It has been a crazy 2 weeks with a lot of new experiences
and a lot of the old experiences have just become more routine.
July 4th we got out of training early so we had
time to walk around town and just hang out. As we were walking around I finally
confirmed my suspicion that chipsi (oily, thick French fries basically) was
what had been causing my stomachaches. Volunteers have already told us that
most of them have pooped their pants at least once…I was afraid this was going
to be it. Luckily Hannah showed me a shortcut to the Oasis Hotel, which was a
good half mile out of the way, but the only for sure bathroom we knew of. Here
I stole my first role of toilet paper. Anyway, we went shopping at the market
and I made my first alcohol purchase: Konyagi. This is Tanzania’s “famous” gin.
Just for a point of reference, a 500ml bottle is 5,000Tsh which is about $3. I
bought some cool wooden earrings, then helped pick out some crazy kitenge
fabric for Willie to get a shirt made. We all (47 of us plus the other PCVs
that were in town to help with training) met back at the Oasis Hotel. It’s a
mzungu hang out, yet we still seemed to draw a lot of attention. We loudly sang
the National Anthem and Party in the USA. I also bargained for another pair of
earrings, which were made by Massai. I went home with the Mji Mpya CBT since my
CBT had already left. We hailed a taxi and tried to explain where we needed to
go. After piling all 6 of us in, we drove about 100 yards and the driver pulled
over and told us to get out. There was a World Vision company truck parked on
the street and the taxi driver told us to get in the truck. My Baba works for
World Vision, so I asked the driver if he knew him and he told me that he’d met
me before while delivering coal. I called my dad to make sure it was ok that
this guy drove us home…it was but apparently it is against company policy to
act as a taxi on time off. Who knew!? He might have also been drunk since we
almost ran over a few pikipikis. But my dad seemed to trust him…Anyway, I arrived
to be welcomed by Mama Joyce, Joyce and Samson, who are the family of the guy
that lives with us.
Tech sessions about teaching continued on how to teach. I
learned a lot about grammar that I never knew/had forgotten. The last time I
had a grammar class was in 8th grade with Ms. Garvin, so I keep
thinking back to some of the things she had us do. The Volunteers who swore in
a year ago included the first group of English teachers. Because of feedback
from those volunteers, it is now Peace Corps policy that English teachers can
only teach Forms 1 & 2 (basic grammar, sentence structure, vocab, writing)
but we cannot teach Forms 3 & 4 (literature). They showed us some of the
literature passages and it was quite obvious why we are not allowed to teach.
One poem was from the point of view of a woman and she was saying how the white
man’s books had ruined her husband’s mind. Post-colonial literature is really
hard to talk about with the students because they are afraid to talk because we
are white. And they don’t want
someone’s personal opinions to come out and have that turn into a safety and
security issue.
Saturday and Sunday we were on safari! We went to Mikumi
National Park for basically 24 hours. Some guys on my bus started drinking
around 8:15am….As we were driving down the main highway toward the park, we had
giraffe and gazelle and baboon sightings. We arrived around 11am at our hotel
and it took about 2 hours for them to prepare 50 chicken sandwiches. I was in a
“triple” room that had a king sized bed and a full. We had 4 girls assigned to
that room. Around 1 we boarded these giant buses to go into the park. We
decided to forego the guide into the park and ended up driving around aimlessly
on our now-party bus. We only ended up seeing zebras, giraffes, and elephants.
Not very exciting, especially since the bus was 3 seats wide so there would be
3 people huddled around each window. We did stop at this one giant tree that
everyone climbed. I think it is probably the biggest tree I’ve ever seen. There
were quite a few scrapes and bruises on people because of it. We got back to
the hotel and some of us walked down the highway to eat. After eating, I made
friends with the guys at the Simu Duka (cell phone shop) and I got an Airtel
sim card for free! We walked back to the hotel and some HCNs (host country
nationals) were setting up speakers (presumably for us). That turned into a
ridiculous dance party of about 75 people. I guess as the dance party was
winding down Mandy and Kyle were walking along the backside of the hotels when
Mandy tripped over a stick of bamboo, caught herself, and then proceeded to
step off a ledge into a 6 foot deep sewage tank. She got some in her mouth, and
of course was completely covered in feces. She showered, and had to throw her
clothes away but that was pretty much all that could be done. She called the
PCMO (doctor) the next morning and they said not to worry. Her roommates
obviously didn’t want to be in a room that reeked of feces, so that turned into
7 of us sleeping in one bed, and 5 people in the other. We are advising the
PCTs next year to only rent 5 guestees to save money!
Once we got back into town we ate at Mama Pierina’s. We had
the most amzing lasagna and pizza. It was nice to just have a small break from
Tanzanian food. And it was so nice to just be around other Americans, free to
do anything for a weekend.
