Saturday, February 23, 2008
Delivery systems
The methods of delivering things in rural Africa are very different from those in America. For example:
My sitemate and I share a P.O. box. But we only have one key. Since I live farther away and often arrive in town after the post office has closed for the day, I have the key. My sitemate simply walks into the post office and asks for his mail.
This would work well, except the post office workers give him my mail as well as his mail. Usually, we meet in town for lunch and he passes on my mail. But yesterday, he had already left town by the time I arrived. So, we decided he would leave my mail with the people who run one of the internet cafes in town. As back-up, he told me how many pieces of mail there were, so I would know that I had received all of them.
And it worked-I retrieved all of my mail, no problems, no questions asked.
Messages are also passed from person to person via notes in my village. I had a student I had planned to meet with at school one day, but he had to stay home that day to take care of his siblings. That morning, another student handed me a note with my name on it. He doesn't have a cell phone, so he had written a note explaining that he wouldn't be able to come, and given it to a friend to give to me.
The "random person you sort of know" delivery system is also used for more valuable things. I usually give my cell phone to the school guard to charge; most of the time, he returns it to me personally. But occasionally I've had random students hand it to me. This would never work in a city; in a small village, everyone knows who you are and where they can find you if the cell phone doesn't reach its destination.
And another delivery story . . . my Peace Corps passport was passed from a Peace Corps employee to a Peace Corps volunteer in Moshi. It was then passed between four Peace Corps volunteers and my headmaster before reaching me. All people I know, at least . . . and more direct than the post office, as I didn't have to go to town to fetch the passport!
My sitemate and I share a P.O. box. But we only have one key. Since I live farther away and often arrive in town after the post office has closed for the day, I have the key. My sitemate simply walks into the post office and asks for his mail.
This would work well, except the post office workers give him my mail as well as his mail. Usually, we meet in town for lunch and he passes on my mail. But yesterday, he had already left town by the time I arrived. So, we decided he would leave my mail with the people who run one of the internet cafes in town. As back-up, he told me how many pieces of mail there were, so I would know that I had received all of them.
And it worked-I retrieved all of my mail, no problems, no questions asked.
Messages are also passed from person to person via notes in my village. I had a student I had planned to meet with at school one day, but he had to stay home that day to take care of his siblings. That morning, another student handed me a note with my name on it. He doesn't have a cell phone, so he had written a note explaining that he wouldn't be able to come, and given it to a friend to give to me.
The "random person you sort of know" delivery system is also used for more valuable things. I usually give my cell phone to the school guard to charge; most of the time, he returns it to me personally. But occasionally I've had random students hand it to me. This would never work in a city; in a small village, everyone knows who you are and where they can find you if the cell phone doesn't reach its destination.
And another delivery story . . . my Peace Corps passport was passed from a Peace Corps employee to a Peace Corps volunteer in Moshi. It was then passed between four Peace Corps volunteers and my headmaster before reaching me. All people I know, at least . . . and more direct than the post office, as I didn't have to go to town to fetch the passport!
Friday, February 22, 2008
Off to Moshi!
I’m off to Moshi for the week for a seminar on AIDS education. It is a much, much needed break. I left yesterday, a day early, and am currently visiting a friend who teaches at a school between my site and Moshi. It’s the first time I’ve been more than an hour away from my site since arriving, and the first time I’ve seen someone from my training group since December 1st.
The journey to Moshi begins with me walking the 2 kilometers from my house to the main road to town in the hot, mid-day sun. As I walk along the dirt road gazing at corn fields, mud huts, and views of the mountain that contains Ngorongoro Crater, one of the school guards rides by on his bicycle and takes one of my two backpacks for me. I meet him and the backpack when I arrive at the main road.
Then, we wait. There are few cars to town at mid-day; he waits with me for forty-five minutes before a bus to Arusha comes through. I board the bus and we’re off to town.
I don’t take the bus all the way to Arusha; I get off at the bus stand in town. When I reach the bus stand, a woman calls out to me from a hoteli near the bus stand “Karibu, welcome!”
