Victoria’s family and I are hitting the road today and heading to Moshi. We’ll be there relaxing and visiting with family until Wednesday when we head off to the national parks for a three day safari. We’ll be back sometime on Saturday, spending Sunday resting, and then head back to school for my last two weeks here in TZ.
Before I leave I’m uploading a bunch of new photos. I apologize that they are not labeled or organized at the moment, but I figure it’s better than not posting them at all. I promise to label and organize all of my Picasa web albums when I get home. For now just enjoy all the beautiful colors, people, and places of TZ.......hopefully the currently underrepresented fauna of this country will make an appearance in the blog slideshow next weekend after visiting the national parks!
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Simba Cement
Yesterday we didn’t have school because of the holiday. I was very appreciative of having some free time for myself and spent most of the morning catching up on emails, washing my socks and underwear, reviewing materials for my job with Teach For America that I’ll be starting when I get home, and listening to my favorite country music.
After finishing all of those things and taking a nice mid-morning nap, I met up with my host family’s uncle who is the Plant Manager at a very large cement company in Tanga called Simba Cement. Godfrey also used to work there, but is now retired. I got a great tour and was able to see how cement is made from where the raw materials are mined in the quarry all the way up until where it is packed in bags and loaded on the trucks for market. I must have spent 3 hours there driving around in a truck with two engineers who explained the entire process and let me take a million pictures along the way. The whole plant is shut down for annual cleaning so there was minimal noise, dust, and general chaos and we got to go a lot of places that usually would be inaccessible. For example, I got to walk inside a huge tube-like kiln that is 68 meters long and gets up to over 1000 degrees Celsius during normal operations!
After finishing all of those things and taking a nice mid-morning nap, I met up with my host family’s uncle who is the Plant Manager at a very large cement company in Tanga called Simba Cement. Godfrey also used to work there, but is now retired. I got a great tour and was able to see how cement is made from where the raw materials are mined in the quarry all the way up until where it is packed in bags and loaded on the trucks for market. I must have spent 3 hours there driving around in a truck with two engineers who explained the entire process and let me take a million pictures along the way. The whole plant is shut down for annual cleaning so there was minimal noise, dust, and general chaos and we got to go a lot of places that usually would be inaccessible. For example, I got to walk inside a huge tube-like kiln that is 68 meters long and gets up to over 1000 degrees Celsius during normal operations!
Friday, April 2, 2010
Pilot Project
I had this great idea today to take the exercise books that all of the kids use for school in Tanzania and have each class fill the blank pages with letters and drawings from each of the students. I could then bring back 16 small books back with the work of all the students in Tanga and give them to their corresponding classes at Key School.
The 7th graders have been particularly rowdy this week since there is usually no teacher around to teach them in the afternoon. I have not yet heard of such a thing as a substitute, nor do the kids go home if the teacher is absent or doesn’t come to class. If I have the time I go to their class to play Sudoku puzzles or do some other activity with them before going back to teach my other English classes.
All three sections of the 7th grade class didn’t have teachers again today, which must add up to something over 120 students. I thought they might make good guinea pigs for my new project idea since they are the oldest students with presumably the best English. I explained the project in Kiswinglish and they said that they were on board with the idea. First they would write a letter, then I would correct it, then I would go buy an exercise book for them to fill with their work tomorrow or after Easter break.
The result was somewhat of a mini disaster. The kids must have examples of letters in their books because I got several of the same letters from different students that made absolutely no sense. My favorite looked roughly like this:
Dear Chelsea,
My teacher told me about you and I am very excited to have you as my pen friend. She also told us that you are the first woman pilot. That is very interesting! What is it like to be the first person to accomplish something like that? I look forward to hearing more about you and what you do. Please write back soon.
Your Friend,
xxx
The 7th graders have been particularly rowdy this week since there is usually no teacher around to teach them in the afternoon. I have not yet heard of such a thing as a substitute, nor do the kids go home if the teacher is absent or doesn’t come to class. If I have the time I go to their class to play Sudoku puzzles or do some other activity with them before going back to teach my other English classes.
All three sections of the 7th grade class didn’t have teachers again today, which must add up to something over 120 students. I thought they might make good guinea pigs for my new project idea since they are the oldest students with presumably the best English. I explained the project in Kiswinglish and they said that they were on board with the idea. First they would write a letter, then I would correct it, then I would go buy an exercise book for them to fill with their work tomorrow or after Easter break.
The result was somewhat of a mini disaster. The kids must have examples of letters in their books because I got several of the same letters from different students that made absolutely no sense. My favorite looked roughly like this:
Dear Chelsea,
My teacher told me about you and I am very excited to have you as my pen friend. She also told us that you are the first woman pilot. That is very interesting! What is it like to be the first person to accomplish something like that? I look forward to hearing more about you and what you do. Please write back soon.
Your Friend,
xxx
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
In Order To Learn
This morning in 6th grade English the students were learning about how to rewrite sentences using “in order to” and “so that.”
The teacher began by walking the students through a few examples:
Farmers use manure to grow good crops.
Farmers use manure IN ORDER TO grow good crops.
Farmers use manure SO THAT they can grow good crops.
She asked a few students to come up to the blackboard and rewrite a few more example sentences, and then wrote a list of five new sentences on the board.
