Monday, December 20, 2004
Sunday eve, December 19
I’ve been feeling antsy, at loose ends since my return from London. A lack of purpose and kind of a deep burning regret and anger that Myrna is not here with me. I look at Kiswahili lessons and give up. I get tired of reading the New Yorkers that came while I was gone. I poke around at the syllabus I must teach this year, and I don’t like it. Dull, dull, dull:
1. Extraction and Properties of Metals
2. Compounds of Metals
3. Nonmetals and their Compounds
4. Organic Chemistry
5. Soil Chemistry
6. Pollution
The syllabus wants lots of detail on the first three topics, and the last three are kind of thrown in for good measure. The last three will be fun, relevant to their lives. But the first three, the ones that will be stressed on their National Examination? – ughh! On top of that, while the textbooks Shari gave us are fantastic on the last three topics, they don’t touch the first three AT ALL. Back to writing on the blackboard so my classes can copy and memorize without understanding?
With all that going on in my head, I just didn’t want to sit around this weekend watching the grass grow. So: Sengerema is a town a ferry ride and about 40-50km away, and I’d never been there. A newby PCV was sent there early this month. I just missed meeting him/her by one day as I left for London. I thought it would be fun to try to find and meet him/her and introduce myself - and Sengerema is just about the right distance for a good, exhausting bike ride.
The ride was good. Two hours to the ferry, half an hour on the ferry and then another hour and three quarters to Sengerema. There were a couple of long, grinding hills but the scenery was great, the bike was in good form, and whenever there is a long hill there has to be a compensating coast somewhere else.
I had about given up on exploring more African towns – they all look about alike, with dusty dirty unpaved streets without sidewalks, crude shops, kiosks and shacks shoulder to shoulder, with a crowded market somewhere. But Sengerema was a pleasant surprise. Very wide streets – it looks like a Wild West movie set without the horses. Very few cars. Everyone seems to walk everywhere. Some wide spaces around the market, and the market even has a degree of organization – women’s clothes here, tailors there, kangas and cloth yonder.
I bought a long sleeve shirt there. (Asking price, $12. Final price, $2.) For the first time, the sun had gotten to me and I had a slight burn on my arms after the bike ride. Not really bad, but my face and arms feel prickly and warm. Thought I needed protection on the way back. This sun thing is strange. I spend a good bit of time outside around mid-day and it never bothered me before, even though my prophylactic malaria medication (doxycyclane) is supposed to make me very sensitive to the sun. And on this ride it was mostly overcast, I even had to put up with about an hour of drizzle. But now I am also taking an antifungal medication and maybe they interact somehow to increase my sensitivity.
I went to a guest house and asked if they knew of a new Muzungu in town, or the location of the AMREF organization that she/he was assigned to. First problem: They don’t speak English in Sengerema. But the sense of my question finally got through. The answer was no, but Margaret took me in tow and we went to several other guestis. No luck. Then I remembered that AMREF works out of the hospital so we walked there (half an hour), and one of the Sisters who had just been in a meeting with her the day before directed us to her house in the staff compound.
The guard at the entrance to the compound let me struggle at length in Kiswahili to explain myself before answering me in beautiful English. He had studied at Nsumba, and was suddenly very friendly when he learned that I am teaching there. He told us that the PVC, she, had left for the USA suddenly, just a few hours ago and that someone was coming to pick up here things. He thought that might have been me.
He did not know why she left. That it was sudden might suggest a family crisis of some sort. But that someone would need to pick up her stuff suggests that she isn’t coming back. This year, for budgetary reasons, new PCVs did not have a chance to visit their sites before going there to stay. I can imagine that that increases the level of arrival shock and anxiety, especially if the accommodations aren’t fully arranged before the PCV arrives – and they usually aren’t. Maybe she just felt isolated and got scared off.
Otherwise, it was a nice, uneventful trip. Stayed in a hotel overnight, did Christmas Card sketches at a café while I ate breakfast. Came home, showered, had a drink, made a stir fry, sat on my porch and enjoyed feeling tired.
