Friday, March 26, 2004
FRIDAY 26 March
I’ve now been in Tanzania for just over six and a half months. I still don’t feel that I even begin to know Africa, and I am worlds away from feeling competent to speak about her culture or economy or politics. Still, I am on the ground working together with Tanzanians in local projects, which is more than even most of the people at the American Embassy can say. I enjoy sharing my personal growth and understanding with you through this website, as I work here and make mistakes here and learn here. And if I compare myself even now to the “understanding” that a tourist achieves through a week or two of relaxing in fancy hotels and photographing animals on a commercial safari . . .
I continue to be in awe of the Peace Corps program, with its goals of:
1. Helping people in other countries meet their needs for trained personnel.
2. Promoting better understanding of American people in other parts of the world.
3. Promoting better understanding of other parts of the world by American people.
This program, started 43 years ago, has to be one of the finest and most effective strategies for the enhancement of international cooperation and understanding between peoples. I am proud to be a Peace Corps Volunteer, living in a borrowed house and teaching chemistry here in Tanzania. There is nothing that I would rather be doing.
Our President, recognizing the importance and contribution of the Peace Corps, has said that he wants to expand its program, nearly doubling the number volunteers placed around the world. So it is with dismay that I read in the latest letter from our Country Director: “Due to Congress having approved a budget that was much less than Peace Corps had hoped for, we have been told that the Peace Corps Tanzania budget for this current fiscal year will be cut substantially . . . As a result of the budget cut, there has also been a substantial reduction in the number of Trainees we expect to receive this year. We now expect only 55 instead of the 80 we have been planning for.”
Especially at this time when much of the world has serious doubts about the motives and foreign policy of the United States and even the coalition with our friends grows more fragile, the good will generated through the Peace Corps stands out with greater importance than ever.
With this in mind, I ask you to join me in writing to newspapers and our elected representatives and wannabees in this election year. Point out the value of the Peace Corps in creating understanding, trust and good will around the world, and the value of that good will when powerful forces are seeking to isolate and defame our great nation. Ask that the Peace Corps budget be expanded to meet our President’s intention, not contracted in this time of peril.
It pains me to use this Journal to request political action. Forgive me. But the Peace Corps is so valuable to our nation that a cut in its resources is surely foolhardy and counterproductive. This can hardly be a partisan issue.
Thank you for reading about my concern. Now I will get back off my soapbox.
I’ve now been in Tanzania for just over six and a half months. I still don’t feel that I even begin to know Africa, and I am worlds away from feeling competent to speak about her culture or economy or politics. Still, I am on the ground working together with Tanzanians in local projects, which is more than even most of the people at the American Embassy can say. I enjoy sharing my personal growth and understanding with you through this website, as I work here and make mistakes here and learn here. And if I compare myself even now to the “understanding” that a tourist achieves through a week or two of relaxing in fancy hotels and photographing animals on a commercial safari . . .
I continue to be in awe of the Peace Corps program, with its goals of:
1. Helping people in other countries meet their needs for trained personnel.
2. Promoting better understanding of American people in other parts of the world.
3. Promoting better understanding of other parts of the world by American people.
This program, started 43 years ago, has to be one of the finest and most effective strategies for the enhancement of international cooperation and understanding between peoples. I am proud to be a Peace Corps Volunteer, living in a borrowed house and teaching chemistry here in Tanzania. There is nothing that I would rather be doing.
Our President, recognizing the importance and contribution of the Peace Corps, has said that he wants to expand its program, nearly doubling the number volunteers placed around the world. So it is with dismay that I read in the latest letter from our Country Director: “Due to Congress having approved a budget that was much less than Peace Corps had hoped for, we have been told that the Peace Corps Tanzania budget for this current fiscal year will be cut substantially . . . As a result of the budget cut, there has also been a substantial reduction in the number of Trainees we expect to receive this year. We now expect only 55 instead of the 80 we have been planning for.”
Especially at this time when much of the world has serious doubts about the motives and foreign policy of the United States and even the coalition with our friends grows more fragile, the good will generated through the Peace Corps stands out with greater importance than ever.
With this in mind, I ask you to join me in writing to newspapers and our elected representatives and wannabees in this election year. Point out the value of the Peace Corps in creating understanding, trust and good will around the world, and the value of that good will when powerful forces are seeking to isolate and defame our great nation. Ask that the Peace Corps budget be expanded to meet our President’s intention, not contracted in this time of peril.
It pains me to use this Journal to request political action. Forgive me. But the Peace Corps is so valuable to our nation that a cut in its resources is surely foolhardy and counterproductive. This can hardly be a partisan issue.
Thank you for reading about my concern. Now I will get back off my soapbox.
WEDNESDAY 24 March
I had trouble being a good invigilator today. I used to think that the overseer of an examination was a proctor, but I guess British-based education systems invigilate their exams instead of proctoring them. There are no classes this week, as all students are taking 2-3 hour mid-term exams in every subject, invigilated by the teachers.
