliness/projects/debate).  The problem last term was that there was no set time for clubs, so even though I got permission from the academic master to have the club during the last period one day a week, if there was a teacher in the classroom in which some of the students in the health club were in, they couldn't come.  Now the time is definitely set aside for only clubs, so I'm getting more done.

I'm hoping to bring the students in the health club to visit a local hospital, and also a center that my site mate works at which deals with AIDS victims and orphans.  Plus there's going to be a school trip to Ngorongoro Crater either this month or next, and I'm also trying to see if it will be possible to climb Kilimanjaro this September/October with students.  In addition, two grant proposals will be going to Peace Corps this week.  Busy, but enjoying it a lot.

To finish this up, I'd like to share an example of why I think this country is so great - this past Saturday was the graduation for YCS, which is a Catholic students' group (this area is probably 90+% Catholic, due to heavy missionary activity).  The day started with a mass, and the priest began the mass by greeting everyone, as usual.  Except that he also said "salaam alaikum", which is the Arabic greeting that Muslims use to greet each other (it means "peace be unto you").  And it's not like there were lots of Muslims in attendance, as our school has a very small number of them.  But he knew there were a few Muslims there, so he said it.  And even more surprising, almost all of the students answered him (by saying "alaikum salaam").  There's really something special about a country where something like that happens - I know we have ecumenical services in the US, but frankly I could never imagine walking into a church or synagogue and hearing a religious leader greet the congregation in Arabic (or vice versa).  There are more than a few things in this country that people could learn from Americans, but there are also some big ones that they're already ahead of us on.

Just got back from our IST (in-service training) down in Iringa.  Fun week for the most part, and was nice to see everyone again.  We're down to 35 from our original group of 41, which I think for the most part is fairly average for Peace Corps.  The weather was cold, and by cold I don't mean in the Tanzanian sense, where as soon as the temperature drops below 80 degrees it's time to put on a jacket.  I mean actual cold.  I figured that would be nice, but I actually didn't like it so much, mostly because just as you will almost never find air-conditioning in this country, you also won't find heating.  And taking a cold shower when the air temperature is probably in the 50s was...painful.  I'm actually glad it's not quite that cold at my school, because then I would have to stop being lazy and actually heat water up to take a hot bucket bath every day instead of a cold shower.

I've been thinking about all of the stuff I want to do while I'm here, and it's realistically impossible that I'll get it all done in the time I have.  Which is just something I have to come to grips with, but at the same time is hard to swallow for a person who really hates leaving stuff un-done.  I've put possible projects into two groups: those that need money, and those that don't.

Money projects:

• Purchasing textbooks so that the students actually have something to read in the library which was recently opened
• Putting the chemistry lab in working order, which will most likely entail purchasing chemicals/labaratory apparatus
• Increasing the number of computers
• Building a modern kitchen for the school, because the current one is...bad
• Installing solar power for the times the electricity is cut

Non-money projects:

• Volunteering at a local NGO that works with HIV/AIDS patients and orphans
• Organizing my health club to get students out into the community teaching about health-related issues (mostly HIV/AIDS)
• Offering computer classes to villagers once the internet cafe opens at our school
• Organizing an English club - not sure where I'll get the time to do that, but English proficiency is such a huge issue that this is something I'd like to do
• Starting a Permaculture/Bio-intensive garden (basically allows you to grow a larger amount of food in a smaller space - we learned about this at IST), and showing it to students/teachers/villagers as a way to increase food production

And there's probably other stuff I'm forgetting as well.  Of course, all of this is in addition to teaching 34 periods a week, and trying to improve the quality of education my students receive through more innovative classroom teaching methods, which are my "primary" reasons for being here as a PCV.

There really is so much need here, and I do feel like I can make meaningful, lasting contributions to both my school and community.  At the same time, I have always felt that life here is generally better than I ever would have imagined it being, simply due to the distorted view we have of Africa as a place where everyone is starving and destitute.  That's not true at all, and yet at the same time an experience I had while visiting my host family in Morogoro on my way back from IST also really drove home the fact that there most certainly ARE people in this country for whom life is as bad as we think it is.

The story is this: my host mama recently got a new housegirl (as the other one was a relative who has recently gone back to school up in Arusha).  My mama was telling me how this girl is mshamba, which you could roughly equate to being called a redneck, though she didn't mean it in a malicious way.  The word shamba means farm, so mshamba means a person from the farm - i.e. a real villager who doesn't know the "sophisticated" ways of city life.

So this girl was apparently breaking all of the glasses and dishes in the house the first week she was there (she's 15-16 years old) because I guess she had just never used such things before.  She was also initially scared of the electric lights in the house, because she had never see them before.  She didn't even know how to wash clothes - this is due to the fact that at her actual home (near Dodoma, which is a pretty desert-like area) there were major water problems, and there wasn't enough water to wash clothes with.

She's the oldest of 4 children - her father abandoned her mother after she gave birth to a child with no eyes (that subsequently died).  She married again and had 3 more kids, but the second husband ran away after she gave birth to another physically defective kid.  Remember in my last post how I was talking about it being hard not to get extremely pessimistic about the male sex here?  Yeah.

So they had no water, their only source of income was working on other peoples' farms, and they slept on the floor every night because they didn't have beds.  Apparently this girl had worked for another family somewhere as a house girl, but they treated her like dirt - telling her to sleep on the floor (even though there were beds in the house) because that's what she did at home, not giving her food, etc.  So she went back home, but now is living at my host mama's house.  She told me that when the girl first showed up she was very thin, didn't know much Swahili (yes, that's the case with some people here), and had a bad case of scabies.  She also doesn't even know basic mathematics, as she dropped out of primary school in Standard 4 (which is the equivalent of fourth grade, but in reality much less than that) so my host mama can't even send her to the local shops to buy stuff.

