First Sight of Snow

It's been really hot here these past few weeks. I don't know how I feel about a HOT January, but I suppose for one year, I can handle it. I took in a picture of snow this week to show my students, to explain that I'm certainly not used to this heat in January. And boy oh boy, you wouldn't believe the reaction! Most of them had never even seen a picture before, so this was revolutionary. While I was busy telling stories about shoveling, snow plows, sledding, snow men, and catching snowflakes on my tongue, the students were asking the craziest questions....

"How do you stay warm?"

"Do you go outside in the snow?"

"What about babies? That must be dangerous for them."

"How long does it stay on the ground?"

"How do you sleep when it's so cold?"

and my personal favorite, from my top Form 4 girl:

"If a Tanzanian goes to America when it's snowing, they will die, won't they?"

I tried to give them as realistic impression of snow as possible, but some of them were still convinced that they would die if they ever experienced snow. This is when it hit me: I really am on the other side of the world, and we couldn't be more different! For me, it's totally normal to need to wake up early before school to shovel snow, which they have no concept of this besides the one picture I've shown them. And here, they have to wake up early to milk cows, sweep dirt, and walk 8 kilometres to school, which I can't even imagine... 

Life sure is crazy sometimes. 

It's a Love-Hate Relationship

Things are going to get real this week. When I say I have a “Love-Hate” relationship with my life here in Tanzania, I really mean that in the most literal sense. Utmost honesty is my approach today:

I hate that my computer is going to die in 25 minutes

I hate that I don’t have access to an electrical outlet in a 3-hour radius of my house

I hate that communication is limited by my lack of Swahili knowledge

I hate that I wash my hair in a bucket once in seven days

I hate that I eat 4 pounds of tomatoes every week

I hate that I cook every meal on charcoal

I hate that 500 bats live in my house

I hate that I poop in a hole

I hate the layer of dirt that covers my body all day, every day

I hate that when I try to sleep at night, every flying bug harasses me always

I hate that my phone has a mind of its own and only gets service when it feels like it

I hate that when I take a taxi, I have to sit in the back seat with 4 other grown men 

I hate that I haven’t been able to go to a church service in a language I understand in the past 6 months

I hate wearing skirts to my ankles every day

I hate. I hate. I hate.

There’s a lot of hate in my life these days, clearly.

But the good news is that I think there’s even more love.

I love my ride to and from school everyday; 

I’ve never seen land so beautiful and untouched

I love my students;

every last one of them

I love teaching mathematics;

yes, even how to do logarithms by hand

I love when my students get the answers right;

even though it’s seldom

I love even when they get the answers wrong;

it means that they tried

I love the ridiculously loud, enthusiastic “Good MORNING Madam” from my Form 2 class; 

it brings a smile to my face every time

I love teaching my Form 1 class the very basics of English, and then waiting for their young minds to churn long enough, until finally, one student raises their hand; at least someone understands

I love all 75 of my Form 4’s; even though they might not be able to derive the general equation of line, they sit politely and listen to every word I say

I love how my students’ faces light up when I talk about my life in America; 

pure, simple, eager enjoyment

I love drinking hot milk tea; highlight of every school day 

(I want a cow when I get back to WI, so I can have fresh milk to boil everyday)

I love brushing my teeth under the stars;

perfect time to gaze up and wonder about what can be

I love having time to relax after school;

with no agenda, I can do what I please

I love walking to the market on Saturday mornings; 

I can marvel at the beauty of God’s creation for an hour and a half

I love getting mail; 

the few times that I’ve actually received anything have been better than Christmas morning

I love my newfound appreciation for the little things in life; 

like the joys of eating a fresh passion fruit or finishing another book of the Old Testament

I love the simplicity of life here;

nothing more, nothing less.

<3 <3 <3

First Day of School!

Oh how I’ve missed my students! They are the lights of my life. Literally.

When I got to school on Monday morning (January 14), I was overcome with a sense of peace, excitement, and anticipation...just like every school year since I was in preschool. Come to find out, school had actually started the week before, but classes were starting this week. This was mostly good news, because I could just jump right in the classroom rather than twiddle my thumbs for a week. However, It was 7:52 when I arrived, and I was scheduled to teach at 8:00am and couldn’t have been less prepared if I tried.  Not only did I have a class, but it was Form 1 mathematics…and these new precious form 1 students speak NO English. Welcome back! Luckily, I know all of my numbers, and they do not, so in my 8 minutes of preparation for class, we were all ready to go. So what did we cover?