I began handing out the four-page exam to 55 students, only to find that I had only 39 copies of pages 1-2. I sent a student to the other room where the same test was being given. He came back with only 7 more copies of pages 1-2, and said that the other room was short of pages 3-4. So I sent another student for chalk and then began copying the pages on the blackboard. Meanwhile, my students – invigilants? invigilees? - were complaining because their poor mimeographed copies had left many blank and unreadable areas. One third of the exam was based on a long unreadable quotation. So all that stuff had to be copied onto the board, and there wasn’t enough space. Then there were the typos and mistakes:
“Attempt ALL questions in sections A and B, and ONE question in sections A and B.” But there were only sections A, B and C. So what to do... ??
The students took it all amazingly in stride. For them, this fiasco was pretty much business as usual. Tough on the invigilator though. The poor kids!
Oh, by the way – not an ant in sight today, safari or other.
I had trouble being a good invigilator today. I used to think that the overseer of an examination was a proctor, but I guess British-based education systems invigilate their exams instead of proctoring them. There are no classes this week, as all students are taking 2-3 hour mid-term exams in every subject, invigilated by the teachers.
I began handing out the four-page exam to 55 students, only to find that I had only 39 copies of pages 1-2. I sent a student to the other room where the same test was being given. He came back with only 7 more copies of pages 1-2, and said that the other room was short of pages 3-4. So I sent another student for chalk and then began copying the pages on the blackboard. Meanwhile, my students – invigilants? invigilees? - were complaining because their poor mimeographed copies had left many blank and unreadable areas. One third of the exam was based on a long unreadable quotation. So all that stuff had to be copied onto the board, and there wasn’t enough space. Then there were the typos and mistakes:
“Attempt ALL questions in sections A and B, and ONE question in sections A and B.” But there were only sections A, B and C. So what to do... ??
The students took it all amazingly in stride. For them, this fiasco was pretty much business as usual. Tough on the invigilator though. The poor kids!
Oh, by the way – not an ant in sight today, safari or other.
MONDAY NIGHT 22 March
Africa seems to glory in small cataclysmic events. After a long period of stability, there is a dramatic and sudden event, usually brief. Like a sudden storm with lashing rain and downed trees after several dry weeks of intense sunshine. Then life returns to normal and the event seems like it may have been a dream.
Or like an infestation of lake flies. Lake flies are about the size of mosquitoes, but do not bite. About all they seem to do is congregate in dense unpredictable clouds and die in droves. If you walk into a cloud of them, it is like being attacked by gnats – they get in your nose, your eyes, just an extreme nuisance. I woke up one night to the sound of a gentle buzz. On exploration, it was millions of these things that had enveloped my house. The relatively few that penetrated the window screens still were enough to cover the floor in the corners of the room, and provide a layer of dead shells under the fluorescent tube. But the next morning, outside of the house there were drifts of them. They hadn’t been seen around my house before, and haven’t been seen again. In Musoma last weekend, the Afrolux Hotel was infested with them Saturday night, but at Nick’s site a few miles away where I slept on the couch – nothing.
I am told that there are at least six words for ants in Kiswahili, for much the same reason that the Eskimos have many words to describe snow. It is part of the territory. Here there are names for big ants, small ants, white ants for eating, biting ants. But the most exotic are the safari ants. You come across them in thick, flowing ropes crossing a path or the clean swept border of a house where children play and families cook and entertain. Their parade is so dense that it wears a trough in the ground, and you can hear them, marching. Why they come out of the ground, or where they are going is a mystery, but they are of two types – normal looking ants and guard ants with huge heads and big pincers. The guard ants frequently form loose arches with their interlocking bodies as the others pass beneath them. If one happens to tread on the parade or is in the path they have chosen, their bite is not easily forgotten. Men have been seen ripping off their pants as they run from such an encounter with them. These ants will kill poultry or even cattle if they are tied in an area that safari ants have decided to make their highway.
Tonight I headed for my bathroom across the small courtyard behind the house without turning on the light, as usual. My bedtime routine. After about three steps, my sandals began to tingle, then burn. I pranced back into the house and wiped ants off of my feet, then surrendered my pants to their invasion as well. I turned on the light to find my courtyard teeming with safari ants. I killed the ones that rode into the house with me, and spread a barrier of insect repellant around the door before I bolted it. The repellant claims success against “mosquitoes, ticks, biting flies, gnats, chiggers and fleas.” I hope that list is meant to include ants, too.
About an hour ago (it is 12:30am now) there was a commotion outside, as in “Ummm, the Natives are Restless tonight.” I decided to get dressed and check it out, but at the front door found that another stream of safari ants had taken over my veranda, with a stream even parading under the door through my living room over the carpet. Surrounded by biting ants! It feels like being in a B-grade horror movie with angry frogs or something at every door and window trying to get in to avenge some past wrong. I have painted another repellant barrier at my bedroom door and hope they will respect that and leave before morning. But I don’t feel much like going to sleep right now.
