The One With More Pictures (12/29/2012)

Here are a few random pictures that I have been meaning to upload for awhile now.

Elizabeth, her two daughters, one of their friends and I cooking Vibama

Learning to carry firewood on my head

Grace and I blowing out our birthday candle 

The One With All The Catching Up (12/18/2012)

The last two days have been spent in sessions, catching up with other volunteers, swapping war stories, and encouraging each other that we can make it through one more semester.  It has been so fun to hear everyone’s stories and to be reminded that we are not in this alone over here.  The conference ended yesterday and we all went for a celebratory sunset swim.  Some people are gone already and some are sticking around so it looks like I am going to have a low key few days just hanging out going to the beach and eating amazing food until my dad gets here.   

The One With The “Conference” (12/15/2012)

Today was the first day of the WorldTeach “conference”.   So we all met on the beach at 11 and piled into a boat that took us out to a sand bank in the middle of the ocean.  We spent the day on the beach swimming, eating, and playing Frisbee.  Work here can be tough sometimes!  

For dinner I got to eat some amazing Ethiopian food and catch up with some more of the volunteers.  Another great day in Zanzibar! 

The One With The Dolphins And The Monkeys (12/15/2012)

Yesterday morning began for me at 5:45 which seems to be the norm these days.  I got ready for the day and headed out with 3 other volunteers who were here early for the conference.  We walked a ways to a tour company office where we got into a cab and headed over to the other side of the island.  From there we got onto a boat and took to the sea.  After driving around for a little while we finally spotted what we came to see, a school of dolphins! We raced over to them (as fast as our 5 horse power engine would take us).  As we got close we put on our goggles and flippers and then jumped in! That’s right, I got to actually swim with the dolphins! It was amazing! We were about am arm’s length away from some of them!  After a few hours of searching for dolphins, getting in and out of the boat every 10 minutes or so and swimming around we were taken over to another part of the island where we got to snorkel.  I felt like I was in an aquarium! There were so many fish swimming around and the coral was stunning!

Finally we got out of the water and into the cab again and headed over to Jozani National Forest where we took a tour of the jungle and got to see the Zanzibar Red Colobus Monkeys!  They are totally wild but really comfortable around people so we were able to get super close to them which, for those of you who know about my love for monkeys, was a dream come true. 

Finally we left the forest and headed home.  After some walking through the beautiful streets of Stone Town for a while a bunch of volunteers and I met up at a local fish market.  Fishermen all come to sell the fish that they caught that day.  They cook it all right there for you and there are great homemade breads too.  I tried the king fish and the barracuda… both amazing! It is hard to believe that I am still in Tanzania sometimes! 

The One Where Break Began (12/13/2012)

My Christmas break has officially begun! After three long days of trucks, busses and a ferry I have finally made it to Zanzibar (an Island off the coast of Tanzania).  I have a conference here for WorldTeach beginning Saturday but Dahlia and I (as well as most other volunteers) decided to come a few days early and soak up the sun and local culture.  We arrived today at about noon on the ferry from Dar Es Salaam and were met by Ashley who took us to drop off our bags.  The place we are staying is great!! It is a house of a woman named Zakia who rents out some of the rooms.  It is great, there is electricity and running water and it is right in the middle of downtown Stone Town! After dropping off our bags Ashley showed us this place around the corner to get some lunch.  The food was incredible!!! I had the best octopus that I have ever had in my life!! After lunch Dahlia and headed down to the beach where we signed up for a tour to Prison Island.  Zanzibar was once a hub for slave trade and when slaves misbehaved they were sent to Prison Island.  Now the island is the home of giant tortoises which are the main attraction.  So we headed out on a boat that was locally carved to the Island where we got to see the turtles.  They are really rare and are only found on this and one other Island.  Unfortunately they were being stolen from the Island for their shells so now they are fenced in with security.  But that meant that we could walk right up to them and touch them and everything.  They were huge!! They got up to maybe 4 feet in length and the oldest one was 189! After seeing the turtles we jumped in to the incredible turquoise waters of the Indian Ocean where we spent the next hour snorkeling! We made it back just in time to meet up with some of the other volunteers who had also come a few days early for the conference and were able to get dinner together.  We spent hours telling stories from our sites, laughing at how far we have come and talking about how ridiculous so many of our initial fears were.  I am really looking forward to catching up with everyone else and I can’t wait for the adventures that we have planned for tomorrow… but for that I am going to keep you in suspense!  