Most classes at Chumbageni consist of an example problem, a class work-through problem, and then ten exercises. Since the five sentences need to be written out in two different ways, that is 10 exercises. No big deal.
So when the teacher walked up to me and handed me a piece of chalk after she had finished writing the exercises out on the board, I had absolutely no clue what she wanted me to do. I had been drifting off in to lala land (probably like most of the students in the class) and just looked at her like…..huh?
I asked her: Do you want me to ask the children to do the exercises in their workbooks? Do you want me to ask them to come up to the board and do them? Do you want me to do them? Her response with all the kids watching us? “Please…teach us.”
Well great. What the heck am I supposed to do now? I don’t have a book to work with, just 5 very easy sentences on the board that require a slight tweaking.
Having graded many exercise books at Chumbageni, I know that it is very rare for a group of students to get most of their exercises correct. And given that this was probably the easiest exercise ever, I got it in my head that I would attempt to explain it so well that no student in the class would get the answers wrong.
I started by showing them that you just have to add “in order” in front of the word “to” when you want to rewrite the sentence using “in order to.”
Students go to school to learn.
Students go to school IN ORDER TO learn.
After reading all of the sentences on the board out loud using “in order to” we switched to “so that.” I asked the students to change the sentence to get a sense of how well they knew it and where they would mess up. The first student took the sentence: We boil drinking water to kill germs, and turned it into:
We boil drinking water SO THAT to kill germs.
I wrote his answer on the board, asked the class if it was correct, and let another student help him:
We boil drinking water SO THAT we can to kill germs.
And finally:
We boil drinking water SO THAT we can kill germs.
After letting them work through one on their own, I showed them how to go about it more methodically.
I explained: “So that” does not have the word “to” in it the same way that “in order to” does, so every time we came across “to” in the sentence, we must cross it out and replace it with “so that.” After that we have to add: Pronoun ¬+ Can. And then, Voila! You’ve done it!
The kids struggled a bit to select the correct pronoun when the sentence wasn’t in the “we” form, but we talked it through and they figured it out.
After that, we let them take those same sentences and write them out as complete sentences (rather than my chicken scratch slash marks and carrots for inserting new words) and then went to teach the same lecture to the second 6th grade class in the room next door.
While the teacher tried to have me teach the lesson entirely from the beginning, I told her it would be better if she started and then I would pitch in again. We went through the whole routine again, but a little better since I knew what I was doing this time.
Since we finished early I thought I’d give them a few curve balls for practice. Rather than giving them the sentence and asking them to modify it, I just asked them a question: Why do we use a ruler?
The students have seen the example sentence, “We use a ruler to draw straight lines” about a thousand times since it is a readily available prop in the class. However, no one was able to answer my question. Knowing that the example answer “We go to school (to/so that we can/in order to) learn” was written on the board behind me I then asked them, “Why do we go to school?” They had no problem finding this one on the board and reading it to me making me wonder how much just showing them the methodical way to rewrite sentences using “in order to” and “so that” is actually helping them.
In any case, when I was given the exercise books to grade later in the day about 80% of the kids got the answers correct. The remaining 20% forgot to write in pronoun + can after “so that” or just chose not to write the “so that” form of the sentence at all. But by far my favorite was the one kid who just wrote the sentence out once and put hash marks and carrots on the page in exactly the way I had explained to them how to reconstruct the sentence. Oh well.
The teacher began by walking the students through a few examples:
Farmers use manure to grow good crops.
Farmers use manure IN ORDER TO grow good crops.
Farmers use manure SO THAT they can grow good crops.
She asked a few students to come up to the blackboard and rewrite a few more example sentences, and then wrote a list of five new sentences on the board.
Most classes at Chumbageni consist of an example problem, a class work-through problem, and then ten exercises. Since the five sentences need to be written out in two different ways, that is 10 exercises. No big deal.
So when the teacher walked up to me and handed me a piece of chalk after she had finished writing the exercises out on the board, I had absolutely no clue what she wanted me to do. I had been drifting off in to lala land (probably like most of the students in the class) and just looked at her like…..huh?
I asked her: Do you want me to ask the children to do the exercises in their workbooks? Do you want me to ask them to come up to the board and do them? Do you want me to do them? Her response with all the kids watching us? “Please…teach us.”
Well great. What the heck am I supposed to do now? I don’t have a book to work with, just 5 very easy sentences on the board that require a slight tweaking.
Having graded many exercise books at Chumbageni, I know that it is very rare for a group of students to get most of their exercises correct. And given that this was probably the easiest exercise ever, I got it in my head that I would attempt to explain it so well that no student in the class would get the answers wrong.
I started by showing them that you just have to add “in order” in front of the word “to” when you want to rewrite the sentence using “in order to.”
Students go to school to learn.
Students go to school IN ORDER TO learn.
After reading all of the sentences on the board out loud using “in order to” we switched to “so that.” I asked the students to change the sentence to get a sense of how well they knew it and where they would mess up. The first student took the sentence: We boil drinking water to kill germs, and turned it into:
We boil drinking water SO THAT to kill germs.
I wrote his answer on the board, asked the class if it was correct, and let another student help him:
We boil drinking water SO THAT we can to kill germs.
And finally:
We boil drinking water SO THAT we can kill germs.
