Leroy's Art Blog

Halleluia! I just got word yesterday that Pamela White WILL be our "honored guest" at the business course graduation, that is now scheduled for October 29. She is the Director of USAID at the US Embassy. New there, and her credentials are fantastic. Here is her official bio from the Embassy website:

In April 2005 Pam White was appointed mission director in Tanzania. From May 2002 until April 2005, Ms. White served as the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) mission director in Mali after serving as the deputy mission director from 2001-2002. In these positions, she managed a budget of approximately $40 million per year and a staff of over 100 people. Mali's development programs targeted high impact health services, education, economic growth, democracy and governance, and communications.

USAID/Mali has achieved notable success in recent years including a tripling of the number of girls in primary school in the north of Mali, a 200% increase in the number of elected women leaders over the last two years, an increase from 32% to 67% in the vaccination rate for young children over the last four years, a tripling in the number of women with access to finance, and the completion of a canal costing more than $1.5 million that will improve the lives of an estimated 20,000 Malians. Prior to leaving Mali, Ms. White was the first USAID mission director ever awarded one of that country's highest decorations given to foreigners, the Ordre National du Mali.

Ms. White has served for over 27 years in various positions for the U.S. Government in eight overseas posts and in Washington, DC. As deputy director for East Africa in Washington, D.C. from 1999-2001, she helped to coordinate the delivery of food to Ethiopia and Eritrea, helped to develop a six-year Ugandan strategy, and oversaw the expansion of programs in Sudan and Congo. Ms. White also served as USAID's executive officer in the Haiti, Egypt, and South African missions from 1989-1998; director of recruitment from 1993-1995 in Washington, DC; and deputy executive officer in Senegal and Haiti from 1981-1988. She also worked as the Community Liaison Officer (CLO) in Burkina Faso from 1978-1980 and was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Cameroon from 1971-1973.

Before joining USAID, Ms. White was a director at the English Language School in Atlanta, Georgia from 1975-1977 and a researcher in the Ivory Coast from 1973-1975.

A native of Auburn, Maine, White is a graduate of the University of Maine and the School for International Training, with a master's degree in international development. She is also a graduate of the Industrial College of the Armed Forces, class of 1999.

Halleluia! I just got word yesterday that Pamela White WILL be our "honored guest" at the business course graduation, that is now scheduled for October 29. She is the Director of USAID at the US Embassy. New there, and her credentials are fantastic. Here is her official bio from the Embassy website:

In April 2005 Pam White was appointed mission director in Tanzania. From May 2002 until April 2005, Ms. White served as the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) mission director in Mali after serving as the deputy mission director from 2001-2002. In these positions, she managed a budget of approximately $40 million per year and a staff of over 100 people. Mali's development programs targeted high impact health services, education, economic growth, democracy and governance, and communications.

USAID/Mali has achieved notable success in recent years including a tripling of the number of girls in primary school in the north of Mali, a 200% increase in the number of elected women leaders over the last two years, an increase from 32% to 67% in the vaccination rate for young children over the last four years, a tripling in the number of women with access to finance, and the completion of a canal costing more than $1.5 million that will improve the lives of an estimated 20,000 Malians. Prior to leaving Mali, Ms. White was the first USAID mission director ever awarded one of that country's highest decorations given to foreigners, the Ordre National du Mali.

Ms. White has served for over 27 years in various positions for the U.S. Government in eight overseas posts and in Washington, DC. As deputy director for East Africa in Washington, D.C. from 1999-2001, she helped to coordinate the delivery of food to Ethiopia and Eritrea, helped to develop a six-year Ugandan strategy, and oversaw the expansion of programs in Sudan and Congo. Ms. White also served as USAID's executive officer in the Haiti, Egypt, and South African missions from 1989-1998; director of recruitment from 1993-1995 in Washington, DC; and deputy executive officer in Senegal and Haiti from 1981-1988. She also worked as the Community Liaison Officer (CLO) in Burkina Faso from 1978-1980 and was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Cameroon from 1971-1973.