It’s definitely past lunchtime and my stomach is grumbling, so I enter the hoteli and eat some of the best beans and rice I’ve had in Tanzania. They even had salsa! And it was half the usual price, only 500 shillings! Some days I have to worry about being cheated because I’m white. Other days I end up with far better deals than I could ever have hoped for. I figured things balance out in the end.
Spent some time on the Internet in town, and picked up the mail my sitemate had dropped off for me at the Internet café. Yep, delivery systems in Tanzania generally involve leaving things with random people you sort of know and hoping they reach their destination. And surprisingly, this system usually.
After the Internet, I headed back to the bus stand and boarded a minibus headed toward Arusha. Got off after about two hours sort of near my friend’s school, boarded a daladala that brought me closer to the school, and then asked random people for directions and was escorted to the school first by two young women, then by two secondary school students. Of course it turned out my friend had been waiting for me at the daladala stop . . . but thanks to the fact that cell phones have come to Tanzania, we found each other in the end.
And tomorrow, we’re off to Moshi. And it will be time for more fun with Tanzanian transportation. Traveling in Tanzania: chaotic, random, and unpredictable. But it usually works out. And no matter what, it always makes a good story.
The journey to Moshi begins with me walking the 2 kilometers from my house to the main road to town in the hot, mid-day sun. As I walk along the dirt road gazing at corn fields, mud huts, and views of the mountain that contains Ngorongoro Crater, one of the school guards rides by on his bicycle and takes one of my two backpacks for me. I meet him and the backpack when I arrive at the main road.
Then, we wait. There are few cars to town at mid-day; he waits with me for forty-five minutes before a bus to Arusha comes through. I board the bus and we’re off to town.
I don’t take the bus all the way to Arusha; I get off at the bus stand in town. When I reach the bus stand, a woman calls out to me from a hoteli near the bus stand “Karibu, welcome!”
It’s definitely past lunchtime and my stomach is grumbling, so I enter the hoteli and eat some of the best beans and rice I’ve had in Tanzania. They even had salsa! And it was half the usual price, only 500 shillings! Some days I have to worry about being cheated because I’m white. Other days I end up with far better deals than I could ever have hoped for. I figured things balance out in the end.
Spent some time on the Internet in town, and picked up the mail my sitemate had dropped off for me at the Internet café. Yep, delivery systems in Tanzania generally involve leaving things with random people you sort of know and hoping they reach their destination. And surprisingly, this system usually.
After the Internet, I headed back to the bus stand and boarded a minibus headed toward Arusha. Got off after about two hours sort of near my friend’s school, boarded a daladala that brought me closer to the school, and then asked random people for directions and was escorted to the school first by two young women, then by two secondary school students. Of course it turned out my friend had been waiting for me at the daladala stop . . . but thanks to the fact that cell phones have come to Tanzania, we found each other in the end.
And tomorrow, we’re off to Moshi. And it will be time for more fun with Tanzanian transportation. Traveling in Tanzania: chaotic, random, and unpredictable. But it usually works out. And no matter what, it always makes a good story.
A cheating story
Students in Tanzania cheat on tests. Well, actually students everywhere cheat on tests. But in Tanzania, you’re more likely to have two students sitting at one desk, which makes it very easy to cheat. And with high-stakes national tests that determine whether you continue in school, the pressure to succeed is very high.
So, cheating on tests, not a surprise. How about cheating on review games?
One of my streams of Form II chemistry is extremely on top of things; about half the students consistently raise their hands and answer my questions. This same stream is extremely competitive. So, when we play a review game, they want to win.
Game 1: students have to match elements with their symbols. I carefully explain that if they look at their notebooks, the game will last all of one minute and we’ll have to return to the boring process of taking notes. Nevertheless, I catch students opening their desks to peer at the notebooks I had made them put away.