After letting them work through one on their own, I showed them how to go about it more methodically.
I explained: “So that” does not have the word “to” in it the same way that “in order to” does, so every time we came across “to” in the sentence, we must cross it out and replace it with “so that.” After that we have to add: Pronoun ¬+ Can. And then, Voila! You’ve done it!
The kids struggled a bit to select the correct pronoun when the sentence wasn’t in the “we” form, but we talked it through and they figured it out.
After that, we let them take those same sentences and write them out as complete sentences (rather than my chicken scratch slash marks and carrots for inserting new words) and then went to teach the same lecture to the second 6th grade class in the room next door.
While the teacher tried to have me teach the lesson entirely from the beginning, I told her it would be better if she started and then I would pitch in again. We went through the whole routine again, but a little better since I knew what I was doing this time.
Since we finished early I thought I’d give them a few curve balls for practice. Rather than giving them the sentence and asking them to modify it, I just asked them a question: Why do we use a ruler?
The students have seen the example sentence, “We use a ruler to draw straight lines” about a thousand times since it is a readily available prop in the class. However, no one was able to answer my question. Knowing that the example answer “We go to school (to/so that we can/in order to) learn” was written on the board behind me I then asked them, “Why do we go to school?” They had no problem finding this one on the board and reading it to me making me wonder how much just showing them the methodical way to rewrite sentences using “in order to” and “so that” is actually helping them.
In any case, when I was given the exercise books to grade later in the day about 80% of the kids got the answers correct. The remaining 20% forgot to write in pronoun + can after “so that” or just chose not to write the “so that” form of the sentence at all. But by far my favorite was the one kid who just wrote the sentence out once and put hash marks and carrots on the page in exactly the way I had explained to them how to reconstruct the sentence. Oh well.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Jenga!
Did you know that in Kiswahili kujenga means “to build?” If you just say jenga it is the command form of the verb, so you are saying “Build!” If that’s true, why do we say it when the tower is falling over? I guess we’re just anticipating having to start all over again.
Pole Samaki
Women in Tanzania like to wear two types of fabric: Kanga and Vitenge. If the large piece of cloth is simply a large sheet of patterned fabric it is called a kitenge (vitenge is plural). However, if the pattern of the fabric is meant to be a rectangular sheet and has a small fortune-cookie style saying on the bottom, it is a kanga. When I first went to the market to purchase kangas as gifts for friends and family, I was attracted to their beautiful colors. Unfortunately, Victoria told me that you are supposed to buy kangas for what they say and not what the pattern is, and all of the ones I liked had bad sayings written on them.
For a few examples, the kanga that I wear says that “God won’t stand in the way of what you are trying to achieve.” My sister’s says “Kiss Me.” My mom’s says, “Mama is mama until the end of time.” My friend’s says “The secret of live is love.” And my favorite is a blue kanga I saw yesterday at a store that says “Pole Samaki” with a picture of a big fish on it, which means “Sorry Fish.” Victoria and I got a good laugh out of that one but thought it looked a lot better on display than to actually be worn by anyone. Although I do have some vegetarian friends at home….
Many women of Tanzania wear kangas and vitenges. Kangas are extremely versatile because they can be wrapped around your waste as a skirt, they can be used to hold babies on your back, they can be wrapped around your head if you are Muslim or want protection from the sun, or they can serve as a towel or a blanket.
Vitenges can be used for all of the same purposes, but are also used by tailors to be made into clothes: skirts, dresses, and shirts for men and women. The cost of the fabric is usually 5 or 6 dollars and the cost of tailoring ranges between 7 and 20 dollars depending on how fancy you want your item to be made.
I was at first hesitant to wear the kanga that Victoria gave me upon my arrival to Tanzania because I wasn’t exactly clear what its function was. Tanga is a very hot place, and yet everyone seems to wear pants or skirts underneath their kanga or kitenge. Victoria mainly wears them in the kitchen to keep her clothes clean or uses them as a picnic blanket when she takes an afternoon snooze on the living room floor. The house girl uses them to tie her baby to her back so she can do work around the house and have both of her hands free and as a dress for her daughter when she gets out of the bath. The Muslim women in the community wear them for religious purposes. For myself, I just wear them whenI don’t get my clothes dirty in the kitchen or to cover my legs around the house when I am wearing pajama shorts for bed.
I finally asked Victoria about it, and it turns out most of my observations are correct. The only thing I missed is that if a Tanzanian women passes in front of her relatives, especially male relatives, she should be wearing either a kanga or kitenge. She would never pass in front of them wearing only trousers.
As for working women, many of them wear suits and other more Western style clothes. This is acceptable because if you see a woman wearing them you know that she is coming from work. However, once she gets home, I am told that she will most likely change immediately into her traditional clothes. Some women, however, will wear the traditional clothes to their work, or at least wear only skirts and dresses since their husbands do not like it when their wives wear pants.
I have not spent a lot of time in the Muslim community here, although it is very large. The attire of Muslim women ranges from complete covering from head to toe, sometimes without even a slit for the eye, to no special attire at all.
As for men, there is no special attire that they wear with the exception of a hat, which they call a head square. This is mainly worn by Muslim men, but can apparently be worn by anyone who wants to wear a hat. T-shirts, pants, suits, and everything else looks very similar to Western-style clothing, with the exception of some Muslim men who wear long, white dress-like outfits called a kanzu, especially when they go to pray.