Before joining USAID, Ms. White was a director at the English Language School in Atlanta, Georgia from 1975-1977 and a researcher in the Ivory Coast from 1973-1975.

A native of Auburn, Maine, White is a graduate of the University of Maine and the School for International Training, with a master's degree in international development. She is also a graduate of the Industrial College of the Armed Forces, class of 1999.

Halleluia! I just got word yesterday that Pamela White WILL be our "honored guest" at the business course graduation, that is now scheduled for October 29. She is the Director of USAID at the US Embassy. New there, and her credentials are fantastic. Here is her official bio from the Embassy website:

In April 2005 Pam White was appointed mission director in Tanzania. From May 2002 until April 2005, Ms. White served as the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) mission director in Mali after serving as the deputy mission director from 2001-2002. In these positions, she managed a budget of approximately $40 million per year and a staff of over 100 people. Mali's development programs targeted high impact health services, education, economic growth, democracy and governance, and communications.

USAID/Mali has achieved notable success in recent years including a tripling of the number of girls in primary school in the north of Mali, a 200% increase in the number of elected women leaders over the last two years, an increase from 32% to 67% in the vaccination rate for young children over the last four years, a tripling in the number of women with access to finance, and the completion of a canal costing more than $1.5 million that will improve the lives of an estimated 20,000 Malians. Prior to leaving Mali, Ms. White was the first USAID mission director ever awarded one of that country's highest decorations given to foreigners, the Ordre National du Mali.

Ms. White has served for over 27 years in various positions for the U.S. Government in eight overseas posts and in Washington, DC. As deputy director for East Africa in Washington, D.C. from 1999-2001, she helped to coordinate the delivery of food to Ethiopia and Eritrea, helped to develop a six-year Ugandan strategy, and oversaw the expansion of programs in Sudan and Congo. Ms. White also served as USAID's executive officer in the Haiti, Egypt, and South African missions from 1989-1998; director of recruitment from 1993-1995 in Washington, DC; and deputy executive officer in Senegal and Haiti from 1981-1988. She also worked as the Community Liaison Officer (CLO) in Burkina Faso from 1978-1980 and was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Cameroon from 1971-1973.

Before joining USAID, Ms. White was a director at the English Language School in Atlanta, Georgia from 1975-1977 and a researcher in the Ivory Coast from 1973-1975.

A native of Auburn, Maine, White is a graduate of the University of Maine and the School for International Training, with a master's degree in international development. She is also a graduate of the Industrial College of the Armed Forces, class of 1999.

Man, so much stuff is popping, it is hard to keep track of it all.

Christopher was at my door at 8:00am to show me what he had put together in the form of a resume for job hunting. The whole concept of job hunting and resumes are totally foreign to Tanzanians, so we spent quite a while editing and revising. At 27, Christopher just completed Form IV (that is, 11th grade) last year with average marks. But he was an orphan, raised by his grandmother and so was late in starting to school. Anyway, he strikes me as unusually mature, reliable, and nonetheless without hope of finding a job the usual way through family contacts. So I spoke about him at the Rotary Club last week, and among the Club members they say they can give him a job, but they did want to see his resume first. I should be able to pull it through for him at the next meeting, tomorrow night.

After Christopher left I rode my bike downtown to make final trip arrangements with Maria at Fortes Safari. The family safari gets underway NEXT WEEKEND! All of a sudden, the time has come. Just a couple of loose ends remain now, and this will surely be a trip for the books. But while I was talking with Maria, Manjit Singh walked in and insisted that we all stay at his lodge for the night after we leave the Serengeti, as his guest. Manjit is a Sikh – his name Singh gives that away, even without his turban and silver bracelet – and he knows me because I have been attending the Gurdwara so regularly. But I certainly never expected this very welcome gift.

So now I need to delay our overnight stay at the Bujora Museum and our arrival at the hotel in Mwanza by a day. Pleasant tasks, those. Also, with this change we will be able to pick up two Peace Corps Volunteers in Bunda as we pass through, and give them rides to the NaneNane Day festival in Sumve. I’ve never attended a NaneNane festival, but supposedly they are interesting and Sumve has a good one. It is kind of a “Farmer’s Day thing,” I’m told. Maybe the Tanzanian version of a County Fair? We will all explore it together, and Sumve will wonder where all the white folks came from this year.

