The Twilight of Service

So this is it.  My 30^th and final month in country.  Time flies.

For those of you who’ve read the earlier posts, you know that I’ve extended my standard two-year contract to finish up with my Form VI curriculum, and this still holds true: I’ll technically be officially closing my service in mid-March, and, as I write this, my Form VI kids have already begun leaving school (my Form V students, however, will be finishing their term in May due to a last-minute change by the Ministry… oops).  Regardless, most of my March time will be spent traveling with family and going through all the standard check-out procedures, and so I wouldn’t really count it as service.  This month, February, will be my last month at site, and I will be leaving Songea forever (or at least for the foreseeable future) in less than a week.  It’s kind of crazy to think about.

So, as with the end of all two-years-of-my-life-down-the-drain experiences, I am now faced with the obligatory existential quandaries that often haunt the COS-ing Peace Corps volunteer: Where am I in my life now?  Have two years in service changed me as a person?  Have I been faithfully upholding the three goals of Peace Corps?  Have I been particularly helpful or useful to my coworkers or students?  Did I empower my students to succeed in life and become productive members of society?  Have I actually made a difference here?

My succinct, holistic, and entirely unsatisfying answer to these questions: Eh… maybe.

I dunno… It’s tough to really put a finger on what you do here in Peace Corps Tanzania.  You show up to work, you teach people, you make connections, you forge friendships, you set up projects, you try to be helpful wherever you can, you try to embrace the local culture while subtly injecting some of your own, you try to make everything you’ve created in the past two years somewhat sustainable after you’re finished… but, in the end, the effects and rewards of your work are all kind of a toss-up.  I know one volunteer who was all about starting new projects in her village (and I have the crumbly bars of soap to prove it), and while I’m sure her villagers appreciated her efforts at the time, they still largely remember her as the mzungu who once carried her dog in her arms like a baby.  I know another guy who was a good volunteer in his village, but he’s now much more remembered as the “guy who could drink a lot” than the “guy who introduced reforestry and irrigation as viable means of income generation.”  What you do here and what you’re remembered for (and, by extension, how long your legacy lasts after you leave) are often different things, and it’s something that you just have to deal with at the end of service.

Of course, this begs the question: How will I be remembered?  Songea Boys’ is not your run-of-the-mill Tanzanian village---it’s the magnet A-level all-boys school in the Ruvuma region, and I’m part of a long lineage of Peace Corps volunteers dating all the way back to the 1960s (i.e., when Peace Corps was first founded).  What have I achieved in my time here?  How have I distinguished myself from the men and women who’ve served at this school in the past, many of whom were dealing with much greater hardships than I was?  Sure, I teach my physics students about LEDs, but there was an American guy from my organization teaching here before LEDs even existed---and he’s not even remembered here.  Those are some big shoes to fill, and I really can’t say if my service transcends the ordinary, or if it even achieves the distinction of “average Peace Corps service.”  All I can really say was that my service was my service: I can’t impartially and totally assess if it was truly remarkable or decidedly unremarkable; if was life-changing or mundane; or if it was worthwhile or a waste of time.  It just kind of happened, and here I am, at the end of it.

So yeah, exactly how will I be remembered?  I can only speculate.  I can tell you, though, how I want to be remembered:

As that curmudgeonly, standoffish, and somewhat dirty American who nonetheless got up every morning, went to class, and proceeded to systematically jam physics and biology down the throats of 500+ of the nation’s aspiring youth for two years.  And who, though times got rough, found in his work a sense a purpose, and who ultimately wanted nothing but to have his students succeed.

How’s that for a Peace Corps success story blurb?

It’s funny… when I think back to two years ago---when I was deep in the highly-regimented, quasi-suffocating womb of Pre-Service Training in Morogoro---I don’t really recall much of what I theoretically learned there, Kiswahili notwithstanding.  Sure, I remember staying with my awesome homestay family, having fun with hands-on science demonstrations, and scrimping every measly 100/= piece I could find to save for my weekly beer with the other trainees, but I don’t really remember any of the official, PC Washington-mandated lessons that were ostensibly taught to us during that period.  In truth, most of that stuff was just a blur of small-group work and flipchart paper interspersed with the occasional half-hearted skit about cultural differences---none of which appealed to my typical ADD sensibilities---so I usually just tuned out most of it, intentionally or otherwise.  As anyone can tell you, I am not always the best listener.

There was, however, one thing that truly stuck to me during those formative PST days, and it has since played a considerable role in giving my service meaning---the so-called “Three Pillars of Education” concept of Peace Corps-based instruction.  Basically, PC HQ states that a Peace Corps ED volunteer’s service should be a three-pronged attack to improve all facets of public school education in a given community: empowering students to take the initiative and succeed on their national examinations, inspiring teachers to go back to the classroom and employ exciting new teaching techniques, and encouraging parents to play an active role in their children’s future by getting involved in school life.  Only by improving all three pillars of education can one effect lasting, sustainable development in both the school and the community at large, and only through this sort of grassroots, volunteer-driven aid work can one bring about progress and positive change in the country as a whole.

Well, that’s all well and good.  But now it’s two years later, I’ve had time to think about who I am now and what my service has been like, and I’m adding a slightly more fine-tuned corollary to the “Three Pillars of Education” mantra:

Pick one focus, stick with it, and let that be the guiding light of your service---the reason you get up in the morning, the reason you go to bed at night, the sole motivating factor that keeps you working in country and not back home in America.

I chose students.

Again, it’s not as if I hate the teachers here---despite our numerous ideological clashes and fundamental cultural disparities, they’re still nice people who’ve been extremely accepting and accommodating to me during my tenure in Tanzania.  It’s just that, over my two years here, I’ve noticed that I have made virtually zero investment of energy in improving my school in any way, shape, or form.  I haven’t made any attempt to talk to my teachers about their teaching methods (save for occasionally butting heads with our new A-level biology teacher, as I’ve already detailed in this blog), I haven’t tried to modify or introduce new extracurricular activities, and I haven’t once considered getting grant money to, say, improve the school’s facilities, like building a new library or getting some of the classroom/laboratory windows fixed.

