Wednesday, October 27, 2010

The Peace Corps Training Chronicles: Part 3

So... another update.  A couple things have happened since I last wrote: there was a cool trip up Mt. Morogoro on the 17th, followed by an awesome safari in Mikumi National Park this weekend.  It's not really worth describing these trips without pictures, so I'll try to upload some whenever I have time.

In any case, life has kind of settled in training.  Teaching, while originally a bit daunting, has slowly become easier, and I have gradually started incorporating my Kiswahili into the lessons to ensure that the kids get it.  Cheese, while originally the holy grail of food, has slowly become more accessible as I figure out ways to procure it.  Dagaa (sardines), while originally intolerable, well... still are kind of gross, but they aren't as bad as they used to be.

Regardless, here are a few tidbits about my life in Tanzania at the moment:

1) Apparently, I drink an ungodly amount of water.  I go through about one 10-gallon ndoo (bucket) every few days, which means that I usually have to spend a full night boiling water whenever I want to fill it up again.  This is a tremendous pain in the ass, since I have to spend hours hunting around for scrapwood to fuel the fire, not to mention hours boiling enough to last me for a little while).  Moreover, the water filter doesn't really get everything out... what this means is that I've effectively been drinking mud for the past few weeks.  Sterile mud, but mud nonetheless.

2) I feel as if we're in a never-ending, losing struggle against the relentless vumbi (dust) in the area.  There are no windows in the house---only screens---and the wind here blows constantly, meaning that nearly everything I own (not to mention me) is covered in a thin layer of rust-colored dust 24/7.  In other words, I am filthy: I wake up filthy, teach class filthy, hang out with friends filthy, and go to sleep filthy.  Whenever I mop my room, it remains clean for about 45 minutes before more dust blows in.  Whenever I wash my clothes, they get dirty again almost immediately when I hang them out to dry.  Bucket baths, while an efficient use of water, are laughably inadequate to clean all the dirt off my body.  I don't know, but there's something so beautifully ironic about cleaning a dirty room with dirty water, or picking out dead spiders in the water you shower with (or later boil into drinking water).  There's really not much I can do about this... I guess the solution is simply to alter my perception of "clean."

3) Every time I enter or exit my house, I have to pass through a gauntlet of barking, snarling dogs.  Tanzanians tend to mistreat dogs, either by locking them in a tiny shed all day or beating them whenever they're around.  Interestingly, Tanzanians are also deathly afraid of dogs, meaning that many of the better-off families keep them around as guard dogs to deter thieves.  My family is pretty well-to-do---their house is in a walled compound---so every day they let loose the eight or so dogs they own to prowl the premesis to ward off criminals.  Unfortunately for me, the dogs DO NOT like me, and I've had some pretty narrow escapes whenever the pack has found me, be it by vaulting over the gate or sneaking out an opening in the back part of the wall when they aren't looking.  I've recently found that screaming obsceneties at them in Kiswahili while wildly waving my backpack around kind of works, although doing this every morning is getting a bit tedious.

4) If I've learned one thing this week, it's that cheese that doesn't need to be refrigerated is not to be trusted.

5) Occasionally speaking in Kiswahili during class will do wonders for teaching here.  I'm currently teaching pressure in solids to Form 1 students, and I've been trying for a week-and-a-half to drive home the point that a large area means small pressure.  Just yesterday, I finally got fed up and shouted, "AREA KUBWA, PRESSURE KIDOGO."  Instantly, everyone laughed, and---more importantly---understood the concept... I can see now that it's really the language barrier that's holding these kids back, not the material.  In either case, it was awesome to have a connection with the kids, and they're really starting to grow on me.  I really have to do better at memorizing their names.

Anyways, life is good here... this is really starting to get kind of fun.  I know there are going to be lows here as well, but for now, I'm really enjoying myself.  Can't wait till I find out my placement next week!

Saturday, October 16, 2010

The Peace Corps Training Chronicles: Part 2

So, it's the end of week two of homestay, and things have definitely changed up a bit.  As far as training is concerned, the focus has shifted somewhat from learning Kiswahili to learning how to teach effectively: for the last week, we've been sitting in on real classes as well as "microteaching" (i.e. holding mock classes for our respective fields in front of our fellow trainees).  These sessions are a bit of an eye-opener... I have a lot to learn before I can become an effective teacher here in Tanzania, and I'm definitely terrified that they're going to start putting me in classrooms with real kids on Monday.

And yet, over the past couple of weeks, I've really begun to see why we're here.  The Tanzanian education system is drastically different than the American one, and, while it's not bad by African standards, it could really use some work.  The core of the problem is that there are simply not enough teachers.  There are plenty of schools and willing students, but there is pretty much no one to teach them.  The typical Tanzanian classroom has something like 60 students at the "O"-level, and about 100 at the "A"-level, and it can be pretty hard to control dozens of teenagers in a tiny classroom, much less ensure that they all pass their examinations at the end of the year.  This is, of course, assuming that the teachers show up: most teachers in Tanzania are transient by nature, working at schools that need them the most and never staying in one place for an extended period of time.  As a result, it's common for teachers to just up and leave in the middle the semester, leaving their students---and the prospect of passing their examinations---to the fates.  The secondary school next to mine, for example, currently has about 400 kids and only one teacher.  And he's the headmaster.  And he shows up late every day.  So, at least for the past couple of weeks, the school has essentially been a bunch of students in full uniform just milling around all day.