Game 2: students have to match properties such as mass, charge, or location with the three sub-atomic particles. First I walk around the class collecting all the notebooks and piling them at the opposite end of the room. Then I erase the notes I had written on the board, to groans from the students. Finally we begin. Three teams. Each team gets nine cards. Whichever team sorts all nine cards correctly first wins.
Moja, mbili, tatu . . . start! The teams lean over clusters of desks, discussing their cards. Then team 1 tells me, “Madame, we are finished.” They hand me their cards. I count them. Seven cards. “I gave you nine cards,” I say. “Where are the other two?” A student pulls them out from inside a desk, looking disappointed.
“Tell me which particles those two cards go with, then you’ll be finished,” I say. They return to organizing cards.
Now team 3 tells me, “Madame, we are finished.” Again, seven cards. Again, the same two cards hidden inside a desk. “Sort those two cards and then tell me you’re finished,” I say.
Finally, team 2. Nine cards. All correctly sorted. Team 2 wins.
Maybe now the students know that cheating doesn’t pay?
So, cheating on tests, not a surprise. How about cheating on review games?
One of my streams of Form II chemistry is extremely on top of things; about half the students consistently raise their hands and answer my questions. This same stream is extremely competitive. So, when we play a review game, they want to win.
Game 1: students have to match elements with their symbols. I carefully explain that if they look at their notebooks, the game will last all of one minute and we’ll have to return to the boring process of taking notes. Nevertheless, I catch students opening their desks to peer at the notebooks I had made them put away.
Game 2: students have to match properties such as mass, charge, or location with the three sub-atomic particles. First I walk around the class collecting all the notebooks and piling them at the opposite end of the room. Then I erase the notes I had written on the board, to groans from the students. Finally we begin. Three teams. Each team gets nine cards. Whichever team sorts all nine cards correctly first wins.
Moja, mbili, tatu . . . start! The teams lean over clusters of desks, discussing their cards. Then team 1 tells me, “Madame, we are finished.” They hand me their cards. I count them. Seven cards. “I gave you nine cards,” I say. “Where are the other two?” A student pulls them out from inside a desk, looking disappointed.
“Tell me which particles those two cards go with, then you’ll be finished,” I say. They return to organizing cards.
Now team 3 tells me, “Madame, we are finished.” Again, seven cards. Again, the same two cards hidden inside a desk. “Sort those two cards and then tell me you’re finished,” I say.
Finally, team 2. Nine cards. All correctly sorted. Team 2 wins.
Maybe now the students know that cheating doesn’t pay?
Monthly tests
I gave my first monthly tests this week. Before I continue, let me explain the grading scale in Tanzania. A score between 80 and 100 is an A. 60 to 80 is a B, 40 to 60 is a C, and 20 to 40 is a D. You don’t fail a test unless your score is less than 20.
There’s a reason that grading scale is like this: the average test score is around 50. And after correcting many tests where students scored 6, 12, or 20 percent, I’m starting to look at 50 as a good score.
This is not to say that none of my students did well. I had a lot of scores in the nineties in my Form I chemistry class, and each class had at least a few students who scored in the 80s or 90s. But I tend to be optimistic and delude myself that my students understand everything I say . . . which clearly wouldn’t be true even in the U.S., where the students would at least speak English better. I need to keep reminding myself to put things in perspective and judge my students’ performance my Tanzanian standards. After all, a student who got 44% on the chemistry test told me it was the highest score she had ever received in chemistry!
There’s a reason that grading scale is like this: the average test score is around 50. And after correcting many tests where students scored 6, 12, or 20 percent, I’m starting to look at 50 as a good score.
This is not to say that none of my students did well. I had a lot of scores in the nineties in my Form I chemistry class, and each class had at least a few students who scored in the 80s or 90s. But I tend to be optimistic and delude myself that my students understand everything I say . . . which clearly wouldn’t be true even in the U.S., where the students would at least speak English better. I need to keep reminding myself to put things in perspective and judge my students’ performance my Tanzanian standards. After all, a student who got 44% on the chemistry test told me it was the highest score she had ever received in chemistry!
