Happy Halloween

This week has been fairly uneventful. I’m done with my Form 2 classes because they begin NECTA next week. I did accidentally walk into the wrong classroom yesterday. No problem, I just had the other form come join our class (so it was about the size of my Form 1 class). Maybe I can spend extra time with the Form 1’s until I leave for IST. It’s crazy I only have 3 more weeks of teaching for the school year! I feel like I just got here. Still trying to fix the SMILE problems. Just made dinner with Tetsuko as usual. And I still go to Juice Man whenever I’m in town-he had avocado juice this week. It is Halloween but no one here celebrates, so we are having a volunteer costume party this weekend. I guess this is my first holiday that I am spending alone. I’m certain there will be more to come.

My eventful day was yesterday when I went to the market. I went to pick up my Japanese style pants, which are so billowy they look like a skirt. They are awesome! I got a few good laughs with my fundi as I explained that I wanted a headband with the scrap fabric…then I stepped down onto a wobbling stone and almost ate it in front of everyone. I trip a lot here. Actually, almost everyday I somehow injure myself. Then these two little kids came up to me as I was walking home and handed me mangoes and then ran away. Another little girl asked me what my name was. I want to talk to both of these families at some point when I’m not on a mission.

When I was Skyping with my parents I realized I should write something in Swahili. I’m trying to teach them a few key words for when they visit. So for those of you are wondering what Swahili looks like, here it is. Pronounce it just the way it looks!

Habari gani? Hamjambo? Ninaitwa Aly. Nina miaka ishirini na moja. Mimi ni voluntia wa Peace Corps. Mimi ni mwalimu wa Shule ya Sekondari ya Newala Day. Ninaishi Newala, Mtwara na ninafundisha Kiingereza. Ninajifunza Kiswahili bado pia. Kila siku mimi hupika vyakula vtamu sana. Nilijifunza kupika mwezi nne iliyopita tu. Ninapenda kuwatembelea rafiki zangu. Ninawapenda marafiki zangu wa Tanzania. Familia wangu wanakuja hapa hapa mwezi wa kwanza! Tunafurahi sana! Nina baba anaitwa Jeff, mama anaitwa Patsy na kaka yangu anaitwa Jackson.

So basically that is just introducing myself and my family and telling you that I’m a teacher here. Also that I cook every day and like to visit my friends.

Happy Halloween!

Midterms

I went into class on Monday to teach, but surprise! No class! This week was midterms and no one told me in advance. The Form 4’s are completely done with school and From 2’s start their NECTA next week, so the testing was only for Form 1 and 3. So instead of having teachers to help them prepare for the NECTA, Form 2 students had to come to school and “self study” all day. All of the teachers, including myself, were invigilating or grading all day. One of the student teachers had apparently made the exam for the Form 1 English students, which explains why I had no clue about midterms. The quality of all of the exams was horrible. There were so many grammatical and spelling mistakes and the teachers don’t really have word processing skills. The spacing was completely off and too many things were bolded. Also instead of writing on the test or writing on notebook paper, they were given plain white printer paper to write their answers. And then they HAD to staple them (even though there was nothing written on the actual test) during the middle of the test.-also giving them the opportunity to talk and probably cheat.

I tried discussing these issues with the other English teacher and I explained how a lot of times in America we write the answers on the actual test. He didn’t really understand what I was suggesting so I typed up a new test using the exact same questions (but fixing the spelling/grammar errors). I utilized the “underline”, “bold” and “italics” and made the test way easier to understand just from a visual perspective. I used the underscore button to create lines for the answers. When I showed him the exam he didn’t quite know what to say and then started making up all these reasons why they could never do an exam like that. “Well Tanzanians must re-write the instructions for them to understand the question.” “This section is an essay so there is no room for them to write the answer.” (My response: Do they know it was an essay? Most students wrote two sentences. And we can always add more lines for them to write.”) One question said “List 5 topics…” and so I put #1 and a few lines, #2 and a few lines, and so on. He said, “You can’t number them. That is giving them the answer!” To say the least it was super frustrating. But now I know to do a few practice quizzes with my students for them to understand the instructions. They are so used to memorize that whenever they see a word they just want to define it. So if they understood the questions then MAYBE they could try to answer them correctly.

