On the seventh day ……..

Sunday October 7th

 Not a lot to report today.  This week had been very busy and I was ready for a day chilling, which is what I did.  I read my Kindle most of the morning and then this afternoon I took my latest student down to the sea for his second swimming lesson.  I loaned him my goggles and without the need to surface to wipe the salt out of his eyes he progressed rapidly.  He has decided that breast stroke is easier than ‘doggie paddle’ and by the end of my thirty minute limit out in the sun, he was confidently swimming about ten metres.  I am sure some would quote Woody and call it ‘drowning with style’ but it looked good to me.  A family of Tanzanian Asians had driven down from Tanga to use the YMCA grounds for a picnic and some of the younger ones joined us and were still playing with Deo when I came off the beach. It appears they come regularly and give the YMCA a good donation to put out plastic chairs and a table overlooking the sea (and I get all this thrown in!).

 Deo

I did though find time to wander round and take a few shots of what is still going to be home for the next two months so if you are interested look below:-

The first view - No Masai guards here

The main office/kitchen with Mama Gladness and Lucy

 The main building looking back showing the lounge

The lounge and at the far end where I eat.  

There is a dining room in the middle of the building but with only me here....

The hall - used for weddings etc and due to have walls sometime soon

The YMCA Logo in bushes - Mama Gladness loves her garden

The New block in the background where I live.  

In the foreground is where Mama Gladness, Eva, and Vicky live

The Bandas.  These look nice but they have no fan so I'll stay where I am thanks.

There you are, hope that wasn't too boring but not every day can be an epiphany, I don't think my constitution could cope.

Baadaye

The Dala Dala

Saturday October 6^th

The weekend and more photos to print so after breakfast it’s down to the end of the road to wait for a Dala Dala.  No friendly motor cyclist this week and after twenty minutes when only two cars and a van had passed me I was beginning to get hot and fed-up.  It was then that I realised why they pack the minibuses so much, as when one finally came down the road, I would have willing climbed on the roof to get a lift. In fact when it stopped, the door slid open and I was faced with a mass of bodies, I thought the roof was the only way I would get on.  ‘Quart in a pint pot’ comes to mind as the ‘conductor’ got off the bus gestured for me to force my way on, and then boarded behind me.  He hung out of the window and I managed to just about stand with one foot under the other as it bounced away on its journey.  Thankfully at the junction where I normally turn to Boza, three people got off so the last part of the journey was in relative luxury, but, as I say,  I would have clung on behind rather than wait another twenty minutes in the dust and heat.

I had decided to buy some card for my photos, as the Weetabix box had now been sacrificed and I had no replacement as yet, so I walked through the town looking for the stationers that I had been told existed.  When I eventually found it and began the process of purchasing the card, I noticed that the shop had a computer and printer, and found out that they would print my pictures on card for Tsh1000 a sheet (that’s 40p for those who aren’t keeping up).  As I had pasted two pictures onto each page of an MS Word document this worked out at quite a good price and when the boy in the shop then produced a guillotine and proceeded to cut the prints to size with a small white border, the job was well done.  Max Spielmann, eat your heart out.

With my photos safely on board, I sauntered back through Pangani, ‘window shopping’, until I reached the market square where the Dala Dala congregate.  I had a few other things to buy so I had a wander around the market, looking at the stalls, some on tables, some on the ground.  In three or four places I found the evidence of contents of the plastic bags that drop through your letter box with monotonous regularity.  There were piles of obviously second hand clothes that were being tipped out and sorted by the stall holder into the various categories.  Cliff had told me last year that this whole process supported quite a thriving economy, as well as providing inexpensive clothing for those with little to spend, and this certainly looked the case here.  The effect was somewhat spoiled though when the next stall was full of football shirts for all the usual teams, all made in China and all definitely not genuine merchandise.

I continued this browsing, until the big bus had blown his horn sixty times, revved his engine monotonously and moved and stopped about three times as it went round the square, before boarding and returning home.