I’ve heard that they like to eat cockroaches and so seek out and attack roach nests. But I don’t have roaches. I would just like them to leave.
*** *** ***
Morning. Bright, cool and breezy. No ants at my front door. No ants in my courtyard. No ants in my pants. Just another beautiful day. But in my morning patrol of the garden there was a long thick file of safari ants that came from some tall grass, around a corner of the house and on past my (single) basil plant, by the cantaloupes, through the corn and then to the grass on the other side of the garden. In all, a distance of maybe 150 feet. Glad they are going and not coming.
Africa seems to glory in small cataclysmic events. After a long period of stability, there is a dramatic and sudden event, usually brief. Like a sudden storm with lashing rain and downed trees after several dry weeks of intense sunshine. Then life returns to normal and the event seems like it may have been a dream.
Or like an infestation of lake flies. Lake flies are about the size of mosquitoes, but do not bite. About all they seem to do is congregate in dense unpredictable clouds and die in droves. If you walk into a cloud of them, it is like being attacked by gnats – they get in your nose, your eyes, just an extreme nuisance. I woke up one night to the sound of a gentle buzz. On exploration, it was millions of these things that had enveloped my house. The relatively few that penetrated the window screens still were enough to cover the floor in the corners of the room, and provide a layer of dead shells under the fluorescent tube. But the next morning, outside of the house there were drifts of them. They hadn’t been seen around my house before, and haven’t been seen again. In Musoma last weekend, the Afrolux Hotel was infested with them Saturday night, but at Nick’s site a few miles away where I slept on the couch – nothing.
I am told that there are at least six words for ants in Kiswahili, for much the same reason that the Eskimos have many words to describe snow. It is part of the territory. Here there are names for big ants, small ants, white ants for eating, biting ants. But the most exotic are the safari ants. You come across them in thick, flowing ropes crossing a path or the clean swept border of a house where children play and families cook and entertain. Their parade is so dense that it wears a trough in the ground, and you can hear them, marching. Why they come out of the ground, or where they are going is a mystery, but they are of two types – normal looking ants and guard ants with huge heads and big pincers. The guard ants frequently form loose arches with their interlocking bodies as the others pass beneath them. If one happens to tread on the parade or is in the path they have chosen, their bite is not easily forgotten. Men have been seen ripping off their pants as they run from such an encounter with them. These ants will kill poultry or even cattle if they are tied in an area that safari ants have decided to make their highway.
Tonight I headed for my bathroom across the small courtyard behind the house without turning on the light, as usual. My bedtime routine. After about three steps, my sandals began to tingle, then burn. I pranced back into the house and wiped ants off of my feet, then surrendered my pants to their invasion as well. I turned on the light to find my courtyard teeming with safari ants. I killed the ones that rode into the house with me, and spread a barrier of insect repellant around the door before I bolted it. The repellant claims success against “mosquitoes, ticks, biting flies, gnats, chiggers and fleas.” I hope that list is meant to include ants, too.
About an hour ago (it is 12:30am now) there was a commotion outside, as in “Ummm, the Natives are Restless tonight.” I decided to get dressed and check it out, but at the front door found that another stream of safari ants had taken over my veranda, with a stream even parading under the door through my living room over the carpet. Surrounded by biting ants! It feels like being in a B-grade horror movie with angry frogs or something at every door and window trying to get in to avenge some past wrong. I have painted another repellant barrier at my bedroom door and hope they will respect that and leave before morning. But I don’t feel much like going to sleep right now.
I’ve heard that they like to eat cockroaches and so seek out and attack roach nests. But I don’t have roaches. I would just like them to leave.
*** *** ***
Morning. Bright, cool and breezy. No ants at my front door. No ants in my courtyard. No ants in my pants. Just another beautiful day. But in my morning patrol of the garden there was a long thick file of safari ants that came from some tall grass, around a corner of the house and on past my (single) basil plant, by the cantaloupes, through the corn and then to the grass on the other side of the garden. In all, a distance of maybe 150 feet. Glad they are going and not coming.
Thursday, March 18, 2004
WEDNESDAY March 17
My Mid-term exam has been composed, handed to the school secretary and proofread. The day after tomorrow (Friday) and all next week will be devoted to the examinations – all chemistry students will take their tests on Tuesday morning. So the second half of this week I have been reviewing material, and giving a short session on How to Take a Test. Like; If there is a true-false question and you absolutely don’t know the answer – GUESS, because you have a 50% chance of being right and if you DON’T guess you have a 100% chance of being wrong. And; Read over the test before you start and do the easy questions first. Basic stuff.