Much of this is due to the fact that---as much as I bitch about my school---it’s actually still pretty well-off as Tanzanian schools go (it consistently ranks right in the middle of the country’s A-level institutions), and therefore it doesn’t really need a lot of my help, comparatively speaking: much of what makes an A-level school good in this country is the self-selecting process of having naturally good students in the roster so that, when the time comes, the students will self-motivate even without teachers and score passing grades (~20%) on the NECTA final.  Moreover, since I’m working at an A-level school and most of the teachers here are career teachers (and thus make me look some young upstart by comparison), I’ve never really had enough (or any) clout here to effect significant change in the way the school is run.  In other words, there’s a sort of entrenched intransigence at Songea Boys’ that has made it difficult for me to conduct a more project-oriented service (like the health/environment volunteers) over the past two years.  As much as I hate to admit it, in reality, my role here has been more akin to that of a guest professor.  Or a magical physics unicorn.

Thus, it’s always been easier to turn my attention to the students, rather than the institution or the teachers.  Granted, my students don’t always show up on time and they don’t always listen, but when I finally jam all 180 of them in the big lecture hall and they’re all sitting down quietly, they are MINE.  I OWN them.  I can say and do whatever the hell I want and no one can stop me.  I can blather on about physics and biology all day, and I know that, despite their best efforts, my kids can’t block it all out; some of what I say or do inexorably sinks in.  And when it sinks in, it sticks: I imagine it’s hard for a young African man to forget a white guy yelling science at him for two years.  And even if, at the end of all this, he still has no idea what the hell physics is or how the scientific method works, he’ll at least remember that he was taught physics by some over-enthusiastic mzungu with the best intentions, and that, in and of itself, has some merit. 

Again, I don’t know if I’ve truly had any lasting impact in Tanzania, but if I’ve ever effected any positive change in the past two years, THAT is how I’ve done it---not by hanging out in Songea town, not by schmoozing the village, not by starting projects in my school, and not by having quasi-philosophical discussions with my sophist teachers---but rather by giving authentic, informative, and impassioned lectures in the classroom.  And that is something I can take home with me.

Interestingly, this attitude has already yielded some tangible results: on this year’s mock NECTA examinations in October, my Form VI students scored substantially higher in biology than they had in previous years, with a high-D average (~35-40%).  Not only is this pretty good for Songea Boys’, but it’s pretty good for anywhere, especially for Tanzanian public schools.  Granted, I’ve tried about five times as hard to get my kids to learn physics (and, as far as that goes, my students are still languishing in the doldrums of mediocrity), but, goddammit, getting high marks in biology is something.  If I must rationalize (and I must), the lack of improvement in physics could be attributable to a much more deep-seated issue in the TZ educational system---either with respect to the institution itself or Tanzanian attitudes towards education in general---and not just my shitty teaching (although I can’t say I’m entirely blameless).  But, in the end, I guess it just goes to show that the project you’re most passionate about isn’t necessarily the one that makes a difference in country, and you gotta take the small victories when you can get them.

Of course, all this discussion neglects one of the most important COS questions: namely, how Tanzania has affected ME.  Folks always say that the volunteer is the biggest product of his or her service, and given that I’m a young man in his twenties who just spent 30 months of his still-formative years in a foreign country, I’d be surprised if I haven’t changed a bit over my time here.  Unfortunately, given that I haven’t seen any family or home friends (save for one brief surprise/exception) for the duration of my stay in TZ, I don’t have any real basis for comparison aside from how I think I’ve changed.  I mean, I know I’ve changed---you can’t really go through two years of Africa without seeing or doing things you never imagined yourself seeing or doing, and that undoubtedly affects you for better or worse---but exactly how I’ve changed… well, I guess that’s something that the home people will have to find out for themselves.

That being said, there are a few things I’ve been able to pick up on that are a little different about me.  For one, I can finally take care of myself.  I can cook, clean, and garden like never before.  I have been repeatedly educated about the harsh truths of single living: if I don’t plan ahead and bring enough food home before nightfall, then I will starve, QED.  I’ve learned how to do a bunch of grown-up stuff, like be responsible, or not be late to things, or ensure that I consume a modicum of basic nutrition each day.  Shockingly (and definitely a surefire sign that I’m at least maturing a little bit), I have yet to miss a bus in country, and I’ve even done stuff like organize out-of-schedule meetings/classes/labs with groups of both faculty and students (routinely, no less)---something I never really did back home (in my past few jobs, I was always much more of an underling and thus didn’t take much organizational initiative).  As a result, I can consider all these things as signs of positive change in my life: I feel I’ve become a much more secure, well-rounded person overall.

On the flipside, however, I’ve found that 30 months in Tanzania has had a noticeable effect on my personality, which, admittedly, has become a bit more… volatile.  Indeed, over the past two years, much I what I’ve thought, said, or done in country has had a sort of increased acuteness about it, and much of the comparative indifference and mellowness of my post-baccalaureate ennui has evaporated in favor of egotism and severity.  Put in plain English, acting on impulses has become much easier for me in country, and former obstacles such as “consequences” and “other people’s feelings” have become much less burdensome to my psyche.  Perhaps this is due to the fact that, in Tanzania, you really do need to take care of yourself---it’s not as if anyone is going to come save your ass if you get into trouble or get screwed---and that combined with consistent, relentless ostracism from the locals pushes you into a sort of survival, lone-wolf, me-versus-everyone mindset that keeps you on edge (and a little pissed off) at all times.

