Kuuliza si ujinga

Now I really feel like I've been in Africa. Or at least the Africa of legend and popular culture.

We went to Mikumi National Park this weekend to see animals and take a break from training. And we had success on both accounts. We saw elephants, giraffes, hippos, crocodiles, impala, buffalo, and probably a few I'm forgetting. We also saw a pair of lions (a male and a female) and a beautiful double rainbow. All in a landscape that looked remarkably like eastern Oregon. There were several moments where I glanced out the window of the bus, saw the scattered trees and grassy plains and distant mountains, and had an overwhelming feeling of being somewhere near Bend.

It was also nice to finally spend a lot of time with the trainees who aren't in my Swahili class, who I usually only see once a week. When we're all together, it's hard to remember that, a mere few weeks from now, we'll be scattered throughout the country and only see each other once or twice a week. Especially since, in the month and a half we've been here, I've become as close to the trainees who share my Swahili class as I am to people I knew for years at home.

This week I've felt good. Good about my Swahili, good about my training group, good about my ability to exist comfortably in Morogoro. Of course, I also had my first bout with the African version of Montezuma's revenge, nearly flooded my room by forgetting I had left the tap open while the water wasn't working, and miserably failed to invigilate a test in which there was clear and rampant cheating. Things here move from up to down to back up very quickly. Some highlights:
-we're off to Mikumi national park this weekend, for a quick two day vacation. This means that, just maybe, you'll be getting some pictures of elephants and hippos. The lions of Mikumi are said to be elusive, so I'm not getting my hopes up there. As well as seeing the animals, I'm looking forward to finally spending some time with the PCTs who aren't in my Swahili class.
-didn't teach this week, as our school was giving the monthly tests all week. Instead we practiced proctoring (invigilating). On the first test I invigilated, I was left by myself in a room of 53 students taking a Kiswahili test, and told to collect tests and make sure no one cheated. I spent a lot of time walking around trying to look threatening. On the second test I invigilated, there was another teacher in the room, but he spent a lot of time outside and there was definitely cheating. It's a really a challenge to prevent cheating here, as many students share desks, and you can't watch everyone at once in a room of 53 students.
-had our midterm tests last week. So far so good on the Kiswahili front--as long as my Kiswahili doesn't slip downhill I'll be passing the language training without a problem. That said, this makes it very easy to be lazy, and I have been lazy about speaking Kiswahili this week. I'd really like to move up a level on the final oral test, so I need to keep pushing past that frustration of not being able to say communicate more complex ideas in Swahili, and just keep trying
-saw monkeys for only the second time yesterday. You know, most of the time in Morogoro, I forget I'm in Africa. It doesn't feel like America, but nor does it feel like the popular image of Africa. Every now and then, though, something happens to remind me. The monkeys were one of those moments

It says a lot that my most valuable possession this week was an empty glass jar.

This week I taught four eighty minute classes on combustion. My lecture went something like this:
-have students brainstorm how they use fire in their lives
-lecture about combustion
-demonstration: light a candle, cover it with a jar, and have students watch as the candle uses up all the oxygen in the jar and then goes out
-ask students some questions to test their understanding of combustion (example: is boiling water combustion? Why does lit charcoal glow when you blow on it?)

The demonstration was by far the best part. I had to split my fifty person class into groups of twenty-five, which were still far too big. But even so, the students were leaning forward to stare at the lit candle. I could hear an audible "aaaah" in the room as the candle went out. It was fun.

Some challenge I can see after a week of teaching:
-it takes a long time to get students to raise their hands. You have to stand in front of the classroom, look them in the eye, and wait. I hate making people uncomfortable and didn't do a very good job of this in the first class. But I think I'm getting better.
-Some students speak English well and look bored. Some barely speak English at all and have no idea what is going on.
-I went around the class trying to help students and see how much they understood. A few simply would not answer me, even when I asked a yes or no question. I have the feeling their English was not very good, and they were embarassed to talk.

Also it's fun to make students laugh. Simply say "ugali" and "mchicha", and they start laughing at the fact that a white person knows Swahili words for dinner food.

Next week's lesson: rust. I'll do my best to keep you posted.

Today is Idi or Eid al-Fitr, the day celebrating the end of Ramadan. For us overworked PCTs, that means a vacation of sorts. Instead of hearing lectures and receiving shots from 8-5 on Saturday, we get the day off.
This morning, I slept in for once. I awoke as usual at 6 AM to the crowing of the roosters and the sound of pots being filled with water, but lay back down and slept again till 7 am. It was almost 7:45 by the time I showered, dressed, and left my room, and I felt lazy. Already, Mama Gill, Mama Bi, and Mama Mkubwa were cooking, Tumaini was mopping the kitchen, and Manu and Landry (a friend of my host brother George, or possibly another kaka) were washing clothes.

Before breakfast I learned how to cook in Tanzania. First, I lit a charcoal stove for the first time. It’s a fairly easy process: you fill the stove with charcoal, pile some twigs on top, pour in some kerosene (mafuta ya taa), and drop in a lit match. Then you put a hollow piece of metal tubing on top of the charcoal, which somehow aids airflow and helps the stove light faster.