But I fear I have tremendously overshot what my classes are capable of. We have covered a lot of material – redox, electrolysis and half-cell reactions. Some really meaty stuff. My exam reflects that. And now, I put the formula of ferric chloride on the board (FeCl3 – that 3 should be a subscript but I can’t do that here) and ask how many atoms are in one molecule of ferric chloride – and NOBODY can tell me. When I force them to answer, the numbers are all over the place. 1? 7? 12?
So I yet another time go over what information we get from a formula and from a chemical equation, and build from there to the concept of number ratios and on to the dreaded concept of the MOLE and Avagadro’s number. And they seem to understand. But then I thought they understood before, too. They even took several quizzes on this material after we went over it! But now . . .
*** *** ***
I went back up to the Retreat to watch the 6:58pm sunset tonight. Part of the sky was overcast and there was this tremendous rainstorm off in the distance that obliterated a good segment of the horizon. Quite a sight to watch. It was moving to the right, toward the lake, but it was hard to tell if it was also getting closer. Then I saw this huge half-arc of a rainbow forming behind me so I knew that the rain had to be pretty widespread. Just as the sun set in its blaze of gold and red this strong wind kicked up, the kind of wind that is usually followed by rain in about 10 minutes. So I headed home, and got to my front door just as the drops began to fall.
I’m looking forward to getting away from here this weekend. There is a St. Patrick’s Day BBQ for all of us PCVs in the region at Sarah and Nick’s site in Musoma on Saturday. Musoma is about a 3-4 hr bus ride north of here, still on the lake. Since I don’t have classes on Friday, I plan to go part-way to Musoma and visit Kathleen in Bunda on the way. She is a great cook, and when she was here last I shared a recipe for Biriani with her that I downloaded from the internet. It looks kind-of complicated but delicious, so we are going to try to make it for some other visiting PCVs on Friday evening. I will take along a couple of heads of lettuce, radishes, scallions and carrots from my garden for a salad. They will be green with envy.
We have a one-week break after the mid-term exams. I know I don’t want to stay cloistered here for that week, but have no idea what to do with it. Well, not totally true - I would like to get over to Bukoba on the other side of the lake. Jessica and Jana are over there, and Ryan’s friends Erica and Robert who I met about a month ago. It sounds like a great place to ride a bicycle, and just maybe by then I will have this TREK mountain bike that the PC has promised to me. But in any case, I am sure there will be lots of neat ideas at the BBQ on how to spend a week away from our site(s).
Myrna called this evening from Guatemala, and I kept trying to talk in my pidgin Kiswahili instead of Spanish. The bad connection didn’t help. Frustrating.
My Mid-term exam has been composed, handed to the school secretary and proofread. The day after tomorrow (Friday) and all next week will be devoted to the examinations – all chemistry students will take their tests on Tuesday morning. So the second half of this week I have been reviewing material, and giving a short session on How to Take a Test. Like; If there is a true-false question and you absolutely don’t know the answer – GUESS, because you have a 50% chance of being right and if you DON’T guess you have a 100% chance of being wrong. And; Read over the test before you start and do the easy questions first. Basic stuff.
But I fear I have tremendously overshot what my classes are capable of. We have covered a lot of material – redox, electrolysis and half-cell reactions. Some really meaty stuff. My exam reflects that. And now, I put the formula of ferric chloride on the board (FeCl3 – that 3 should be a subscript but I can’t do that here) and ask how many atoms are in one molecule of ferric chloride – and NOBODY can tell me. When I force them to answer, the numbers are all over the place. 1? 7? 12?
So I yet another time go over what information we get from a formula and from a chemical equation, and build from there to the concept of number ratios and on to the dreaded concept of the MOLE and Avagadro’s number. And they seem to understand. But then I thought they understood before, too. They even took several quizzes on this material after we went over it! But now . . .
*** *** ***
I went back up to the Retreat to watch the 6:58pm sunset tonight. Part of the sky was overcast and there was this tremendous rainstorm off in the distance that obliterated a good segment of the horizon. Quite a sight to watch. It was moving to the right, toward the lake, but it was hard to tell if it was also getting closer. Then I saw this huge half-arc of a rainbow forming behind me so I knew that the rain had to be pretty widespread. Just as the sun set in its blaze of gold and red this strong wind kicked up, the kind of wind that is usually followed by rain in about 10 minutes. So I headed home, and got to my front door just as the drops began to fall.
I’m looking forward to getting away from here this weekend. There is a St. Patrick’s Day BBQ for all of us PCVs in the region at Sarah and Nick’s site in Musoma on Saturday. Musoma is about a 3-4 hr bus ride north of here, still on the lake. Since I don’t have classes on Friday, I plan to go part-way to Musoma and visit Kathleen in Bunda on the way. She is a great cook, and when she was here last I shared a recipe for Biriani with her that I downloaded from the internet. It looks kind-of complicated but delicious, so we are going to try to make it for some other visiting PCVs on Friday evening. I will take along a couple of heads of lettuce, radishes, scallions and carrots from my garden for a salad. They will be green with envy.
