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.
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