As far as what I’ve been wearing goes, I prefer to wear clothes that cover at least my knees, but tend to feel more comfortable the longer the item. I can wear pants to school if I wish, although female teachers working there are not allowed to do so. I would have thought that covering up so much of my body in this heat would be a problem, but I appreciate the sun protection and feeling covered up when all eyes are on me.
For a few examples, the kanga that I wear says that “God won’t stand in the way of what you are trying to achieve.” My sister’s says “Kiss Me.” My mom’s says, “Mama is mama until the end of time.” My friend’s says “The secret of live is love.” And my favorite is a blue kanga I saw yesterday at a store that says “Pole Samaki” with a picture of a big fish on it, which means “Sorry Fish.” Victoria and I got a good laugh out of that one but thought it looked a lot better on display than to actually be worn by anyone. Although I do have some vegetarian friends at home….
Many women of Tanzania wear kangas and vitenges. Kangas are extremely versatile because they can be wrapped around your waste as a skirt, they can be used to hold babies on your back, they can be wrapped around your head if you are Muslim or want protection from the sun, or they can serve as a towel or a blanket.
Vitenges can be used for all of the same purposes, but are also used by tailors to be made into clothes: skirts, dresses, and shirts for men and women. The cost of the fabric is usually 5 or 6 dollars and the cost of tailoring ranges between 7 and 20 dollars depending on how fancy you want your item to be made.
I was at first hesitant to wear the kanga that Victoria gave me upon my arrival to Tanzania because I wasn’t exactly clear what its function was. Tanga is a very hot place, and yet everyone seems to wear pants or skirts underneath their kanga or kitenge. Victoria mainly wears them in the kitchen to keep her clothes clean or uses them as a picnic blanket when she takes an afternoon snooze on the living room floor. The house girl uses them to tie her baby to her back so she can do work around the house and have both of her hands free and as a dress for her daughter when she gets out of the bath. The Muslim women in the community wear them for religious purposes. For myself, I just wear them whenI don’t get my clothes dirty in the kitchen or to cover my legs around the house when I am wearing pajama shorts for bed.
I finally asked Victoria about it, and it turns out most of my observations are correct. The only thing I missed is that if a Tanzanian women passes in front of her relatives, especially male relatives, she should be wearing either a kanga or kitenge. She would never pass in front of them wearing only trousers.
As for working women, many of them wear suits and other more Western style clothes. This is acceptable because if you see a woman wearing them you know that she is coming from work. However, once she gets home, I am told that she will most likely change immediately into her traditional clothes. Some women, however, will wear the traditional clothes to their work, or at least wear only skirts and dresses since their husbands do not like it when their wives wear pants.
I have not spent a lot of time in the Muslim community here, although it is very large. The attire of Muslim women ranges from complete covering from head to toe, sometimes without even a slit for the eye, to no special attire at all.
As for men, there is no special attire that they wear with the exception of a hat, which they call a head square. This is mainly worn by Muslim men, but can apparently be worn by anyone who wants to wear a hat. T-shirts, pants, suits, and everything else looks very similar to Western-style clothing, with the exception of some Muslim men who wear long, white dress-like outfits called a kanzu, especially when they go to pray.
As far as what I’ve been wearing goes, I prefer to wear clothes that cover at least my knees, but tend to feel more comfortable the longer the item. I can wear pants to school if I wish, although female teachers working there are not allowed to do so. I would have thought that covering up so much of my body in this heat would be a problem, but I appreciate the sun protection and feeling covered up when all eyes are on me.
White Palace
When I went to Lushoto this past weekend we stopped by my friend’s uncle’s new hotel to say hello. It is still under construction, but should be ready to open next month. It is a beautiful white building with Greek-style columns, self-contained rooms, heated water, and a full restaurant area.
After the tour the uncle asked me if I would give his hotel a name. He wanted an English name so that tourists would be attracted to it, and no amount of protesting or delaying allowed me to get out of coming up with a name for him. By the end of the weekend I had come up with “The White Palace,” “The Pegasus Hotel” (to be accompanied by a drawing of a flying horse, of course) and “The Hillside Hotel.”
From my own experience, remembering names is highly dependent on cultural relevance. I am about ten times more likely to memorize the name of a student who has a western style name, or at least one I can pronounce, no matter how hard I try. It is also hard for me to learn words that have strange associations with English words. For example, if you want to say “I am tired” in Kiswahili, you say “Nimechoka.” “Nimelala,” or “I am sleeping” is a lot easier since “Lala” sounds a lot more like a lullaby, whereas being tired sounds a lot more like choking someone. (I ended up memorizing the word by imaging wrestlers choking each other out until they go unconscious.)
In any case, I asked Victoria to evaluate my name selections to see if (1) they could be pronounced, (2) they weren’t associated with anything negative, and (3) they would be easy to remember.
It turns out that Pegasus is a bad choice since the beginning of the word sounds like “pig” and the owner is Muslim. The owner actually wanted to name it after me, but I told him that would be a terrible idea since all of the Manchester United and Arsenal fans here would go looking elsewhere for a place to sleep. The White Palace ended up being the selection, so if you ever go to Soni, Tanzania make sure you stop by!