We have a one-week break after the mid-term exams. I know I don’t want to stay cloistered here for that week, but have no idea what to do with it. Well, not totally true - I would like to get over to Bukoba on the other side of the lake. Jessica and Jana are over there, and Ryan’s friends Erica and Robert who I met about a month ago. It sounds like a great place to ride a bicycle, and just maybe by then I will have this TREK mountain bike that the PC has promised to me. But in any case, I am sure there will be lots of neat ideas at the BBQ on how to spend a week away from our site(s).
Myrna called this evening from Guatemala, and I kept trying to talk in my pidgin Kiswahili instead of Spanish. The bad connection didn’t help. Frustrating.
Sunday, March 14, 2004
I guess I didn’t realize how starved for western culture I am. That New Yorker that I received yesterday? By the time I crawled out of my comfortable mosquito net cocoon this morning – late, it is Sunday after all – I had ravaged the entire magazine. Even read Wm F. Buckley’s pean to Westbrook Pegler. Pegler must have been the rightist forerunner of Hunter S. Thompson.
Pegler. Buckley. Thompson. Matt Forney. Not my field; I certainly can’t speak with any authority on who are our great wordsmiths, but brilliant writing is an absolute joy. In that regard, I’ve tremendously enjoyed the BBC’s weekly Letter From America by Alistair Cooke. He has now ended his incisive Letters, being somewhere in his 90s. Guess even he must come to terms with his mortality but I (we) will miss his commentary, so full of analogy, history and thoughtful context and expressed with impeccable logic and clarity.
*** *** ***
I finished writing up my Mid-Term Exam yesterday. It doesn’t seem like I have been teaching long enough to be thinking about a mid-term exam, but here it is. The test I composed is too long, probably by about 25%, but it is a good coverage of the material I presented. I hate to drop questions from it. I think I will leave it as it is, knowing that most students will not finish the exam. Let that be part of the evaluation.
The students may hate my exam. Their past major exams have been largely multiple choice or fill-in-the-blank, and I will be asking a bit more of them than that.
This coming week’s classes should be largely devoted to review, leading to the week of testing, March 22-26. I want to make part of that review a discussion on how to take examinations. I am amazed at how many of my students do not answer Yes-No questions, just leave them blank. Why? Just guess, and they have a 50% chance of getting the right answer! They also bog down in hopelessly long calculations that lead nowhere, then don’t get to simple one-word-answer questions.
Pegler. Buckley. Thompson. Matt Forney. Not my field; I certainly can’t speak with any authority on who are our great wordsmiths, but brilliant writing is an absolute joy. In that regard, I’ve tremendously enjoyed the BBC’s weekly Letter From America by Alistair Cooke. He has now ended his incisive Letters, being somewhere in his 90s. Guess even he must come to terms with his mortality but I (we) will miss his commentary, so full of analogy, history and thoughtful context and expressed with impeccable logic and clarity.
*** *** ***
I finished writing up my Mid-Term Exam yesterday. It doesn’t seem like I have been teaching long enough to be thinking about a mid-term exam, but here it is. The test I composed is too long, probably by about 25%, but it is a good coverage of the material I presented. I hate to drop questions from it. I think I will leave it as it is, knowing that most students will not finish the exam. Let that be part of the evaluation.
The students may hate my exam. Their past major exams have been largely multiple choice or fill-in-the-blank, and I will be asking a bit more of them than that.
This coming week’s classes should be largely devoted to review, leading to the week of testing, March 22-26. I want to make part of that review a discussion on how to take examinations. I am amazed at how many of my students do not answer Yes-No questions, just leave them blank. Why? Just guess, and they have a 50% chance of getting the right answer! They also bog down in hopelessly long calculations that lead nowhere, then don’t get to simple one-word-answer questions.
Saturday, March 13, 2004
SATURDAY, 13 March
I feel a lot better this morning. Kim slept across in the spare bedroom last night, and we spent the evening hours drinking beer and griping about our classes, bicycles, Tanzanian students, Tanzanian teachers, and Peace Corps policies. Now and then it really helps just to let off steam and know that other PCVs have similar problems and complaints. And successes too – hey, I don’t know anybody here who isn’t challenged by what they are doing, and basically loving it. Especially when we think about the suburbs and office cubicles and commuter traffic back home.
Except for Joe, who is a computer specialist who was placed at a school that has no computers. But even he is arranging to use his site as a base for travel to other sites that DO have computers and need somebody to set them up with some instruction on how to use them.
Kim’s visit was unplanned, like much of what happens here. She had intended to stay the night with Becky downtown, but found out while she was on the way to Mwanza via text message that Becky was out of town and has put a new lock on her gate. What did people do before text messaging? So Lee’s Hotel was a good second destination.