Grading has been slow and painful yet humorous at times. Apparently there is supposed to be a marking scheme, but the student teacher never made one. When the Academic Master told me there was none I asked how I supposed to grade it. He said, “Oh, you don’t know the answers?” Well, yes I know the answers, but I don’t know how a marking scheme works! I created one and he approved it. Also, Tanzanians put a check mark through everything that is correct and an X through everything that is incorrect, so it just makes a mess of the paper. It has been hard training myself to but checks through correct answers.

Other than testing, I have had a very big social week. Jen arrived on Monday morning so we got chai in town. Then we made pizza with Tetsuko at my house that night. Tetsuko and I went shopping together on Wednesday. I’m getting a pair of Japanese billowy pants made just like hers. Carol stayed here Wednesday and Thursday nights. We baked a cake with Tetsuko for my headmaster’s birthday. We also tried to organize a movie night because she had a projector, but as soon as we set everything up it started pouring. The first rain of the season! On Friday I met Nick and Minh at the standi and we went to Masasi for David’s birthday. Mikey, James, Steph and Tyler all came too. We had a black light party at David’s house. David made us bacon the next morning. It was humid and disgusting in Masasi so I decided to go home and Nick and Minh came with me. Kathryn (K-Card) and Jen came into town too so we all went to chipsi and watched Paranormal Activity 3 at my house. All 5 of us slept at my house last night. Jen is spending tonight here again.

Our bus ride to Masasi was pretty interesting. We waited at the standi for almost 2 hours before the bus finally left. During this time we ate grilled meat and chipsi. Noticing the bus only had 5 people on it after an hour of waiting, Nick and I took a bajaj up to Juice Man to buy us all bottles of juice. When we returned there was a bajaj parked next to our bus with an entire house on it! Ok, not the actual house, but a mattress, bed frame, wardrobe, mirror, bags of clothes, boxes of dishes, etc. They loaded this whole house into our bus. So we finally left the big standi only to wait at the little standi (which is about ½ mile away) for one hour. We packed the bus full as usual. Everyone was dressed nice because it was Eid, so people were moving slower to not damage their clothes. There were also more chickens on the bus than usual. I bought bananas out the window: 14 bananas for 500 shillings. Usually each banana is 100 shillings! So I gave bananas to the mama sitting next to me and to some kids on the side of the road. Also, I got to throw my first kid out the window! It was so crowded that mamas handed their kids out the window to go pee and to get off the bus. The mirror broke and pieces of wood kept falling off the “shelves” so people were really enjoying the comfortable accommodations offered on the bus! Also because it was Eid, the driver stopped more often to pick people up. At one point I had 2 purses on my lap that were not mine and a bibi was standing in between the legs of the mama sitting next to me. By the way, did I mention I was sweating a lot during this?

It has been a kind of tiring week because of everything so my patience has been running low also. I’m tired of being asked the same questions about America. I’m tired of being stared at. I’m tired of being pointed at. I’m tired of people yelling “Mzungu” as they are pointing and staring at me. I’m tired of people asking me to marry them when I’m trying to shop at the market. I’m tired of people trying to rip me off because they think I don’t know the price for things. I’m tired of people telling me they are hungry. I’m tired of people who ask me for money. I’m tired of seeing students being beaten. I’m tired of seeing teachers who enjoy being the students. I’m tired to students not getting the education they deserve. I’m tired of sweating. I’m just tired.

Here is a YouTube video made by PCVs in the islands. Pretty accurate. Ya, I poop in a hole.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koUWaAr-itY

Nimeolewa

After dealing with a lot of technical issues involving SMILE on Friday, the rest of the weekend has been relaxing. There are viruses on both the computers now and the SMILE application got deleted from one. The virus infected my flash drive as well, but thankfully I have a Mac so my laptop is safe. Still working on fixing the issues. There was also a blood drive at school. The man in charge told me I needed to go first to set a good example. Now, I used to donate blood all the time and I really do enjoy donating…but here I have my doubts. Basically they swept the dirt real nicely so that it was “sterile” and then put out 3 lounge chairs. There was an ice chest for the blood and there was actually soap on the table. Yup, very sterile. I told them that I was scared of needles and couldn’t donate.