After the tour the uncle asked me if I would give his hotel a name. He wanted an English name so that tourists would be attracted to it, and no amount of protesting or delaying allowed me to get out of coming up with a name for him. By the end of the weekend I had come up with “The White Palace,” “The Pegasus Hotel” (to be accompanied by a drawing of a flying horse, of course) and “The Hillside Hotel.”
From my own experience, remembering names is highly dependent on cultural relevance. I am about ten times more likely to memorize the name of a student who has a western style name, or at least one I can pronounce, no matter how hard I try. It is also hard for me to learn words that have strange associations with English words. For example, if you want to say “I am tired” in Kiswahili, you say “Nimechoka.” “Nimelala,” or “I am sleeping” is a lot easier since “Lala” sounds a lot more like a lullaby, whereas being tired sounds a lot more like choking someone. (I ended up memorizing the word by imaging wrestlers choking each other out until they go unconscious.)
In any case, I asked Victoria to evaluate my name selections to see if (1) they could be pronounced, (2) they weren’t associated with anything negative, and (3) they would be easy to remember.
It turns out that Pegasus is a bad choice since the beginning of the word sounds like “pig” and the owner is Muslim. The owner actually wanted to name it after me, but I told him that would be a terrible idea since all of the Manchester United and Arsenal fans here would go looking elsewhere for a place to sleep. The White Palace ended up being the selection, so if you ever go to Soni, Tanzania make sure you stop by!
An Unexpected Peer
When I went to Lushoto two weeks ago with the Kindergarten teacher we took along her 2.5 year old son, Tino. Mr. Tiny Tino wasn’t quite sure what to make of me at first, but we quickly became friends when his mom decided it would be better if he sat in my lap for the entire ride. After bonding over a few games and some food, Tino finally fell asleep in my lap…..much to the disappointment of my bladder. The trip was expected to be about 6 hours, and it was only hour 2 by the time I had to go.
We finally arrived in a town called Soni at the fork between touristy Lushoto and the rural mountain area of Bumbuli, where we had a 30 minute break before pressing further into the hills. I threw Tino over my shoulders and piggy-backed him off the bus with my hair all disheveled and my shirt completely messed up from being tugged on all morning.
When we stopped to buy some pears and potatoes at the local market, I put Tino down to take a second a readjust my clothes and fix my hair. I’m used to all eyes being on me, especially when I fiddle with my hair, so I thought the men chattering next to me were talking about just making comments about me. But when I looked down I saw that my little friend had decided that the ground right next to all the food was a great place to put some extra water. I didn’t know whether or not this was normal, or what exactly I was supposed to do, so I quickly got distracted looking off at something else and let his mom decide how to deal with it. She just laughed and we moved to another area where we could sit and rest for awhile.
At the new area Tino and I played a game about eating pieces of candy. He took an old plastic bag and started putting in all sorts of unwanted goodies lying in the street to use for his pretend game….which looked a lot more like Mr. Garbage Man to me than anything else. Anyway, it wasn’t even 5 more minutes before he was again peeing in the streets, this time in front of both his mother and me with absolutely no way to ignore him. Based on her reaction I guess it’s totally acceptable, but I haven’t seen too many boys peeing in the streets around Tanga.
The story gets more exciting, but part number two will have to remain unpublished.
We finally arrived in a town called Soni at the fork between touristy Lushoto and the rural mountain area of Bumbuli, where we had a 30 minute break before pressing further into the hills. I threw Tino over my shoulders and piggy-backed him off the bus with my hair all disheveled and my shirt completely messed up from being tugged on all morning.
When we stopped to buy some pears and potatoes at the local market, I put Tino down to take a second a readjust my clothes and fix my hair. I’m used to all eyes being on me, especially when I fiddle with my hair, so I thought the men chattering next to me were talking about just making comments about me. But when I looked down I saw that my little friend had decided that the ground right next to all the food was a great place to put some extra water. I didn’t know whether or not this was normal, or what exactly I was supposed to do, so I quickly got distracted looking off at something else and let his mom decide how to deal with it. She just laughed and we moved to another area where we could sit and rest for awhile.
At the new area Tino and I played a game about eating pieces of candy. He took an old plastic bag and started putting in all sorts of unwanted goodies lying in the street to use for his pretend game….which looked a lot more like Mr. Garbage Man to me than anything else. Anyway, it wasn’t even 5 more minutes before he was again peeing in the streets, this time in front of both his mother and me with absolutely no way to ignore him. Based on her reaction I guess it’s totally acceptable, but I haven’t seen too many boys peeing in the streets around Tanga.
The story gets more exciting, but part number two will have to remain unpublished.
Monday, March 29, 2010
100th Post
I’ve finally reached 100 posts and I can’t believe I have less than a month left. I guess if I look back on everything that’s happened since I’ve been here it has been quite a journey, but it seems to be flying by way too fast.
At this point I am feeling very settled in Victoria’s home and now feel like a part of the family. At school I am now enjoying teaching English class and stepping in when teachers are absent or don’t go to class. I almost never get a chance to devise a lesson plan, but making things up on the spot has been really fun and I think successful overall. We’ve done everything from mini skits based off of our readings to group Sudoku puzzles and I’ve only ever once been able to repeat a lesson to another section after teaching it the first time, keeping me always on my toes.