I'll admit, in some ways, this sort of hot-bloodedness can be advantageous: I can take charge of a situation more quickly and react more readily to potential problems than I used to back home.  On the other hand, though, there are drawbacks as well: I’ve become vastly more opinionated, and most of my preexisting views have since polarized themselves into deep, caustic cynicisms… many of which, incidentally, I have no problem sharing with those around me (some might even classify me as an “asshole” at times).  In no way have I turned into a nihilistic defeatist, nor have I become a rage-addled sociopath, but I do have much more of a temper than I ever did back in the States, and my tolerance for all the trifling little inadequacies that make up life in Tanzania has worn down to almost nothing.  I’m confident this effect will ebb somewhat when I return to America---I’m pretty sure a lot of this smoldering disgruntlement is just pent-up frustration over having not been home in two-and-a-half years---but I don’t know if it will ever quite leave me.  It’s kind of like the first time you get in a fight: you can watch all the boxing and cage fighting in the world, but until you get punched in the face, you never really know how you’ll react.  And when it’s done---win or lose, for better or for worse---you’ll never forget the split second of intense bitterness you felt in that moment, and that stays with you for a lifetime.

Again, though, please remember that I’m not saying any of this to be particularly morbid or fatalistic… I just think I’ve run my course in Tanzania.  People do things for a while, get tired, and then move on to something else; I’m no different.  And I can say with utter conviction that when I am finally home, and I’ve hung out with all my friends and family, and all the parties and celebrations are over, and I’ve finally moved on with my life… I will miss Tanzania.  A lot.  And that’s just kind of how life goes.

So, how can I summarize?  Peace Corps was something else.  Tanzania was something else.  Teaching my students was something else.  Pontificating with my teachers was something else.  Hanging out with my fellow PCVs was something else.  Living by myself was something else.  Everything I’ve experienced for the past 30 months was something else, and all I can do is mash it all together into one enormous, ineffable morass of stories, memories, and life events that I will henceforth pithily refer to as my “Peace Corps experience.”  I figure that’s the best coping mechanism I’ve got.  It’ll do for now, at least.

In any case, it was a fun ride while it lasted.  Now, it’s time to go home.

Planned Conferences and Surprise Vacations

Back in the beginning of August, I was up in Dar participating in our scheduled COS (Close of Service) conference, a mandatory yet fun class reunion designed to help us PCVs efficiently tie up loose ends in country, plan for the future, and slowly begin reintegrating back into American society.  Indeed, much like PST, IST, and MSC, COS is one of the major meetings required by all Peace Corps branches in all countries, and, despite its name, it’s actually supposed to take place ~3 months before a Peace Corps volunteer leaves, so that the PCV in question can prepare him or herself for the inevitable transition back stateside.  So yeah, while I guess COS conference isn’t the end-all be-all Peace Corps service, it’s the harbinger of the end… and, well, that can be a bit intimidating at times, even if the conference itself is a blast.

I don’t know about other Peace Corps countries, but for us in Tanzania, COS conference tends to be a pretty laid-back affair: it takes place at a fancy beach resort, attendance policies for sessions aren’t strictly enforced, and we usually get a lot of downtime during the afternoon and evenings to go swim, play volleyball, or just relax.  Tedious PowerPoint presentations are infrequent, flipchart-based small group work is nonexistent, and most sessions are primarily focused on us, the volunteers---reflecting on the good times had during service while preparing our résumés for the job market back home.  Moreover, all the food is prepaid, we sleep in air-conditioned rooms, and, given that COS usually happens during the low tourist season, we pretty much run the venue for the entire time we’re there.  In all, I’d say COS was not your average PC conference, and I had a pretty good time while I was there… the meetings were fun, the buffet was sumptuous, and I got an all-expenses-paid trip to a fancy, tropical resort on the American taxpayer’s dollar.  What’s not to like?

Perhaps the most lasting impact COS had on me was, of course, the food.  While I only spent 5 of my 11 days in Dar at the resort, I’m fairly confident I gained at least five pounds during my stay there, as we were constantly besieged by a relentless barrage of delicious Indian and Chinese food, five meals a day, every day.  A word to the wise for any would-be Peace Corps Country Director out there: as PCVs out in the bush, we’re essentially equivalent to a pack of mangy, starving dogs… if you present us with a sumptuous banquet---particularly a free one---we will compulsively and unhesitatingly devour it as if it were our last meal, every time.  Thus, if you present us with FIVE sumptuous banquets EVERY DAY, we will compulsively and unhesitatingly devour each one until we puke our guts out or our stomachs rupture, whichever comes first.  Thus, within 24 hours of being at the resort, I quickly succumbed to the “feeding-your-goldfish-too-many-food-flakes” effect, and it took no more than a few hours after Tandoori Tuesday for me to go belly-up and slip into an overfed stupor for the remainder of the week.  Moreover, given that it was mostly Bengali curry or Sichuan hotpot sluicing through my insides, I spent a great deal of COS not lying on the beach as I should have been, but rather doubled over in gastrointestinal agony, often seeking sanctuary in the resort’s numerous (and, thankfully, mostly clean) lavatories. Of course, though, this didn’t stop me from crawling back to the buffet once dinnertime rolled around… it’d be a shame to waste all that garlic naan, after all.

Might I just add that we happened to be at COS during the Olympics, and that the main dining area had a large projector with full-package digital satellite cable.  Nothing beats drinking cocktails, shoveling delicious food in your face, and watching international athletic competition.  It was like being in fat man’s Elysium.

While all this eating, drinking, and other assorted hedonism was fun, one part of COS did stick out for me in the end---namely, that this would be the last time our training class would all be together in one place.  Sure, we’ve already hung out a bunch of times in country, and a lot of the people present at the conference (namely, those whose sites are near mine in country) are the same folks who’ve pretty much comprised my friend group for the past two years, but it’s kind of crazy to think about the fact that I might not see any of them again, at least in any predictable capacity.  Peace Corps really does foster a strong family vibe among training classes and a strong community vibe in PCV-dom overall, and since everyone is scheduled to leave at different dates in the coming months, there’s this slow, inexorable feeling that the band is breaking up.  I guess this is something that all PCVs go through---I’m confident it’s not just my class that undergoes this weird, post-COS separation complex---but still, it’s a bit strange to think about how far we’ve come since those nascent days back in Philly.

