Sunday, February 20, 2005
Friday, Feb 18
Quite a week! I have been back teaching again, after letting my students stew (or celebrate) without a chemistry teacher for a week, so had a lot of angst over that. I’ve been collecting the school essays from the English teachers to send to Shari and the Young African-American Achievers for their judgements. And I’ve been handling all the details to send nine instructors off to Mbeya for training in how to use the TechnoServe/NFTE materials to teach entrepreneurship. I saw them off on the bus today, and that has been the issue taking most of my time and energy.
The first crisis was over the project funding. Headquarters assured me that the money had been deposited in my account. So I squeezed time between classes and went to the bank on Wednesday – the deadline for purchasing the bus tickets – to take out enough money to pay for them. But there was no money in my acount. The PC cashier at headquarters answered my frantic call to casually tell me that “Oh yes, we deposited the money to your account, but it will take several days for the deposit to clear.” More phone calls. Finally, the Chief Financial Officer (bless her) said she would make a personal loan of $1500 and have a driver take the cash to the bank in Dar and put it in my account so I would have it within an hour.
Wow. Time out. I’m typing this on my front porch, looking across the football pitch. And there are dozens of white butterflies (moths?) fluttering across the pitch. Haven’t seen them before, and now, suddenly, here they are. So many strange and wonderful things seems to happen here, suddenly, and then they are gone. Someone said that Africa is the land of extremes. The storms are sudden and strong. The droughts are severe. The wars ferocious. The wealthy extremely rich and the poor destitute. The ants appear without warning or preamble. The beauty exquisite. The possibilities endless and the reality depressing. Incredible flowers and flowering trees. Corn grows twelve feet high. A land of continual surprises.
I had lunch, went back to the bank and THE MONEY WAS ACTUALLY THERE! Of course, by the time I got from the bank to the bus station and waited for them to write out and record nine tickets, my class period was long gone. At least I did get back to the school in time, barely, for the second and last meeting of all the people going on the trip. One woman in particular kept raising questions – Why aren’t we being paid the government rates? Is this a school function? Is the school providing MEDICAL COVERAGE on the trip for god’s sake! It was a looong meeting, in the typical Tanzanian style.
Another break time. I need to go watch the sunset and listen to nature sounds.
OK, back again. The sunset was a little weak tonight, there was a small cloud bank along the horizon that kind of blocked things. Anyway, yesterday, one day before the trip, that Mama Mbilinyi decided there wasn’t enough money in it for her and the timing was so late that her Headmaster wasn’t able to find a replacement. So yesterday I had to go back to town again to try to refund her ticket at least. Well, they wouldn’t take it back, but they did make it open-ended so we could use it on the return.
Then Austadius Kabika from our own school announced that he had found a new job and was quitting on the spot and reporting to the new site on Monday. Fortunately, Mr Magota immediatly volunteered to take his spot, so we had a long talk about the program goals. He will be a good addition to the group. Then, about 10:00pm Adam Kazioba dropped by to say that he heard there was an opening and could he participate in the program. He would be a great guy, so I said YES, IF he could get a temporary passport in time, and IF I could still get a seat on the bus, all before the bus leaves at 1:00pm.
The passport is needed because the roads through the middle of Tanzania are so bad that the best way to get from here to the eastern side is to go north through Kenya. The bus makes a midnight stop in Nairobi at a bus station that looks straight out of Iowa. Sleepy, kind-of dusty, tired dusty people just hanging out, fluorescent and some neon lighting, with the Tanzanian version of a fast-food diner upstairs.
There was a final scene with our Headmaster this morning after the assembly (Parade) because things happened so fast and he hadn’t been in on the changes. His feathers were ruffled. So he was reluctant to let Adam leave for a week, but I cajoled him a bit and he relented. It helped a lot that I was not going. Still, he is losing four teachers for a week and Kabika just quit, so he has his problems.
So we went to town, I got the seat, Adam and Magoti got their passports. YES!!!
There was even time to handle another issue. I had lost my ATM card, so needed to inform the bank for security, and get a new card. Well, before they will start to process a new card, you must fill out a police report. So off to the Central Police Station, where things move slowly. It is Tanzania. It turns out that before you can file a police report, you need two passport-size photos of yourself. Don’t ask why. So off to get the photos taken, back to the police station where there is a 500 shilling fee to file a report. Then it needs to be processed and stamped at 4 different desks in 3 different offices. I finally got out of there and back to the bank to fill out more forms. The new card will be ready in two weeks, they say.
Everybody showed up for the bus, excited and eager. I handed out the tickets and food money and gave Mama Mtayangulwa the latest information that I had received from TechnoServe by email. Gosh, I wish I was going with them. To get to know the group, to be aware of the program even if it will be taught in Kiswahili, and because this was probably my only chance to see the Southern Highlands. The gang will have a 19hr bus ride to Arusha, where they will spend most of a day plus a night. Then they leave at 5:45am on Sunday for another 14hr bus ride to Mbeya where the course will be given. Mtayangulwa sent me a phone message to say that they were at the Kenyan border and everything was going well.
Gosh, this saga has gotten long. I will hold off on talking about my classes (they seem to be going pretty well, actually) and the essays, for now.