She's doing much better now, thankfully, because she's actually eating, and my host mama is teaching her things such as cooking, cleaning, and Swahili.  She said that people were telling her to send the girl home when she first arrived, because none of them thought she would last long or be able to function.  But she seemed to be doing fine when I was there.  My host mama had mentioned that she was trying to see if this girl wanted to continue her education, but the girl refused, mostly I think because she didn't want to be a financial burden to my host mama.  So I talked with my host mama and told her I would be willing to pay for her education if she wanted to go back and finish primary school (or to go to a trade school, nursing school, or something else).  My host mama told her this, and she seemed much more eager about returning to school.  Now she has to look for a school for this girl, and hopefully she'll still be serious about continuing.

It's a good situation for me, because I know that this girl truly needs help, as I trust my host mama completely.  She told me that this girl doesn't want to go home, and that she can't ask her too many questions about her family at a time, because she just starts crying.  Even my host mama said that if she herself thinks about this girl's situation too much, she starts crying.  And that kind of emotion is something I've never seen from a Tanzanian before.

For those of you who have seen the Constant Gardener, being in this situation reminds me of when Ralph Fiennes's character is driving his wife back home after she had the miscarriage, and they passed the brother of the young girl who had died in the hospital after giving birth.  His wife wanted to give the boy a ride home because it was a very long way away, and Fiennes' character told her "we can't involve ourselves in their lives - that's what the aid agencies are for", to which she replied "but this is one person we can help".  And I basically felt the same way.  How, after hearing about this girl's completely poverty-stricken life, could I not do anything?  I may not have much money right now, but I would give all of it to make sure that this girl didn't have to continue with the life she had been leading.

But thankfully she is out of that situation now that she's living with my host mama, who is a really good person and will treat her well.  I will be able to provide the ability for her to go back to school, and my host mama will be able to provide her with basic life skills that she just wasn't getting at home.  It would be wonderful if she finished primary school and did well enough to continue on to secondary school.  Just going to school could be a life-changing experience for her, and I'm glad that I have the opportunity to give her a chance she might never have had otherwise.

All in all, it was a very eye-opening experience for me.  As both a trainee and now as a full-fledged PCV, I have lived a life that has been very much insulated from the truly abject poverty that does exist here in Tanzania.  Our host families were all middle-class (or upper-middle class) families, and at my school, I'm not dealing with truly poor people either.  The teachers all make decent salaries, and if a student's parents can afford the ~280,000 shillings per year that it costs to send that student to our school, they're not insanely poor either.  I've mentioned that life here is much better than I thought it would be, and that's mostly true - for many people, life really is pretty good here.  But I wasn't really seeing the other side of the coin, namely that there most definitely are people in Tanzania who lead depressingly bad lives, and who need a lot of help.

All of this is making me realize more and more that this is work I want to continue doing for the rest of my life.  There are still more decisions to be made (as development work entails just about every kind of work imaginable), but finally finding some clarity about the direction I want my life to take has been an immensely joyous discovery.

Awesome weekend.  My host mama came to visit me along with her daughter (whose baby's baptism I went to in Arusha over Easter) and brother, who lives in Marangu.  It was kind of fun that the non-Tanzanian was the one showing the Tanzanians around, and I tried to be as good a host to them as they were to me.  We went to our local hangout spot (i.e. bar) with a few of the other teachers on Friday night, and then walked around the village a bit and went to the market on Saturday.  I think my host mama had scouted out my house to determine what things I might be missing, because she wound up buying some assorted kitchen items for me.  I was touched, and even though I'm getting on quite well by myself (especially now that my neighbor and I have a house girl - score), it's the thought that counts.

Went back to the market again after my host family left, this time with my neighbor.  Didn't really need to buy anything myself, since our house girl does the food shopping, but I've actually come to strangely like being the only white face in a crowd of thousands of Tanzanians.  So he got his shoes cleaned (and in typical Tanzanian fashion, there was arguing about the price afterwards), and I sat and said a few words of Kirombo to the mamas selling vegetables, which inevitably results in people nearly having heart attacks over the fact that some mzungu - white person - knows a tribal language.  I've been learning greetings in as many tribal languages as I can...so far I know several greetings in the Pare, Masai, Iraqw, and Chaga languages.  Though, when I say Kichaga, I really mean Kirombo (as I said above).  There really is no "Kichaga" language per se, because there are quite a few regional variations that are very different from each other.

So my goal isn't really to become fluent in a tribal language (though that would be quite an accomplishment), but rather to take the "wide and shallow" approach, and try to be able to greet in as many as possible.  Besides, as long as you can greet in a language, people here automatically assume you know the entire language.

Then he suggested we stop at our favorite bar on the way back to get a beer before we returned to school.  It's amazing how one beer in this country can turn into 7 or 8, and can lead to returning to school 6 hours later, instead of 1.  The problem is this: in a small village, you're inevitably bound to come across multiple people you know on any given evening.  If you're sitting in a bar, and a friend comes in, the standard thing to do is order everyone already at the table another round.  See where the problem arises?  If you get particularly lucky (or unlucky, depending on your view) and wind up seeing lots of friends, you can get very drunk, very fast.

So we sit down, start having a beer, joking around with the two women that work in the bar like we always do.  Then another teacher comes in.  Okay, another beer.  Then another.  Okay, no problem.  Then a football (soccer) game comes on the TV, and so now there's no chance of leaving.  Then another friend shows up...by this time, reality has sunk in that I'm in for a world of hurt.

I think we finally finished after 6 or 7 beers, which wouldn't be so bad if each beer wasn't half a liter.  But wait, we're not done yet!  As we're walking back to school, one of the teachers sees a friend in another bar, so of course we go in, resulting in another 2 down the gullet.  All told, I was fairly wasted by the time we strolled through the school gate after midnight.