This is all exacerbated by a fairly cumbersome education system overall.  Most students are solely concerned with passing the national examinations held at the end of each term: failing these examinations essentially means that you drop out of school, while passing them means that you progress to the next level.  Most students accomplish this via rote memorization of the material... critical thinking pretty much doesn't exist in the Tanzanian school system, and most students answer questions correctly on the national examinations simply because they remember the exact same problem somewhere in their studies.  It doesn't help that, at the secondary school level, all classes are supposed to be taught in English, and all standardized testing is in English as well (for most of these students, English is their third language after local dialect and Kiswahili).  Therefore, your typical Tanzanian student has to not only learn whichever subject he or she is taking, but also English, all the while trying to pass the national exams so that they can stay in school.

In any case, how I'm doing: actually, not too much has changed in the past week.  Not having electricity or running water isn't too bad (my family actually has a generator that powers the house every now and again), and I'm slowly becoming a better cook (I participated in my first chicken slaughtering today).  I'm pretty sure one of these days I'm going to go out one night and strangle the roosters in my compound, which insist on crowing at about 3:30 in the morning every day.

I will say one thing, though: I'm sick of the food.  This has literally been my diet for the past three weeks, WITHOUT EXCEPTION:

Starch (choose two): Rice, ugali, potatoes, noodles.
Meat (choose one): Stewed beef, stewed chicken, sardines.
Vegetable (choose one): Spinach, cabbage, "chinesi" (a slightly different kind of cabbage).
Fruit (choose one): Bananas, oranges.
Spices (choose one): Salt, garlic.
Drink (choose one): Water, tea, soda (maybe).

Seriously, make any combination of the above, and that's been my breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the past 24 days.  It's not bad by any means, but it gets old, fast.  I hear we get a bit more freedom when we move out to site, but for now, I miss cheese.  Bad.  Oh well, I guess I'll get used to it in time.

Okay, that's about it for now.  Later!

Saturday, October 9, 2010

The Peace Corps Training Chronicles: Part 1

So, when we last left our hero, he was stuck in Dar with a bum leg in some internet cafe.  Turns out he did just fine: wandered back to the hotel before sundown, got a ride out to Morogoro, and managed to move in to his homestay without too much hassle.  Good for him.

In any case, here I am in Morogoro.  The town is much smaller than Dar, and the environment is pretty different.  Instead of a hot, humid climate, we're now in a cool, dry one.  Instead of having the ocean nearby, we're at the foot of a mountain.  Instead of numerous, slow-moving mosquitoes that transmit malaria, we now have fast, aggressive mosquitoes... which also transmit malaria.  The differences are many.

Regardless, life is good here.  I moved in with my host family this past Sunday, and I've been taking Kiswahili classes everyday from 8 to 5.  My family is awesome: I have a bus driver baba (Valentino), a mama (Martha), three kaka (brothers Noah, David, and Sosi), and a dada (sister Adventina).  I also had a bibi (grandmother) who was staying there for the week.  I'm actually the fourth PC volunteer my family has had, so all the prep PC put me through to get me ready for culture shock was kind of moot... all of them were completely unfazed by my bewildered, awkward introduction, and it took me only a day or two to feel like I fit in (at least, kind of).  I spend most of my days now studying Kiswahili, interspersed with the occasional chore (fetching water, shucking peas, washing clothes, feeding cows, kicking chickens, and the like).

As for language difficulties, my oldest kaka, both my parents, and my bibi all speak perfect English, but (undoubtedly because of their previous experience with Peace Corps Trainees) they refuse to speak it to me.  This is good, although it leads to a lot of situations in which they talk, talk, talk and then suddenly turn to me, leaving me utterly nonplussed and embarrassed.  The awkward silence/multilingual chaos that typically ensues in these situations has gradually grown shorter as I learn more of the language, but I still definitely have a lot to learn.  Here's hoping that I'll get better in the following weeks.

And for those of you who are wondering, yes, I've already gotten into trouble.  As PC greenhorns, we have very strict rules regarding being out at night---namely, we can't because it's pitch black and there are thieves around.  This past Friday I had a particularly long walk from our training center back to my house, and, well, I kind of misjudged the time it would take for me to get home and ended up getting back after dark.  My baba, who is well-acquainted with the system, immediately alerted the PC staff when I didn't show up on time, which triggered a small-scale manhunt to find out where I was.  This mini-crisis was averted when I did, in fact, get home... however, I've received stern lectures from both my baba and my language instructor regarding my ineptitude, and I anticipate one more from the training director before all this is done.  See, Mom and Dad?  I don't just do this to you guys!

Okay, my time's almost up.  Gotta run!