All wistfulness aside, the rest of my stay in Dar was fun as well.  I had to add a few days both before and after COS to take care of some minor medical stuff, and, naturally, I took full advantage of my downtime to bask in the opulence of Tanzania’s capital---eating lots of safi food, abusing government resources at PC HQ, and hemorrhaging money like it was going out of style.  I won’t bore you with the details, but let it be known that I went and saw Batman in theaters, ate a crispy chicken sandwich, tore it up in the Peninsula club scene, purchased delivery pizza, slept on a real mattress on a king-sized bed with down comforters, enjoyed hot showers, consumed more cheese than is safe or reasonable, and ate my first Dorito in two years (it was Nacho Cheese flavor, and it was incredible).  Overall, it was pretty awesome, and I think I can now finally upgrade myself to from Songea-Based Country Bumpkin to Sophisticated Dar Urbanite.  It’s about time I figured out how the daladalas worked up there, anyways.

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So yeah, after a fun 1.5-week stay in Dar, I hopped on my standard 2x2 Super Feo Express Yutong Bus, which, after the normal 15 hours, dumped me back in good old Songea town.  Given that I had school the next day, I unfortunately didn’t have a lot of time to decompress from this little jaunt to Safi-land… but hey, I had a job to do, and I needed to assuage my massive guilt for abandoning my students for a whole week (yeah, I had given both my Form V and Form VI classes enormous problem sets before leaving, but I still felt pretty bad for forsaking them).

So I went to school the following day and everything proceeded as normal… until I made the unwitting discovery that---surprise---Songea Boys was ending its winter term three weeks earlier than normal.  A little backstory:

This year, the Tanzanian government decided to conduct the national census during the month of August.  I’ve heard that this was supposed to be the 2010 census, but whatever… in the end, at least the census is getting done.  Regardless, to accomplish this task, the Tanzanian government has decided to use public secondary O-level schools as tallying centers, or whatever kind of home base census workers need to get their work done.  Thus, to accommodate for this decision, most O-level schools in the country have changed the dates of their large breaks so that students wouldn’t be at school when the census was taking place, and the census workers could therefore make full use of the facilities.  A-level schools took longer to negotiate an acceptable compromise, but, back in July, it was decided that A-level schools would not be used as census centers and thus maintain their normal schedule of a September-October break.

This put Songea Boys in a difficult position.  Being primarily an A-level school but with a significant O-level component, the administration here couldn’t really decide whether or not to move the break to accommodate for the census.  To make matters worse, there was a nationwide teacher’s strike from mid-July to early August, meaning that most of the Songea Boys faculty only showed up to school to get their daily free lunch, and no major decisions were made regarding school schedules.

Fast forward to when I got back from Dar.  Turns out that, while I was gone, the strike was lifted and the decision was made to follow neither the O-level schools nor the A-level schools, but instead give Songea Boys its own break located between the two other breaks (of course, no one told me this until I happened to ask the day I got back).  This means that not only was I forced to cut all my Form V and Form VI syllabi short, but all A-level terminal examinations were suspended until the students return in early October, which pretty much guarantees that they’ll either (a) forget the material over the break or (b) miss the exam entirely because they’re late coming back to school.  Moreover, this effectively increased the number of major make-or-break tests my Form VIs will have to take to 4 over the course of the second term---Term 1 Finals, NECTA Mock Examinations, Pre-National Examinations, and NECTA Finals.  Needless to say, my Form VI students are in for a rough semester.

Incidentally, this also means that literally all my plans for travel, work, etc. during the break are now messed up, as half of them take place in early to mid-October, when my students will now (apparently) be back in classes.  I am less than pleased with this prospect.

But, in truth, not all is lost with my surprise early break.  With my now copious amounts of free time, I’ve been working on a bit of a secondary project with my sitemate at Songea Girls (Songea Girls is still adhering to the normal A-level break, so they finished their winter term a little later).  The project is primarily focused on teaching students about solar power and its uses, and it was originally put together by a few MIT graduates for use in secondary schools in Ghana.  Regardless, the material remains fairly applicable here in Tanzania: my sitemate and I have received a “kit” from back in the States that includes lesson plans, solar cells, and LEDs so that we can give students a bit of hands-on experience in building their own solar lamp (all while, of course, we stress the real-life applications of physics).  As of now, we’re still hammering out some of the details (how the heck am I supposed to find a 4.5 V lithium ion battery in freaking Songea?), but I’m still confident that we’ll be able to effectively continue the syllabus with my sitemate’s students when they come back in mid-October, or perhaps start afresh at Songea Boys when my students come back in late September.

Alright, not much else to report at the moment.  There might be some minor adventuring close to the end of break, primarily as an attempt to salvage what’s left of my shattered travel plans… but yeah, we’ll see how that goes.  Maybe it’s all for the best: by being forced to stay at site during break, I’m obliged to be a better volunteer, starting secondary projects and whatnot.  In the end, I guess that’s always a good thing.

Contract Extension, New Teachers, and How to Make Homemade Gunpowder

It’s been a while since I’ve posted about site, and since I’ve pretty much been doing nothing but chill here at Boys since April, I figure it’s about time I threw an update out there to keep the folks back home informed on all-things-Paul.  I mean, hey, I owe it to my fans, don’t I?

Again, because none of these events are really related to each other, I’m opting for another vignette-style post.  It’s a crutch, I know, but it works.  Plus, with the way most internet writing is turning out these days---brief and skim-friendly to suit today’s busy procrastinator---it’d probably be best to keep things short and noteworthy.  It’s not like I’m shooting for a Pulitzer or anything.

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Perhaps the biggest piece of news since the last update is that I’m extending my service here at Songea Boys until the end of the school term in March 2013.  Well, I guess this isn’t new news---extension was always part of the plan---but now I guess it’s more official than before since I’ve (finally) turned in the forms to PC HQ.

