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 27th watch the video. The post from February
6th also details more about issues faced by students.
Here is the link to the Seeds of Empowerment website:
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.
Love the PCV youtube video!
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