I finally got off my lazy butt and went to the market on Friday. The vegetable guy kept offering me free vegetables and another duka guy warmly welcomed me to HIS store and then asked me if I would be his fiancé. Pole sana old guy. Juice man had stafeli (soursop) and banana juice. He seemed to be expecting me J I ate out and got stared at for my entire meal by this middle-aged man. I also got a package from my mommy! When I went to the post office with Katie two weeks ago I wrote down my name and introduced myself to the post office worker. When I returned he remembered my name! He kept telling me the package was too heavy so he tied a string around it so it was easier to carry. Instead I carried the package (17 pounds) on my head the whole way up the hill…just as my students were walking down the hill because school was over. They thought I was pretty funny. Then I went to the bar with Tetsuko and Daisuke (another JICA volunteer). It was a crazy mix of English, Japanese and Swahili but we had a great time.

Today Kathryn and her student Swaiba came into town to shop. We did some shopping (and I got proposed to by a 70 year old man with a cane) and then came back to my house. Swaiba had fun looking at the American magazines that my Aunt Peggy had sent. She braided our hair and watched herself dance in the mirror. Kathryn just received a package with homemade gingerbread cookies and rice krispie treats. I am such a food junkie here!

We also now have water in the well! The pipe was finally turned on yesterday. Our well had been completely dry since October 5^th.

 

I also found another link from a PCV in Ethiopia. He is a great writer. I was laughing and crying at the same time while reading this post. Enjoy!

http://waidsworld.wordpress.com/2011/08/07/the-real-peace-corps/ 

Newala

Last week, on Wednesday and Thursday, we ran SMILE workshops with Paul, June, Michael, and Jen who were all from different organizations. Paul is a professor at Stanford who I believe is in charge of Seeds of Empowerment, June is a PhD student at Boston University, Michael is a Primary School teacher in Mtwara and may be getting hired at Jiamini, which is an NGO Jen started when she was a PCV 5 years ago in Newala. So a mix of people, but all of us were there to help get the phones situated in the classroom. Basically there are 25 Android phones. The students open SMILE which is basically an app, and connect to a wireless router. There is no internet but it links the phones with the computer. The whole goal of the SMILE is for students to create their own multiple choice quiz. This is done because students never have done such activities. All they do is memorize. This was very clear in the first round of questions/answers they submitted. About 75% of the questions were “What is…?” Most of the other ones were “List” or “Define” certain key words. They loved the phones. Once they submit their question to the server, the program compiles the questions from all 25 phones and then you can send the quiz back out to the students. Then they must answer the 25 question quiz created by their classmates. Some of the questions had horrible spelling mistakes or just did not make sense at all (“Who am I?”, “Born by this, die by this”-answer: salt?) and students would say “Madame, I do not understand.” Well, I don’t understand either! It was cool to see that they were catching other peoples’ mistakes. My headmaster wants to run this program at least 3 times a week. We were successful Monday, but then could not connect to the server on Tuesday. They instead typed their questions as text messages and had to present them orally. Simply using a touch-screen keyboard is mind blowing for them and it takes a lot of practice. Hopefully we can get the workshops up and running again by Monday.

I hitched a ride with the Seeds of Empowerment crew back to Mtwara on Friday. We stopped at a school about 20 minutes away to discuss the possibility of bringing SMILE there. There was a crew outside literally putting up electrical poles right then. Hopefully they will have electricity in 2 months and then it would be possible. Paul mentioned his interest in using me for future projects in Tanzania and also maybe Burundi. That would be so awesome to work with them again! Anyway, it was CRAZY to be in a private car. There was air conditioning, nice soft music, and I was able to talk to June most of the way. I also learned that Jen has supported 6 children since she has been in country. She “adopted” her first child in the middle of her Peace Corps service and has continued to “adopt” kids when there is really no alternative situation for them. Now, most of the kids have sponsors who live internationally and just happened to want to support a child. All of the kids should be able to go onto university with all the support they have received. It was a very inspirational story.

This weekend we enjoyed the beach house in Mtwara with about 20 other volunteers who came to say goodbye to Katie and Kathryn. My highlights of the weekend were: taking a 20 minute hot shower and actually shaving my legs, buying a hot plate, creating a scene at the market when I was looking for honey (honey comes in used alcohol bottles and they thought I was wanting “pombe” at 10am), I found a pair of Jasmine pants at a duka so now I have a Halloween costume, we swam with naked boys again and they enjoyed using my goggles, and then I made a mixture of frozen banana, honey and granola. Delicious.