Of course, I can't drink that much regularly, and I only really even entertain the thought of the above kind of night on weekends.  If we go to the bar during the week, it's 1-2 beers max.  Well, at least for me.  It's amazing how much beer Tanzanian men can pack away...or then again, maybe it shouldn't be, given how much beer they drink.  My two "bestis" (best friends) here at school probably drink every day, so they must already have beaten their livers into submission.  I guess some would call that alcoholism, but then again they're surprisingly responsible about drinking in that they don't let alcohol and work mix.

Still, the rather unequal division of labor in this country is never more apparent than when you go to a bar.  The vast, vast majority of people inside will be men.  Because hey, why go home and help your wife do things like cook or clean, when you can hit up the local joint and piss away what little money you have boozin' it up?  Oh and for the icing on the cake, you can have sex with a prostitute, force her to do it without a condom (because you're a man after all), get HIV, and then go home and infect the wife who has been slaving away for you with it.  Good times!

Yeah, it's hard not to become extremely bitter about the male race after spending some time in Africa.   

Before I get to the matter which is the subject of this post, I'd just like to say that, despite the text below sounding a bit angry, I'm actually doing really, really well here at school.  I love this place, and I've come to really enjoy the company of both my students and my fellow teachers.  I'd say that the biggest difference between my experience here and my experience in China is that in China, the whole reason I enjoyed myself while at school centered around having other foreigners to hang out with.  Here in Tanzania, I actually prefer hanging out with Tanzanians as opposed to visiting with PCVs.  It's not that I don't like the PCVs here - they're a great group of people.  It's more that I enjoy the company of students and teachers just as much, and at the end of the day I have a limited amount of time to spend with Tanzanians, whereas I have the rest of my life to spend with Americans. 

So the difference in "integration" (as PC likes to call it) is completely different, which isn't all that surprising I guess, considering knowing Swahili goes a long way towards achieving that goal.  To be honest, I couldn't imagine coming here and volunteering for an extended period of time without being proficient in Swahili.  Yeah, I could function as a teacher only using English, and to be honest most of the teachers at my school have excellent English as well.  But at the same time, knowing Swahili opens up so much more in the way of social interaction that you just can't get otherwise, and I will be forever grateful to our awesome language teachers for that. 

So yeah, everything's still going amazingly well.  The Form 4 students finished today, because tomorrow they start their mock national examinations, so my teaching load will go down a bit.  Then it's off to Iringa for a week in the beginning of June for our IST (in-service training), back to school for a couple weeks of relaxing, and then my mom and cousin come to visit!  Should be a really awesome vacation, and I hope they'll come to enjoy this country as much as I do.

--

Now, for the subject.  I'll say it, because this is a subject I refuse to mince words over or sugar-coat in any way: corporal punishment sucks.  I'm sorry, but I can't really understand how people think physically assaulting children is a good idea for their emotional or intellectual development.

Maybe I should give a little background first.  Corporal punishment is technically legal here in Tanzania - there are laws regarding its use in schools, which I can tell you are never followed.  Generally, corporal punishment here involves hitting a student with a stick, either on the hand or on the rear.  A student is not supposed to be hit more than 3 times for any one infraction, and a log book is supposed to be kept detailing each incident, saying why the punishment was given and the number of strokes.

But as I said, those rules are never followed.  I've seen students here be hit 6-8 times, which is well over the maximum they are supposed to receive.  Then again, I think my school is actually not so bad in terms of corporal punishment - I have heard stories of students being sent to the hospital because they were beaten so severely by their teachers.  At least here they just use sticks, but students at other schools have been hit on the head (yeah, great idea), and with objects much worse than sticks (such as rocks).

So overall I haven't had extreme issues with corporal punishment here - I know it could be much worse.  But that doesn't change the fact that ANY amount of physical harm inflicted on students is an absolutely horrible idea.  I can tell you, without a doubt, that students here are afraid of most of their teachers.  Not only because they have told me that, but I can see it in their physical reactions.  I have, on many occasions, accidentally moved my hand somehow towards a student, of course with no intention of hitting them.  But they still flinch away, as if they're expecting to be hit (even though I have told them in no uncertain terms that I will never hit them).  It's like Pavlov's dog - these kids are simply scared of their teachers.  And that's a bad, bad situation.

I may not have a degree in education, but I can't for the life of me see how you can create a positive learning environment when students are afraid to speak in class, for fear that they will get hit.  And there have been studies done which have shown that students who get hit come to resent the teachers that hit them.  When you hate a teacher, and are also afraid of them, can you really learn as much from them if that was not the case?

Not to mention the fact that corporal punishment, on the whole, is not a very effective punishment either (which makes its use all the more baffling).  For instance, I've had some issues with students cheating on exams, which is a very widespread problem here in Tanzania.  Now, I could hit students for cheating, or I can give them zeros on the exam (which I have done).  Which is more effective?  I know if I were a student, I'd put up with getting hit a few times if it meant I could continue cheating at will. 

I think the main reason teachers use it is because it's quick (i.e. they're lazy).  Why spend an hour of your day supervising physical labor as a punishment when you can just whack the students a few times and be done with it?  It's quick and easy - never mind the psychological effects it has on students.

Also, apparently some teachers feel like students won't respect them if they don't always walk around with a stick in their hand.  Personally, I know I would NEVER respect a teacher precisely because they walked around with a stick in their hand.  If you treat people with respect, generally that will be returned in kind.  Hitting me with a stick like I'm an animal isn't treating me with respect.