This morning I had two unexpected visitors. A small boy delivered a message that my fellow teacher, Bwana Maitarya, would not be able to show me the way to Bujora Museum in Kisesa today after all. Seems he is going to the hospital instead to give blood for a sick relative. (Any message like this immediately brings AIDS to mind.) I replied via the small boy that I would be glad to accompany him and give blood also. The small boy’s second trip informed me that there is enough blood thank you anyway. So I get brownie points for the offer, and still have the day to myself.
Which is great, because my second visitor of the morning was Erasto, delivering mail –the arrival of the first copy of my subscription to New Yorker magazine. I’d finally bitten the bullet and subscribed. I get the news headlines from the BBC, but feel starved for the kind of cultural and political detail the NY provides. I rarely bought the NY in the USA because there was never enough time to read it, but here in Nsumba I will have enough time to read even their fiction selection. It is the March 1 issue. Not exactly hot off the newsstand, but not bad. Now, to read it do I go to the top of the hill with the incredible view or to Kandehar, the banda with the incredible rocks right beside Lake Victoria where the kingfishers and herons and hawks play? Choices, choices.
FRIDAY, 12 March --- O HAPPY DAY!
I rode my bike to Mwanza today for a bunch of small errands, but primarily to place an international phone call to Myrna in Guatemala. The internet access at St. Augustine U. has been so sketchy, a problem compounded my own a bulky floppy disk, that we have had considerably less contact than normal. Neither of us like that. Especially Myrna. The phone connection wasn’t that great, but it was good enough to hear her, and for us to talk a bit about her visit to Africa – somewhat sketchily, with details subject to confirmation by email.
It wasn’t an easy trip. The chain on my Super-Duper Shiny Black Chinese Phoenix Bicycle with 21 Gears (count-em 21) broke on the way there, fortunately at a point where it was mostly downhill the rest of the way to my favorite bicycle fundi who could put it back together again. But the damn chain broke again on the way home, and I had to walk the damn Super-Duper Shiny Black Chinese Phoenix Bicycle with 21 Gears (count-em 21) halfway home from Mkiyuni.
BUT – while I was trudging along the road with the damned S-DSBCPBw21G (cm 21) my cellphone bleeped and it was Niblet from the Peace Corps office in Dar es Salaam. He said that he has a RECONDITIONED TREK MOUNTAIN BIKE for me (!!!!) and he was apologizing because it wouldn’t be delivered next week and I will have to wait until the end of the month to receive it. What timing for his call! Now I can look forward to a real bicycle, one that I can ride beyond walking range, one that will let me predict when I will arrive somewhere. What bliss! O HAPPY DAY.
I feel a lot better this morning. Kim slept across in the spare bedroom last night, and we spent the evening hours drinking beer and griping about our classes, bicycles, Tanzanian students, Tanzanian teachers, and Peace Corps policies. Now and then it really helps just to let off steam and know that other PCVs have similar problems and complaints. And successes too – hey, I don’t know anybody here who isn’t challenged by what they are doing, and basically loving it. Especially when we think about the suburbs and office cubicles and commuter traffic back home.
Except for Joe, who is a computer specialist who was placed at a school that has no computers. But even he is arranging to use his site as a base for travel to other sites that DO have computers and need somebody to set them up with some instruction on how to use them.
Kim’s visit was unplanned, like much of what happens here. She had intended to stay the night with Becky downtown, but found out while she was on the way to Mwanza via text message that Becky was out of town and has put a new lock on her gate. What did people do before text messaging? So Lee’s Hotel was a good second destination.
This morning I had two unexpected visitors. A small boy delivered a message that my fellow teacher, Bwana Maitarya, would not be able to show me the way to Bujora Museum in Kisesa today after all. Seems he is going to the hospital instead to give blood for a sick relative. (Any message like this immediately brings AIDS to mind.) I replied via the small boy that I would be glad to accompany him and give blood also. The small boy’s second trip informed me that there is enough blood thank you anyway. So I get brownie points for the offer, and still have the day to myself.
Which is great, because my second visitor of the morning was Erasto, delivering mail –the arrival of the first copy of my subscription to New Yorker magazine. I’d finally bitten the bullet and subscribed. I get the news headlines from the BBC, but feel starved for the kind of cultural and political detail the NY provides. I rarely bought the NY in the USA because there was never enough time to read it, but here in Nsumba I will have enough time to read even their fiction selection. It is the March 1 issue. Not exactly hot off the newsstand, but not bad. Now, to read it do I go to the top of the hill with the incredible view or to Kandehar, the banda with the incredible rocks right beside Lake Victoria where the kingfishers and herons and hawks play? Choices, choices.
FRIDAY, 12 March --- O HAPPY DAY!
I rode my bike to Mwanza today for a bunch of small errands, but primarily to place an international phone call to Myrna in Guatemala. The internet access at St. Augustine U. has been so sketchy, a problem compounded my own a bulky floppy disk, that we have had considerably less contact than normal. Neither of us like that. Especially Myrna. The phone connection wasn’t that great, but it was good enough to hear her, and for us to talk a bit about her visit to Africa – somewhat sketchily, with details subject to confirmation by email.
