Chinongwe, Ruangwa, Lindi, TZ

Today we got our site announcements! It was exciting for most of the Trainees, but a little bit overwhelming for me. I will be at Chinongwe Secondary School. It is located at 10*S-39*E, about 100 kilometers West (and a little South) of Lindi. It is located in the Lindi Region of Tanzania, also know as the “Dirty South”. 

There is no public transportation into my village, but it is accessible by bicycle and motorcycle (although Peace Corps forbids use of motorcycles). There is one man in the village that owns a car.

“The school has 264 students and four teachers. Out of the four teachers one who teaches geography and English subjects is on studies and will graduate three years from this year. The remaining three teaches (1)Agriculture and Civics (2)English and Swahili (3)History and Geography. They have no Math and Science teacher. They also need an English teacher. The school has a mobile lab with all required tools and apparatus but no science teachers. The school has expressed a great need for an Education Volunteer to teach Math/English.”

So basically even though I was told I was going to be teaching English (and that’s the only thing I’m semi-qualified to teach), I will probably be teaching English, Math and Science.

Cons:

-Including me, there is a teacher to student ratio of 1:66

-I hate Math.

-I have no idea how to teach Science.

-I really hardly even know how to teach English.

-There are only a total of 5 volunteers in my region. I am the only one from my training class. Most other regions have at leave 10-20 volunteers.

-My one request was to replace someone so that they could show me the ropes for the first few months. I am not.

-Apparently there is a horrible rainy season making travel virtually impossible.

Pros:

-I guess I’ll need to learn Swahili a lot faster, since this place seems pretty remote.

-I’ll get really close to a tight group of people. (Hopefully?)

-Aside from the rainy season, I will get to travel a lot to go see other volunteers in other regions.

-Obviously my school really needs teachers, so I can have a visible lasting impact.

-Maybe I’ll get to ride a bicycle most of the time.

-Hopefully I will stay busy if I have three different subjects to plan and teach.

I have no other specifics about my house or the school, or my proximity to the other volunteers. Tomorrow I leave for Dar with the three boys that are placed in Mtwara (the region just South of Lindi). We will spend the night at the Msimbasi Centre, then at leave at 4:30am on the bus to Lindi. We will arrive around dark, stay in a hotel, and then meet up with the PCVs we are shadowing the next day. Not sure what happens after that, but I will stay with Tyler Jump and at some point will visit my site, meet with the headmaster, check out my house/possibly stay there? My birthday is on Thursday and I’m feeling a little bummed about that because it seems like it will be very lonely.

Any positivity that you can shed light on would be helpful! Other volunteers are replacing people, they have electricity, they have running water, they are on top of  mountain, elephants walk through their villages, they are in town, etc. I didn’t care where I was placed, but I am disappointed with the fact that I am so isolated and that they are expecting so much from me at my school. I just don't want to be a failure.