Last night I decided I deserved a treat and went to the Mkoma Bay Tented Lodge next door, for dinner.  This is quite a nice tourist site and the word ‘tented’ doesn’t do justice to the accommodation with every tent having a solid ‘superstructure’ to it and I would imagine all ‘en suite’.  The meal cost about three times what I am paying at the YMCA but, for Pumpkin and Ginger soup, Stir fried beef with rice and vegetables followed by fresh fruit salad and coffee all washed down with a couple of large glasses of Merlot, I reckoned it was good value at £13.  I ate with the owner, his wife and what looked to be their only guest and it made a change to have some new conversations as well.  I will have to save up for a repeat visit in two or three weeks.  One other pleasant feature of the evening occurred as I turned up at the Lodge gate and called for the Masai security men to open the gate for me.  The guards spend some of their spare time over at the YMCA watching the TV, usually with a soft drink, so as they opened the gate I was met with a big smile, a warm handshake and a cry of ‘Habari Rafiki” (Friend).  No-one messes with the Masai so it was good to know that they would be on my side if ever needed.

A short walk back along the beach and it was time to prepare the room for the night.  This consists of checking the net is tucked in, taking a deep breath and then spraying copious amounts of fly spray under every surface and in every corner finishing with a good blast under the net itself.  I dive outside then for a big gulp of clean air and wander off until the air is more breathable.  Tonight I went one step further.  The other morning when I rose early to take advantage of the Internet offer, I realised that this was not a good time of the night to leave the relative safety of my net and a couple of bumps on my legs reminded me all day of this.  Not to be outdone I threaded the mains cable for the laptop up the side of the mattress, careful not to pull out the net, and placed the computer at the bottom of the bed.  This not only meant I could switch the computer on at 4:00 this morning without leaving my nest, it also meant that whilst I waited for a file to upload or download I could drop back and nod off.  Clever eh!

Baadaye

Exams beckon

Friday October 6^th

Next Monday Form IV start their National Examinations for two weeks and will then leave school, so as this was to be their last assembly I decided to take a video of them singing the national song Tanzania, Tanzania.  This is not the national anthem but expresses their love for their country and is often used instead, I understand.  I was to be disappointed though as Form IV were preparing the examination room for the exams and many of the other students were involved in chores around the place so the turn-out is rather sparse.  I did take a short video of it anyway and will try to upload this overnight with my special Tsh200 offer providing there are no more power cuts.

We had electricity at school all day so, although I was not timetabled to teach, I was busy with the computers and progressed well.  As I said earlier, the language barrier is a lot more noticeable when working with only two students and it can be quite exhausting by the end of a half hour session with two students if neither has good English.  They are progressing well though, and are now able to load their work, correct and edit it and save it again in a special Form III folder.  Such a pity that they are unable to see a hard copy of their efforts but a printer is a long way away, if in the picture at all.

When not taking students I had teachers wanting to learn with Mr Mmari wanting to set up a Yahoo email address and Mr Zachary wanting to use Excel.  I can’t remember if I said, but the school does have an Internet connection as payment for allowing a local company to put another receiver on their land.  The reception is intermittent and the cables keep dropping out and breaking connection but I did have to suggest to Hillaly when he was, once again, called to get it working again, that ‘This Is Tanzania’ was possibly not a good acronym to replace T.I.A.

My Swahili progresses although it is very much classroom based.  Once the students have started work on the exercises I tend to walk round asking each one “Ngumu, Rahisi” (Difficult, Easy) and then spend time with the ones who admit problems.  I impressed myself yesterday when one of the Form I students, with little understanding of English, was stuck, and I recited the eight times table in Swahili.   My pictorial method of learning words continues and those of a certain age might not be surprised that my image of an exercise book is one covered with a picture of a cross-eyed lion (the Swahili is ‘daftari’).  I have no notion of verbs or tenses but just learn the sentences I need – “Kusanya daftari Jumatatu Asubuhi” – “Collect the books Monday morning”.  I must admit though that, as many of the Swahili words like wiki (week) and hospitali (hospital) consist of adding a vowel to the end of the English words, I caught myself the other day talking about the ‘spacie bar’.  It might very well be correct as the words that tend to be like this are the ones that have their origins in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

A weekend without the need for a trip to Tanga.  Bliss.

Baadaye

The chucks

Thursday October 4th

I promised chucks, so here we are, or rather the chuck; singular.  When we stayed with Cliff and Jane in Dar last year we got used to an early Tanzanian alarm call as the Muslim ‘Call to Prayer’ echoed around the streets just before dawn, but that was nothing compared to the insomniac cockerel we have at the YMCA. As I've said earlier, dawn in Pangani is at 6:15 without change every day.  I wish someone would tell this bird.  Every morning at 3:30 he decides to exercise his lungs with a cry to the world to announce that it is nearly three hours before the sun rises.  He then has a breather for an hour and repeats the dose at 4:30 before finally heralding the dawn an hour later.

