My alarm woke me this morning. I think I’ve outgrown my “baby guest" stage and will no longer be woken up by Paul! I made myself water on the propane stove as the kettle is being used for morning tea now. I had my bucket bath, got ready, and left for the office!
Eli and Miraclin were already there and I got set up for work. Michael ended up arriving at the office super late due to the fact that he’s been getting horrible sleep and needs to sleep in in the mornings. I hope that he’s able to get some good sleep for once as being tired out here is no fun. We worked up until tea time and had our regular mandazi and tea. As we eat, we enjoy playing “see saw” on a tailgate of a truck perched on a beam of wood. It’s simple, but a fun way to pass time. It’s still hard to communicate with Henry as he’s still in a mood; I’m hoping he turns around for the better soon! We got back to the office to get ready to teach. I grabbed the laptops for typing class and actually knew what form I was teaching today! Mr. Chesco was organized and I hope that he stays that way.
I taught Form 1 and form 5 how to type! Form 1 is always quite the rowdy bunch so Form 5 is there to help monitor the class and teach in Swahili when they don’t understand my English. I started class as normal and now have my techniques to properly teach how to type. We go over why typing is important, the correct form, and which fingers go to what key. I say the letters and move my fingers while the kids say and move with me. I think when I make them repeat what I’m saying several times over, they understand it a lot better. In total, it went decently okay today. Form 1 doesn’t always follow instructions and is very keen on chicken pecking typing instead of the correct form. I would show them the correct form, watch them do it for one round, then go straight back to chicken pecking; there’s only so much I can do!
I walk around and monitor the class to keep things settled down and have a lot of time to think. What keeps crossing my mind is how hard it must be to transition from all Swahili to all English. Imagine going to school up until 7th grade speaking English in every class, with your family and friends, and in every other instance of communication. You were taught some Spanish in school, but not very much as it’s not taught well. Then it’s time for 8th grade where every lesson, every test, every lecture is completely in Spanish! By the time a student is in 8th grade, the neuroplasticity to learn a new language is a lot less than it was five years ago making English even harder to learn. I understand why the government mandates this as English is a fantastic lingua franca (a language that enables communication between groups of people who speak different native tongues) that can open many doors for success in the future (like foreign trade or getting a visa to come to the US). However, the execution of this is done very poorly and makes it hard for already disadvantaged kids to learn!
Overall, about 75% did the right form and progressed in typing today which is a success in my book. Regardless of how well they actually did, I’m always very celebratory and proud of them so they enjoy and want to keep learning. Mr. Chesco was hunkered in the back of class grading quizzes and being a source of authority when things would get out of hand. A couple of times I showed the kids how fast I could type to inspire them, but it had quite the unintended side effect. Instead of seeing how the small steps of learning how to type lead to typing fast, they thought they could start typing fast like me immediately. Instead of focusing on the basics, they went on to the “Quotes” mode on the program and failed spectacularly. The idea of using the shift key and pressing another letter is pretty hard!
Class ended and I packed everything up. The laptop bag that holds all of the Chromebooks is quite heavy, yet there is always a student that brings it back to the office for me! Once I got back, I started to charge all of the laptops to make sure they work for the rest of the week. Chromebooks are very power efficient and will easily work for an entire week on one charge, a very helpful feature out here! It was too nice outside to be holed up so Eli and I went out to go play some hacky sack which was a blast as always. I’m pumped to go back to the States and play hacky sack with friends and have some skills to show off. We made our way back inside and got to work on our miscellaneous things.
Lunch time came! If you guessed rice, beans, and cabbage you were right! We played more on the see-saw and poked fun at each other, always lots of laughs! Afterwards, Mr. Chesco wanted all of us to go on a walk to the primary school up the road. It was about a 15 minute walk to get there, mostly uphill. We listened to music for a bit before it completely cut out! On the way we saw lots of ants and weird fruit falling out of the tree. The bright red and orange fruit looked like gummy worms and at first we thought it was a weird type of caterpillar.