Next I learned how to cook uji, the delicious porridge of unga wa ulezi (finger millet flour) that I eat each morning. I’m not being sarcastic, I truly love uji. I’ll be searching out finger millet flour when I get home. Anyway, to make uji, you first mix some flour with water to make a slurry; make sure there are no lumps. You dump the slurry into boiling water. You stir. You keep stirring. You stir for maybe forty minutes. You add some sugar and maybe some margarine, and you eat it.

I also saw the chai making process, though I haven’t yet done it myself. The steps are:

1) Put fresh cut ginger in boiling water.
2) On a separate stove, heat whole milk.
3) Combine warm milk with ginger and boiling water.
4) Add tea leaves. Let cook until tea is strong enough for your taste.

After breakfast I had a brief lesson in ironing. Then I spent an hour planning my lesson. This week I’m teaching four 80-minute periods—one double period for each Form 1 chemistry class at my school. This means I’ll be teaching the same topic four times. My topic: combustion. It’s going to be a challenge to fill eighty minutes, because Form 1 is the equivalent of eighth grade and doesn’t yet know what a chemical reaction is. On the good side, I get to burn things. Lots of things. And assuming I can find the school kitchen, I can take the kids on a field trip there to see combustion in action on the charcoal stoves.
I sat in the outdoor kitchen for about two hours late in the morning, watching the process of cooking pilau, ndizi (unripe bananas that taste like potatoes), and sambusa (samosas). Pilau is a delicious dish of baked, spiced rice served with beef, chicken, or goat meat. After watching the process, I think the reason it’s so delicious may have something to do with the fact that the rice is basically cooked in hot oil.

After lunch I went to town to meet fellow PCT Aron. We were hunting for chemistry supplies, as our schools have none. So I now have tongs and a glass, as well as the candles and matches I bought earlier. This means I’ll be able to do two demonstrations on Monday: hold paper or dry leaves between the tongs and burn them, and cover a lit candle with an upside-down glass to demonstrate that the candle uses up all the oxygen and then goes out.

I’ve got another half hour at this Internet café, then I’ll be boarding a daladala and heading back home. Fellow PCT Laura’s host mom has invited the four of us who live in the neighborhood to her house for dinner. Plus there’s the new batch of Kiswahili flashcards I made last night to study, and more lesson planning to do. It’s been a busy day, but it’s been a good day. Idi njema to all. I’ll be thinking of you and of the crisp, cool fall air I’m missing as we head into summer here.

(written October 9, 2007)

We’re approaching the mid-point of training, and it’s
starting to feel like I’ve been here a long time.
I’ve gained the ability to sleep through the roosters
crowing, to the point where I’m now worried about
waking up on time.  I have my morning routine more or
less down: brush teeth with boiled water, take a hot
bucket bath, eat a breakfast of chai thick with milk
and ginger, uji (a porridge of finger millet or corn
flour), and/or chapati, omelet, or the Tanzanian
version of French toast, in which the bread is first
toasted, then dipped in egg and cooked.  I think if I
have the ability to gain weight, I will probably do it
here.

One of my fellow trainees made a list called “You
know you’re in Peace Corps Tanzania when . . .”  It
includes:
-when you know the names of all the characters in the
dubbed Filipino soap operas "The Long Wait" and "It Might be You"—and you care what happens
to them
-when you add “i” to the end of every word (ex: juice
is “juisi”, a pencil is “pensili”.  And you say things like "Nitawin" to mean "I will win"
-when you know what PCTCCTPLWHA means (the Peace
Corps loves acronyms)
-when you think 10 people on a minibus is wasted
space

--
Some things I’ve learned how to do:

-grate coconut.  There’s a special apparatus for
grating called an mbuzi, which consists of a folding
stool with a saw-like blade attached to one end

-wash clothes by hand.  I’m not a fan of the part
where you use your wrist as a washboard . . . I think
I peel off as much of my skin as I remove stains from
the cloth.

-fold samosas (called sambusa here)

-light a kerosene lamp

We start our student teaching next week.  My topics:
combustion, rust, and fire extinguishers.  I’m a
little worried about the fire extinguisher part, given
that I don’t remember the four types of fire
extinguishers and they don’t seem to be in the
chemistry books the Peace Corps gave me.  I’m less
worried about teaching a class of 53 students.  From
what I’ve seen, the students here are incredibly
well-behaved.  In the one class I watched, the
students stood to answer questions, mostly took notes
quietly, and seemed to already know the syllabus by
heart.  Whether they understood the material is
another question, and it’s a question I can’t yet
answer.

There are several challenges to teaching chemistry in
Tanzania.  First, classes are in English, which is not
the students’ first language and which the Form I
students are only starting to learn well.  Second,
chemistry here is often theoretical: my internship
school has no chemistry equipment, and demonstrations
and labs are rare.  Finally, students must buy their
own books, and only one student in a class of 53
people had a book.  This means it’s crucial to write
neatly on the board, as students copy everything the
teacher writes and use their own notes as a book.  And
if you write something wrong on the board, you’ll
probably find that nearly every student will put that
same, wrong answer on the next test.

