My regular morning routine ensued and I got to the office to set up for the work day. I blogged for an hour before getting some actual work done towards my projects. Since I’m usually exhausted by the end of the day, I can’t get much blogging done and push it to the next morning. With how much I need to get done with so little time, I have even fewer opportunities to write! While working, Rambo came in and told everyone to disconnect their phones as the WiFi is impossible to use with everyone on it. I could be wrong, but I feel like there should be content blocking on the router or something so people actually get off their phones and work!
I worked up until tea time and at 10:00am went with Eli and Miraclin to Roza’s house. We ate mandazi and drank great tea! I find it so interesting that such small clumps of fried dough can be so filling. Alvin was there for a bit and of course was a little bugger. When we arrived back at the office we enjoyed the sun! I saw Miraclin taking a selfie with Roza which turned into us three taking a selfie with her phone, which turned into taking tons of photos with everyone with my phone. It was a full blown photo shoot! Eli, Miraclin, and I took photos with Andrew, Magaka, Peter, Mateyo, Joseph, Mboje, Roza, Andrew, and Godfrey. In fact we took so many photos that my phone was overheating and the camera stopped working! We had to use Eli's phone to continue the photo shoot and ended with around 80 or so pictures. I’m not sure why we decided that today would be the day that we took all of the photos with each other, but it was fun nonetheless.
Evan, Miraclin, Roza
With Godfrey
With Mateo (fun fact - there was a finger in the photo so AI removed it and gave Evan brown shoes!)
With Joseph
With my job as photographer and distributor finished, I got back to work on my Kolbiri how-to guide until everyone left for lunch around 12:30pm. The office was surprisingly abandoned (usually at least one person sticks around), so I took the opportunity to film some parts of the set up process and take lots of pictures on how to work the projector. My goal is to have a comprehensive guide with tons of screenshots and videos to accompany the guide. I’m not sure if I’ll succeed with the video portion, but I know I’ll finish the guide to the fullest.
It was time for lunch around 1:10pm which was the earliest we’ve ever had it! On the one day that having a later lunch would’ve been helpful, oh well! Miraclin, Eli, Gracie and I walked to Roza’s house for lunch. I’ve been forgetting to mention but she’s with us right now to learn our projects alongside the education department as she’s a very smart and high performing student (this is the same Gracie from the fourth of July party). Her English is amazing which makes it quite fun to talk with her. Right now Gracie finished with Form 6 and is trying to apply to universities abroad for her higher education! I wish her the best in her endeavors!
On the way, little Alvin was on his bike and began to peddle towards us as fast as he could. Due to the lack of brakes on his bike, Alvin couldn’t stop and had to swerve out of the way to not hit us. He ended up crashing in the sand and began to cry! Gracie told us that if it weren't for us watching, Alvin would’ve been just fine. We picked him up and I tried to ride his bike. I may or may not have messed up the seat, but I think I was able to fix it before Alvin noticed. At Roza’s house, Gracie split off from us and went to her uncle Justin’s place for lunch.
For lunch we had rice and cabbage! The cabbage was quite different from the cabbage we had back in Madisi, but it was all very good. For some reason or another, we’re always exhausted after we eat and relax for a bit before going back to the office. Eli and I left Miraclin napping on the couch and figured it’d be best if we didn’t disturb her! I got back to the office around 2:00pm and the department was getting ready for four back-to-back teacher assessments. I sat down and continued all of my Kolibri stuff as if nothing changed (projector turned on, walking around to the front to put things away, etc.). Me being a distraction in the background only aids the department’s effort of creating a more difficult teaching environment (or so I hope!). Since there were so many assessments, I got to see what the department looks like when they get “rowdy”. In my mind I imagined everyone would start throwing things and yelling, but their version of rowdy is just asking the teacher a ton of questions that are completely off topic or annoying. I also find it interesting that even though the teachers are told they get 40 minutes to present, I’ve never seen one allowed to present for more than 20 minutes. I think the adjudicators in the back see everything they need to see in a shorter time, but I’d be upset if I was told I got 40 minutes and only given half!
As I got work done and the teachers finished presenting, I noticed that all of them performed about the same. I don’t know what the education department is looking for, but for me, their teaching styles would not be effective. I think it just comes down to the language barrier and how I’m simply not used to the accent and British vocabulary. The accent is generally easy to understand but words with “r” become an “l” sound and any large word is sometimes pronounced differently that makes it sound completely unfamiliar. Also, as much as you think American English and British English are the same, some words and way they teach concepts catches you off guard!
