Thursday, October 25, 2007
Just coasting
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
-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
# posted by Kristen @ 6:44 AM 
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