Traveling back to Newala was not the best. I left the beach house at 7:40am and arrived home at 4:35pm. It is only 142km, but there were delays with the bus leaving, combined with a bumpy road, making lots of stops, etc. I got sunburned, had a sweat rash, and was completely dehydrated. Fun stuff.

This has been a slow academic week at school, but lots of other random stuff happened. The Form 4 students are finishing their NECTAS tomorrow, but that also means that we are missing many teachers who are invigilating at other schools. As punishment (for who knows what) students dug about 10 5-foot-deep holes around campus for rubbish. I really don’t think the holes needed to be that deep-it is basically just a burn pit. Students whose hair was too long had it haphazardly trimmed with a pair of scissors so that they would be embarrassed all day. It is nice that they were using other forms of punishment, but the beatings continue also. This week I have heard 2 students (1 male, 1 female) crying out and begging the teacher to stop beating them. They have also upgraded to thicker bamboo sticks instead of flimsy thin twigs.  

I have started being stricter in my classes. There are just too many students and I feel like I need to put my foot down or else things will get out of control. One girl was sleeping and I woke her up twice and told her to take notes. She just stared at me so I picked up her notebooks and threw them out the door. She finally got up to leave and then all the students started telling me “But Madame, she is sick!” I see at least 3 students every day who come into the office saying they need to go home or to the hospital because they are sick. So, she had the option of leaving school, but she didn’t. It is weird how strict they are about other things and automatically beat students but if a student is sick or even “sick” they are coddled. Other students have been copying notes for other classes during my class, so I just pick up the notebooks and set them at the front of class. They have most of the day with no teacher so they should copy it in their free time, not during my class time. Another boy went to pass a note and then saw that I saw. He pretended to start writing on it. Turns out it was a drawing he had done of his girlfriend who he was passing it to. I took the picture and hung it at the front of the class. The girl seemed to be more embarrassed than the boy, but I think they proved a good example to not mess around during class. I don’t want to be too mean to them, but I feel like making them focus is way better than beating them for doing things wrong.

I found out a Form 3 girl got pregnant and they had to take the “impregnator” to the police. He will be tried and if found guilty of “impregnating a school girl” he can face up to 30 years in jail. I believe he is one of our students also. As for her, she will just be kicked out of school and will not be able to continue her education. Because of this, I told my headmaster that I want to take over the FEMA club here and hopefully can pass out condoms. Another teacher said “they will not use condoms”, but they haven’t tried passing them out before, have they?

After class on Monday, the one student who had asked a thoughtful question in class (A mountain is a noun-is it a thing or a place?) came to my office to “request my friendship”. First he thanked me for teaching him and then asked to be my friend and then told me his whole life story. Both of his parents have died “respectfully” (but I assume from AIDS because that had been our topic in class and I think that triggered him to come to me) so he lives with his sister. He was so sweet. And I told him if he ever needed to study or look at a book to come to my office. My old second master also “requested friendship”…I don’t get it. 

Tetsuko is the Japanese volunteer next door. She invited me over to cook dinner on Monday. She has a fridge! She had bought meat over the weekend. It actually was like steak-no bones! We made meat, tomato, eggplant, green pepper stir-fry over pasta. She even baked a chocolate whiskey cake in her rice cooker! It was awesome to be able to cook with someone. We are planning to make pizza together next week! On Wednesday, I asked her house girl to wash my laundry for me. I had 4 sheets, a bunch of rags and some clothes (and no water-our well has been dry for a week now, so she had to walk about 200 yards to fetch water from my Mkuu’s kasima) and she charged me 3,000/=  ($1.87). Crazy! Tetsuko pays her 30,000/= ($18.75) per month and she comes 3 times a week to sweep, mop, haul water, do dishes, and do laundry. I feel bad paying so little, but that is the going rate. Later that evening a young woman came to my door and requested to work for me. I told her I didn’t need help (which is true most of the time) but I think she knew I had had my laundry done for me.