My Nemesis outside my room

During the day he struts around with his four lady friends and I am sure he sees me as some rival for their affection.  He throws his chest out as he passes me, giving the odd crow, and if I should decide to go in and shut the door for a lie down, I swear he puts his beak to the keyhole and lets out a tremendous cry.  There are two other quieter cockerels who are obviously cowed by his presence and I am trying to convince the boss lady, Mama Gladness, that three males is far too many and we could easily have chicken for dinner without enduring the trip to Tanga.

Mama Gladness

A little late for today’s missive but we have had no electricity for 36 out of the last 48 hours.  I woke this morning at 2:00 and realised by the temperature that the ceiling fan was off, no electric.  Nipped to the loo and pulled the lever, no water.  Then as I climbed back into bed with the drumming of torrential rain on the roof and painstakingly tucked my mosquito net under the mattress all the way round, I’ll admit I did have some choice words.  Especially as I had deliberately put the sim card from the dongle into my phone to dial a number I had received, that would give me web surfing from 10:00 pm to 7:00 am for only Tsh 200.  A right waste of 8p that was!!

The day obviously improved and I had another dip after school and acquired another student.  Although a fishing town, most of the people I talk too, including the local fishermen, are unable to swim.  The sea presumably is there to provide food and income and not for relaxation, and the feeling is not restricted to the locals as Denis almost blanches at the idea of entering the waves.  It was with some surprise then, when I told Deo, the handyman at the YMCA, that I was off for a swim he said he would come too.  He splashed around in not much more than knee high water but it was obvious he wanted more and I soon realised that he wanted to learn how to swim.  Lesson one today and I’ve got another nine weeks to make a swimmer out of him.  Wish me luck.

Baadaye

Compulsory Education

Wednesday September 3^rd

As I have said I am obviously interested as to why there are such age differences in my classes.   Class I ranges from 14 to 20 and Year III from 16 to 20.  I asked today and got part of an answer anyway and that will do for now.

Compulsory education in Tanzania starts at 6 or 7 when a child enters Primary School to follow standard 1.  Children progress through the years with a national test at the end of standard 4 (aged 10 or 11) until they reach standard 7 at the ripe old age of 13 or 14.  Officially, I am told, any pupil who passes standard 7 must then move on to high school into form I, whereas if they fail standard 7 they may leave school.  This didn’t explain though the 20 year old pupils I taught who are all very bright and in no way will have struggled for another four or five years to achieve the necessary standard for high school.   Further questions and hypotheses produced the suggestion that the ‘school bobby’ in Tanzania is not as efficient as he or she should be and it does happen that a family might decide that the child is required at home and simply end their education at 14 without there being much follow up.  The child themselves, or in fact their parent, might decide later in adolescence that an education is, in fact, important, and the young person will enter high school a little later than they should have done.

A good example is Hillaly, by far the cleverest and possibly the nicest boy I teach who happens to be in Form I and is 20 years old.   He was a little embarrassed when I first asked him his age; I think he thought that I might assume he was slow with his work to be so much older.  He explained that in Tanzania when the father gets a new wife he often leaves his children with the old wife (I did explain that this was the same the world over).  He had thus been left with his mother in Dar as Salaam at an early age and the impression I got was that, when she died when he was only 14, he lodged with a series of friends of the family but basically was responsible for himself to make a living as best he could.  As he got older he decided he needed to get qualifications to progress and trained as an electrician, only to find that he needed a high school education to fill in the gaps and complete his vocational training.  He came north and found his father, who is an engineer, and he agreed to fund his son through Boza, and so at twenty years old he finds himself at the start of his secondary career instead of the end.  Through hanging round an Internet cafe where a friend worked in Dar, he has a good knowledge of parts of I.T. and is the one to call when the Internet stops working, but he thirsts for instruction in Word, Excel etc.  He joins me after school on Thursday and we have a session on the computer, usually on Excel, and the speed he absorbs information is amazing. He certainly gives me yet one more good reason for being here.

For those not involved in education, I’m sorry if today’s offering was a bit dry.  I’ll talk about the chucks tomorrow.

Baadaye.

Election Day

Tuesday October 2^nd 2012

I showered in the dark this morning.  The electricity went off about 3:00 a.m. and only came back on at dusk, so no computing today.  My Form III maths lesson was also disrupted because the group who had walked to Pangani yesterday were in bed, as they did not arrive back at school until 5:00 a.m. this morning.  I found out that the civic duty they took part in, was to act as tellers at a local party election and with over 7 000 voters in Pangani and a 75% turn out, this did not finish until the wee small hours.  Thankfully they got a lift back and didn’t have to walk the 5k home.