There were a number of influencing factors that led me to make this decision, not least among them being the fact that, under the normal schedule, I’d be leaving my school as early as November 2012, abandoning my kids to the fates right before their terminal NECTA examinations.  While it’d be nice to go home and eat hamburgers a little earlier, I’m confident that I wouldn’t be able to do so without being racked with guilt: again, my current Form VI students are the Form Vs I managed to snatch up near the beginning of my service, and I’d really like to see them through the entirety of their secondary school career.  Of course, the unstated agenda of all this is that, one day, when my students are all successful physicists and biologists working in state-of-the-art Tanzanian research labs in the now-famous Ruvuma Technology Corridor, they can look back and say, “I owe it all to that crazy mzungu back in A-level who kept invoking the Second Law of Thermodynamics to describe my own mortality.”  An unrealistic fantasy, yes, but I just really want my kids to know that they had a teacher for two years who genuinely gave a crap about their education, and I feel I can much better accomplish that by finishing out the school term.

Whimsical perspectives of service aside, there were practical considerations as well.  For whatever reason, it seems that PC TZ has been losing interest in the Ruvuma region over the past few years, as neither my sitemate nor I are being replaced, and new education or health/environment volunteers have been few and far between over the course of my service.  Thus, if my school is to find a replacement teacher for me, I need to give them an early heads-up so they can start looking… there’s not really that large a pool of eligible teachers to draw from around here.  In fact, I’m pretty sure my sitemate and I alone represent a significant percentage of the A-level physics teaching staff in the Ruvuma region as a whole (according to last year’s NECTA stats, there are only three schools that teach A-level physics in the entire region, and we represent two of them).  By leaving a little later and informing my headmaster that I’m not getting replaced, I save Songea Boys from a frantic mid-semester scramble to find a new physics teacher, which would mostly likely result in the hasty appointment of some fresh-out-of-Form-VI neophyte who probably got a 20% on his physics NECTA.  My school doesn’t want that, I don’t want that, and I think we’d all be better off I stayed a little while longer.

Lastly, there are selfish reasons for extending.  Going home in November would make me too late for school, too early for applications, and under too tight a period to find any meaningful employment.  By finishing service in March, I’m at least a little closer to the summer school/summer employment market, which will hopefully open up a few more opportunities for me in terms of the ol’ career path.  So yeah, between the choice of working a little bit longer in Tanzania or spending six months as an unemployed 25-year-old living with his parents, I’ve made the easy decision.  Plus, if I extend, I get to do a little free-form traveling after service, and that’s always a good thing.

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In other Songea Boys news, I’ve been (somewhat) relieved of my duties as chief A-level biology instructor this term, as we managed to recruit a new teacher from nearby Chipole Secondary---a nun who apparently did some studying in America once upon a time.  Overall, she’s really nice: her English is great, and she’s definitely more dedicated to her students than the average Songea Boys teacher.  She’s also had me over to her place a few times, and we’ve had some nice conversations about America over chai and boiled magimbi (yams). Perhaps most importantly, though, she’s been helpful in alleviating my workload: teaching Form V and VI physics as well as Form VI biology, not to mention occasionally teaching Form V biology when I had time, was beginning to crush my spirit, and it was getting to the point where I actually was getting seriously depressed in anticipation of our regularly-scheduled exam weeks---grading 450+ exams every couple of months is no picnic.

Despite her help, though, there are some aspects of her teaching style that I find a bit troubling… although, admittedly, they provide some insight into the system I’m working with here.  For one, despite her having been an O-level biology teacher for a few years at Chipole Secondary (and having “majored” in biology back in her seminary in Kansas City, where she graduated, or something), she’s really not qualified to teach high school biology, at least by American standards: she doesn’t know what atoms are, she has serious issues understanding how modern genetics works, and she’s a devout creationist (like, “Adam-and-Eve-in-the-Garden-of-Eden-5000-years-ago” devout… she’s a nun, after all).  I mean, I didn’t even think you could pass biology without knowing what atoms were, much less make a career of teaching it at the magnet A-level secondary school in a major province in a nation of 40 million people.  What’s fortunate is that she recognizes her lack of expertise in the subject, and she’s asked me to give her private tutoring sessions to help her review the material… it’s a shame, though, that after a number of such sessions over the past few months, it’s become apparent that she really just needs to go back to school (well, that, or pick a different line of work).  I’ll give her some credit: she does seem to really want to learn the material and she is working hard (well, hard for Songean) to gain a general level of competency.  I just don’t know if it’ll be enough to ensure a high level of biology tuition at Boys for years to come.

Another problem is that, again, while she’s nice and fairly dedicated, she’s just so… Tanzanian.  I’m sorry, I love Tanzania and the Tanzanian people, but there really is a lack of independent thought in Tanzanian culture: Tanzanians are the type of people who will spend 12 hours a day every day lugging sacks of maize up a hill on their backs but won’t spend 6 hours one day designing/building a wheelbarrow and 6 hours every other day doing the same chore for less energy.  The same principle---that is, lack of critical thinking and disregard for individual ingenuity---applies to the education system here, and despite the time our new biology teacher has ostensibly spent getting an education in America, she remains an unmistakable product of a Tanzanian public school education.  As a result, she---like most Tanzanian teachers I know---sticks unquestioningly to the MoE-approved syllabus (despite the syllabus’ flagrant omissions and her lack of understanding of the material in general) and champions the classic “learning-through-blindly-copying” approach to higher education.  Yes, she “studies” biology for three hours a day, but I’ve seen her notes, and all she does is literally transcribe her biology textbook onto a piece of paper, which she then proceeds to transcribe verbatim on the blackboard during class the next day.  Thus, while I’m constantly badgering my kids with annoying, theme-oriented questions during my biology classes (“So, we’ve talked a bit about the differences between arthropods and vertebrates.  But why do you think arthropods tend to be smaller than vertebrates?  Why aren’t we getting eaten alive by giant spiders as we speak?!”), she spends most of her classes writing down the eleven (and yes, according to NECTA, there are exactly eleven) advantages and disadvantages of flowering plants and making the kids repeat them back to her ad nauseam.