The One With Enea (12/9/2012)

Yesterday Dahlia and I were walking to Isoko when we were stopped by a woman named Enea.  She is a nurse and was friends with the two WorldTeach volunteers who were in Kafule before Dahlia and I. She told us to stop by her house on our way back from Isoko.  We got to her house and knocked on the door.  She opened the door and we stepped in and I am pretty sure we were transported into a tropical paradise.  Kafule is amazing, don’t get me wrong.  But Enea has a whole outdoor courtyard with banana trees growing, lattice with ivy covering it, benches and a table, and a chicken coup with 96 week old chicks inside!  So we sat and ate and talked for a while.  Enea is an incredible woman! She works at Isoko hospital running the Isoko Orphan Project (IOP).  She has 3,000 orphans under her care all over the region! There is not an orphanage, the kids either live with extended family or by themselves to Eneas work is mostly doing home visits.  She travels around spending time with the kids, vaccinating them, deworming them, and running programs for their physiological and social health.  She said that sometimes an orphan will show up on her doorstep crying with nowhere to go and she will take them in for a few weeks.  When the organization runs out of money she supplements from her salary (the project is funded by Germans).  She makes sure that all of the children are in school (IOP pays half of the school fees).  She has been running the organization now for 20 years. 

She told us that Kafule Secondary School has 15 double orphans (both parents are dead) and 55 single orphans (one parent dead).  One of the double orphans is the schools head prefect (every year the students and the teachers vote on a head prefect and a head girl who are given a lot of administrative work to help out the teachers).  He is one of the most dedicated boys at the school, always coming to me for extra problems, always staying after school to help other students study.  It is so heartbreaking to really know some of these students and now to be finding out that they are orphaned!

But the craziest part of our conversation with Enea was about Zambia.  Enea was given a scholarship to get a degree in Zambia so a few years ago she went.  I told her that I was in Zambia last summer and we realized that we were actually in the same part.  I asked her if she has ever heard of an organization called Every Orphans Hope (the organization that I worked with while I was there) and she told me that she did her field study there! What a small world we live in! 

The One With The Kisamvu (12/3/2012)

Market day is coming up but for now Dahlia and I are out of vegetables.  We were talking about dinner and decided on rice and beans but we were both really craving something green.  A few weeks ago Grace cooked something called Kisamvu (kind of like spinach that is ground and then cooked) and it was delicious!  She had picked it from a bush in her back yard.  We are getting much more adventurous in our cooking so Dahlia and I decided to try it out.  We asked Grace how to pick and cook the kisamvu and after school we came home to try it out.  We rolled up our sleeves, picked some leaves from our back yard, borrowed a mortar and pestle, and set off to work grinding the leaves.  About three minutes in our arms were ready to fall off and we thought we had done a good enough job.  Twenty minutes of cooking later and the kisamvu was looking nothing like what it did when Grace made it and there was a knock on the door.  Stela and Grace came to check up on us.  We timidly showed them out attempt and Stela literally fell on the ground laughing.  Grace, with a look of pity in her eyes, said, “get a new pot, we will try this again.”  Twenty five minutes of grinding away with the mortar and pestle (I am definitely going to feel that tomorrow) and another 45 minutes of cooking and the kisamvu was ready.  It was totally worth the wait and Dahlia and I got to enjoy out must desired vegetable.  

The One With All The Finals (12/3/2012)

Finals began today and the first final on the schedule was mathematics which means that I am currently writing this blog mainly in order to avoid all of the grading that I have to do.  Here is how finals go in Kafule.  Two weeks before the exams are given a copy of the test is due from the teachers to Neema, the school secretary.  Over the next week Neema types up all of the exams on the school typewriter.  They are then returned to the teachers for editing.  After the teachers have read through their exams, Neema gets to work on the schools prized copy machine.  And I really do mean she gets to work; the copier has a hand crank and a foot peddle and everything.  Then the students take the exams, the teachers grade the exams and then we fill out (by hand) report cards (or parent’s reports as they are called here).  It is quite a process and I think it is about time I get back to work.  