Elections must have been in the air because today was also the election for the Student Government.  At 12.30 desks were carried into the school ‘hall’ and the members of Forms I, II and III congregated to elect the prefects and Head Boy/Girl for 2012/13.  Over the last two weeks, forms have been available for pupils to recommend themselves or their friends for the various tasks.  These have been vetted by a group of staff including the head, deputy and Mr Mmari, who is responsible for discipline and organised the election.  In the end two candidates were presented for each post and the students could vote for one of these two.  Some of the designations were Security, Cleanliness and Environment, Food and Health, and Sports as well as the obvious Head Boy/Girl. After an introduction by Mr Mmari and Mr Mbulende the candidates for the first prefectorial position were called forward and addressed the student body, putting forward their case and answering any questions.  Slips of paper stamped with the school stamp were then handed out to all present and, having all written on their own preference for the post, these were collected by yours truly.  I then took them to the table for the teachers to count the votes under the watchful eye of two scrutineers from the student body. The whole process was then repeated for the next post. A real example of citizenship in action and one that I was quite honoured to be part of.  I really wished I could understand Swahili though, because some of the speeches and answers to questions were quite impassioned, whilst others obviously contained humour.  The whole proceedings took three hours and the humour and behaviour of the students through what was a long session were impeccable.

A candidate addresses the school

The New Prefects

I should have said that, because of the range of ages in any particular year, there is no restriction on Form.  The two candidates for head boy were from Form I and Form II and not from next years senior form, Form III.

I was late going home, as the whole proceedings stretched well after normal school closing time, which is possibly why I was in time to take the next photo.  I presume these are the main reason why there are pot holes for the Dala Dalas to bounce in as they were certainly digging away furiously.

Baadaye

The best laid plans

Monday October 1^st

Having ridden down to Pangani at 5:30 this morning to leave his motorbike and save seats on the Dala dala, so that Rose and Vicky could board at the end of the road, Denis is now stuck in Tanga.  When they got there Rose’s bus was full and there were no seats so they are staying over and going tomorrow.  As Denis himself said in his text, TIA.  I’ll have to find a new drinking partner tonight.

Rose

I handed out my pictures on the way to school this morning, having already, last night, given Rose a copy of the photo of Denis from an earlier blog  The rock breaker was not working, for the first time since I arrived, so I called out ‘hodi’ and he came out of his house to greet me.  I’m not that certain what hodi means I think it is something like ‘I am outside can I come in’. I don’t think he knew what to say when I gave him the picture but certainly as I went down the hill after school his wife appeared and shouted out a cheerful “asante!” (thankyou) which was handy because I at least know the response to that – “karibu!” (your welcome).  The other photos were also well received especially the one of Mr Marri in front of his house.  My only problem is that there have already been a few hints of others that want similar treatment.  I’ll have to buy a job lot of Weetabix boxes.

Mr Marri informed me when we met that he would not be in school all day as he was taking seven of my Form III students to Pangani as part of some Civic course.  Knowing that the only transport in school is Mr Mtotele’s motor bike, I enquired whether they were going on a Dala dala but Mr Marri replied, “No, we’ll walk.  It’s only 5km.”  I didn’t envy them, in the heat, although he did say a steep path down to sea level was a short cut.  Having walked to the edge of the school property and taken a shot of the sheer drop that is there I only hope it was a safer way down.  On the way back from the cliff I detoured to take a picture of the masts that provide extra rental income for the school every year.  I’m unsure whether they also speed up cooking times.

With many of my class out for the day, I hastily rewrote my lesson plan and we did an experiment to gather data about reaction times.  I’m pleased to say it went very well. That and more computer lessons filled my day although I did get the first request for a photo. One of many to come I am sure.

Anna, Sakina and Kamishina

Incidentally I am still coming to grips with the various ages of pupils.  I know these three are 16, 17 and 17 but I do have two in the class who are 20.  I will investigate what the ages of compulsory schooling are and let you know.

Arrived home very hot thinking a swim was the order of the day but I am afraid the site of a fresh sheet stretched on my bed was too much of a draw, so siesta time called.  I am spoilt in that I get clean sheets and towel Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  Adventure?  Sometimes maybe not.

Baadaye