Perhaps the clincher with all this is that, as far as my school is concerned, she outranks me.  Oh, sure, I’ve been at Songea Boys longer and I’ve been working with the A-level syllabus one year longer than she has, but she’s got one more year of overall teaching experience than I do (she’s class of 2008), and she’s a biology teacher, whereas I’m a physics teacher who’s merely dabbling in biology to help the school out.  It doesn’t help that most of the administration doesn’t really know much about biology, so, as far as they’re concerned, she knows more about biology than I do---never mind that, again, she really doesn’t know what atoms are (seriously, she really doesn’t…  I had to tell her what oxygen was and why it is essential for life).  Therefore, whenever an issue comes up between the two of us, we are frequently and dismissively told to “work as a team,” which doesn’t really solve the problem and results in further clashes of interest down the line.  This is especially the case when my supposed “teammate” is constantly trying to get me to do her grading for her or teach her classes because she’s not “comfortable with the material.”  Or when she decides to spontaneously take a sick week and call me at 5am Monday morning to tell me that---surprise---I now have to teach double my periods because she has “malaria.”  Again.  For the third time this term.  Even though it’s cold season.

I’m actually still a bit divided on that issue: do I bite the bullet and teach her classes for the benefit of the students, or do I abandon the students so that she might get in trouble and I teach her a lesson about professionalism and responsibility?  It’s a tough choice.

In the end, though, I’m not going to hate on her too much.  She's a nice person, and she really is more dedicated than most teachers at my school, which is always a good thing.  Moreover, I need to emphasize that I am NOT a model teacher myself: there have been plenty of times I’ve stumbled into a class entirely unprepared and ended up winging it for 80 minutes (I’ve actually gotten remarkably good at that).  I guess this is just part of what happens when you work within a cruddy system: when there’s a dearth of teachers in the country overall, you have to make do with what you’ve got.

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Of all the comparisons to other American institutions, I’d have to say that PC TZ is a lot like high school.  We’ve got our principal (the CD), our deans (the APCDs), and we have four “classes” of PCVs in country at any given time---two classes a year, two years of service.  Moreover, given that we’re mostly a bunch of bewildered, post-baccalaureate twenty-somethings desperately trying to stave off real life by moving to another country for two years, I’d say our general maturity level ranges somewhere between 9^th grade and freshmen orientation week in college.  So there’s that as well.

Going with this analogy, my class would currently be the “rising seniors” of PC TZ, as the health/environment class before us has just started leaving to return home to America (or extend their contracts as super-seniors).  Therefore, after they’re gone, my class and I will enjoy three glorious months of being the kings and queens of Peace Corps High before we too move on with our lives and bequeath our coolness to the next class below us.  In the end, it’s all part of the wonderful, never-ending cycle that is Peace Corps.

So, given that the 2012 cycle of PC TZ has started and the newbies have arrived, I was summoned to go do a hands-on science training with our current prefrosh earlier this month.  On the whole, I’d say it was pretty fun: the new group seems like a pretty solid bunch, and although we’re not getting any of them down here in Ruvuma (total bummer… thanks a lot, Peace Corps admins), I’m sure they’ll all have happy, productive services at their respective sites in the near future.  Here’s hoping our session was helpful (and maybe even inspirational?) enough to get them started.

What I liked best about the week up in Moro was that it was pretty much a non-stop geek-out.  There were three of us PCVs from my class and one PCV from the new (2011) class, and with the four of us representing the three major disciplines of science (biology, chemistry, and physics), we were tasked with introducing the new (2012) class to the so-called “Shika kwa Mikono Initiative”, a PC- and MoE-sponsored project designed to encourage low-income schools to use locally available materials to ghetto their way through the NECTA syllabus.  As bootleg as it may sound, it’s true: with patience, perseverance, and a little low-tech ingenuity, it’s amazing what you can engineer out of a bunch of seemingly random garbage, and you can pretty much set up a fully-functional biology, chemistry, or physics lab for ~1/10 the cost of buying everything directly from the science supply stores.

Thus, upon our arrival in Morogoro in early July, we were essentially given a wad of cash and instructed to go downtown and buy whatever local materials we needed to recreate common NECTA practicals.  What’s funny is that, if you’ve spent any time with science nerds, you’d know that this is roughly equivalent to handing a bunch of kindergarteners $500 and setting them loose at a Toys-R-Us.  So yeah, we went a little wild over the next two days.

Granted, as a physics guy, my shopping list was pretty lame (rock + string = pendulum!), but I got a lot of joy out of some of the more random crap we bought: I managed to get a hold of a computer-murdering 25-W speaker magnet and some VCR guts for physics, we scored some 15-molar NaOH solution for chemistry and biology (which we promptly mixed with some 5-molar battery acid to “test it out”… bad idea), we literally cleaned out a traditional medicine store for their cheap CuSO₄ and sulfur, and I bought my first packet of urinal cakes ever (for the NECTA physics practical where you freebase them over a charcoal stove… no joke).  I gotta say, it was probably one of the cooler shopping sprees I’ve done in recent memory.

And, of course, no geek week would be complete without explosions, and we did our best to hold true to this mantra during PST.  Because we were spending our 4^th of July in Moro and exploding hydrogen gas is for little girls, we opted for something a little bigger this year---making homemade gunpowder and setting it on fire.  As it turns out, gunpowder is actually incredibly easy to make: all you need is fertilizer (specifically, KNO₃), sulfur, and charcoal dust, all of which are in plentiful supply in TZ.  There are a few minor steps involving grinding, boiling, and drying the powder, but it’s nothing that can’t be accomplished in an evening with a few basic tools… we managed to get by with a standard wooden mortar and pestle (kinu and mtwangio), some gauze, a charcoal stove, a thin, aluminum sufuria (cooking pot), and a little elbow grease.

It’s funny: every time we do a hands-on science training session in Moro, it looks like we’re operating out of a meth lab… this time, I think we finally graduated to “domestic terrorist hideout”: imagine a dimly-lit concrete room containing a few scruffy PCVs in dirty clothes, all of whom are hunched over their respective preparation stations, vigorously grinding, stirring, or drying some suspicious-looking black paste onto pre-prepared racks (read: flipchart paper).  Yeah, I’d be thinking the same thing.