After school I come home and rest for a bit before heading out to tutor my friend Emmanuel in English. He’s rather proficient in the language so we usually just teach each other new card games or read short stories together. After coming home I help Victoria cook dinner and chat about life up until Teacher Eva comes to tutor me in Kiswahili late in the evening and ends up telling me about her rich history instead of making any sort of progress in our book. After that it’s dinner, shower, Skyping, and bed. There is not a dull moment, but the more full my days get, the faster they fly by.
School lets out this Thursday, April 1st for Easter Break and doesn’t start up again until Monday, March 12th, during which time I’ll hopefully get to see a Tanzanian wedding and go on a safari to three different national parks with the whole family.
When I return I’ll have 10 more school days and one full weekend before returning to the US. I’m hoping to have some more Skype conferences, do a few more CHUMS projects, visit a few more local landmarks including Amboni Caves, and hit the markets to buy some gifts before returning home.
Many thanks to all my followers back at home. I can’t wait to see you and share even more pictures, videos and stories when I return.
At this point I am feeling very settled in Victoria’s home and now feel like a part of the family. At school I am now enjoying teaching English class and stepping in when teachers are absent or don’t go to class. I almost never get a chance to devise a lesson plan, but making things up on the spot has been really fun and I think successful overall. We’ve done everything from mini skits based off of our readings to group Sudoku puzzles and I’ve only ever once been able to repeat a lesson to another section after teaching it the first time, keeping me always on my toes.
After school I come home and rest for a bit before heading out to tutor my friend Emmanuel in English. He’s rather proficient in the language so we usually just teach each other new card games or read short stories together. After coming home I help Victoria cook dinner and chat about life up until Teacher Eva comes to tutor me in Kiswahili late in the evening and ends up telling me about her rich history instead of making any sort of progress in our book. After that it’s dinner, shower, Skyping, and bed. There is not a dull moment, but the more full my days get, the faster they fly by.
School lets out this Thursday, April 1st for Easter Break and doesn’t start up again until Monday, March 12th, during which time I’ll hopefully get to see a Tanzanian wedding and go on a safari to three different national parks with the whole family.
When I return I’ll have 10 more school days and one full weekend before returning to the US. I’m hoping to have some more Skype conferences, do a few more CHUMS projects, visit a few more local landmarks including Amboni Caves, and hit the markets to buy some gifts before returning home.
Many thanks to all my followers back at home. I can’t wait to see you and share even more pictures, videos and stories when I return.
Successful Skyping
The kids at Chumbageni had another chance to Skype with Key School students this past week. This time a group of 10 fifth graders got to talk to Mr. Shekdar’s 4th grade class about food. Before every video conference, however, I like to get everything set up early and make sure everything is working properly. My parents make for excellent guinea pigs and help the kids get used to Skype and what it’s all about before switching over to the Key School classroom.
My dad was especially helpful this time because he was in the middle of making breakfast when we called. He gave us a tour of the kitchen and showed us Tropicana orange juice, coffee, cereal with milk, a Rocco’s pizza box, and many other things. When the 4th grade class called us and started sharing what they like to eat for breakfast, the kids at Chumbageni had a sense of what they were talking about. It was really cool!
Some of the highlights of the Skype conversation included the absolute surprise of the Chumbageni kids about when Americans eat dinner. One of the girls asked me, if they eat at 6pm, don’t they get hungry before going to bed? (Students here eat between 8 and 9pm) Key School students, on the other hand, seemed to be surprised that Chumbageni students can hold off on lunch until 3pm every day.
I personally had a great time translating words and concepts between the two groups of students. For example, pasta in Tanzania can be eaten for breakfast and is usually cooked with sugar instead of salt. There is also no real equivalent for strudels and French toast, so I had to contrive some explanations involving bread, fruit, sugar, and eggs. They also don’t have pancakes or waffles here, but their version of a pancake or crepe is called chapatti, which was as close as I could get.
Overall it was a great conversation! A big thanks to the Mr. Shekdar, Mrs. Crooks, Pilar, and of course, the 4th grade class for chatting with us! We look forward to doing it again soon!
My dad was especially helpful this time because he was in the middle of making breakfast when we called. He gave us a tour of the kitchen and showed us Tropicana orange juice, coffee, cereal with milk, a Rocco’s pizza box, and many other things. When the 4th grade class called us and started sharing what they like to eat for breakfast, the kids at Chumbageni had a sense of what they were talking about. It was really cool!
Some of the highlights of the Skype conversation included the absolute surprise of the Chumbageni kids about when Americans eat dinner. One of the girls asked me, if they eat at 6pm, don’t they get hungry before going to bed? (Students here eat between 8 and 9pm) Key School students, on the other hand, seemed to be surprised that Chumbageni students can hold off on lunch until 3pm every day.
I personally had a great time translating words and concepts between the two groups of students. For example, pasta in Tanzania can be eaten for breakfast and is usually cooked with sugar instead of salt. There is also no real equivalent for strudels and French toast, so I had to contrive some explanations involving bread, fruit, sugar, and eggs. They also don’t have pancakes or waffles here, but their version of a pancake or crepe is called chapatti, which was as close as I could get.