Then I went to meet with the manager of the CRDB Bank, and got him to agree to talk to my business classes on Saturday. He wants a written invitation – I’ll have to handle that tomorrow. This bank got some government money to facilitate micro-businesses in an experimental program. That should make his talk especially interesting, and he should also be a future target for me as one of the judges for the business plans the students create. I won’t hear his talk though, because I will already be on the bus to Arusha. And the talk will be in Kiswahili anyway.

So, I think the flight from Amsterdam to Kilimanjaro takes about 12 hours. My bus from Mwanza to Arusha via Nairobi, Kenya, takes 21 hours. Wanna trade?

Had to hurry back to Nsumba then, because I was to help invigilate the Mock Examination in Civics in the afternoon. This 2 ½ hour exam – most subjects have 3 hour exams - was something else! The questions were prepared by a regional committee of teachers. Every answer sheet was coded instead of signed, with the seats carefully numbered and recorded on the answer sheets as well. A separate diagram was created showing where each seat was located. Another separate list correlated student names with the codes. 183 Students in seats all carefully placed. All paper handed out for answer sheets had to be individually stamped on the spot with the school logo. Anyone needing a bathroom break was escorted by an invigilator. Many students were visibly praying while the tests were being passed out. After the tests were collected they were counted and placed in sealed envelopes for grading by another independent committee. It had all the tension and angst of an SAT exam. BUT THE RESULTS DON’T COUNT FOR ANYTHING! Really. This is all just a practice so the students will know what to expect in the National Examination in October. True, the results will be evaluated statistically against other regional schools, but their only “value” is as “continuing assessment” – ie, proof that classroom work is proceeding, like showing that yes, students have been doing their homework. The results in no way factor into the final grades. What a waste of energy and time for teaching!

After all this I came home to meet with the staff committee that is planning activities for my family while they are in Mwanza. Wow. They have created an agenda suitable for visiting dignitaries. But even in all the planned sponsored tours of the school that include visiting the kitchen, the dormitory under construction, the gardens, the infirmary – I am not kidding – I think there will still be a lot of friendly exchange going on. They are as excited about the visit as my family is about coming here.

That didn’t leave any time to get back downtown to call my Delaware Bank and arrange an electronic transfer of funds to pay for the Safari. That call has to be made in late afternoon or evening because of the time difference. And I had told Savera that I would fix the tires on her tricycle yesterday, so I am already two days late to do that job. Well, it hasn’t been dull this week, and I have my list of things to do tomorrow.

It was one of those days that just makes you feel great, even if you haven't done all that much, but were involved in making something good happen. I had hired a taxi, and another teacher and I picked up Savera from her hovel in Sweya and took her to Mwanza to receive a gift hand-operated tricycle, courtesy of the Rotary Club of Southington, UK by way of the Mwanza Rotary Club. Savera is a wonderful woman - 27, hump-backed, with scrawney useless warped legs all twisted beneath her, limited arm movement and only one good eye, thanks to polio. But she is always cheerful, and you often find her a mile from her home, wearing flip-flops on her hands and pulling herself along the ground. She was so greatful for the tricycle, as was her Mother and all her friends when we got her back home with the new tricycle.

Four tricycles were given away yesterday. I helped to get her one that works fairly well - some were really pretty rough. All of them make you think that there just has to be a better way. They are cobbled together from bicycle parts, using lots of steel rod and rebars crudely welded together. They are heavy and very cumbersome. The front wheel is the drive wheel but most of the weight is on the back wheels so it tends to slip, especially when you are trying to use it on an unpaved road. And Savera lives a mile down a long hill from the nearest paved road, poor woman. Even with all this crappy, heavy construction, these babies cost $90 each and even the Rotary Club with its connections can't get a better price or decent workmanship.