Quite a week! I have been back teaching again, after letting my students stew (or celebrate) without a chemistry teacher for a week, so had a lot of angst over that. I’ve been collecting the school essays from the English teachers to send to Shari and the Young African-American Achievers for their judgements. And I’ve been handling all the details to send nine instructors off to Mbeya for training in how to use the TechnoServe/NFTE materials to teach entrepreneurship. I saw them off on the bus today, and that has been the issue taking most of my time and energy.
The first crisis was over the project funding. Headquarters assured me that the money had been deposited in my account. So I squeezed time between classes and went to the bank on Wednesday – the deadline for purchasing the bus tickets – to take out enough money to pay for them. But there was no money in my acount. The PC cashier at headquarters answered my frantic call to casually tell me that “Oh yes, we deposited the money to your account, but it will take several days for the deposit to clear.” More phone calls. Finally, the Chief Financial Officer (bless her) said she would make a personal loan of $1500 and have a driver take the cash to the bank in Dar and put it in my account so I would have it within an hour.
Wow. Time out. I’m typing this on my front porch, looking across the football pitch. And there are dozens of white butterflies (moths?) fluttering across the pitch. Haven’t seen them before, and now, suddenly, here they are. So many strange and wonderful things seems to happen here, suddenly, and then they are gone. Someone said that Africa is the land of extremes. The storms are sudden and strong. The droughts are severe. The wars ferocious. The wealthy extremely rich and the poor destitute. The ants appear without warning or preamble. The beauty exquisite. The possibilities endless and the reality depressing. Incredible flowers and flowering trees. Corn grows twelve feet high. A land of continual surprises.
I had lunch, went back to the bank and THE MONEY WAS ACTUALLY THERE! Of course, by the time I got from the bank to the bus station and waited for them to write out and record nine tickets, my class period was long gone. At least I did get back to the school in time, barely, for the second and last meeting of all the people going on the trip. One woman in particular kept raising questions – Why aren’t we being paid the government rates? Is this a school function? Is the school providing MEDICAL COVERAGE on the trip for god’s sake! It was a looong meeting, in the typical Tanzanian style.
Another break time. I need to go watch the sunset and listen to nature sounds.
OK, back again. The sunset was a little weak tonight, there was a small cloud bank along the horizon that kind of blocked things. Anyway, yesterday, one day before the trip, that Mama Mbilinyi decided there wasn’t enough money in it for her and the timing was so late that her Headmaster wasn’t able to find a replacement. So yesterday I had to go back to town again to try to refund her ticket at least. Well, they wouldn’t take it back, but they did make it open-ended so we could use it on the return.
Then Austadius Kabika from our own school announced that he had found a new job and was quitting on the spot and reporting to the new site on Monday. Fortunately, Mr Magota immediatly volunteered to take his spot, so we had a long talk about the program goals. He will be a good addition to the group. Then, about 10:00pm Adam Kazioba dropped by to say that he heard there was an opening and could he participate in the program. He would be a great guy, so I said YES, IF he could get a temporary passport in time, and IF I could still get a seat on the bus, all before the bus leaves at 1:00pm.
The passport is needed because the roads through the middle of Tanzania are so bad that the best way to get from here to the eastern side is to go north through Kenya. The bus makes a midnight stop in Nairobi at a bus station that looks straight out of Iowa. Sleepy, kind-of dusty, tired dusty people just hanging out, fluorescent and some neon lighting, with the Tanzanian version of a fast-food diner upstairs.
There was a final scene with our Headmaster this morning after the assembly (Parade) because things happened so fast and he hadn’t been in on the changes. His feathers were ruffled. So he was reluctant to let Adam leave for a week, but I cajoled him a bit and he relented. It helped a lot that I was not going. Still, he is losing four teachers for a week and Kabika just quit, so he has his problems.
So we went to town, I got the seat, Adam and Magoti got their passports. YES!!!
There was even time to handle another issue. I had lost my ATM card, so needed to inform the bank for security, and get a new card. Well, before they will start to process a new card, you must fill out a police report. So off to the Central Police Station, where things move slowly. It is Tanzania. It turns out that before you can file a police report, you need two passport-size photos of yourself. Don’t ask why. So off to get the photos taken, back to the police station where there is a 500 shilling fee to file a report. Then it needs to be processed and stamped at 4 different desks in 3 different offices. I finally got out of there and back to the bank to fill out more forms. The new card will be ready in two weeks, they say.
Everybody showed up for the bus, excited and eager. I handed out the tickets and food money and gave Mama Mtayangulwa the latest information that I had received from TechnoServe by email. Gosh, I wish I was going with them. To get to know the group, to be aware of the program even if it will be taught in Kiswahili, and because this was probably my only chance to see the Southern Highlands. The gang will have a 19hr bus ride to Arusha, where they will spend most of a day plus a night. Then they leave at 5:45am on Sunday for another 14hr bus ride to Mbeya where the course will be given. Mtayangulwa sent me a phone message to say that they were at the Kenyan border and everything was going well.
Gosh, this saga has gotten long. I will hold off on talking about my classes (they seem to be going pretty well, actually) and the essays, for now.
