Updates from the Bush

I’ve been away for awhile, pole sana! I must say that things here have been quite busy lately here! A few weekends ago, we went to Bukoba with the District Education Officer and his wife. It was really nice of them to spend the weekend with us, and we were able to visit their home villages, meet their families, and spend some quality time in the bush! Oh wait…I live in the bush. So nothing new on that front, although we ate so many cooked bananas I thought I was going to explode! But this is a delicacy we don’t have in the states, so I’ll embrace it while I’m still here! Then last weekend, Marisa came down with malaria, which is as bad as it sounds. She spent the weekend in the hospital, and I spent a lot of time with her as well. By Monday evening, she was discharged from the hospital and was able to spend the rest of the week with the other volunteers in Ngara. Come Tuesday, I was able to head back to Muyenzi to finish out the week of school. She’s been on the mend all week, and will make it home this weekend finally!

In other news, pen pal letters have been a huge success at school! I had four of my Form 4 boys send letters to my brother and his friends (since they’re all about the same age) and the replies from America were a highlight of the week for them. They were SO excited to read their letters, to hear about life with grocery stores, 400 person dormitories, and cities without trees….Not that they can really imagine any of this, considering we have chickens and goats disrupting our classes here, which turn into dinner later, the largest buildings around are the school classrooms, and there are 700 million trees of all varieties everywhere. What a learning experience for everyone!

Also exciting! We have two new teachers at Bukiriro! They are both temporary, but will be teaching English and Civics! Considering we went from 4 teachers to 6 teachers, this is quite the impressive feat. And it’s so wonderful the students will have an actual English teacher now! I’m also much happier sticking to math only…language is not my strong suite.

Let’s see, what else? OH! We finally got our results from the Form 4 and Form 2 National Examinations! In Form 4, we had 14 students pass at the division 4 level (which is the lowest division that passes). You must reach division 1, 2 or 3 to move on to A-level, but you still have some options at the division four level as well. Out of of 77 students, this isn’t the best average, but 14 is better than 13! As for Form 2, we had 27 students pass with a 20% or higher, so they can actually move on to Form 3. The 40 students who failed will repeat Form 2 if they so choose, or more likely, will be finished with their schooling. A sad reality for those 40, but for the 27 who are left, they are dedicated to their studies so I have high hopes for them when they get to Form 4!

And as for the UJI effort, things have been hugely successful on all fronts! The kids are eating, they love it, the teachers are all eating, and they also love it, and you are still eating (although probably not porridge and/or mandazi with milk tea)…but you have helped us raise enough money to buy flour and sugar through the end of MAY! It’s incredible! And as funds continue to come in, that will simply be more weeks that the students are fed! If you’d like to contribute, it’s certainly not too late yet. You can donate on the WorldTeach website, specifying the project for Elizabeth Martin, Tanzania, or through my page on FirstGiving. Asante sana from everyone at Bukiriro! Hopefully pictures to come soon when I have enough internet power again!

And for now, I think I’m going to conserve my computer battery and end here for the week. Sorry it’s not much, but hopefully one day I’ll have the time and the electricity power to share more stories from good old Muyenzi! 

LAST UPDATE: Less than 100 days left!!!