Still, if that is all there is, Savera is a lot better off with this beast than without it. Hopefully she can find friends to push her along, using the tricycle basically as a cart but giving her a bit more feeling of being in control. I cannot imagine her having enough strength to actually go anywhere with it. You see some guys using them on the roads, but they have upper bodies that look like Samson and even so they are working hard.

Well, I guess I don’t feel quite as angry and dejected as I did when I wrote my last Journal entry. It is clear that there are NO classes going on now in any of the sciences or even in mathematics. So it isn’t just me or just chemistry, and isn’t necessarily a reflection on what I am or am not doing.

This evening I met with a delegation of teachers to talk about my family’s Safari and visit to Mwanza. They have good ideas and hopes to arrange interactions with the school teachers and students, with a visit to a traditional Sukuma home, introduction to traditional food certainly including ugali, and more. Should be interesting to see what they come up with. Now they want to meet among themselves, and we will meet again as a group on Sunday.

Meanwhile, I am trying to pull together the main threads of Jared Diamond’s book, “Guns, Germs, and Steel” so I can present them as a history lecture to interested students, here. Assuming there are some. The African history taught in the schools begins with how the big bad colonialists stopped the slow but steady advance of African development, and it pretty much ends there as well. It gets tiresome. Diamond looks ‘way back before that, to try to figure out why development occurred faster in some places than others. As he says in his preface, “This book attempts to provide a short history of everybody for the last 13,000 years.” That sure sounds brash enough. So he deals with questions like:

1. Why didn’t Africans develop ships and steel and guns before the Europeans, and so subjugate Europe instead of the other way around?

2. Why did European germs decimate the indigenous Americans in so one-sided a fashion instead of a germ-exchange decimation of both Americans and Conquistadores?

3. Why were the Australian Bushmen the most primitive people of all, still hunter-gathering at the time of their encounter with Europeans?

Can’t go much into his fascinating arguments here, but Diamond builds a very convincing case that all these questions deal with when, where, why and how domestication of both plants and animals took place, and along with those, the impact of details in the development of writing.

Monday. The official school opening after the midyear break was last Thursday. I took the opportunity to go to Bunda and visit Kathleen for a few days, because students never show up on the opening day, and it was bound to be a total waste anyway. But most students do show up over the weekend, so it was reasonable to think that things would get underway today. Well, sort of.

I knew things were going to be rough when I saw the sixteen fresh cut green fimbos – canes for lashing students – lying on the ground at Morning Parade. Sure enough, after singing the national anthem and a couple of other patriotic songs and a brief welcome, the punishment for latecomers and wrongdoers was begun. Everyone who had arrived “late” – not on Thursday – was to receive three strokes, and was to carry 50 bricks for each late day from the quarry to the brick drying area. Further, they were not permitted to go to class until this duty had been completed and they had a signed release.

Just the whipping process alone took the whole first period. Names were called one by one, and each miscreant received his/her lashes in front of the assembled Parade. As usual, I left the area immediately when that began. In this way the whole first period was lost to the crack of the whip. But the remaining periods weren’t much better because most of the students were in the brick brigades. I had about five students per class.

This school-required class absence is a problem, because I am presenting new material that the students will be responsible for in their Mock Examination that begins next week. We have only two periods together before the big ME. So it goes. This is Tanzania.

The students don’t want new material, even if they know they need it. They want to go to the laboratory to practice the techniques that will be part of the Examination. They do have a point. So I agreed to open the lab on Wednesday afternoon for them, and I will take that opportunity to post on the board all the notes from the classes most of them have missed. That way they will at least have the information if the choose to copy it down – fat chance – even if they don’t have my discussion of its background and context.

This whole Mock Examination thing is a case of its own. It is intended to duplicate as closely as possible the National Examination that will take place in October, as a kind of trial run. It is taken as a really big deal. Boards of teachers from regional schools have met repeatedly to plan schedules, formulate the problems, arrange printing of exam papers, all that stuff. Just giving the ME will mean that there are no classes between July 25 and August 9. Afterwards, cadres of teachers will grade all the papers, and the results will be compared, regionally and nationally. Why? It is tempting to think that it is mostly a mechanism to give the teachers involved in the process a way to accumulate the per-diems to supplement their meager salaries. The ME’s even cover the whole year’s material – knowingly including material that hasn’t even been presented in class yet. Why?