It wasn’t an easy trip. The chain on my Super-Duper Shiny Black Chinese Phoenix Bicycle with 21 Gears (count-em 21) broke on the way there, fortunately at a point where it was mostly downhill the rest of the way to my favorite bicycle fundi who could put it back together again. But the damn chain broke again on the way home, and I had to walk the damn Super-Duper Shiny Black Chinese Phoenix Bicycle with 21 Gears (count-em 21) halfway home from Mkiyuni.
BUT – while I was trudging along the road with the damned S-DSBCPBw21G (cm 21) my cellphone bleeped and it was Niblet from the Peace Corps office in Dar es Salaam. He said that he has a RECONDITIONED TREK MOUNTAIN BIKE for me (!!!!) and he was apologizing because it wouldn’t be delivered next week and I will have to wait until the end of the month to receive it. What timing for his call! Now I can look forward to a real bicycle, one that I can ride beyond walking range, one that will let me predict when I will arrive somewhere. What bliss! O HAPPY DAY.
Friday, March 12, 2004
Today is March 8. The day my daughter was born. 1968
Today is March 8. The day we received the diagnosis that my wife Nancy had end-stage cancer. 1995.
There is always a yin-yang of emotion around this date. I want to lie awake here, listening to the insect noises of the night secure in my cocoon of mosquito net and revel in thinking of my daughter, imagining her delight and pleasure right now on her Hawaiian cruise with her fiancé. Or I want to lie here and remember how Nancy and I felt on that day in 1995 and reflect on that exceptional woman and our tempestuous relationship together. But this mix of pleasure and regret . . .
Nancy would not have wanted anything to do with the Peace Corps, and certainly not with Africa. Every now and then I think about what Nancy’s point of view would be on my current state of life or some decision or other that I have made. She was a determined fighter, and loved adventure – our move to Puerto Rico was an enthusiastic joint decision. But although she supported it, she had no interest in being part of my Thailand trek with Matthew, and claimed that her idea of “roughing it” was to stay in a Holiday Inn without a jacuzzi. She referred to that Thai trip as Matthew and my Male Bonding Thing. Wonderful.
This is a night to remember again how she conducted all her life and her struggles with such style and panache. How she bought beautiful sexy nightgowns to wear in the hospital, refusing to have anything to do with those horrid utilitarian hospital drapes. Whether it was the hospital or a restaurant table, she dominated her environment, to the pleasure of those around her. In the words of the title of the Jewish Prayer for the Dead, We Remember Her.
And now I am here in Africa, happily trying to learn how to teach chemistry to recalcitrant students within sight of Lake Victoria, and hoping to bring Myrna here from Guatemala so we can begin our life together, guests in this beautiful and pathetic country. Life goes on.
Right now the insect noises are being drowned out by the cadence and singing of the students on their morning jog. It will be light soon, and the new African day will begin. There will be an academic meeting today, periods 3 and 4, and I think one of the agenda items is my request that students not be taken from their classes for routine school duties. Yes, life goes on.
Today is March 8. The day we received the diagnosis that my wife Nancy had end-stage cancer. 1995.
There is always a yin-yang of emotion around this date. I want to lie awake here, listening to the insect noises of the night secure in my cocoon of mosquito net and revel in thinking of my daughter, imagining her delight and pleasure right now on her Hawaiian cruise with her fiancé. Or I want to lie here and remember how Nancy and I felt on that day in 1995 and reflect on that exceptional woman and our tempestuous relationship together. But this mix of pleasure and regret . . .
Nancy would not have wanted anything to do with the Peace Corps, and certainly not with Africa. Every now and then I think about what Nancy’s point of view would be on my current state of life or some decision or other that I have made. She was a determined fighter, and loved adventure – our move to Puerto Rico was an enthusiastic joint decision. But although she supported it, she had no interest in being part of my Thailand trek with Matthew, and claimed that her idea of “roughing it” was to stay in a Holiday Inn without a jacuzzi. She referred to that Thai trip as Matthew and my Male Bonding Thing. Wonderful.
This is a night to remember again how she conducted all her life and her struggles with such style and panache. How she bought beautiful sexy nightgowns to wear in the hospital, refusing to have anything to do with those horrid utilitarian hospital drapes. Whether it was the hospital or a restaurant table, she dominated her environment, to the pleasure of those around her. In the words of the title of the Jewish Prayer for the Dead, We Remember Her.
And now I am here in Africa, happily trying to learn how to teach chemistry to recalcitrant students within sight of Lake Victoria, and hoping to bring Myrna here from Guatemala so we can begin our life together, guests in this beautiful and pathetic country. Life goes on.
Right now the insect noises are being drowned out by the cadence and singing of the students on their morning jog. It will be light soon, and the new African day will begin. There will be an academic meeting today, periods 3 and 4, and I think one of the agenda items is my request that students not be taken from their classes for routine school duties. Yes, life goes on.
