This is going to be a dis-jointed montage of an entry, but so many of these thoughts are snippets of blog ideas that cannot be individual blog entries in and of themselves.
The kids - I still don't know all of the kids. I know approximately 40 or so of them. One thing that I noticed is that the only real pre-requisite is that the orphans have seems to be having unbelievably long eyelashes. Seriously, most of them just have super long lashes, that trait alone may have been a factor in their selection. I wonder if the same would apply to other orphanages...It's a funny observation, that's all I'm sayin'
When I was like 7 or 8, I saw Dragon: the Bruce Lee story and was really struck by the scene where he walked on his hands next to his baby. That is the only reason that I started walking on my hands, in the middle of the hot summer asphalt in front of my house. Apparently, that 20 year old skill is the ultimate method to motivate some of these boys to stop being jerks to one another, as taking away "flip time" or offering two turns in a row can get you almost anything. A couple boys are a few weeks away from unspotted back handsprings.
Some kids are a real challenge, as they know what volunteers don't and exploit that as much as they can. Generally, I've learned "Don't ever trust an rift valley kid who wants a pen." Kidding aside, I think that Maria and I are un-dupable now: just in time for the kids to move on to working the newer volunteers.
The environment - We are set on the side of Oldeani mountain on an old coffee plantation, set amongst other active coffee plantations. We watch the clouds scratch themselves against the rim of Ngoro ngoro crater every day, it is breathtaking most of the time.
We have had a lot of uncharacteristic rain recently, which makes walking around a mess. The mud cakes to your shoes/crocks like snow, but with the consistency of paper maché, accumulating until you are uncomfortably walking a couple inches higher than when you started taking steps, and no amount of scraping your shoes as you walk kicks it off: you end up just making your ankles muddy, as the hay that juts from within your mud-maché moon-shoes ends up painting your ankles brown.
Further, you have to wear socks in your crocs, as a hookworm preventative and as a general mud deterrent. The ladies here didn't mention it, but if you go without socks, the cheap rubbery material tears the hairs out from the tops of your feet at every step. That is why Hobbits don't wear crocks. It is also why all the hobbits died of hookworm.
Teaching - No amount of blogging can capture the difficulty of entering the role of teacher without preparing. I have learned that every compliment that I was ever given in school for any demonstrable skill of mine was probably part fake. I tell people that their hand drawn things look awesome all of the time, whether or not it's actually true; that whole fostering the creative spirit thing. I never considered the amount of psychology used on me before now.
Besides structured play time, I have two sanctioned teaching responsibilities: English Confidence Class and teaching Science Club. English Confidence Class is a challenge like nothing else. I teach it in a team with two other volunteers every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for 2 hours. Most of the teens in it are from outlying villages and they are the product of their education. They want to regurgitate rote memorized things or find a template that they can apply to everything. Plus, English is stupid: You try to explain why you never ever pluralize chalk. The only thing that I can think of is that when it comes to geological materials, the rules change. The plurals of granite, quartz, or coal are granite, quartz, and coal. (unless they come in the form of pieces) Anyways, these kids are so afraid to answer wrong that they don't answer at all. Awkward silence after a question is the expected result. On some days, though, I think that we break through a little.
The way Tanzanian schools are run is somewhat silly. It is mostly rote memorization. And state sanctioned tests (with a set number of attempts) decide the rest of your educational future. It is a system that helps to entrench the rich. Here is a silly example: The kids memorize almost everything that they learn save one thing: the times tables. The carbon cycle has to be known to all kids, but multiplication is a process of putting together 9 sets of 9 tick marks and counting all of them. Into this school environment I teach sayenci (science) club every Friday from 3:20 to 4:30. I did a slam bang lecture on the cell with some dissecting scopes. This past week I explained light, using a prism, a glass of water, and my camera lenses. I was later told that my approach was crazy effective as apparently real examples are not used in Tanzanian class rooms. I really didn't realize how much culture affected the method of educational instruction until now. Maria has sat in on the past two science clubs and helped with queues and my tendency to explain using jargon or lofty vocabulary.
The Volunteers - Today, Maggie left. I feel like the last person who shared a similar socio-economic class and the values of hard work, has left. Most everyone else here comes from some (crazy) amount of money. They like to point out that their parent's money isn't their money. I would like to point out that they didn't live in a trailer a 45 minute walk away from their college, taking all of their classes on M W F so that they could night stock shelves after school with an internship on T Th and 24 hours worth of cooking at a diner on weekends. That leaves the average night's sleep somewhere in the 3 hour range for about a year of my life. They never had to decide whether or not to go the dentist or pay rent. I'm damn fucking proud of getting by through work and sacrifice with a couple of deans lists along the way. So don't tell me we had it the same.
I feel like we have been analyzed by the other volunteers as generally depressed and bitter rather than as disillusioned and realistic. Being told by other volunteers that it is "all about your perspective!" is condescending and unrealistic when you live in a system where 700,000 rapes are reported, REPORTED in America every year and your focus right now is supposed to be alleviating human suffering. They seem to think that we are indulgently focused on the negative aspects of humanity when really we've been just paying attention. Obviously, it's clear that different paths led the lot of us here.
The culture - Everything here seems to be up in the air. Solid deadlines are an endangered species here in Tanzania. Just add 10 to 60 minutes to any expected arrival time of anything, and you have an idea of what life here is like. All of the workers greet you like they are on the clock at their construction job. Greetings and formalities are still a part of the daily heartbeat. Even the handshakes take longer. People of status must be referred to with a compulsory "shikamo" (literally "I respect you") so house mothers and teachers end up saying the retort "Mar habar" like a bjillion times a day.
Miscellaneous note - So for the first time since high school, I shower everyday. I actually get dirty here. The kids like to put their dirty hands all over your face and shirt and the mud/dust is a daily accretion. It's not that I hate showers, it's that I hate unnecessary showers. So, it seems, I'm finally in an environment that necessitates more hygienic rituals than the states.
Maria - She has thrown her hat into the ring for many projects here; many of which are tangentially or directly related to her schooling and passions. If you have wine glasses handy,
(with wine or beer or ginger ale or whathaveyou) you should toast her.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
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