After the ME, very little further instruction or teaching will be possible. With the impending National Examination looming over their heads, all the students will want to do is to scrounge old NEs and memorize answers to the questions they find there. It is the way it is done, here.

The GOOD thing about the ME is that no teaching goes on from 7/25 to 8/9, and that reduces the number of classes I will miss during my family’s Safari, 7/31 to 8/16. The Safari plans have really come together quite nicely. Maria at Fortas Safari has done a great job, and she has been fun to work with. I’m really anxious to see what my family’s impressions of Africa are, and am really looking forward to sharing the life and culture with them. And just to SEE and BE WITH everybody again!

I talked with Maria at Fortas Safari again this morning. The family Safari is coming together quite well – I think we will have a memorable and fabulous time. We went over how many days we will need the two Land Rovers, where to stay on Zanzibar, whether the China contingent will be able to stay a couple of days longer as they would like, and other details. I will soon work with a couple of other teachers to plan out a “culture exchange” that will engage Nsumba students, staff, and my family for the days they will be in Mwanza.

This afternoon I have been sitting on my small patio, mostly reading and watching Hodie taunt her boyfriend – she really is a frisky tart and the would-be stud tolerates a great deal of teasing from her. In midafternoon the sun has moved west and the patio is in shade. It has been especially cool these past few days, very comfortable during the day and for sleeping under a blanket at night.

I got my camera to take some pictures of the playful dogs, and soon neighbors appeared insisting that I take their photos too. Tanzanians are just fascinated by seeing pictures of themselves, and if they see a camera they insist on posing. The problem comes later, when they want to see the pictures of themselves that I have not had printed.

After all that, two students came by and we fell into the usual discussion, beginning with comparisons of the USA and Tanzania, how to get to the USA, and why are Tanzanians so poor. By now my discourse is honed, and I do not pull my punches. Tanzania is a rich country with fertile land, water, minerals, peace, and a stable government, I say. I talk about the immigrants who come here from India to grasp the opportunities Tanzania offers. I have pictures of an Amish farmer with me that I now use to show what can be accomplished with animal-powered agriculture, to challenge them on why Africans still insist on farming using only hand hoes. In the background the Amish farmhouse and barn with silo look like palaces to Tanzanians. The picture is of a single Amishman plowing with a 6-horse team and 3-gang plow, and I ask them how much more land they think he can cultivate than 6 Africans working together with hoes. From there we move on to how much capitalization it takes to start a business. Of course they think it takes “much,” and I respond that “No, it takes very little, but it does require (1) a good idea, (2) hard work, and (3) knowing how.”

These students are in Form-VI, and they are taking the business course that I initiated. So I explored with them whether they thought their classmates are UNDERSTANDING what is being presented there, since my chemistry students do not seem to understand but only to memorize. In response, they really do think that understanding is taking place and that the students realize the program offers them tools to become self-reliant. I hope with all my heart that it is so.

Today I called the Director of USAID Tanzania at the US Embassy. Only reached her secretary, but she seemed moderately helpful. Sent a confirming email with attachment, inviting the Director to come to Mwanza as an honored guest for the graduation ceremony of the program. Sent a similar message to also invite the new Peace Corps Country Director who will be arriving in mid-August. What a boost to the program it would be if they say Yes.

UPDATE: Just read her email reply, with a nice apology she said that she will be out of the country from mid-Sept to mid-August. Oh well, it was worth a try.

I don’t like to feel sick, and I’ve been doing my best to act as though I’m not, but I am. Slight fever, but mainly my head is very stuffed up, my nose is running like a faucet, eyes itchy, I’m sneezing and feel weak. I’m taking an antihistamine for symptomatic relief, but it doesn’t seem to be helping. I’m still riding my bike to town, but there isn’t much joy in it right now.