With all of the assessments over by 3:30pm, it was time for me to teach! Today was arguably the most technologically difficult part of my entire teaching. To make a long story short, there were a ton of complicated computer commands to put into the Raspberry Pi Computer to make the Kolibri files on the USB drive get downloaded and set up correctly. To be honest, I don’t even fully understand what the commands mean (Bash computer language), let alone those who are learning from me who have way less computer knowledge. How I see this part of the set up process is that you put in the commands and ask questions later. I could tell that nothing was sticking as I just saw blank faces no matter how hard I tried to explain what the computer was doing. I wish there was an easier way, but with how slow the internet here is, it would take too long to download Kolibri from the internet onto the Raspberry Pi Computer.
Even though the comprehension wasn’t great for this lesson, tomorrow I’m putting everything in front of them to practice setting up the server. In my opinion, actually doing things hands on provides the best learning for complicated processes like this. I pray that it actually goes well tomorrow! With the class over, I answered some questions from Raphaeli and packed up. He always asks me to reexplain what we learned that day and I always try my best to help him understand. I find it funny that he’s joined my Kolibri team as technically he’s not officially a part of it! The more the merrier at the end of the day!
Eli and I left the office and went to the shop as usual. We bought glucose crackers, water, and weird tomato crisps. I love how this shop has such great variety and allows us to try so many new things. The whole time we were buying things, there was a lot going on near the shop: a truck being unloaded, a kid with lots of shop products in the road, people farming, a guy chain sawing wood, and the usual traffic on the road.
With our goodies in hand, we walked back to my house where I got dressed and then went with Eli to his house for him to get ready for volleyball too. Eli and I tried the tomato crisps and they were not very good. Imagine the shape and texture of a Cheeto Puff with the taste of cardboard mixed with tomato! As I waited for Eli to finish getting ready, I was admiring everything going on outside. The massive carpenter bees are so interesting to watch and make a very distinct buzzing noise as they fly by.
At the front of the house, Leah asked me if I knew the WiFi password. She told me that a friend of hers was at the office and needed to get something done with the WiFi. I hesitantly gave her the password and hoped that actual work was being done. The more people on the WiFi the slower it gets! Leah and a couple other women live in a neighboring house to Eli and we always see them outside. For some reason or another, even though the fronts of the houses are very distinct, he’s almost walked into the women’s house twice! Embarrassing!
When Eli was finished, we got to the grounds to find some people warming up with the volleyball. The usual warmup is a 1 on 1 competition where you still get three touches. It’s pretty fun and can be surprisingly difficult. Eli and I figured we should get some running done so we started our laps around the soccer field. Joseph and Mboje join us! We jog the first four laps and sprint the fifth one! The fast lap had me out of breath pretty good and reminded me of the joys of track practice.
With our running warm up finished, we began to play our regular games of volleyball. Today’s competition was fantastic and I thoroughly enjoyed having good games for once. One of the new additions to our team was Godfrey who usually plays soccer, but proved to be an essential back row player. Another thing that was different was the decision to rotate positions today. We usually all stay in one position for an entire game and might switch out people if they aren’t playing well. The only reason we stopped was because Joseph was getting upset that his team kept losing. I find it so interesting how competitive Joseph is, yet arguably on average he negatively contributes to his team (ball hogging, unneeded coaching, or general mistakes). He’s a decent player, but is immature in his playing (I feel like I can comment on his ability since I’ve been to so many volleyball games ;) ). As we began to crush their team, Joseph’s ultra competitive side came out. He gets very loud and begins to speak incredibly fast, often halting the game because of his arguing. It gets annoying as there’s often no reason to argue. We’re playing a friendly game at the end of the day, not a national championship. I’m not the biggest fan of being on his team, but I hope that as the days progress I can shift my perspective and be grateful for his passion.
I played setter and Andrew was making art with my sets. No matter if my set was horrible or right on target, Andrew would manage to hit a wonderful spike to the other side. Even though the setter doesn’t get any of the glory for a wonderful spike, it’s always very satisfying to contribute. As the game progressed, Doctor (the really good guy) was on the other team and ran up to spike the ball. I jumped straight up and down, but due to his forward momentum, he came barrelling towards me. I had to have had a good 60+ pounds on him the way that he bounced off of me and injured himself. I felt bad, but that’s why you don’t run under the net!