Last week we started microteaching, in which we
practice our lesson plans on fellow PCTs.  So far, the
hardest part for me has been remembering how few
resources there are.  You can’t assign homework that
requires a book, because few students have a book.  If
you’re unsure of the material, you can’t just go look
it up online: you have to go to an internet café in
town and use the very slow internet connection.  And
while there are printers and photocopiers, they’re few
and far between.  It’s going to be a challenge.  But
at least the students I’ve met so far are
enthusiastic, and I think they’ll be fun to teach.

(This entry was written on October 4, 2007)

“It’s just life.”
This was the best advice the Peace Corps trainers gave
us before sending us to live with our host family.
Occasionally it’s an adventure here, occasionally it
feels very foreign, but most of the time, it’s just
life.
--
I’m currently living in Morogoro, a three hour drive
to the west of Dar es Salaam.  It’s a city of about
500,000 people, bordered on three sides by the
absolutely beautiful Uluguru mountains, a range of
rugged green hills that look like the Appalachians
might look if they were given steroids, placed in
Africa, and planted with banana trees.  I’m living
with a family in a residential neighborhood that feels
rural.  In the morning I wake up to roosters crowing
and the two family milk cows mooing.  I walk down a
rutted, cracked red dirt road to the room where my
Swahili lessons are held, passing grazing goats on the
way.  My family has television, a DVD player, and cell
phones, but they cook their meals over charcoal stoves
and wash their clothes by hand.

The family house itself is fairly nice.  It’s actually
a compound surrounded by a fence, with a house, a
chicken coop, several sheds, an sort of pavilion for
cooking, and several fruit trees inside.  For
Tanzania, I think it’s upper middle class.  We have
electricity, which is reliable, and running water,
which is not reliable.  There’s also a fridge, a
blender, and a large tank for storing water.

Now we come to the question of how many people live in
the house.  Actually, I’m not sure.  There are four
mamas: the head of the family (Mama Rhoda), her older
sister (Neema), a friend of Mama Rhoda’s (Giselle),
and I believe one of Mama Rhoda’s older nieces
(Tumaini).  Then there’s the grandmother, Bibi, and a
constantly changing population of younger people.
More or less permanent are Manu, Mama Rhoda’s
twenty-five year old daughter, Shangwe, Neema's
sixteen year-old daughter who attends secondary school
in Morogoro, Silvanus, the houseboy, and George, a son
of a deceased friend of Mama Rhoda’s who studies IT at
Mzumbe university.  Occasionally I see Uli, son of
another deceased friend, Parminda, Mama Rhoda’s
9-year-old daughter who goes to a boarding school in
Dar es Salaam, and Sono, Mama Rhoda’s son and an IT
student in another city.  It’s a large and extended
family, and there are always visitors coming in and
out.  I love it.  At all times of day, there’s
something going on and someone to talk to.

I apologize in advance for the lack of blog entries in
the next eight weeks, but the Peace Corps keeps us
busy.  On weekdays, I climb out of bed at 6:15, take a
hot bucket bath, pack my books for the days, and sit
down to an inevitably large breakfast of uji (porridge
of millet and corn flour), tea brewed in whole milk,
and either eggs or samosas filled with spiced beef.
From 7:30 to 8, I stand awkwardly in the courtyard of
Lupanga secondary school, watching kids sweep and cut
grass with sickles, and occasionally trying to talk to
them.  Then I walk with the four other people in my
training group to the house of our Swahili teacher.
We learn Swahili until 10 am, then take a tea break
from 10-10:30.  After that more Swahili and lunch,
followed by observation of a Tanzanian class, classes
on how to teach in Tanzania, or a “language
walk-around” where we walk around Morogoro and
practice Swahili.

Saturdays are CCT day—all 40 Peace Corps trainees meet
at a compound known as the Christian Council of
Tanzania for vaccines and lectures on medical issues,
IT in Tanzania, and AIDS.  And of course simply to
catch up.  Since we were divided into eight training
groups at the beginning of training, we don’t see each
other very often any more.  My group does meet with
two other training groups twice a week for classes on
teaching, but I have some good friends from staging
that I only see on Saturdays.  Last Saturday was our
first day together after a week with our host
families, and we all lingered at CCT as long as
possible, walking home only when it began to grow
dark.

And now we come to the only free day.  Sunday.  Ah,
Sunday.  Last Sunday I went to church (Catholic with a
Swahili service), washed laundry, bought a cell phone,
and taught my host sister to play Frisbee.  This
Sunday, if I’m lucky, I may make it back to this
Internet café, wash clothes by hand, finally write
some letters, study my Swahili flashcards, catch up on
my journal, catch up on my sleep, play Scrabble with
Shangwe, Giselle, and fellow trainee Laura, and spend
some quality time with my host family.   Ah,
ninatumaini, I hope so.  But I’d be happy just for the
sleep.