Sunday, March 07, 2004
I think I wrote this about a week ago, but the internet has been down.
I’m feeling a lot more comfortable about my teaching, by now. There is a small group in each class that will occasionally respond in class, and I’ve given enough quizzes to know that at least a few students understand at least a part of what I am covering. But cheating is endemic. I tore up two papers just this morning – one guy was blatantly examining what was on the paper of the guy beside him. The other was looking back in his book to see what notes he had taken in class while taking the test. By now I know that I must insist that EVERYTHING be off the desk except the book they are taking the test in, and that must be open to a clean page. Of course, I separate the seats as much as possible. Even so, there is a strange similarity in the mistaken wording in many of the papers. Just Tanzanian grammer problems, or joint study, or cheating? I’ve learned that I must personally collect all the papers to prevent the students who really fluffed the test from simply not handing in a paper. But in the future, I will have to insist that only one sheet of paper be on the desk and that it be blank on both sides, no matter that the desktop is so pitted that the paper will end up with holes and stuff in it.
On my last quiz, Class A got a normal distribution of scores – a bell shaped curve centering on a score of about 35 and a high score of 90. Class B got a similar result --- median score about 40 --- except that there were six, count ‘em, SIX scores of 100. A trifle strange perhaps? I think I forgot to erase the test questions from the board after Class A, and surmise that some Class B students found them before their period with me. Live and learn!
In the Teacher’s Staff Room later in the morning I got into the familiar discussion of the school culture. Of course they were amazed that in the US a teacher would be severely repremanded and probably charged with a crime for hitting a student. Tz definitely does not spare the rod and spoil the child! They quote the bible to me to justify the need to use the dancing fimbo on students on a regular basis. They cannot comprehend that it is possible to maintain order without corporal punishment. They ask about the school shootings that they hear about in the US.
I had a discussion with some students yesterday. They were concerned because the reputation of the school is falling. They say we seem to have lower performance every year in the National Examinations. They are right. The Headmaster also talks especially about the lower grades having poor performance, insisting that students must study harder or they will be Severely Punished. Privately, he also blames the poor performance on the mixture of day and boarding students, and he may be right on that score. But I also bring up the issue of all the students who are routinely and sometimes randomly pulled from classes for meetings with the dancing fimbo, required housekeeping duties, or to tend the crops on the school farm. Especially when the students have so few textbooks, how can they learn if they are not in class? A few teachers agreed, but most feel that that is the way it has always been done and nothing can be done about it.
I’m feeling a lot more comfortable about my teaching, by now. There is a small group in each class that will occasionally respond in class, and I’ve given enough quizzes to know that at least a few students understand at least a part of what I am covering. But cheating is endemic. I tore up two papers just this morning – one guy was blatantly examining what was on the paper of the guy beside him. The other was looking back in his book to see what notes he had taken in class while taking the test. By now I know that I must insist that EVERYTHING be off the desk except the book they are taking the test in, and that must be open to a clean page. Of course, I separate the seats as much as possible. Even so, there is a strange similarity in the mistaken wording in many of the papers. Just Tanzanian grammer problems, or joint study, or cheating? I’ve learned that I must personally collect all the papers to prevent the students who really fluffed the test from simply not handing in a paper. But in the future, I will have to insist that only one sheet of paper be on the desk and that it be blank on both sides, no matter that the desktop is so pitted that the paper will end up with holes and stuff in it.
On my last quiz, Class A got a normal distribution of scores – a bell shaped curve centering on a score of about 35 and a high score of 90. Class B got a similar result --- median score about 40 --- except that there were six, count ‘em, SIX scores of 100. A trifle strange perhaps? I think I forgot to erase the test questions from the board after Class A, and surmise that some Class B students found them before their period with me. Live and learn!
In the Teacher’s Staff Room later in the morning I got into the familiar discussion of the school culture. Of course they were amazed that in the US a teacher would be severely repremanded and probably charged with a crime for hitting a student. Tz definitely does not spare the rod and spoil the child! They quote the bible to me to justify the need to use the dancing fimbo on students on a regular basis. They cannot comprehend that it is possible to maintain order without corporal punishment. They ask about the school shootings that they hear about in the US.
I had a discussion with some students yesterday. They were concerned because the reputation of the school is falling. They say we seem to have lower performance every year in the National Examinations. They are right. The Headmaster also talks especially about the lower grades having poor performance, insisting that students must study harder or they will be Severely Punished. Privately, he also blames the poor performance on the mixture of day and boarding students, and he may be right on that score. But I also bring up the issue of all the students who are routinely and sometimes randomly pulled from classes for meetings with the dancing fimbo, required housekeeping duties, or to tend the crops on the school farm. Especially when the students have so few textbooks, how can they learn if they are not in class? A few teachers agreed, but most feel that that is the way it has always been done and nothing can be done about it.