The One With The Umbrella At All The Wrong Times (12/3/2012)

The rain, in my opinion, is extremely unpredictable but everyone else here in Kafule seems to think that there is nothing mysterious about it.  Elizabeth was able to predict two weeks out the exact day that the rain would start!  Last week on Wednesday it was cloudy when I woke up.  It had poured all night so the morning was cool and dark.  But as the day went on the clouds cleared and by the time I got home from school the sun was shining.  So when I set out for the market I didn’t think to grab my umbrella… big mistake!  I got about half way there, sun still shining, and I saw Mr. Kamwela, a friend who lives in Isoko.  He looked at me and asked where my umbrella was.  I looked up at the blue sky and then back at him, a little confused.  He laughed and said it would be raining in 10 minutes.  Sure enough about 5 minutes later the clouds began rolling over the mountains.  And I got wet, I mean soaked, as the rain began to pour down… lesson learned.

So Friday morning I woke up to a grey sky and dark clouds.  I got ready, grabbed my umbrella and set out for school.  On the way I saw Elizabeth.  She looked at me and asked why I had my umbrella.  I looked up at the clouds and then looked back at her, a little confused.  She laughed and said it wasn’t going to rain that day. When I got to school I had almost the exact same conversation with both Stela and Mr. Mwalongu, the headmaster.  They both laughed hysterically at my ignorance but at least Mr. Mwalongu consoled me by saying, “well, prevention is better than cure.”  And sure enough within about half an hour the sky cleared and it was a beautiful sunny day.

The One Where Class Time Became A Commodity (12/1/2012)

Yesterday was the last day of classes for the semester here in Kafule.  Monday begins finals week and the students will spend the following week cleaning and preparing the school for the month long Christmas break. Typically the students have a lot of downtime during the day because meetings or other administrative work keeps the teachers from making it to all of their classes.  But this is definitely not the case around finals time.  All of the teachers are so eager to complete the syllabus to get one more review lesson in that time in the classroom is at a premium.  During morning assembly this past week all of the teachers stood around and argue and barter for each other’s class time.  Life here is all about the community so personal pronouns don’t always have a place. “My” class means nothing.  So even though the schedule might say that the students have math class I still had to defend why I in fact should be the one to teach during that period.  This made the week fairly unpredictable and lesson planning was a bit of a challenge.  But it is great to see the teachers desire to work with the students and I think the students really benefited from all of the work that the teachers put into their planning this past week. 

The One With The Stickers (12/1/2012)

I recently received a package from some of my amazing friends back home that had a bunch of stickers in it.  I gave the November exam to my students this past week and so I brought the stickers to school to put on the exams of the students who scored well.  I brought them out while I was sitting at my desk in the staff room and immediately all of the teachers were swarmed around my desk.  They looked through the stickers for forever, each picking out one to put on their phones and proudly parading around their choice in front of each other.  Eventually Makala put a stop to things by reminding everyone that the stickers are for the students and everyone went back to their work. 

I share a desk with Grace and she was watching me as I started to put stickers on the exams.  I asked if she wanted to put out the stickers and her face lit up!  She spent the next hour and a half pensively flipping through the sticker book, picking out just the right one for each exam.  Eventually she looked up and me and asked for the exam with the lowest score.  I handed it to her but told her she couldn’t put stickers on the low scoring exams.  She told me she had just the right one picked out and she held up the sticker that said “far out”…

The One With The Very Happy Birthday (11/27/2012)

Thank you all SO much for the birthday wishes! I LOVED getting to see all of your faces!  I got to show some of the teachers your pictures.  They were so excited to see pictures of people in America and they said to send their greetings to you all.   I cant tell you how blessed I feel to have such amazing family and friends at home praying and supporting me! I love you all!

The One With the Birthday Wishes From Home!