Joe was visiting me last week from Bukoba, and he stayed a couple of extra days. He’d intended to just make a stopover on the way to Rwanda with other PCVs, but was instead was dealing with fever and diarrhea. He missed out on his trip, and finally just headed back to Bukoba on the boat. I don’t have his intestinal symptoms, fortunately, but I am more casual about who uses what dinnerware and glasses than I probably should be. Mistake. Hope this is over soon. Like tomorrow.

I’ve given up teaching in this ‘tween term period. Students simply weren’t coming to class. I was taking it personally, but had a talk with several other teachers I respect and they have given up too. All discipline has been lost. The students had been given freedom – weren’t even expected to show up at Morning Parade. So they are generally hanging out, many are leaving the school grounds without permission, saying there is no-one to seek permission from. They have a point. Very few are making even an attempt to study. This is a bad situation, and I would not be surprised if it is hard to set right even when the new term begins. I foresee many, many beatings ahead.

I was really depressed a couple of days ago after working with a few “fairly good” students in the laboratory. I wanted to burn a little sulfur for them to show how ugly sulfur oxides smell. As I was holding a small sample of smoking sulfur over the kerosene burner, I asked them what the burning sulfur was reacting with. They had no idea. So I asked them what the KEROSENE in the burner was reacting with to make a flame. They had no idea. FINALLY another kid walked in and said AIR. Right! So what is air made up of? They didn’t know. These are Form-IV students (equivalent to 11th graders) and they are hopeless. No wonder so many of my students fail their tests abysmally.

Several teachers are away right now for a three week training program to instill new teaching methods. Student-centered instruction. They are supposed to come back and share these new methods with the other teachers. Right. Good luck! I really have no idea what could be done to turn these schools into valid educational institutions.

I wonder how much instruction is really being understood and internalized, even in the entrepreneurship course that seems to be going so well.

Whoops. I just took my temperature and it is 100.2. Aspirin time.

July 5th
Yesterday was the 4th of July. I wore a red, white and blue shirt and got a double beefburger of sorts in Mwanza, followed by an ersatz chocolate sundae. Then came back home.

I made another teaching strikeout today. My class wanted new material? OK, today I went in with a flip-chart presentation on Soil Chemistry. In my first class, I had five students. In the second class, no students.

The five students, at least, said that the information was good and useful. But they said most of the students only want to spend time in the laboratory in these between-term sessions.

So where is my responsibility? To present the material in an acceptable fashion and to hell with how or if it is received? To give the students what they think they want even if they are not getting what they need? I guess the only thing I can add is that I don’t see much evidence of anything else useful that is going on for the students just now. But then, it is a drag to be hanging around here not accomplishing anything when I could at least be visiting other volunteers and sites around Tanzania, instead of sitting here reading yet more books from the library I inherited. Right now I am reading Ahab’s Wife, and really enjoying it. Naslund is a wonderful spinner of tales. And yesterday I borrowed a thick book on The Sikh Religion from the Gurdwara.

Joe has been visiting for a couple of days, and plans to head out tomorrow to Rwanda. Kara was here for a day last week. Visiting people is good, but I don’t have much interest in traveling within Tanzania to see just one more dusty town with one more crowded market of local produce near its center. I guess I am becoming jaded.

Yesterday was the 4th of July. I wore a red, white and blue shirt and got a double beefburger of sorts in Mwanza, followed by an ersatz chocolate sundae. Then came back home.

I made another teaching strikeout today. My class wanted new material? OK, today I went in with a flip-chart presentation on Soil Chemistry. In my first class, I had five students. In the second class, no students.

The five students, at least, said that the information was good and useful. But they said most of the students only want to spend time in the laboratory in these between-term sessions.

So where is my responsibility? To present the material in an acceptable fashion and to hell with how or if it is received? To give the students what they think they want even if they are not getting what they need? I guess the only thing I can add is that I don’t see much evidence of anything else useful that is going on for the students just now. But then, it is a drag to be hanging around here not accomplishing anything when I could at least be visiting other volunteers and sites around Tanzania, instead of sitting here reading yet more books from the library I inherited. Right now I am reading Ahab’s Wife, and really enjoying it. Naslund is a wonderful spinner of tales. And yesterday I borrowed a thick book on The Sikh Religion from the Gurdwara.