Also, let me just add that it’s a bit unnerving squatting over a red-hot charcoal stove, whisking a rapidly-drying pot full of highly-combustible gunpowder.  Don’t try this at home, kids.

Oh, and one last description of the maturity level of our little operation: over the course of the evening, we discovered that you could throw KNO­₃ directly into the fire, whereupon it would immediately burst into a shower of sparks and make a loud “woosh” sound.  This started a combustion-frenzy, where we proceeded to throw handfuls of the fertilizer directly into the charcoal stove while periodically shouting “WIZARD!”.  I think we went through half the bag… yeah, we’re grown-ups.  If anything, the numerous scorch marks we left around the house are testament to that fact.

But yeah, the gunpowder worked, and we had a pretty cool opening to our session where we set all of it on fire in front of the main conference hall.  Apparently, that stuff burns pretty hot: we put our fireworks on a large trash can, and we melted a giant hole in it.  Go figure.

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Not much else to report.  Teaching is teaching, work is work, and we have a COS (close of service) conference coming up in two weeks.  Man… I know that with my extension I’ve got another 7 months of TZ-time left, but I can’t help but feel that this crap is almost over.  Before I know it, I’m gonna be back in America.  Scary.

And since I don't have any relevant pictures for this post, here's a cute picture of one of my dogs.  Enjoy.

The One-Year Benchmark

The rains are back, the weather has cooled, and the roads have once again turned to mud; my Form V kids are grappling with the mysteries of surface tension and elasticity, while my Form VI students are recovering from their grueling pre-national examinations; the siafu have returned, my house’s endemic cricket population has resurfaced, and the air is once again choked with giant, winged termite drones… all this can only mean one thing:

Holy crap, I’ve been here a year.

Well, technically speaking, I’ve been in country for more than a year---going on 16 months, to be exact---but this past November marked the first anniversary of my being a teacher in Songea, which I feel is a slightly more tangible accomplishment than simply existing in Tanzania for an extended period of time.  Don’t get me wrong, the three initial months of pre-service training in Morogoro were fun, but I wouldn’t really classify them as “service”… it was more like summer camp, only with fewer sing-alongs and more cultural faux pas.  Still though, as weird as it may seem right now, I guess I always figured this day would come---the day when I’d be teaching from the same notes I wrote a year ago; when I’d be celebrating Thanksgiving and Christmas in the same places I did last year; when I’d be hanging out with the same friends I’ve been hanging out with for the last 52 weekends; when things, in the end, would come full circle.  It’s a strange feeling, for sure, but not entirely unexpected.

Indeed, a quick look at my service so far shows a great deal of constancy.  My daily schedule still involves teaching, chores, exercise, cooking, and sleep, interspersed with occasional marathon concertina sessions.  My social life still involves hanging out with PCVs or the Italians in town on the weekends, or, barring that, sitting alone in my house and re-watching episodes of The Wire.  What did I do for Thanksgiving?  Cooked a big meal at my sitemate’s house and ate it.  What did I do last Thanksgiving?  Cooked a big meal at my sitemate’s house and ate it, too.  Life for me here has not so much changed as it has stayed the same, and, gradually, I’ve settled into my niche here in the Songea community, enough so that I never really question my existence here in Tanzania; it’s merely a fact of life.

I guess this habituation to the Tanzanian way of life (or, rather, the PCV-in-Tanzania way of life) is, in and of itself, a change of sorts.  Rereading a bunch of my old blog posts and journal entries, I see the naïve ramblings of a kid who was simply enchanted to be in Africa---who considered each newly-learned Kiswahili word a tremendous accomplishment, wore his pikipiki burns like badges of honor, and jumped at any opportunity for so-called “cultural exchange” with the locals.  I was enthusiastic, energetic, and far less cynical than I am now: everything bad or irritating in my life could simply be chalked up to “cultural experience,” and every challenge was met with uniform, unwavering optimism---the kind that may or may not actually be well-placed, given the situation.  In sum, I was a TZ neophyte, wide-eyed and innocent, bedazzled by the concept of life in another country and eager to soak in everything Tanzania had to offer.

I can safely say now that, after a year’s worth of routine and work, much of that initial zeal has given way to lethargic acceptance.  Most of what annoyed, confused, and vexed me at the beginning of my service has been slowly reduced to mere background noise; similarly, many of my more lofty aspirations have been curtailed to fit a more realistic agenda.  Will all 172 of my Form VI physics students pass the NECTA this year?  Probably not.  How many will pass?  Maybe five, if I’m lucky.  Is there anything I can do about it?  Not really.  Am I okay with this?  Yeah, pretty much.  It’s just the way things work down here.

This isn’t to say that I’m utterly defeated and that my life is pointless.  I have a lot of stuff to keep me going here in Tanzania, and, although much of my life at Songea Boys’ has slipped into dull routine, I still feel a fundamental motivation to get things done.  My Form V students, for example, are pretty much the reason I get up and go to work every morning: unlike my absentee, senioritis-stricken Form Sixes, my Form Fives are the students whom I snatched up and began America-izing to death literally the second they arrived on campus as bewildered O-level transplantees, and, over the past two terms, I’ve been relentlessly and unabashedly grooming them into my personal army of physics and biology prodigies.  While they’re by no means perfect, they consistently show up to every class on time, and they’ll stay in the room and wait for me, even if I’m late.  Moreover, they readily participate in class discussions, and they all laugh at my jokes, no matter how stupid they are.  And, perhaps most importantly, their English is WAY better than my Form Sixes’, and they even tolerate my occasional uncontrollable outbursts of geekiness (“So, in conclusion, natural selection says that you all came from MONKEYS!  Isn’t that CRAZY?!” or “If we believe the Second Law of Thermodynamics, then one day all useful energy in the universe will turn into useless chaotic motion.  D’YOU ALL UNDERSTAND WHAT THIS MEANS?!?!?!  WE’LL ALL BE DEAD!!!!”)  And yes, those were both direct quotes from the past few weeks of classes.  I’m such a dork.