To My Dearest Carly,
We all miss you so much and do not want to let your Special Day go by without celebrating who you are. We are sending you all our love, prayers and best wishes!
May this Birthday be your best yet!!!!
Love, Hugs and Kisses, Mom et al

The One With The Birthday Party (11/24/2012)

Since Grace’s birthday was on Thursday and my birthday is on Monday Dahlia and I decided to have a birthday party today.  So we invited Stela and Grace over and then spent the morning cooking.  We made veggie burgers and chocolate cake! The party was supposed to start at 12.  Four hours later Stela and Grace showed up, but it was totally worth the wait and it gave Dahlia and I a chance to get some laundry done while we were waiting.  Grace wore her party pants (since it was just the girls) and we spent the afternoon laughing, eating, dancing, and playing dress up (Grace taught me how to tie a kanga -fabric that is usually used as kind of a wrap/skirt- as a dress).  I am so thankful to have such good friends here to celebrate my birthday with! 

The One With The Germans in Isoko (11/24/2012)

On Thursday after school I walked to Isoko.  Dahlia and I were almost out of matches and candles so I went down to the shop to pick some up.  As I turned to leave I saw two white men walking up to the store!  I must have had a shocked took on my face because they came up to me and immediately started explaining who they are and why they were in Isoko.  The uncle of one of the men is the doctor who started the hospital in Isoko in the 1960’s.  So the men were here to see the hospital and the community.  They invited me to join them for a soda so we sat and talked for a while.  But then I had to get going, I had to get home to prepare Thanksgiving dinner with Dahlia. Nothing says Thanksgiving like eggs, potatoes, and mangos!  It was a delicious, although atypical, Thanksgiving dinner.  Dahlia and I read some Psalms about giving thanks to God and then spent the evening talking about all of the things that we have to give thanks for here.  It was a unique Thanksgiving for sure, but I had a lot of fun! 

The One With All Of The Maintenance Projects (11/21/2012)

The headmaster at Kafule is incredibly dedicated to the school and the students here.  He is so passionate about this place and wants nothing more than to see the students succeed.  School fees were just due which means that the school has money for some maintenance projects.  All week workers have been here fixing broken doors, putting plumbing in the teacher’s bathrooms (!! I saw an actual sink for the first time in a few months!)  and painting the Form I classes. Form II students (although they have finished classes for the year) have been here every day carry bricks for the construction projects that are beginning.  For students who pass the Form IV exam there are two more forms before university.  Kafule is planning on building Form V and VI classrooms so that the school can begin offering classes for the students who pass the Form IV exam.  So for now the students are busy carrying bricks.  It is so fun to see all of the improvements and projects here and to watch the excitement of the students are faculty as progress is being made.

The One Where They Wanted More Work (11/21/2012)

Today I was teaching in one of my form I classes.  We got to the end of the period and had just finished going over the practice problems that I had given them to work on.  So I started to gather up my things and I was saying that class was over.  “No Madam, no,” came a resounding plea more almost everyone in the class.  So I stopped and asked them why.  “Exercises!” was their reply.  I said we just did all of the exercises.  “No Madam, more exercises” they begged (they literally begged, one girl had her hands folded and everything).  So I quickly made up some more problems and put them on the board.  After we finished going over those problems I started to leave again.  “No Madam,” they said, “homework!” (We can’t give actual homework because the students have too many chores at home to make any extra school work mandatory but sometimes teachers will assign work for the students during their free periods and call it homework.)  Not having more work prepared, I told them that I would give them extra problems tomorrow.  They reluctantly agreed.  I am sure that there are a lot of similarities between teaching here and teaching in the States but every now and then I am reminded that this is definitely not an American classroom.  

The One With All The Firewood (11/17/2012)