Overall it was a great conversation! A big thanks to the Mr. Shekdar, Mrs. Crooks, Pilar, and of course, the 4th grade class for chatting with us! We look forward to doing it again soon!
Snail Mail
The letters from Mrs. Hood’s 3rd grade class arrived on Thursday in record time! It’s really neat seeing all of the hard work the kids at Key put into writing their letters and drawing great pictures. For me it was especially cool because I knew a large number of the kids from the Senior Walkers program at Key when I used to take them to their Pre-K class every morning. I can’t believe how much they’ve all grown!
Overall the letters have been a great success. The kids here enjoyed taking turns reading them at looking at the pictures. I think we’ll be sharing the letters with other classes so they can get inspired to write to their friends at Key. Thank you so much Mrs. Hood’s 3rd Grade Class. I hope you receive our letters soon!
Overall the letters have been a great success. The kids here enjoyed taking turns reading them at looking at the pictures. I think we’ll be sharing the letters with other classes so they can get inspired to write to their friends at Key. Thank you so much Mrs. Hood’s 3rd Grade Class. I hope you receive our letters soon!
Yes, We Can!
There are two sections of every class here at Chumbageni, each of which has between 40 and 60 students. The exceptions to this are Kindergarten which has only one section, and 7th grade which has three.
After teaching section 5A yesterday I went with the English teacher to go teach the other section. I thought they would be doing the same Thief! story that I worked on yesterday, but it turned out they were actually working on the expressions can and can’t. Without any preparation or heads up, the teacher told me to start teaching. I had to take 30 seconds to read the first few examples just to figure out what was teaching, and then have them read a few of the exercises as I frantically tried to put a lesson plan together out of nothing.
I quickly learned that the students have little trouble understanding when to use can and can’t, but have significant difficulties determining the subject (not to mention understanding whatever it is that they can or can’t do).
To keep it simple and keep their attention I devised a scenario for them to act out. I told them that two of the students and I want to go swimming together at the beach. Before going, I needed to know if they can swim because I don’t want them to drown. “Can you swim?” “Yes, I can swim.” After determining that my swimming buddies could swim, I told them to go ask some of their friends if they could swim. The dialogue went something like this:
Swimming Buddy: “Can you swim?”
Friend: “Yes, I can”
After determining that their friend could swim, they came to me and said:
Swimming Buddy: “I want to bring my friend”
Chelsea: “Can she swim?”
Swimming Buddy: “Yes, she can.”
After we had about a third of the class up at the front of the class ready to go to the beach we did some summarizing that required different pronouns. I pulled individuals out of the group and asked the class, “Can he swim?” “Can she swim?” Then I stood with the group going to the beach and asked “Can we swim?” I finally went and sat with the remainder of the class and asked, “Can they swim?”
By the end of the class they were more or less able to determine the correct pronoun when responding to the questions. I then switched it up with some other questions like, “Can girls run faster than boys?” which, of course, inspired a relay race, and “Can they sing?” which required a performance. I probably should have avoided that one since a student in the back raised his hand and asked me, “Can you sing us a song?” I guess I deserved it for putting them on the spot for the whole afternoon, so I said okay and taught them all how to do the Hokey Pokey. I think they appreciated my excellent dancing.
After teaching section 5A yesterday I went with the English teacher to go teach the other section. I thought they would be doing the same Thief! story that I worked on yesterday, but it turned out they were actually working on the expressions can and can’t. Without any preparation or heads up, the teacher told me to start teaching. I had to take 30 seconds to read the first few examples just to figure out what was teaching, and then have them read a few of the exercises as I frantically tried to put a lesson plan together out of nothing.
I quickly learned that the students have little trouble understanding when to use can and can’t, but have significant difficulties determining the subject (not to mention understanding whatever it is that they can or can’t do).
To keep it simple and keep their attention I devised a scenario for them to act out. I told them that two of the students and I want to go swimming together at the beach. Before going, I needed to know if they can swim because I don’t want them to drown. “Can you swim?” “Yes, I can swim.” After determining that my swimming buddies could swim, I told them to go ask some of their friends if they could swim. The dialogue went something like this:
Swimming Buddy: “Can you swim?”
Friend: “Yes, I can”
After determining that their friend could swim, they came to me and said:
Swimming Buddy: “I want to bring my friend”
Chelsea: “Can she swim?”
Swimming Buddy: “Yes, she can.”
After we had about a third of the class up at the front of the class ready to go to the beach we did some summarizing that required different pronouns. I pulled individuals out of the group and asked the class, “Can he swim?” “Can she swim?” Then I stood with the group going to the beach and asked “Can we swim?” I finally went and sat with the remainder of the class and asked, “Can they swim?”
By the end of the class they were more or less able to determine the correct pronoun when responding to the questions. I then switched it up with some other questions like, “Can girls run faster than boys?” which, of course, inspired a relay race, and “Can they sing?” which required a performance. I probably should have avoided that one since a student in the back raised his hand and asked me, “Can you sing us a song?” I guess I deserved it for putting them on the spot for the whole afternoon, so I said okay and taught them all how to do the Hokey Pokey. I think they appreciated my excellent dancing.