Today I started passing out stickers in class to the students who were actually on-task. It turned into kids standing on desks, surrounding me, showing their notebooks in my face because they all wanted stickers. Some kids even covered up the sticker with their thumb to try to get another! I think it was a great motivator and I have never seen them work so fast! Thank you all for the stickers and stamps! I collected notebooks for the first time, so this weekend will be full of grading/stamping.

Also, just some other news: My whole family is coming to visit January 1-15! I am so excited they are really coming! Tickets have been bought and all! Now, we need to plan the logistics of the trip.

P.S. Another funny website-it totally relates to my life!
http://whatshouldpcvscallme.tumblr.com/

I also added a link in my pictures section of our SMILE workshops :)

Seeds of Empowerment

I don’t know where the time went this last week! I guess I have just been organizing, cleaning, cooking, visiting, and obsessively watching True Blood. It’s nice to have electricity.

 We found a wooden crate outside that I tried painting yesterday to convert into a bench. It looks like a 5 year old painted it. I wouldn’t say the paint here is the best quality.

Katie has been saying good-byes so we have met up with a lot of people recently. Another volunteer who lives nearby brought one of her favorite students into town to meet me. Last year, she was selected to be part of the Bold Leaders program and traveled to America for a month! Needless to say, her English is great and she even helped me find a new fundi. Rumor has it a Form 3 student is prostituting herself and a teacher is sleeping with students at their school. Very sad.

I had a great first day of school. My Form 1 class probably was about equal to my Form 3 class at Chinongwe. They have basically covered everything in the syllabus for the year, so I think I will do review and check their understanding. They were a little loud and obnoxious, but hopefully they will settle down once they get used to me.

Form 2 students seemed dead today. I think they have basically checked out of school and are focused on studying for the NECTA. Form 4 NECTA started today, so they realize their time is coming. Supposedly if they do not pass Form 2 NECTA this year, they will be forced to repeat, or just drop out of school. I will try to do review and practice NECTA problems to prepare them.

Because of the NECTA, breakfast and lunch will be provided for the next two weeks! That’s great news because I thought I was going to starve being at school all day. After lunch my headmaster told me some Americans from “Seeds of Empowerment” are coming. He used to work at Nangwanda Secondary School, which is the other school in Newala. Seeds of Empowerment went there in February and now are returning for a follow-up and coming to educate our students. Basically, they train teachers and students how to teach/learn using smart phones. They will also donate laptops and a projector. It looks like they will be here for about 2 weeks conducting workshops. And with me being an English teacher, I should be pretty involved in the process. I am so excited!

This is the link to a blog of one of the PhD students who came with Seeds of Empowerment in February. She sums up Newala and the Tanzanian educational system very nicely. If you scroll down to February 27^th  watch the video. The post from February 6^th also details more about issues faced by students.

http://elizabethbuckner.com/2012/02/

Here is the link to the Seeds of Empowerment website:

http://www.seedsofempowerment.org/index.html

Annndddd just for fun….some PCVs in Dodoma made this video about all the acronyms we use in Peace Corps. I think it’s pretty funny.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQ_E0jbIGxM&feature=youtu.be

Graduation

When I returned to site on Sunday I started packing/arranging all of my things. I packed 2 bags and had piles of stuff to give to the girls’ dormitory. I walked over to the dormitory with a jiko and some laundry detergent and told them I had many presents for them. All of a sudden, about 20 girls were following me back to my house. There were younger girls too that were just hanging out in anticipation for the graduation preparations. We walked into my courtyard where I had set aside a bag of charcoal, a piece of rebar to break up charcoal, a charcoal “spoon” to carry hot coals, and a pot holder for making ugali. Silly me, I had left out my hand washing station and a few dirty pots/dishes/silverware. When I pointed to the pile and said, “This”, there were kids diving in to grab anything they could. Finally they set down the dirty dishes after I told them I still needed to eat for another day and a half!