Which brings me to another point - a couple of times I have been asked by students why Europeans came to Africa and pillaged all its resources and made slaves of the people.  There's such a prevalent attitude here that all of Africa's problems lie at the feet of the white man.  And don't get me wrong, the West has a lot of blood on its hands.  But at the same time, look at Africa since most countries gained independence.  You've got genocide in Rwanda and Burundi, wars in Sierra Leone, Angola, Mozambique, Idi Amin in Uganda (and northern Uganda today is still basically a war zone), the mess in Somalia, ethnic cleansing in Sudan, oh and a war in the DR Congo which has killed over 4 million people.  This is Africa run by Africans, not by Western overlords.  Sure, some of the seeds of those conflicts were sown by colonialists, but that doesn't justify the independent actions of others.

Now, that may seem like a wildly off-topic tangent, but I'll tie it in like this: Africans want to know why the White Man treated them so poorly.  And yet I tell my students, look at how you treat each other!  Is it really any better that your fellow Tanzanian is beating you with a stick instead of a European?  Or that you are verbally berated by teachers and called stupid on a daily basis?  Is this real progress from colonialism?  Don't complain to me that Westerners treated Africans like lesser beings, when you do the same to each other all the time.  If you talk the talk, then walk the damn walk.

And what makes me really sad is that probably most of these students of mine who profess to hate corporal punishment will probably grow up and hit their own children (or students, if they become teachers).  This is such a conservative society, and the idea that corporal punishment "works" is so ingrained that nobody's willing to get away from it.  There are exceptions, to be sure, but those are few and far between.

It's that mentality of "well, it was done to me, so I might as well do it to someone else to somehow cathartically place all of that pain and anguish onto someone else".  There's a disconnect between the knowledge that people don't like to be hit, and the fact that that means they shouldn't hit others.  There was actually a debate last Friday on whether or not corporal punishment should be banned in schools.  I was shocked to actually find out that such a topic was going to be debated in a school, considering how much most teachers tend to believe in its usefulness.  Unfortunately, out of all the debates we've had so far, this was the only one conducted entirely in Swahili (figures, it's the only one I really wanted to listen to).  And while I didn't understand everything, it was easy to read students' reactions to both sides of the debate - they were obviously in favor of it being banned.  It was also obvious that this is a subject they feel somewhat passionately about, as there was real audience interaction (unlike other debates, where students sit daydreaming or throwing grass at each other).

So like many other things, corporal punishment is an issue, but one that few people will actually do something about.  It's like buses here - roads aren't all that safe, because bus drivers are idiots (besides not knowing how to drive well, there's a high incidence of driving under the influence).  People will see news stories about bus crashes and click their tongues, saying what a shame it is, but those same people will happily get on a bus and not say a word when they know a driver has been drinking.  That's just the way things are here, and why development takes a long time.

--

So those are my thoughts, and obviously it's something I feel more than a little strongly about.  I have no grand illusions about being able to single-handedly stop corporal punishment, but I do hope that I can instill in my students the sense that it is wrong.  If even some of them grow up to not use the stick, then I will be happy.

It's also a hard issue because it's not easy to demonize teachers that use it.  Aside from corporal punishment, many of the teachers at my school seem to genuinely care about teaching, and about helping the students.  Which makes it all the more puzzling to understand why they use the stick, but it also makes it impossible to look at them as evil human beings.  All of the teachers I regularly hang out with use corporal punishment, and yet (that issue aside) I think they're all good people, and good teachers.  So it's a very hard issue to square away in my mind, because while I think corporal punishment is absolutely 100% wrong, I simply can't look at people I consider my friends in an evil light.  It's probably the most difficult issue that many PCVs have to deal with - I think I have come to terms with it, but if you don't, it could very easily lead to you being miserable here.

Thankfully, as I said at the start, that's not the case.  I am fully enjoying my time here, and I have really come to enjoy Tanzanians as a people.  There are occasional annoyances (such as the word mzungu, which I will write about one day), but they are generally such warm, friendly, and tolerant people that I am glad to have come to know some of them.

Swahili is, for the most part, an exceptionally easy language to learn. It also happens to be, as far as I know, the most widespread native African language in Sub-Saharan Africa (north of the Sahara it's Arabic), which means it's also a very practical language to learn. It's slowly becoming a lingua franca as its use spreads beyond East Africa. One reason for this is that it's not really a "tribal" language any more, which makes it more attractive for Africans looking for a national language other than English or French.

It might seem odd that most of the official languages in Africa aren't native African languages, but rather European ones (a leftover from colonialism). Yet, in a way it makes sense, because for many countries to choose a tribal language as a national language would be disastrous, as it could very well result in tribal warfare. Swahili, while technically is the language of the Swahili people (a term used for people who live on the coasts of East Africa and are basically all Muslims), is not really seen that way any more. It's been a national language for quite some time now in both Tanzania and Kenya, and is also widely spoken in Uganda, in parts of Rwanda and Burundi, northern Madagascar, and even parts of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

For instance, here in Tanzania, there are over 100 tribal languages, but everyone knows Swahili. People still speak their tribal languages also, but in my experience tribal languages are slowly starting to die out - for instance, the headmaster of my school only speaks Swahili to his children, and never uses Kichaga (the language of the Chaga tribe), which is his tribal language. The reason is fairly easy to understand, as using Swahili allows for greatly enhanced communication between people. It's also been a great unifying aspect for Tanzania, and I'm sure is part of the reason why you won't find tribal fighting here like in so many other countries.

As for the language itself, it's a Bantu language (part of the Niger-Congo language family), which means it was brought to East Africa by Bantu people who migrated out of the Niger River basin centuries ago. Even though the language is African in origin, Swahili has been heavily influenced by Arabic. The reason is that there has been a large Arab presence (mostly traders) on the coast of East Africa for a long time. Because of this, Swahili has borrowed many words from Arabic - and more recently, other languages as well. In fact, "standard" Swahili - which is what we learn as Peace Corps trainees - is the dialect of Zanzibar. So the language was originally brought to the coast from the interior of the country, where it came into contact with Arabic. It was then spread back inland by traders, having taken a large influx of words from Arabic. Swahili words like salama (peace), fikiri (think), and subiri (wait) are taken almost directly from Arabic. Other more recent borrowings from Western languages are words like kompyuta (computer), pesa (money), and basi (bus).