We ended the night with a great score set of 5-5! Rastaboni was our ref and scorekeeper which is always a little concerning. His scorekeeping is flawed to say the least so I make sure to keep my own counter in my head to make sure things stay accurate. He also likes to call “OUT” when the ball is in and vice versa which can be confusing when it’s actually a close call! Regardless, we had our quick end of game debrief and Joseph and I sprinted back to the house. At first we were racing a motorcycle and then I think Joseph wanted to show off to all of the students walking to the school as we sprinted at full speed and weaved through them.
At the house, I was pretty hot and figured it was time to finally take a cold shower. After Joseph bathed, I grabbed my cold water from the water basin in the kitchen room and proceeded to take my bucket bath. Cold water showers are so much faster as you aren’t trying to savor the water, but instead are trying to get it over as fast as possible. In record time, I was clean and went to get dressed. It’s also nice that after a cold shower you’re warm instead of cold! I made sure to tell Joseph I like the cold water and he was very glad. It’s the only kind of shower he takes!
When we were ready, we went to Eli’s house to “make story”. We ended up hanging out with Joseph, Leonard, and Mboje the entire time and watched the video Leonard recorded on Sunday. I thought Leonard edited it weird and made everything look too bright, but him and everyone else thought it looked amazing. We also looked at some other gospel videos when two women came by to share files with Leonard. Joseph wanted us to talk with the women, but they were clearly busy with their own task. Instead of brushing it off, Joseph proceeded to tell us that he didn’t like their disrespect, and since he’s a man, has the right to beat them. Wow! For someone who’s educated, I’m quite disappointed in Joseph’s respect toward women. I know it can be summed up to the culture, but as Tanzania becomes more educated and developed, I would hope that such sentiment would be seen as trashy and gross.
With the videos all watched, Joseph wanted Eli and I to play and sing on the piano. Joseph was trying to teach me a chord progression for a song we knew how to sing, but it was quite hard to learn from him. He tried to show me some complex chords, but my fingers simply were not used to stretching in that manner to play! Even when he simplified them, he was teaching off of singing and not note names which is what I’m used to. Regardless, when I finally got it down, I played the chords while Joseph, Mboje, and Eli sang. It turned out to be pretty beautiful even though I didn’t play perfectly!
With the singing and playing finished, we went to Roza’s house to eat at an astonishing 8:35pm! I could be wrong, but I think this is one of the earliest times we’ve eaten dinner. We ate delicious avocados (with salt) with rice and beans! Eli was given some avocadoes when he went to church and brought them here to share with us. While he was cutting one of them into pieces, the gigantic seed fell onto the coffee table and bounced right into the bowl of beans! It was hilarious!
There was lots of conversation as usual when Mateyo and Rastaboni came over. Rastaboni was only there for a bit before leaving due to not feeling well. He asked us to pray for him as he seems to have some sort of illness. The reason for Mateyo coming over was to show Roza how to hand make envelopes with paper and glue! The education department uses a ton of envelopes to package exams and will gladly buy from its own employees. Therefore to make some more money, Roza wanted to learn how! Mateyo already has his own little business and usually tries to make about 50 a day! In between teaching, Mateyo talked with us about how insanely hard Tanzanian education is. In secondary school he would often only get three hours of sleep every night since there was so much to study. The more and more we hear about the experiences of students and spend time with the resources the government provides, the more stupid it seems that the education is this hard. I’m sure this level of difficulty has its pros, but in general it seems like a way of control. If education is stupidly difficult, people aren’t going to be educated and therefore can never rebel against the government. Of course that’s an extreme, but one does have to wonder why they make it this hard.
As if to prove Mateyo’s point, Doris came in at her regular 10:00pm from school! Before Doris served herself food, she was tending to a bad cut she’s had on her hand for a while. It seems to be infected and extremely painful. I hope that she’s able to go to the doctor or do something about it!
It was getting late and with all of us extremely tired, we retired to our own houses. I got ready for bed, blogged, and fell asleep quickly!
I enjoyed seeing the photos and listening to the chords and singing on the video! Great job!
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