Next, we went inside to a chair in the corner. I had put all the little things I couldn’t pack/didn’t need/were almost empty. Once again, a crazy mad dash. Oh my gosh. They seemed so shy and unsure at first and as soon as I reassured them those were the gifts, it was just crazy! I thought it was funny so asked if I could take a picture. As soon as the flash went off they all started cheering! The girls hung around and we took pictures. I also brought out the Pop Rocks again, and they loved them. Some older boys were milling around outside preparing to slaughter the goat. I got to watch them butcher it and unravel/empty all of its organs. It just looked like green mulch. For some reason they didn’t skin the bottoms of the legs, so it looked really funny. The boys were messing around with the goat and said, “Madame, in Biology, we call this a pen-is.” They were laughing at me because I looked so disgusted by the whole process. Also, Tanzanians don’t know how to properly cut meat off an animal. They just hack away, bones and all. I had a lot of fun joking around with them and hanging out with all the girls.

Monday was graduation day! I woke up early to pack a little bit more, but when I went out my back door to burn trash I found the boys starting a fire for the goat. They were roasting the hide and testes first. The head was sitting in a bucket on top of all the other meat. They were scraping off the fat from the hide, setting in on the fire for a minute, then eating it. The testicles had a long stringy tube hanging out (vas deferens?) that was placed on the fire for a minute to char and then offered to me. It tasted like chewy, uncooked, burned chicken. Not the best but I’m happy I got to try it. They continued to cook the rest of the goat and I went to the school to help with decorations. Somehow they had little tiny balloons but nobody knew how to tie them. My Mkuu also hung the Peace Corps 50^th Anniversary kanga for decorations (even though he knew I was leaving the next day). I guess it was also a going away celebration for me.

The graduation was supposed to start at 10am, but we didn’t start until noon. I should’ve known that I could be late!  It was cool to watch people arriving. There was so much excitement! Vendors came to sell coconuts, popsicles, mandazi and other trinkets. Pikipiki drivers were kept super busy delivering family after family. I could tell the whole village had been waiting for this celebration for a while and this was one of their few opportunities to let loose and splurge a little. While we were waiting to begin, one part-time teacher was telling me how much they would miss me and how they would never get this opportunity again. I do feel bad for leaving, but if they really wanted me, they would have fulfilled their end of the bargain. This teacher also kept saying that he thought the environment was too harsh for me and that I just wanted to go back to America.

Anyway, the ceremony finally started. I was sitting in between my Mkuu and the Mkuu of the primary school. I really liked him because he kept making jokes and off-hand comments throughout the ceremony. The ceremony consisted of a lot of singing and dancing. First all of the teachers got up and did a cheer and introduction. They really liked saying “oh yay” as a cheer. “Chinongwe, oh yay! Wanafunzi, oh yay! Form 4, oh yay!” Then my Mkuu announced that I was leaving so I had to give a short speech saying goodbye and thank you. The Form 4 students were “presented” and did a song/dance thing. The “kwaya” (choir) was made up of other students also they also danced and sang a lot too. In between each “act”, the MC would say a few words and the DJ would play some music. Apparently a lot of villagers had been drinking homemade alcohol so as the ceremony went on the dance sessions got longer and more intense. A hired guard was supposed to control everyone and clear off the “stage” for each performance, but he seemed to be having difficulty. During the performances parents/loved ones would come up and dance around their kid and slip folded up money into their hands or put a lei around their necks. Followed by a banshee scream, of course. I know kids in America are embarrassed by their parents but this would have mortified me! There were also rap performances by some “shoroboro” (gangster) Form 4 students. Shadrock, my water boy, even included me in his rap. I was so touched. “Thank you Mr. Magambo, thank you Mr. Liviga, thank you Madame Aly, and thank you other teachers.” After all the singing and dancing, the graduates’ names were announced and they had to shake all the teachers’ hands and exit the stage. It was weird to be the “official hand shaker” when I just graduated a few short months ago. Each student was followed by their families who had even more gifts!

All the teachers were taken to a classroom to wait for food. Mamas had been working all day to prepare food. In the morning I had seen an entire 70L drum filled with uncooked rice. They were cooking in pots about 3 feet in diameter. I decided to walk around and mingle instead of awkwardly sitting with the teachers. I met Ambari and Shadrock’s (2 of the boys that lived next door) families outside. Then all of these random people started asking me to take pictures with them. I was standing talking to a random guy and a huge crowd of children gathered to stare at me. Finally I asked if they wanted to take a picture. They were so excited to be included! Then a Mama untied her baby from her back and said she wanted me to take a picture with her. I felt like such a celebrity! I finally made it back to the classroom after many awkward introductions, business offers, and attempted conversations. I had missed lunch though! They sent kids to find me pilau. I ate my first meal of the day at 4:30pm.