The language structure is very regular, and as I said, generally very easy to learn. Pronunciation is perhaps the easiest aspect of all, as words are pronounced phonetically. Furthermore, each letter only has one pronounciation, which means there is no confusion like there is in English (for instance, how we say the "g" in girl and giraffe). Not only that, every letter in a word is spoken, and there are no dipthongs like in English. A dipthong is a combination of vowels, e.g. in the word tear, the "e" and "a" are spoken as a single syllable. In Swahili, those two letters would be spoken as independent sounds. And the stress in words is practically always on the second-to-last syllable, the exception being if the word ends in a double vowel, then the stress is on the last syllable, e.g. shikamoo (a word used to greet elders respectfully).

Grammar is also very straightforward, for the most part. A normal way of constructing a sentence is to take a verb, add a subject prefix, and add a tense marker. For instance, take the verb kufanya (to do). The ku- is the infinitive prefix, so fanya is what you use. If you want to say "I do", you take the verb stem, add the subject prefix for "I", which is ni, and add the present tense marker, which is na. Putting them together, you get ninafanya. To change to past or future tense, you simply change the tense marker, which is li for past, and ta for future. So nilifanya is "I did", and nitafanya is "I will do".

There is no gender in Swahili, and the general sentence structure is the same as English (Subject-Verb-Object). Though, like many languages other than English, adjectives come after the nouns they describe, not before. So if I want to say "I did a lot of work", you would say Nilifanya kazi nyingi, but kazi is work, and nyingi is a lot.

The only confusing aspect of Swahili has to do with something called noun classes. Even though the distinctions have become a bit blurred over the centuries, Swahili nouns used to be grouped into fairly well-defined classes based on what the noun represented (this is a feature of many Bantu languages). For instance, words in what we call the M-WA noun class have to do with living, moving things:

mwalimu (teacher) - walimu (teachers)
mzazi (parent) - wazazi (parents)
mwanafunzi (student) - wanafunzi (students)

There are seven noun classes in total, which in itself isn't a big deal. The problem comes when you are constructing a sentence. This example should explain where the trouble arises:

This is my book. Hiki ni kitabu changu.
These are my books. Hivi ni vitabu vyangu.

This is my mango. Hili ni embe langu.
These are my mangoes. Haya ni maembe yangu.

So in the above sentences, -angu is the possessive word. The thing is, the prefix in front of -angu changes depending on a) what noun class the noun you are possessing comes from, and b) whether the noun is singular or plural. Likewise, the words Hiki and Hili both mean "this", while the words Hivi and Haya both mean "these".

This makes it tough to speak proper Swahili, because I basically have to think the sentence out before I speak, and make sure I'm using all the right agreements. Eventually it starts to become automatic, but it's definitely rough when you're first learning. Here's a longer example to see just how many words in a sentence have to agree with the noun they're talking about (bolded letters are ones that will change with different nouns - I've bolded them to make it easier to see):

Huyu ni mwalimu wangu mzuri wa Kiswahili ambaye ana magari mengi.
(This is my good Swahili teacher who has many cars.)

Hiki ni kitabu changu kizuri cha Kemia ambacho kina kurasa nyingi.
(This is my good Chemistry book which has many pages.)

In the first sentence, the word mwalimu is dictating the structure of the words Huyu (this), wangu (my), mzuri (good), wa (of), ambaye (who), and ana (has). The word magari (cars) is dictating the structure of the word mengi (many).

In the second sentence, the word kitabu is dictating the structure of the words Hiki (this), changu (my), kizuri (good), cha (of), ambacho (which), and kina (has). The word kurasa (pages) is dictating the structure of the word nyingi (many).

See where the confusion arises? If you said Hiki ni mwalimu changu kizuri cha Kiswahili ambacho kina magari nyingi, you would probably get a blank stare from many people here, because it's completely incorrect. So changing just one word in a sentence can cause nearly every other word in the sentence to change as well. And because there are different agreements for each of the seven noun classes, it's tough to always get them right. It makes it even harder because some of the agreements are the same for different noun classes, except they're swiched for singular and plural. For instance:

Hii ni funguo yangu. (These are my keys.) - The word funguo is plural and in the U-N noun class

Hii ni kompyuta yangu. (This is my computer.) - The word kompyuta is singular and in the N-N noun class

This can get very confusing, when agreements for the singular in one noun class are used for the plural for another noun class. (head exploding)

Still, considering that's the only real hard part about learning Swahili, there isn't much to complain about. Overall I'd still say it's a vastly easier language to learn than English, and it has the benefit of being widely useful.

It also has some great words/phrases; here are some of my favorites:

mzushi - rumormonger
lala fofofo - sleep like a log (lala is sleep)
acha longolongo - stop the chatter (acha is stop)
wowowo - large rear-end
funga bakuli lako - literally "shut your bowl" (probably the strongest way to tell someone to shut up)
umetoka mchicha - literally "you are from spinach" (a way to tell someone they're smartly dressed)
tako - any old rear-end (had a great time with this one trying to explain to my host family that in the US, a taco is something you eat)

And though it's not a Swahili word, I still have to forcibly keep myself from laughing when my students ask me for a "rubber" - apparently it's what the British call an eraser, and obviously the people here have no idea that it's slang for a condom, but it cracks me up nonetheless.

