Kuuliza si ujinga

School opens again tomorrow.
Now, I had big plans to use this vacation to prepare my classes. I was going to fill notebooks with notes to put on the board. Plan big projects for the reproduction section of the biology syllabus. Overhaul my chemistry teaching plans so I could cover the whole syllabus before the national exams, while also reviewing the whole Form I syllabus. Come up with innovative ways to teach the memorization-heavy biology syllabus so I stop feeling like a machine that exists to put notes on the board.
That was the plan. What did I actually do? Well . . . I traveled. I hiked up two mountains. I saw friends. I visited my host family. I built a solar oven. I did spend a little time messing around in a chemistry lab, and came up with one good demonstration. But mostly, I caught up with friends, saw more of Tanzania, and relaxed.
Today I return to notebooks that are not filled with lesson plans, demos, or brilliant innovative teaching ideas. I return this afternoon with school starting tomorrow, and all I have ready are a week's worth of lesson plans which are adequate but not particularly exciting. Do I feel good about this? No. I wish I had written up more lesson plans, and I especially wish I had thought more about my biology teaching plans. I won't say I have no regrets, that would be a lie.
But, coming from the other side: do I feel particularly bad about this? The answer, again, is no. I didn't realize how exhausted I was until I finally did go on vacation. How much stress I had built up inside me, and how much it was affecting my personality in ways I didn't like. I was snapping at people on the smallest provocation. I was losing my ability to respond to daily annoyances with humor and patience. I was teaching, yes, but my mood outside of teaching was anything but good.
I didn't get much planning done on this break. But I did relax. I caught up with friends and had a lot of cathartic conversations. By exchanging stories with others, I realized that I wasn't alone in the problems and annoyances I face. By seeing other schools and hearing others' stories about teaching, I got inspired to start teaching again. And simply by taking a break from my site, I cleared the built-up annoyance and stress from my system, and got ready to return and live there again for the next many months.
I don't return to notebooks full of lesson plans. Nor do I return with a clear framework of my plans for the semester, or even a general idea of what I want to achieve. But I return relaxed, with a clear mind, without any stress or pressure built up inside. I return emotionally calm and stable and ready to deal with whatever this semester brings. I'm often a perfectionist and of course I'd love to return to those piles of prepared lesson plans and a clear list of goals for the next several months. But as I've realized more and more in Tanzania, the most important thing is not crossing off every item on my to-do list, but rather keeping mentally calm and peaceful enough that I'm ready for any situation. Given the choice between that pile of notebooks and mental peace, I'm glad I took a long vacation. If nothing else, I'll return to school with my patience, humor, and ability to simply enjoy life restored to me.