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Ups and downs on the Tanzanian roller coaster
Here it is: a short list of good things and bad things from the past few weeks.
Ups:
Having my chemistry students act out the structure of an atom. Two students stood still in the center, as a proton and a neutron. A third raced around and around this "nucleus" as the electron. Lots of laughter :-).
Planted my garden last Saturday. The radishes, mchicha (local spinach), and collard greens have sprouted, still waiting on the carrots and green peppers. And the beans and corn that a friend planted for me two weeks ago are looking good.
Played 3-on-3 ultimate frisbee with some students. My team was winning for the first hour, but after an hour and a half of play we started to tire and the other team began winning (final score: 35 to 20. It was a very small field :-) ). If all goes well, we'll be organizing a school league, with games every Tuesday.
Downs:
Sometimes you can't win. One of my biology students wrote "Form 3: speak English" as a message to me on the board. A few minutes later, a second student asked me to re-explain something in Kiswahili. Either the ones who know english well think I'm talking down to them by using Kiswahili, or the ones who don't know english well are lost . . .
Ups:
Having my chemistry students act out the structure of an atom. Two students stood still in the center, as a proton and a neutron. A third raced around and around this "nucleus" as the electron. Lots of laughter :-).
Planted my garden last Saturday. The radishes, mchicha (local spinach), and collard greens have sprouted, still waiting on the carrots and green peppers. And the beans and corn that a friend planted for me two weeks ago are looking good.
Played 3-on-3 ultimate frisbee with some students. My team was winning for the first hour, but after an hour and a half of play we started to tire and the other team began winning (final score: 35 to 20. It was a very small field :-) ). If all goes well, we'll be organizing a school league, with games every Tuesday.
Downs:
Sometimes you can't win. One of my biology students wrote "Form 3: speak English" as a message to me on the board. A few minutes later, a second student asked me to re-explain something in Kiswahili. Either the ones who know english well think I'm talking down to them by using Kiswahili, or the ones who don't know english well are lost . . .
Friday, February 8, 2008
I could write a long rant about the various annoyances and frustrations of Tanzanian village life. Or I could write a cheerful entry full of all the great things that have happened in the past two weeks. Life here is like a roller coaster. It's exhilaring, intense, and often there's too much happening to process it well. And you could describe it as awesome or as a huge pain-in-the-neck: it just depends on what mood you're in and which events you decide to focus on.
I guess the biggest news is that we had visitors at my school. Yes, other white people in the village! There was a woman from Austria and a woman from Switzerland, who somehow represent some NGO which may give us money to build a library and increase the size of our hostel.
So, what does this all mean for the school? Well, a day off for the students, and a day of acting as a translator for me. We gave the visitors a tour, then the students put on performances for them, and the headmaster made a speech. We decided to switch roles for translating: the headmaster spoke first in English, and I translated into Kiswahili. The students seemed to enjoy it, especially when I acted out words I didn't know. Lots of laughter when I was talking about how small the library is and pretended to stand stiffly in a crowded room, as I don't yet know the Kiswahili word for "crowded".
Oh, and it was nice not being the honored guest for once. (But benefiting from the lunch prepared for the honoroed guests!)
I guess the biggest news is that we had visitors at my school. Yes, other white people in the village! There was a woman from Austria and a woman from Switzerland, who somehow represent some NGO which may give us money to build a library and increase the size of our hostel.
So, what does this all mean for the school? Well, a day off for the students, and a day of acting as a translator for me. We gave the visitors a tour, then the students put on performances for them, and the headmaster made a speech. We decided to switch roles for translating: the headmaster spoke first in English, and I translated into Kiswahili. The students seemed to enjoy it, especially when I acted out words I didn't know. Lots of laughter when I was talking about how small the library is and pretended to stand stiffly in a crowded room, as I don't yet know the Kiswahili word for "crowded".
Oh, and it was nice not being the honored guest for once. (But benefiting from the lunch prepared for the honoroed guests!)
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