I've decided to make this blog a bit more of an educational endeavor than a strictly what's-going-on type deal, because to be honest, not much changes from day to day.  And that's not to say that life is boring - on the contrary, I love it here at school.  The students are great, the teachers are great, and teaching has been going quite well.  Right now I've got 29 periods a week (one period is 40 minutes), which is a bit over the 24 period limit Peace Corps recommends.  Which isn't a bad thing at all in my eyes, because I came to contribute as much as possible, and my school certainly needs the help.

For my part, 24 of my periods are spent teaching computers to Forms 2, 3, and 4, while the remaining 5 are teaching Form 3 Chemistry.  Not exactly what I had imagined I'd been teaching - welcome to Peace Corps, or life in Tanzania in general - but I'm happy with my situation.  I actually took the 5 periods of Chemistry because I really didn't want to be teaching only computers, both from a personal interest and professional standpoint.  And in fact, I'm glad that I'm teaching Chemistry and not Physics (though I may pick up a class or two of Physics once the Form 5 kids come in March), because as I've been reviewing class materials, I've been reminded of the fact that introductory Physics is pretty damn boring.  I actually like intro Chemistry better, so that worked out well.  Plus, Physics is more abstract, which is harder to teach when you've got a fairly large language barrier working against you.  Oddly enough, I'd say that the students can probably understand their Tanzanian teachers' English better than they can understand mine, probably because my accent is more than a little different from theirs.

I had my doubts at times as to how relevant all the Swahili training was to our abilities to function as teachers, but it became immediately apparent to me as soon as I started teaching.  I'd almost say there are students here whose level of proficiency in English is at the same level of my proficiency in Swahili, which is kind of mind-boggling considering they learn English in primary school and considering it's the medium of instruction in secondary school.  So needless to say, it is a huge advantage to be able to explain concepts or give the students instructions in Swahili.  At the same time it's a balancing act - using Swahili is great for me, because it helps me practice the language.  And it can be great for the students as well, as my main concern here is that they understand the subject I'm teaching them.  If using Swahili can help to ensure that, cool.  However, I know it's also important for the students to improve their English, because it can help them to get better jobs in the future.

As far as the computers go, it's a mixed blessing, but so far I think the positives are outweighing the negatives.  One issue is kind of an important one, and that's electricity.  Supposedly there is no more power rationing in the country, as the drought Tanzania had been experiencing seems to be over for the moment (it's been raining a lot).  But there are still power cuts, which while usually only lasting for 30-60 minutes, can be kind of a large disruption if it happens right in the middle of a computer class (which it already has).

Another issue is that the syllabus for computer studies is, in my opinion, awful.  There are countless numbers of lessons taken up by teaching students about things not directly related to *using* a computer (such as the history of information technology).  And some of that information is useful, no doubt - the thing is, in my opinion at least, that the students first need to know how to use a computer, because that most directly relates to future employment success.  As far as I know, none of my students have a computer at home - I'm sure if there are, at most there might be 5-10 in the entire school that do - and therefore computer classes here at school represent the vast majority of exposure they're going to get in using them.  Considering that each student is getting only 40 minutes of computer time per week (more on why that is in a minute), I don't feel like I can be wasting time doing anything with the students except having them sit in front of a computer using it.

Yet, there's the issue of the national examinations which the students take.  I think the computer exam is optional, but if I have students that want to take it, I feel like I have a duty to prepare them for the exam.  And guess what's on the exam?  Material in the syllabus, which includes stuff that I simply don't want to teach.  I'm considering holding separate tutoring classes for the kids that are interested in the exam, so I'll see how that goes.

Yet another drawback is class size.  I don't think any of my classes have less than 35 students in them, and I'd say the average size is around 45 (my largest has 54).  This is an enormous problem when you only have 13 working computers, namely because even having 2 students at one computer means trouble, let alone 3 or 4.  When there's more than one student at a computer, inevitably one of the students (usually the one who is more skilled at using computers) does everything, and the other one sits passively watching.  Plus, trying to teach when you've got 3-4 people at a computer just isn't feasible, as managing the class becomes a chore even when you've got a class full of normally well-behaved students.  I know because I tried having an entire class in the computer lab a few times, and, well, it doesn't work.

So what I've done is divided each class into three groups, because each class has computers three times per week.  During each class period, one group is in the computer lab, while the other two are in their normal classroom.  Doing this, there are at most two students at each computer, and after the school purchases a few more used computers this week, I should be able to have only one student per computer in almost every class.  Obviously it isn't an ideal situation either, because each student is only in the computer lab once per week instead of three times.  But I feel like I can still get more taught than if I tried having all the students in the lab every class.

Finally, computer skills of the kids are unsurprisingly low.  There are some who can do a decent amount of stuff, but there are many who don't even know how to turn the computers off and on, let alone how to use a mouse effectively.  Though after seeing the students try to use the mouse, I've gained a greater appreciation for how hard computers can be to learn if you haven't spent most of your life using one.  In many ways, using a computer can be pretty darn unintuitive until you gain enough basic skills to learn on your own.

Yet, despite the drawbacks, teaching computers has a big benefit, in that the students are really excited about learning how to use them.  They're especially excited about the fact that we're going to have Internet access shortly (and, well, I am too).  Most of my evenings are spent in the computer lab with the female boarding students, because they always want to come and use them after classes are over (the male boarders stay on the other side of the school, and I don't think they're allowed to come over where the computer lab is at night).  It takes up a lot of time, since I usually come to the computer lab around 8:30-9:00 pm and stay until 10:30-11:00 pm.  But I'm happy to do it, because I'm here for the students.  Sure, I could go home at night and read a book instead, but why?  The students have so little exposure to computers through their normal classes, that I'm more than happy to give them as much exposure as possible in using them.  Granted, mostly what they want to do at night is play karata (cards), but some of them also like to type using Microsoft Word, or to draw pictures.  To be honest, outside of class it doesn't matter much to me what they do, as long as they're getting used to using the computers.  Even playing cards isn't bad, because it helps with mouse skill.  Plus, it gives me time to talk to the students and get to know them better, which is a lot of fun.

