A Day in the Life

As I've mentioned in earlier posts, I've settled in to the point that my life seems comfortable but quite ordinary. It has occurred to me though, that my life is not ordinary for most of my readers, so maybe now would be a good time to talk about what a normal day is like for me.

I wake up at 6:30 in the morning to get ready for school. I usually make some tea and have some fruit for breakfast, get dressed, and I'm on my way to school by about 7:15. I have to leave my house and walk across the valley through fields of corn, tomatoes, beans, and many other crops. This is always the most beautiful time of the day because the sun is just starting to peek over the mountains and it gives the valley a lovely soft glow. Right now it's a particularly nice walk because butterfly migrations are coming through and at any given time there are thousands in the valley. I walk for about a kilometer and then I'm at the dirt road that leads to the school and walk about another 100 yards. I should note that when it's been raining (as it is often) this walk is much less present because the valley quickly becomes a muddy swamp. When it's dry though, it's great.

When I get to the school around 7:30 the students are all on the parade grounds, a big paved courtyard by the main office, where they listen to any announcements and those who have misbehaved are assigned punishment. Usually this means they will have to carry sand or gravel (for construction work at the school), fire wood (for cooking), or manure (for the farm). Then they are all dismissed to their classrooms and classes begin at 7:45. Students here are divided in to four forms, Form I being the first year of secondary school and Form II the second, etc. Each form is then further divided into streams, so you have Form IA, Form IB, and so on. Each stream is made up of about 40 students at my school, and each has it's own classroom that the students stay in all day. The teachers go to the class when their subject is scheduled. We spend the time when we aren't teaching in the staff room, where we each have a desk, and prepare lessons or grade papers or often students will come by with questions. There are nine periods in a day and I teach between four and six of them each day, so I have enough down time to get my grading done. Of course in a lot of those free periods I end up helping out other teachers because we do a lot of team teaching in the math department. This is a really good thing because too often in this country there is absolutely no flexibility in teaching style.

When I go to the classroom, one of the girls will say, "school motto" and the students stand up and say the somewhat corny school motto, "Forwards ever, backwards never. Good morning, sir!" I then say, "Good morning, how are you?" Then they say all together, "We are fine, and how are you?" Then it ends with me saying, "I am fine, you may sit down." Then they'll take their seats and we'll begin class. In math we usually teach them two periods in a row. Each is 45 minutes, so when I go into the class I have and hour and a half with them. I like having the much time because I will spend the first 45 minutes to an hour teaching them the material with many, many examples. Then almost every class I give them several problems to do for the rest of the time while I go around and answer questions and check their answers. This is the most valuable thing I do with them for a couple reasons. One is that the only way I've figured out to actually get kids to understand math is through repetition and lots of practice. The second reason is a lot of them will ask me questions and I'll sit down by the desk and explain it to just one or more often several of them. Especially with the language barrier, it is a lot easier to explain things to them one at a time or in a very small group. I think it also helps that I will sometimes explain to them a little bit in Swahili, which I refuse to do when I'm in front of the whole class because I'm also supposed to be helping them learn English. The students really seem to get a lot out of the individual attention, particularly the ones who are too shy to come to the staff room to ask me for help. When the period ends I leave and tell me to bring their notebooks to me later for me to check. I probably check each student's work once a week or so.

During the day we have a tea break for 15 minutes and lunch for 45 minutes. The lunch has to be so long because they feed the students in two shifts. The breaks are fun because we have a fairly small staff and we get along quite well, so it's nice to have the meal together. After lunch there's only an hour and a half of the school day left. At the end of the day the students usually have work to do cleaning the grounds or helping with the farm. Sometimes I stay around and help supervise, or if the students aren't working and have questions I'll help. Usually I leave by 5 and walk back home.

When I get home I turn on my blessed satellite radio and listen to Morning Edition on NPR while I do any chores around the house like sweeping or washing clothes. Sometimes I go cook with some of the other young single guys who are teaching at the school, but usually I just cook for myself. My diet varries based on what's in season and how long it's been since I've been to the market. If I have a lot of fresh vegetables I'll often make a stir fry with fried rice or a vegetable and potato curry. I also can make some pretty amazing tomato sauces now, and I can buy pasta at the one shop near my school, so I'll make that a lot now. Of course a lot of times I have some food that's been sent from home like tuna or something. After cooking and eating (by this time it's dark so I'll be going by candle and/or lantern light) I'll start heating water for a bath. I don't have a shower or anything, so what I do, which is what most people here do, is heat a pot of water, pour it in a bucket, then add cold water until it's the right temperature. To bathe you scoop water out from the bucket and pour it on yourself. So basically, you get wet, lather up, then rinse. It's actually a process you get used to, but showers are pretty great when you can get them. By this time it will usually be about 8 or 9. All I'll have to do then is read, if I want to brave candles or use a flashlight, or listen to the radio. I usually go to bed around 10 or so. So that's my normal routine. Feel free to comment with questions. This is all mundane and ordinary, so I don't know what you may find interesting.

One more quick thing, it looks like I'll be home by Thanksgiving, so all my faithful readers only have to hold America together for nine more months.

More Fun With Animals

This is my new friend, Bob. Bob (the one on the left) is a monkey. He lives at one of the nice mountain lodges in the area. Bob and I get along really well so I've stopped by to visit him a couple times. Sometimes they have him in a cage, but they let him out to play sometimes. He also grooms by beard and hair for me. Isaac's theory is that Bob likes me because he thinks I'm one of his kind, what with all the hair. So as you can see, I'm not an enemy of the entire animal kingdom, just turkeys.

Right now I'm in Dar es Salaam because a filling that a crazy Swedish dentist put in my tooth last month (with no novacaine) has come out. This, as you can imagine, is a bit of an inconvenience since I must travel for six hours to get to the nearest decent dentist. Oh well, this is Africa.

School's going ok. My students are still working, but the results on the first test were a bit disappointing. It's hard to get them to study hard this early in the year I guess.

The results for last year's national exams were released. My school did quite well, which is great. Tanga Region, where I live, was unfortunately the lowest-scoring region in the country overall. Sadly this reinforces stereotypes a lot of the country have about the local tribe, the Sambaa. They're kind of seen by some as backward and lazy, kind of like the South sometimes is stereotyped in the US. There isn't anything like the tribal tension here as there is in some other countries, but people will dismiss this tribe as lazy (if they seem to lack ambition) or greedy (if they have ambition). It seems to be a can't-win. Oh well, such things happen everywhere I suppose.

This is short, but I'm planning on updating tomorrow too.