Joe has been visiting for a couple of days, and plans to head out tomorrow to Rwanda. Kara was here for a day last week. Visiting people is good, but I don’t have much interest in traveling within Tanzania to see just one more dusty town with one more crowded market of local produce near its center.

** **** **

Gotta add a few words about all the recent activity about Aid to Africa – the big Geldorf concerts, Tony Blair’s push for debt reduction, much increased international aid… Of course nobody will turn down free money, so the official responses from African governments seems to be: Yes this is good but it is still not enough, and how do I get my hands on the money. But in the newspapers, I am reading many commentators who are saying that money and donations will not help Africa and will may make things worse, and what is needed is technical assistance to help stop corruption, build infrastructure, and teach economic development.

It blew me away to read the newspapers, quoting Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, at the meeting of the 53 African Union nations just preceding the big G-8 meeting in Scotland: Begging will not make the future of Africa, it creates a greater gap between the great [nations] and the small ones. We are not going to beg at the doorstep [of the G-8 meeting] to reduce debt. We are insulted constantly and we deserve it. We don’t need [conditional] assistance and charity. I would not accept that. BULLY FOR HIM!!!! Lord, I think we still consider Gaddafi a terrorist leader!

Friday, July 1
To catch up on some stuff:

When I quoted my Headmaster as saying “We do nothing” to prepare school leavers for life beyond our walls, it sounded pretty harsh. Deservedly, but there is at least this much to say to mitigate that attitude a bit: The school is primarily a boarding school drawing on the whole northern half of Tanzania, and the students disperse to their homes immediately after taking the National Exams. It takes about two months until their exams are graded and the results posted on the internet for them to retrieve. At that time, it would be practically impossible to bring together those students who will not continue, to guide them in other directions. So it would take some real ingenuity to accomplish anything after the test. Still....

I said I would introduce a class discussion about why people might not want to know the results of a blood test for HIV/AIDS? Well I did that, and that was one more stupendous flop. It met a spate of grumbling, rolling of eyes, and “Oh, this is chemistry class, not biology.” The only thing that got attention was when I asked them if a negative AIDS test meant they could be sure they did not have AIDS. They didn’t know, and knowing that a test will not be positive until three months after infection is really basic information. It indicates that they do NOT know as much as they think they do, even if they are tired of hearing about AIDS time after time.

I’m about to knuckle under to the system again. We are in this ‘tween-term limbo with only half the students here. I said we would review chemistry topics during this period, that it would be unfair to the students who are not here to introduce new material. But the students have been avoiding my class because they do want to continue covering new material. So my choice is to teach new material, or not have any students. Guess I will teach new material. But I will at least try to put my notes on flip-chart paper so the students who aren’t here can copy them when they return.

Actually, from here on things really get screwy anyway . Students return July 14, but it takes a week for them to actually show up. Then there is this big-deal Mock Examination from July 25 to August 9. Meanwhile I will be on the Safari with my family August 1 – 16. Then there is the mid-term break, Sept 14 - 18. And a Peace Corps Close of Service meeting October 2-6, and then the National Exams begin October 10. At that point, my formal duties are over. But somewhere in there I am to spend I think a week with the incoming PC volunteer crop in Morogoro, and we have to arrange a graduation ceremony here for the entrepreneurship course – with the PC Country Director and somebody high from the US Embassy attending, if we do hit the jackpot.

So right now it is clearly the lull before the storm.

And Oh, I am to be inducted into the International Rotary this evening at a dinner at the fancy Tilapia Hotel. I think I have been attending so many of the Rotary meetings to talk about the entrepreneurship program and arrange guest speakers that they finally got tired of introducing me as a guest. I will have to even wear a suit and a tie. The last time I did that was for our swearing in at the US Embassy in Dar es Salaam on November 21^st, 2003. That day it was brutally hot and humid. Today it is very pleasant here in Mwanza and the Hotel, overlooking the lake at sundown, will be delightful. Hope my suit has not developed moth holes during these last two years.