This week has been a little bit boring because we have been
at Denis Secondary School doing language classes and teaching our internship
classes. My first Tanzanian class I taught was on Tuesday July 10th
from 8-9:20. For the 3 weeks I teach, my topic is Expressing Opinions. I’m
eventually am supposed to be able to hold a debate with my students about
HIV/AIDS. But, they still don’t know the difference between a fact and opinion.
I really have no idea how to explain it differently. I created a game where
each student says a sentence and the class has to make a “F” or “O” with their
arms. One student’s sentence was “Madame Aly is very beautiful.” When asked if
this was a fact or opinion she said “fact”. When I told her that was how she
felt so it was her opinion she said, “But Madame, it is true.” My
dilemma….Otherwise my three classes were fine. It is Form 2 B for all 3
periods, so it is the same students.
The students just came back from a break so some of them
hadn’t paid their school fees yet. Because of this, there were only 18 students
the first day. By day 3, there were about 30 students. That is a really small
class compared to most Tanzanian classes of 60-80 students. My school is a
private school that is half boarding and half day school. The primary school is
an Engliish medium school (which is rare, since most TZ primary schools are
Swahili). All Secondary schools are supposed to be taught in English since their
NECTAS (national exams) are written in English. However, I have only heard one
class being taught in English. There are about 30 student teachers at our
school also (this includes the guy that asked me to marry him), and they are
still learning too, but they don’t even speak in English and they know they are
being observed. I sat in on a student teacher teaching Form 2 A for a 40 minute
period. She probably talked about 10 minutes of that and about 75% of the
talking was in Swahili. The rest of the time she was writing sample greeting
cards on the board for the students to copy down. If students had access to
books it would cut down on time that is wasted in the classroom as they copy
things painstakingly slow. I gave my students 4 subjects: motorcycles, TV,
football, and boarding schools. They had to write one fact and one opinion
about each topic. This took my students about 50 minutes…
As far as my language progression, I passed my practice
LPIs! I got a 61% (need 60% to pass) on the written and an intermediate for the
oral. This week we didn’t really have substantial language lessons. It is just
so weird to compare our vocabulary because everyone learns different things
from their families, etc. I feel like I need to spend more time memorizing
things instead of just breezing over it.
So now for my random stories and thoughts:
My Mama really wants me to get my hair braided. Two weekends
ago my Bibi tried braiding one section, but said it looked bad because my hair
was too long. We walked to 3 other salons and they all refused to do my hair
because they don’t know what to do with it. Tomorrow we will try again.
On this new walkway we have taken a few times, we pass by a
casket making fundi. All of the caskets I’ve seen are for children. They make
me so sad.
After eating my Costco Trail Mix a few times, I kept finding
my gums swollen and tender. I finally figured out it is because my diet has NO
hard food. NONE.
I was with Jeff (very social guy who got pick-pocketed the 1st
day in Moro) at the daladala stand when this guy came up to the window trying
to sell us food. He was staring at me and started asking me my name in Swahili
so I turned away and pretended I didn’t understand. Jeff thought I really
didn’t understand and told me “he wants to know your name”. I explained my reasoning so Jeff told
this guy “Anaitwa Kenya” (her name is Kenya). He looked really confused and
walked away. But he came back a few minutes later and started once again. This
time bypassing me, going straight to Jeff to ask about me. Then I said “Anaitwa
Kenya pia” (his name is Kenya pia). He walked away and the bibis sitting behind
us started laughing like crazy that we had baffled this poor guy.
I watched my first chicken slaughter. They don’t break the
neck first….just cut through the throat. Lots of blood. And lots of movement.
I ate the stomach of a cow with plantains the last two
nights for dinner. It actually tastes good, but it looks like gray
caterpillars.
I went to buy hydrogen peroxide at the Duka La Dawa and
these two teenage boys followed us inside and were hovering. After ignoring
them the whole time, we went to leave and one of them said “bye. I love you.’ I
said “Si taki” (I don’t like/want you). His friends and some other guys outside
started laughing. I was so happy to finally use that phrase because I’ve wanted
to use it so many times, but it is kind of rude, so it would have been
inappropriate to use in other circumstances.
There was a “welcoming party” for all the student teachers
at Denis. Our group was invited to come also. PJ and Tracy were there and told
me to go, so I invited my aunt and the wife of the other guy. We walked over
there and laughed the whole way about how we were going to dance and have a
great time. No. We got there and it was really awkward, there was no electricity,
so it was people sitting in the dark in this hall. At least my family got to
see how creepy the student teachers are. We laughed the entire way home about
how much “fun” we had had. It was a nice bonding moment, regardless.