Cluck, Chop, Cook
Over the past two weeks I have been learning about how to cook Tanzanian style. I have so far cooked French fries (chips), fried dough (mandazi), rice (wali), chicken (kuku) ,porridge (ugi), stiff porridge (ugali), and Tanzanian pancakes/crepes (chapati) in a variety of different kitchen types including indoor and outdoor kitchens, gas and charcoal stoves, stoves made out of meta,l and stoves built out of the earth.
Part I:
Some of my more notable cooking experiences have taken place in Lushoto. On my first weekend there with the Kindergarten teacher I helped to cook chicken and rice (kuku na wali) for dinner. I was a little late to the cooking party due to a delicious afternoon nap, so by the time I got there the chicken had already been cooked and was just waiting for me to make the sauce that it gets mixed in with. I somewhat jokingly asked if Mr. Chicken was the brother of one of the feathered friends running around their house, which of course he was. I guess eating local is a good thing, but I still had to swallow hard and try my best not to squinch up my face at the idea that I was eating poor Mr. Chicken. I got over it pretty quickly (exceptionally grateful that I didn’t have to partake in or witness the slaughtering that no doubt happened while I was napping) and got to work making the tomato-based sauce.
When the sauce was finished we dumped the boiled chicken in and let it cook for a few more minutes. I was feeling pretty great about everything until my constant stirring turned up a nice big chicken foot attached to the leg. Luckily I didn’t lose my lunch, but my attempts to pretend like it was “just chicken” were thwarted. I had a good chuckle as I remembered my host brother finally giving up in a game of “can you name this body part” while eating some mystery-organ-goat-soup and saying….”Look, it’s all good for you. Sometimes I just eat it and don’t ask any questions.”
I luckily didn’t have to eat the chicken foot or anything, but I couldn’t help but thinking about how people in America have been known to sue companies if something like a chicken foot ends up in their dinner.
Part II:
On my second trip to Lushoto this past weekend I also had the chance to cook dinner. While I was peeling potatoes in a small mud hut I saw one of the boys outside walk by with a sharp, shiny knife. About 20 minutes later he came back with it, and I swear the shininess had been replaced with a nice red tinge. I was too distracted by potato peeling and conversations with my friend’s mother and grandmother to pay too much attention, but my suspicions were confirmed when a very dead chicken showed up in the corner of the kitchen shortly thereafter.
Victoria (my host mom) and my friend Zuleah proceeded to team up and butcher Mr. Chicken. Luckily they were very amused by my facial expressions (and also very aware that I’d probably never witnessed this before) and got a real kick out of giving teaching me the complete anatomy of a chicken. I have plenty of pictures of the experience and would be happy to share with any individuals who want to see what it looks like to take apart a kuku. Gross!
On a different note, I’m actually starting to enjoy the food which was initially more of a chore to eat than anything else for the salt and sugar-craving American palate and can also eat entire meals with my hands!
Part I:
Some of my more notable cooking experiences have taken place in Lushoto. On my first weekend there with the Kindergarten teacher I helped to cook chicken and rice (kuku na wali) for dinner. I was a little late to the cooking party due to a delicious afternoon nap, so by the time I got there the chicken had already been cooked and was just waiting for me to make the sauce that it gets mixed in with. I somewhat jokingly asked if Mr. Chicken was the brother of one of the feathered friends running around their house, which of course he was. I guess eating local is a good thing, but I still had to swallow hard and try my best not to squinch up my face at the idea that I was eating poor Mr. Chicken. I got over it pretty quickly (exceptionally grateful that I didn’t have to partake in or witness the slaughtering that no doubt happened while I was napping) and got to work making the tomato-based sauce.
When the sauce was finished we dumped the boiled chicken in and let it cook for a few more minutes. I was feeling pretty great about everything until my constant stirring turned up a nice big chicken foot attached to the leg. Luckily I didn’t lose my lunch, but my attempts to pretend like it was “just chicken” were thwarted. I had a good chuckle as I remembered my host brother finally giving up in a game of “can you name this body part” while eating some mystery-organ-goat-soup and saying….”Look, it’s all good for you. Sometimes I just eat it and don’t ask any questions.”
I luckily didn’t have to eat the chicken foot or anything, but I couldn’t help but thinking about how people in America have been known to sue companies if something like a chicken foot ends up in their dinner.
Part II:
On my second trip to Lushoto this past weekend I also had the chance to cook dinner. While I was peeling potatoes in a small mud hut I saw one of the boys outside walk by with a sharp, shiny knife. About 20 minutes later he came back with it, and I swear the shininess had been replaced with a nice red tinge. I was too distracted by potato peeling and conversations with my friend’s mother and grandmother to pay too much attention, but my suspicions were confirmed when a very dead chicken showed up in the corner of the kitchen shortly thereafter.
Victoria (my host mom) and my friend Zuleah proceeded to team up and butcher Mr. Chicken. Luckily they were very amused by my facial expressions (and also very aware that I’d probably never witnessed this before) and got a real kick out of giving teaching me the complete anatomy of a chicken. I have plenty of pictures of the experience and would be happy to share with any individuals who want to see what it looks like to take apart a kuku. Gross!
On a different note, I’m actually starting to enjoy the food which was initially more of a chore to eat than anything else for the salt and sugar-craving American palate and can also eat entire meals with my hands!
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