People were starting to leave so I decided it was a good time to go home. I was only home for a few minutes before someone came asking for water, so I decided to walk around and try to continue the party. The DJ was sitting outside my house so I asked him to turn the music on again. A little girl who was friends with my Mkuu’s daughter just grabbed me hand and we walked back to school together. Mujuni, who had my camera for the whole day, was with us also. He also lived with my Mkuu but was a Form 1 so I think he felt a little left out because all of his friends were graduating. He was happy to be the photographer though. A random lady rode her bicycle over and told us it was time to eat! Mujuni seemed excited to go with her so I figured it must be alright. She was Ambari’s older sister. She took me to her family’s house where about 20-30 relatives were continuing the celebration. Most of them were wearing matching kangas that had a quote-something about good behavior paying off (the boys had convinced me to get one too). This takes “family unity” to a whole new level. I was warmly welcomed by Ambari’s bibi, especially. They fed me ugali even though I told them I was full from eating pilau an hour prior. They also let me try togwa, which is a porridge/juice thing. I kindly excused myself and the dada and her 3 year old son walked me home. I forget his name but he was the cutest kid! He had so much attitude-chewing on a bone forever, putting my keys in his mouth, climbing up my window bars, flipping electrical switches, etc. but I had a lot of fun playing with him. I think his mama was drunk and probably tired of taking care of him too. Another of Ambari’s sisters (probably 12 years old) showed up and started talking about the Pop Rocks she had eaten the night before. (She had also been the lucky winner of a pair of shoes.) So I brought out the Pop Rocks again and the little boy laughed hysterically and kept demanding more. Ah, I would totally adopt him!

That ended my exciting day. It was probably the best 24 hours I had spent at site. I am so happy I left on a good note. The next morning I woke up to finish packing. I gave the rest of my stuff to the girls’ dormitory and had some boys start moving my cabinet to the library. My Mkuu said they will move the library to a different classroom, so he will move the cabinet there “soon”. I doubt it.  I had arranged a private driver from Ndanda and he showed up EARLY! I was so surprised. Tanzanians are NEVER on time. We loaded up all my teaching supplies, toiletries, kitchen supplies, a bucket, medical kit, food, clothes, etc. I fit everything into only 4 bags. He delivered me to Masasi and helped me get my bags onto a bus.

I arrived in Newala and took a bajaj up to my new house. It was so effortless! We went to school to see if the Mkuu was still around, but he wasn’t so we went to his house to make introductions. He seemed excited to have me! I was able to unpack everything out of my bags and then we went out for a celebratory beer and chipsi mayai!

Wednesday I went to school at 7:30 for the morning parade. I was introduced to the students there and then led to the staff room. I met most people and everyone was so nice to me! One teacher took me to individually meet all of my classes. I will still be teaching Form 1 and Form 2 English. I met with the Academic Master and looked at the Scheme of Work (lesson plans for the year) to see where I need to start teaching. I was amazed at how many adults were around. Chinongwe is basically just run by the students. Newala Day Secondary School has A Headmaster, Academic Master, Department Heads, Secretary, and Discipline Mistress. It is crazy how much more structure there is. We had a staff meeting from 11am until almost 2pm. I understood basically nothing since it was all done in Swahili. Nothing seemed to get accomplished. I will return to school on Monday and begin teaching!

Other than that, we have had Kathryn and Jen (other volunteers) staying here, so we have just been hanging out, having a good time. Today Katie and I hauled a bunch of water and then cleaned out a NASTY storage shed. The floor was covered with ½ inch of animal droppings and dust. We had a huge bonfire and salvaged anything that might be useful later. We also organized the kitchen and threw out some old things there. I know I will continue to clean and organize but I already feel comfortable here. This sounds kind of cheesy, but I think I was meant to be here. I spent my 21^st birthday here and exactly 2 months later, I returned to live here.  I will miss Chinongwe, but already I feel a lot more at ease here and not anxious about every little thing. Today I even walked out the gate in shorts because I knew no one could see! It was great.