Still though, despite these highlights, there’s definitely a general sense of fatigue that comes with staying one year in Tanzania; that is, while I can easily ignore or tolerate some of the routine inconveniences or cultural differences I experience here, sometimes things are just frustrating, and there isn’t really anything I can do about it except shut up and keep my slowly-festering insanity to myself.

A prime example of this is Tanzanian music.  After sixteen months of self-deception, delusions of acceptance, repeated reevaluations, and extensive mental acrobatics, I have come to the unfortunate but inevitable conclusion that I simply don’t like Tanzanian music.  At all.  I don’t like Bongo Flava, I don’t like Tanzanian hip-hop, I don’t like the “oldies” from the 60s, I don’t like the Kiswahili gospel music they pipe through the radio, I don’t like the witchdoctor drum circles, and I don’t like that genre of Tanzanian music where they get a bunch of fat ladies to dress up in their Sunday best and look depressed and belt out 9-minute songs about Jesus while they shuffle around a bit.  Honestly, from what I’ve seen, Tanzanian music was built on one beat, three chords, and the fake brass section found on your typical Casio synthesizer, and I’m convinced that the whole country listens to the same 30-song playlist that’s been around for the past 10 years.  It’s really too bad (and, in the end, my loss for being narrow-minded) that Tanzanians are a people who happen to LOVE their music, and that the concept of “noise complaints” hasn’t really hit this part of Africa yet… the general attitude when it comes to music---be it in bars, on buses, or at my neighbors’ houses at 4am on a Monday morning---is that turning your speakers up to 11 is actually a good thing---you’re, in fact, magnanimous enough to share your music with your neighbors, so that everyone can enjoy the richness and poetry of Sharobaro Recordz.  Again, I won’t say that American pop music is light-years ahead of Tanzania’s Top 10, and I’m certainly no Mozart myself, but, in the end, it’s the little things like this that begin to grate on the nerves after a year of continuous exposure.

Pet peeves aside, there are other more practical frustrations that arise after one year of service.  Why is my power always off?  Why is my seat never reserved?  Why is everyone always late to everything?  Why is there never a timetable for anything?  Why is my school having Form V midterms literally two weeks from Form V finals?  Why can’t we duplicate the key to the school’s physics lab?  Why does it take two hours to fry an egg at a restaurant?  Why can’t I buy spinach before 10am or after 4pm?  Why can’t Tanzanian waiters/cashiers do math, or at least use a calculator?  Why are stores always out of everything?  Why does NO ONE have change, EVER?  I mean, I guess I should be thankful that I do have power, that my school is doing midterms, and that I can buy spinach… but, after a year of this, that pessimistic little voice in the back of my head has begun to get the better of me: why do I need to be thankful for any of this?  Why can’t people show up on time for anything?  Why can’t Tanzanian Maritime Services Co. Ltd. or Tanzanian Railways Co. post their ferry or train schedules online?  Why can’t the conductors on the daladalas bring change with them when they start work?  Why can’t Tanesco Songea ration its diesel supply so I could have consistent power instead of the one-week-on, four-week-off B.S. I’m dealing with now?  Most of what I’ve listed is pretty basic stuff, and in these modern times, most other countries seem to get it right… why can’t Tanzania?

On top of all this, the one thing that’s really kind of gotten under my skin during my service is the casual racism.  On the one hand, I get it: I’m white (or Chinese… Tanzanians generally can’t really tell the difference, but I guess I’m racially ambiguous enough as it is), and everyone else is black.  I am a foreigner.  I no speak Kiswahili good.  I do weird stuff like use forks or go out jogging for exercise.  I hoe like a little girl.  I’m kind to stray dogs.  I listen to quiet, beatless music on headphones while refrying already-boiled strips of ugali paste and dumping beans and meat on top (in this biz, we call this a “Frito pie”… and it’s delicious).  But still, why does everyone feel the need to point out my eccentricities, all the freaking time?  I’m no stranger to being the random white guy in town---go out far enough in Appalachia in any country and you’ll definitely become the butt of ridicule---but while most countries like to keep their xenophobia to themselves (i.e. China, where people just quietly stare at you and mutter racial epithets under their breath), the modus operandi when it comes to Tanzanians is to point at you, shout “mzungu!” or “mchina!” at the top of their lungs, and laugh like you just slipped on a banana peel and landed in a pile of mousetraps.  On the one hand, this works in your favor, as people generally think that you’re incapable of anything and will often give you special treatment based on your skin color (free rides, tours around town, front seat on a bus, etc.).  On the other hand, you’re forced to pay mzungu prices everywhere, you’re routinely targeted by power-tripping immigration officers, and, wherever you go, you’re mercilessly mocked by annoying vijana (“Hello!  Yes!  Thank you, white man!” or “Chingchong hee-hong!”).  And then sometimes you get fun little exchanges like this (translated from Kiswahili):

Random Konda: “Hing-hong hwei-hwong!”

Me: “[English] And an ‘ooga-booga’ to you, too.  [Kiswahili] What do you want?”

RK: “I want 1000 shillings.”

Me: “No.”

RK: “Give me 1000 shillings, now!”

Me: “No.  Don’t ask me for money.”

RK: “C***!”

So yeah, being special is nice, but there are certain things that come with specialness that can really get you down after a while.

In closing, I wouldn’t say that I’ve hit the doldrums of my service, but I’m definitely WAY past the honeymoon period.  In no way am I saying that Tanzanians are a bad people or that Tanzania is a bad country; quite the contrary, Tanzania is a beautiful, peaceful place, and I feel incredibly lucky that I was selected to volunteer here.  It’s just that I’m human, and, in time, my fuse has shortened regarding some of the less-auspicious aspects of living in this country: one day, I’m doing a practical with my students and we’re getting solid data, the other, I’m inquiring my local Tanesco officer as to how his organization can possibly “suck so bad at everything.”  The Peace Corps experience goes both ways, and, in the end, it’s all about what you’ve gained as a person and how you’ve helped others, not about what trivial inconveniences tended to ruin your day.

And now that I'm done ruminating, it's time to get back to work.