Some Tidbits...

Apologies for the long delay. I have been very busy teaching, meeting people, learning Swahili, and talking with my host family. I also couldn’t figure out how to charge my computer for awhile or get on the internet.

This weekend I finally had some free time – so my host father took me to the Vodacom show where I bought a modem for my computer. I now have a USB device that gives me internet anywhere that they have cellphone towers. Pretty neat! Theoretically, I could bring the computer into my classroom and get the students on Skype, but unfortunately there’s not overlap in the school schedule. But I have time in my schedule….after 3pm and after 9pm every day….which for you guys means either early in the morning or in the afternoon (7am or 1pm). This changes from day to day….but at least Skype is an option! So far I’ve gotten to say hello to my dogs and see the crazy snow that everyone got at home….I hope you all got to keep your power, although it sounded like a lot of people have lost it.

I kept telling myself I’d go back and blog about this past week, but it will take me forever to play catchup…so I’ll just continue from here and make some thematic references back….

- My name. I figured it might be difficult for the Tanzanians to pronounce my name. For example, when Pilar visited the school they found it easier to call her “Pila.” As it turns out, there’s absolutely no problems. Thanks to some ingenious foresight on my parents’ part, introductions usually go something like this…..what is your name? chelsea? Like the football team? That is so great! Were you named that because of the football team? (to which I always say yes….no way I’m going to try and explain Joni Mitchell’s song, and saying yes makes everyone very excited….so I’ve just been going with it :-) Learning their names, however, is a completely different issue….

- Language barriers. I am apparently outnumbered here. Since many Tanzanians have learned English in secondary school, they have the majority on me when we have pronunciation differences. As such, I am relearning how to speak and pronounce English – quite an interesting process. For example, I was teaching the Kindergarten class about colors the other day, and I pointed to my skirt, which was purple. The teacher said no, that’s papo. I said what? She said, that’s papo. Ok fine. Papo. There about a million pronunciation differences…which I finally figured out is due to the British colonial influence in this country. Everyone speaks British English, which when learned as a second language by Swahili speakers comes out completely differently than I would expect. As such, both parties have trouble understanding each other. I have picked up on how to adjust my speech in order to be more understandable…..for example, turning –er into –a (like sholda instead of shoulder.) At first I thought it might be insulting or mocking to do so, but it seems to facilitate conversation and hasn’t come across poorly at all.

- Class size. Enormous. 50 – 70 students per class. There are a lot of differences in classroom management as well, which seem to be necessitated by the large class size. Individual attention is hard to come by, and rote memorization seems to be the norm as far as I can gather. Class size also becomes interesting as far as getting my attention. As you can see in the pictures above, students love to stand at the windows of my kindergarten class, and as soon as the camera comes out at recess – the crowds come running!

- High-fives. I introduced this practice whenever a kid gets a problem correct or does something right…..it took awhile for it to catch on, but they’ve gotten the hang of it. I couldn’t quite figure out why it took so long to catch on, or why they didn’t already do this…….UNTIL……I went to give one of my students a high-five….and she winced. Hitting a child is not uncommon in this culture, and when I figured out that that was the reaction to raising a hand, I felt horrible that I had ever introduced the practice.

- What am I doing here? They’ve placed me in a kindergarten class. They gave me a big desk at the back (bigger than the teacher, Jacqueline’s) and a chair. Kindergarten comes in the morning from 8am to 10am…and then from 11am to 1pm 1st grade and Kindergarten students come in for remedial education. In the morning I teach English and play games with the students…and learn Swahili! In the afternoon I do math with the first graders. This is awesome because in the mornings I have learned how to count. I now know enough to do addition with the kids. (E.g. 9 + 3 = 12……tisa na tatu sawasawa kumi na mbili!) I can tell them if it is right or wrong, so I am now correcting all of the math homework….which I love! They get so excited when I give them a stamp of a star on the top of their page when they get the problems right!

- Thinking on my toes. My first day….I was thrown into a 3rd grade class of 65 students and 1 soccer ball and told to teach them how to play the sport. They don’t speak English very well, and I speak practically no Swahili as of yet. I somehow managed to get them all to move their desks to the edges, make a circle, and play a game of head-catch with me. I didn’t teach them soccer, but they were entertained for a good 45 minutes. Some of the students tried to cheat by rejoining the game after they were out…and all of the children would yell and push them out of the circle….They would also laugh and squeal with glee whenever someone got out.


I have to go to bed now so that I can get up early for school tomorrow. Lots more to share! Please let me know if there’s something specific you want to know about. I’ve had many conversations about food, pop culture, government, sports, education etc…..I’ll get around to writing about all of it eventually….but let me know if you have specific interests! Good night!