To show us what it truly was, he grabbed a stick and smacked a fuzzy fruit out of a vine hanging on a tree. Turns out the gummy worm looking fruit came from the same fruit that Henry and all of us were playing baseball with all of those days ago!
Once the fruit debacle was solved we continued our walk. There was a ton of cool quartz on the way and I made sure to pick up some for keepsake.
Once we got to the top of the hill, we were all pretty hot; a feeling you don’t feel very often out here! At the top of the hill was where the primary school was situated!
This primary school is owned by VST even though VST focuses primarily on secondary schools. We explored the school grounds for a bit and admired the wonderful view of the surrounding area from the school’s vantage point.
We walked around more until we ran into the head teacher and some other workers at the school. Mr. Chesco is great friends with the head teacher! They’re currently expanding the school’s dormitories and housing spaces for people involved with the school. The head master, whose name I’ve forgotten, was extremely welcoming and had such amazing energy. He was so proud to show us every aspect of his school and gave us the grand tour.
We started at the dormitories; a large building separated by gender. I’m not sure if I’ve written about this, but a big aspect of schools here in rural Tanzania is that schools have dormitories. Many students come from far away to go to school and travelling back and forth would be far too cumbersome. The solution is for dormitories to be built so the students have somewhere to live! VST does not own any dormitories (at least at the secondary level) which means the dormitories are privately owned. This stimulates the local economy and makes sure students stay in school! This specific dormitory was very large. Each side consisted of a big room full of bunk beds with massive vaulted ceilings. If it wasn’t for the tall ceilings, it would feel very cramped in here!
The next part of the tour was the school itself! We were told where all of the school's classrooms are and offices. Lots of the doors have signs that say “English Only” which is proof that VST is trying to better the transition of Swahili to English in schools as I described earlier. The sides of the buildings have large educational murals and are full of great information. One of them was all about the solar system and since that’s a class that Mr. Chesco loves to teach, he jokingly gave a quick lesson on it! A very fun and wholesome moment.
A little while later, the head teacher gave us all soft drinks! The walk wasn’t very long, but it was nice to drink something to quench our thirst. I had a drink called “Pine Nut” which has an odd coconut flavor. It’s not my favorite, but I was glad to have something to drink! The next part of our tour was the teacher houses on the campus. There were only five of them and we met one of the teachers that taught Swahili and English. The head teacher brought us to his house where we got to meet his kids and wife. When greeting the kids there was a very interesting way they went about it. They raised their hands above their heads where it looked like they wanted to hug, but in reality they wanted us to bend down so they could touch our hair and say good afternoon. It was a very kind gesture and one that was completely unexpected. Soon enough it was time to get back on our way to the office. The walk back was quick, being all down hill!
Since the walk took a decent chunk out of our working time, we got straight back to work when we arrived back. It was time to review more Math Club materials! While working, Eli and I had a great conversation about the direction of our lives and the goals we have. It was really great and funny that even though we were talking our mouth’s off, we were the most productive we’ve ever been! Henry joined in on the reviewing, but was still in a mood. One thing will go wrong and he’ll abruptly leave without saying a word! What makes it all the more confusing is that he dishes out crap/jokes to us, but when we dish it back to him he gets upset! We all just want to have a fun, light-hearted, time out here. I’m praying that he gets out of it eventually or communicates with us at the least.
The end of the work day came and Paul was there to close up the office. He was excited for dinner tonight as I gave him some shillings as an apology for not eating the fish he made us. He bought some cow meat as he calls it! We got back to the house, played music, drank tea, and I helped cook dinner a bit. I assisted in making the sauce and meat. Patience is quite the virtue out here and we waited for dinner to be ready! To our joy, John finished cooking soon and we were handed plates of rice and cow meat. It was good! The meat was tough to chew, but I was just glad to have some protein. I have no clue what cut it was, but I’m pretty sure it still had some sort of skin or lining still attached to it which grossed me out just a bit (reminded me of the beef intestine soup from Sunday). With a full stomach, I hung out some more before going back to my room to retire for the night. I played on my phone, blogged, then headed to bed!
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