I’ve been feeling antsy, at loose ends since my return from London. A lack of purpose and kind of a deep burning regret and anger that Myrna is not here with me. I look at Kiswahili lessons and give up. I get tired of reading the New Yorkers that came while I was gone. I poke around at the syllabus I must teach this year, and I don’t like it. Dull, dull, dull:
1. Extraction and Properties of Metals
2. Compounds of Metals
3. Nonmetals and their Compounds
4. Organic Chemistry
5. Soil Chemistry
6. Pollution
The syllabus wants lots of detail on the first three topics, and the last three are kind of thrown in for good measure. The last three will be fun, relevant to their lives. But the first three, the ones that will be stressed on their National Examination? – ughh! On top of that, while the textbooks Shari gave us are fantastic on the last three topics, they don’t touch the first three AT ALL. Back to writing on the blackboard so my classes can copy and memorize without understanding?
With all that going on in my head, I just didn’t want to sit around this weekend watching the grass grow. So: Sengerema is a town a ferry ride and about 40-50km away, and I’d never been there. A newby PCV was sent there early this month. I just missed meeting him/her by one day as I left for London. I thought it would be fun to try to find and meet him/her and introduce myself - and Sengerema is just about the right distance for a good, exhausting bike ride.
The ride was good. Two hours to the ferry, half an hour on the ferry and then another hour and three quarters to Sengerema. There were a couple of long, grinding hills but the scenery was great, the bike was in good form, and whenever there is a long hill there has to be a compensating coast somewhere else.
I had about given up on exploring more African towns – they all look about alike, with dusty dirty unpaved streets without sidewalks, crude shops, kiosks and shacks shoulder to shoulder, with a crowded market somewhere. But Sengerema was a pleasant surprise. Very wide streets – it looks like a Wild West movie set without the horses. Very few cars. Everyone seems to walk everywhere. Some wide spaces around the market, and the market even has a degree of organization – women’s clothes here, tailors there, kangas and cloth yonder.
I bought a long sleeve shirt there. (Asking price, $12. Final price, $2.) For the first time, the sun had gotten to me and I had a slight burn on my arms after the bike ride. Not really bad, but my face and arms feel prickly and warm. Thought I needed protection on the way back. This sun thing is strange. I spend a good bit of time outside around mid-day and it never bothered me before, even though my prophylactic malaria medication (doxycyclane) is supposed to make me very sensitive to the sun. And on this ride it was mostly overcast, I even had to put up with about an hour of drizzle. But now I am also taking an antifungal medication and maybe they interact somehow to increase my sensitivity.
I went to a guest house and asked if they knew of a new Muzungu in town, or the location of the AMREF organization that she/he was assigned to. First problem: They don’t speak English in Sengerema. But the sense of my question finally got through. The answer was no, but Margaret took me in tow and we went to several other guestis. No luck. Then I remembered that AMREF works out of the hospital so we walked there (half an hour), and one of the Sisters who had just been in a meeting with her the day before directed us to her house in the staff compound.
The guard at the entrance to the compound let me struggle at length in Kiswahili to explain myself before answering me in beautiful English. He had studied at Nsumba, and was suddenly very friendly when he learned that I am teaching there. He told us that the PVC, she, had left for the USA suddenly, just a few hours ago and that someone was coming to pick up here things. He thought that might have been me.
He did not know why she left. That it was sudden might suggest a family crisis of some sort. But that someone would need to pick up her stuff suggests that she isn’t coming back. This year, for budgetary reasons, new PCVs did not have a chance to visit their sites before going there to stay. I can imagine that that increases the level of arrival shock and anxiety, especially if the accommodations aren’t fully arranged before the PCV arrives – and they usually aren’t. Maybe she just felt isolated and got scared off.
Otherwise, it was a nice, uneventful trip. Stayed in a hotel overnight, did Christmas Card sketches at a café while I ate breakfast. Came home, showered, had a drink, made a stir fry, sat on my porch and enjoyed feeling tired.