Another benefit to having computers, and specifically Internet access, is the opportunity to enhance the students' learning in subjects other than computers.  For instance, I can use science programs to show students 3-D models of molecules for Chemistry class, or to show how reactions take place.  That's an immensely powerful tool to have in a country where a very small number of students actually have textbooks (and the ones they do have are not great).  So there are almost limitless teaching possibilities.  Of course, that also means it's a lot harder to figure out what exactly to teach, but that will just take some time to learn how to do.

So things are really going well, and I'm extraordinarily happy with the situation I've been placed in.  My life is busy, but fun.  Days are spent teaching and working in the computer lab (I'm currently networking all the computers together), and my nights are usually spent hanging around with the other male teachers, and then going to the computer lab.  My neighbor is a really nice mzee (old person), and he and I have been cooking/eating together for a couple weeks now.  Sometimes we also go out to a local bar with some of the other teachers to eat and have a beer, or we go over another teacher's house.  In fact, I don't think I've eaten a single meal by myself in the past 2 weeks, as I get tea in the mornings and lunch from the school, which all of the teachers eat together in the staff room.  So I don't feel isolated at all, like I sometimes did while I was teaching in China.

All in all, I'm glad I decided to come.  Of course I'm only just getting started, and who knows how things may change over the course of two years, but still, I'm really excited about my time here in Tanzania.  It's hard to believe I'm closing in on 5 months - I can easily see the next 22 flying by.  And ultimately, I'm glad I changed my mind about not joining.  After so much deliberation over such a long period of time as to whether or not I should join, I know I made the right choice. 

I hope all of you back home are doing well, and I do miss you all.  I'm actually contemplating coming home for the holidays this year, as I'll have enough vacation time (with an advance) for a 2-3 week trip back to the States.  At the same time, I'll repeat the invitation for people to come visit.  I know not all of you could afford a trip here (it's damned expensive), and I know the misconceptions many people have about Africa, but this is a great country, and I would love to get the chance to show it to as many people as possible. 

So this didn't turn out to be much of an educational entry, but I wanted to get more general info about what I've been up to out of the way.  The next entry is going to be about Swahili as a language, to give you all a sense of what it's like :)

Well, it's been just about a week at my site, and it's still hard to believe I made it here. Training is already becoming a distant memory in my mind - it seems like ages ago that I stepped off the plane into the Dar airport, and I'm sure it will soon seem like ages since I arrived here at my school.

Training was hard work, but generally a lot of fun. The bulk of our training revolved around Swahili instruction, though there was also quite a bit of medical, safety, cultural, and educational training as well. Days were almost always very full, and to be honest I'm glad to have a good chunk of time off to relax before classes start (the spring semester begins on January 9th), because I rarely had free time to myself during training. Classes would usually go from 8am until 3-5pm, after which I would go home, hang out with my host family, eat dinner, and go to bed. Saturdays we had class as well, so our only real free day was on Sunday, but that was normally spent washing clothes, cleaning my room, or learning how to cook Tanzanian food.

Our normal training schedule came to an end in week 8, when we left Morogoro to go on what PC calls "shadow visits", which entails trainees going in pairs to visit a current PCV at their site. It was by far the best part of training, even though we didn't do much besides sit around talking and relaxing. After having such a busy schedule, it really was wonderful to let my brain relax. Plus, eating stuff like pancakes, mac&cheese, French toast, and tacos was a treat after eating basically nothing but Tanzanian food for 8 weeks (not that I don't like Tanzanian food, but I always say the thing I miss the most is the sheer variety of food you can eat in the US). It was also fun to see the southern part of the country - I shadowed in the Iringa region - because seeing as my site is very far in the northern part of the country, I probably won't get down there much.

After shadow we went to Dar, where on the first night we had dinner at the PC Country Director's house, which was a lot of fun, and really very nice of her. The next day was the day we had all been anxiously waiting for since, well, forever - site announcements. The time they do them varies from country to country, as I've heard in some places trainees find out in the second or third week (and also get to visit their site before actually going there for good), whereas I've also heard in some countries trainees don't find out where they are going until after swearing-in.  I personally think that's ridiculous, and I'm glad we at least got a little advance notice.

There were all sorts of rumors and expectations flying around in the weeks leading up to site announcements - about how many people would be going to each region, who would be going where, etc - which I think is one of the big downsides to waiting so long to announce sites. But we finally found out, and I think almost everyone was happy in some way about where they were going. There were a few that initially were obviously disappointed, yet I think we all came to be fairly comfortable with our locations after a few days. I know I was certainly ecstatic, as I was going to go to the Kilimanjaro region (I can't be more specific than that, due to a PC policy of PCVs not disclosing their exact locations on websites), and when I found out I'd have electricity and running water.

We spent a couple more days in Dar, during which we had some administrative sessions, and got to go to the US Embassy to see a video and slideshow that was put together by PC staff for the 45th anniversary of Peace Corps. Then on Thanksgiving, we all went to the ambassador's house to eat, which was awesome in every way imaginable (well, except for the awful Dar heat and humidity, but luckily his house has air conditioning). We had turkey, and mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce, and even pumpkin pie! I think we all nearly puked on the bus ride back to Morogoro because we were all so stuffed (or because some people decided to take advantage of all the free alcohol).