November is apparently the “short rainy season” so we have still had a number of sunny days here in Kafule.  But the “long rainy season” is immanent and so the community is busy making preparations.  In my incredibly privileged life here I get to cook with charcoal.  That means that I don’t have to hike into the forest, chop down trees, cut up the wood, and carry it home to build a fire to cook over.  Instead I ask around to find out if anyone is selling charcoal in the area and then I have it delivered to my house.  I really am amazed at how blessed I am!  But most people here, Elizabeth included, cook over firewood.  Behind Kafule Secondary School there is a small forest.  The school is continually planting new trees and cutting down the bigger ones to sell as timber (which unfortunately means that sometimes classes are canceled so that students can help cut and carry the wood.  Occasionally there is a knock on the doorframe of my classroom- most of the classrooms don’t have actual doors- and I am told that the students are needed for “economic activities”.  The challenges of teaching in Africa…).  Anyway, I am not sure if they do this every year or if there are just more trees than usual this year but the school is allowing people from the community to take some of the trees to use for firewood.  For a few weeks now there has been a pretty consistent stream of women coming to cut and carry (on their heads) all of the wood.  Everyone is stocking up to last through the rainy season.  It seems like all anyone has been doing lately around here is collecting firewood.  Elizabeth, knowing my eagerness to learn to carry things on my head, asked if I wanted to help her.  So this morning I got to learn to carry wood on my head.  For those of you who are wondering, yes it is as hard as it looks.  I am so impressed with all of the women here who do that daily!  But I was able to make it from behind the school the 15 minute walk to Elizabeth’s house without dropping it!  Everyone who saw us could not stop laughing at the sight of the crazy white girl trying to carry wood, but I got a ton of congratulations from everyone for “learning to be an African woman”!

The One With The Walk To Malawi (11/11/2012)

Elizabeth has been telling me about a really big market on Saturdays in Malawi ever since I arrived in Kafule.  She said it is a long walk to get there but I told her that I was up for it.  Unfortunately the rain has thwarted our plans to go for a few weeks now but this weekend we were finally able to go.  Yesterday was a beautiful, sunny day with a cool morning breeze; perfect for the long walk to Malawi.  So just before 6 am Elizabeth and I set out.  We walked, and walked, and walked.  Finally we made it to the River Songwe which divides Tanzania and Malawi. There is a “bridge” to cross the river (I use that term loosely, there is a vine to tight rope walk across and two more vines at waist height to hold for balance).  Anyway the bridge was not secured when we arrived.  I assumed we were going to talk along the river bank until we got to the next bridge.  I need to learn to stop assuming.  The man that arrived at the same time as us (on bike) picked up his bike, put it on his head and waded out into the river.  “That’s how we are doing this?” I asked Elizabeth.  “Of course,” she said, kicking off her shoes.  Hiking up my skirt and stepping into the murky water I tried my best to suppress the fear of being eaten by something in the water.  But we made it safely to the other side and the cool water actually felt really good.  I had made it to Malawi!  Elizabeth and I walked for a ways longer and finally make it to the market.  She was right; it was totally worth the 4 hours that it took us to walk there.  There were tons of bananas and different spinach-like greens, there was fabric and shoes and all kinds of other things to buy!  And there were lots of different fried foods!  After about an hour of wandering around Elizabeth and I set out for home.  The way beck was a lot more uphill so we knew it was going to take longer than the walk there had taken.  On the way, we were walking with some women who were carrying big baskets on their heads.  I had told Elizabeth earlier that I wanted to learn how to carry things like that.  She asked one of the women to borrow their basket, which I think they were happy to give up for a little while) and Elizabeth showed me how to carry it (later last night I got to practice my new skill because the water was out at the tap outside our house.  So Dahlia and I walked to one of the pumps in town and I successfully make two trips home with a bucket of water on my head).  Anyway, Elizabeth and I walked, and walked, and walked, and eventually, a little over 5 hours after leaving Malawi, we made it home, exhausted but so excited from all the day’s adventures! 

The One With The Students Career Goals (11/16/2012)

I am continually impressed with Graces passion for seeing the students here succeed.  She is so invested in their lives.  She knows all 450 students names, what village they live in and often how many siblings they have.  She recently took a class to improve her teaching and she is constantly in the staff room pouring over her notes from that class.  This week she gave an exam in her form I classes.  At Kafule form I is broken up into 3 streams (or classes) and apparently stream A scored much lower than streams B and C did on this exam.  When Grace came back to the staff room after returning the exams her hands were full of little slips of paper.  She told me that she gave the students in stream A a talk about the importance of education to motivate them.  She had them write down what they want to be when they grow up and talking to them about how their hard work now will enable them to reach those goals.  Grace and I went through all the papers reading what each student wants to be.  Interestingly, every student put down one of five careers: doctor, teacher, pilot, soldier, or member of parliament.  One of the  things that encourages me the most here is hearing about the students goals and dreams.  It was such a blessing to get to read a whole class worth of them! 