After a final weekend, in Morogoro, it was finally time for all of us to become PCVs. Swearing-in was on November 29th, and turned out to be a really nice ceremony. There were lots of speeches, of course, by the Country Director, by the regional commissioner (basically like a governor) of Morogoro, by the Minister of Education for Tanzania, and by the deputy ambassador, who administered the oath of office. Yep, all PCVs take the same public servant oath (the one about defending the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic) that every government employee and military service member takes. Our families and training staff were there, which really made it a nice occasion.

The following day we left Morogoro for good - some people left for their sites directly, while others (including me) got to spend 3 nights in Dar before being installed. Ate lots of tasty food, hung out in the air conditioning at the PC office (where we got to use the internet for free, watched movies, and even - gasp - ordered delivery pizza), and just relaxed some more before getting installed. I actually like Dar as a city, despite the awful weather. It's not much to look at, but the cultural mix is really interesting - it's a big melting pot of Tanzanian, Middle Eastern, and Indian culture - in places it doesn't even feel like you're in a sub-Saharan country.

Finally, it was time to say goodbye to Dar, and hello to much cooler weather. We left Dar on Sunday, but I didn't get installed until Tuesday (I was the last PCV out of the 5 going to the Kili region to be installed, because of its location). So far, I'm really, really happy to be here. The area around my school is beautiful, the weather is amazing (I haven't seen it go over 75 degrees yet, and at night it goes into the low 60s), my house is gigantic, there's a big market within a 5 minute walk of my school, and the teachers and staff at the school have been very kind and welcoming. Oh yeah, and there's a good possibility that I'm going to have internet access at my school next year! We have a computer lab and the internet equipment is already here, because it had been active a couple years ago. But there were issues with paying for the connection (sounds like the previous headmaster was misusing funds), so it got turned off. However, my headmaster is saying he wants to turn it back on again, so all they need is money, which he thinks the school will have due to the A-level kids coming in March. Yeah, I got insanely lucky, I know. Oh, and there's a line coming from the satellite the school has into my house, so if I buy a TV I can even watch international news. It's hard to believe I'm really in the Peace Corps most of the time - I had prepared myself to live in a single-room mud hut, not in a house that's bigger than my 2-bedroom apartment in Alexandria was!

Of course, there isn't always electricity, and in the dry season there will probably be periodic water outages as well. The problem is that about 60% of Tanzania's electricity comes from hydroelectric power. Which is good in that the skies aren't full of smoke from coal power plants, but bad in that when there are periods of little rainfall, there just ain't much juice to go around. The country is slowly starting to invest in natural gas (which is about the only other natural source of power it has, as to my knowledge there is no oil and little to no coal in Tanzania), but until then, power outages are a pretty common thing. Still, I'm not complaining, as something is better than nothing. The only time it's going to get annoying is when the power goes out in the middle of a computer class, but not much I can do about it.

Not exactly sure what I'm going to be teaching yet, but I'm fairly certain I'll be teaching physics and computers at the very least, and quite possibly also chemistry or math. I'm also going to get the chance to teach A-level, which I'm totally stoked about. Since I'm sure none of you know what A-level means, I'll give a brief rundown of the Tanzanian education system:

Primary school is 7 years (they call it Standard 1-7), and is free. After finishing Standard 7, students take a national exam, which determines whether or not they can continue on to secondary school. That's right - if you fail the exam, you don't go to secondary school, and about 75% of Standard 7 students happen to do just that. It's a huge social problem here, because as a result of this examination system (which I personally think is a terrible one), you wind up with a large population of children around 12-13 years old who are not in school and who don't have much of a future for meaningful employment. If you happen to be one of the lucky 25% that do well enough on the exam to go on to secondary school, you begin what is called O-level (ordinary level). This lasts for 4 years, and is termed Forms 1-4. At the end of Forms 2 and 4, there are additional national exams. The Form 2 exam doesn't mean much as far as I can tell, but the Form 4 exam is another gateway to further education. Only those who pass (an even lower number than the percent that pass the Standard 7 exam) can move on to Forms 5 and 6, which are termed A-level (advanced level). I think somewhere between 1-2% of all Tanzanian students actually make it to A-level - it's an insanely small number. After A-level the students take yet another national exam, which then determines whether they can go to a university or not.

It's a brutal system, to say the least. But anyway, I will be teaching O-level to start, and then in March, I will start teaching Form 5, as my school is beginning an A-level program this year. I'm not only excited to teach A-level because the students tend to be very motivated and because the material is more intellectually challenging (basically equivalent to intro college courses in the US, at least as far as science goes), but because I will also be able to be here from the very start and help to get the program off the ground.

Now you might be thinking, why exactly does this school need a volunteer? Well, the problem in Tanzania is that there is a huge shortage of secondary school teachers. The Tanzanian government has already made universal primary education a reality (for the most part), and is now focusing on getting more students into secondary school. The problem is that, while hundreds of new schools have been built and are being built, there simply aren't enough teachers to fill them. I'm not sure if this is really a hard-and-fast rule or not, but technically you at least have to finish Form 4 to be a primary school teacher, and finish Form 6 to be a secondary school teacher. Considering the number of Form 6 graduates is incredibly small, one can see where a problem might arise. Thus, when a volunteer goes to a school, he or she is making the difference between those students having a teacher, or none at all. That's right - there are schools where there is no teacher for a particular subject, which means the students taking that class are on permanent "self-study" mode.  They get no instruction during the year, and have no one to help them prepare for the national exams. That's the unfortunate reality of the Tanzanian education system, and one that won't be resolved until the country can increase the production of citizens who are able to teach secondary school.

So that's about all the news for now - you'll be seeing many more updates in the future, because having a computer lab at school means I can sit here and type out all of my blog posts (and e-mails!) here, and then post/send them when I actually get to the internet cafe. It's a nice situation to have, mainly because I spend far too much time at internet cafes just trying to keep up with all the goings-on at home and in the world in general. Until next time, I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and that you have a happy and safe holiday season!