The One With The Election Results (11/7/2012)

I am not typically the most politically aware person but being in Tanzania during the US presidential election has been really interesting.  About two weeks ago the school had a solar panel installed (it had been donated by a British NGO) which meant that we could hook up the school TV in the staff room and watch the election news today.  The news station that we watched went back and forth to all of their international representatives giving the reactions of countries around the world to the Obama victory.  The news reported stressed the importance of the event by saying that, “when America sneezes the rest of the world catches a cold.”  Most of the Asian and European representatives said that their respective countries were glad that Obama would be back in office because with Obama they know that to expect.  There are challenging times and the known is better than the unknown.  But the reports on the reactions in Africa were what I found most interesting.  Reporters said that the general public in most of Africa was excited to have an African American in the office but that governments across the continent turned inward today.  They explained that most people here have little hope of an economic upturn in America under Obama so they are not counting on American financial support.  They are looking instead to within their own countries as well as to other African nations.  I think it would be really great to see Africans supporting each other and not looking to America for handouts but it is a little discouraging at the lack of faith they have in our president.

On another note, Dahlia and I were realizing how influenced we have become by the culture here when both of us had the same reaction of horror when we saw Obama’s daughters walk out on stage in skirts that showed their knees.  It will definitely be interesting to get back to America in the middle of bikini season.

The One With The Two Month Celebration (11/6/2012)

I cant believe I have already been in Kafule for two months! Sunday marked Dahlia and my two months in Kafule anniversary so we decided to celebrate with another cake.  One of the teachers had taken a trip and brought us back coconut milk and we had coco powder from Mbeya so we were able to make a chocolate coconut banana cake.  It was incredible!  And, on top of that, the sun is back… which meant that I got to go to a new market, Malengali, with Elizabeth (it was about 2 and a half hours from our house, but totally worth it since I was able to buy a much needed umbrella!)  Things could not get much better here in Kafule.  Apparently during the short rainy season (I think November and December) it will rain for half the week but we will still get some days of sun, which is great news since I was preparing for 7 months of clouds.  But it looks like I still have some sunny days ahead of me! 

The One With All The Rain (11/2/1012)

The rainy season has officially begun here in Kafule.  It rained for about an hour on Tuesday, 5 hours on Wednesday and about 10 hours yesterday.  So the good news is that the rain has made everything a lot less dusty, it is absolutely gorgeous to see the clouds rolling over the mountains, and the smell of the fresh rain is great!  On the down side everything has become very muddy and it has gotten kind of cold.  Last night Dahlia and I went to Elizabeth’s house for dinner.  We were asking how long the rainy season would last.  She began listing months, “November, December, January, February, March, April, May… but then the sun will come back in June.”  The horrified looks on Dahlia and my faces prompted her to encourage us with this, “some days it will rain for 24 hours but then some days it will only rain for 7 so it isn’t that bad!”

The community in our area is made up of almost all farmers (pretty much everyone who doesn’t work at the school farms) and the rain means that the crops will grow which means food and money for the community.  So while the rainy season is going to be challenging it is really fun to see the community excitement that the rains have brought.

The One With The Alcohol Debate (11/2/2012)

School debates here are always interesting! Some of the motions we have had so far are “Men are the cause of separation of families” (opposing side won), “Western culture is better than African culture” (proposing side won), and this week’s motion “Alcohol should be avoided by students”.  It is a Tanzanian national law that no student is allowed to drink so currently drinking can get a student expelled.  But the debate was great! The proposing side had mostly the generic answers that you might expect; alcohol makes it harder for students to focus on their school work, it causes conflict and violence, and some more creative reasons like it is more likely for a girl to get pregnant is the boys have been drinking.  But the opposing side’s arguments were, in my opinion, impressive.  They said drinking provides jobs to those who make the alcohol which is good for the economy, it gives students confidence which will make them do better on the exams, “[it] helps boys avoid shame when approaching girls” (by the way it is against school rules for students to date so I am not really sure how this was in support of the argument) and finally that alcohol kills bacteria which will make students healthier.  The scores for most debates are in the low teens.  The debate this week was heated though, and the proposing side won 29-28.  The chairman of the debate (the schools head prefect) gave a speech after restating the perils of students drinking alcohol.  I guess alcohol is a popular topic for students no matter what country you are in.