1 one

2 two

3 three

…

20 twenty

30 thirty

40 forty

…

100 one hundred

1000 one thousand

1000000 one million

Most of the class period was spent practicing speaking numbers, like this:

“How do you say?” [point to 352, 1,023, 57, etc]

blank stares

“How do you say?” “Unasema?”

light bulbs go on

one student is finally able to answer.

The whole class repeats after me.

Over and over and over again. Repetition is the key, because they eventually caught on and the lesson went pretty well. But we all have our work cut out for us, that is for certain. 

I spent the rest of the day preparing for the rest of my week’s worth of classes, and while I missed my Form 2 and Form 3 periods, I figured on the first day of school it was best to prepare in order to start strong, rather than wing it and crash and burn.

Here’s my weekly class schedule, nicely color coated for your convenience (and I was bored lol).  This year, I’ll be teaching mathematics to all four forms (1M, 2M, 3M, 4M) as well as Form 1 English (1E).

	8:00	8:40	9:20	10:00	10:40	11:00	11:40	12:20	1:00	1:40-2:40
Mon	1M	1M			Chai	2M	2M	3M	3M	Clubs
Tues			4M	4M	Chai	2M	2M	1E	1E	Debate
Wed	1M	1M	3M	3M	Chai	4M	4M	1E	1E	Sports
Thurs	1E	1E	4M	4M	Chai	1M	1M			Self Reliance
Fri	3M	3M			2M	2M	Religion	Clean	Clean	Clean

It’s a heavy workload, mostly because I have 5 classes all learning different material in a very demanding curriculum, speaking various levels of English, having a wide range of mathematical ability, with class sizes anywhere between 40 and 80, and very limited time to prepare for lessons or mark exercises…more thoughts to come on all of this later.

At the very least, I’m thankful that I’ll be keeping busy! I hope you're ready to hear all of the excitements, challenges, successes and failures of another school year at Bukiriro! Wish us all luck...and perhaps a few prayers sent this way would be graciously accepted as well!

:) 

Lazy Sunday

Lazy Sunday takes on a whole new meaning here in the bush. We got back to Muyenzi after all of our adventures on a Friday, and spent the day on Saturday going to the market, doing some cleaning and resting. Come Sunday, I woke up around 8:30 and began to contemplate what I would do with another whole day at home. Sundays everywhere are generally a day of no commitments, hence the phrase “lazy Sunday.” But here in Muyenzi, this takes on a whole new meaning.

Things I wanted to do after brainstorming:

Take a shower.

Wash my socks and underwear.

Wash my new kangas.

Bake a cake or a loaf of bread.

Go for a walk or run.

Watch a movie.

Be Social.

Things I was not able to do:

Take a shower,

Wash my socks and underwear,

Wash my new kangas

Why? because we only had one bucket of water.

Bake a cake or a loaf of bread.

Why? Because we only had enough charcoal to cook one meal.

Go for a walk or run.

Why? Because my foot was still painfully reminding me that I broke it on the Nile River.

Watch a movie.

Why? Because we no longer have access to an electrical outlet to charge my computer after I watch a movie.

Socialize with anyone.

Why? Because practically no one lives here! And none of the teachers nor Mama K were back yet.

Things I was actually able to do:

Read. A lot.

Play volleyball (with myself).

Read some more.

Wash my hair. (At least we had 6 cups to spare for that endeavor!)

Talk to my parents on the phone! HIGHLIGHT of the day for sure!

Make a list of things we can do here that will keep us from going crazy this semester.

Make enough rice on the last of our charcoal, so that if we didn’t get any on Monday, we would have leftovers. (Which happened, so dinner on Monday was cold rice. Mmm. Welcome back to the bush.)

So there you have it. Lazy Sundays here are certainly something else. I think I’m going to be thoroughly overwhelmed when I come home to America with all of my options of things to do on any given Sunday.

Back to the Bush!

We’re back. I can’t say much more. It’s almost like we never left. Except we did, because this is what we came home to:

Two wide-open windows.

Small puddles of water in my room.

Dirt and bat poop everywhere (kitchen table included)

Several dead bugs and spiders.

Several alive bugs and spiders.

No water in our buckets.

Very minimal charcoal.

And

Last

But

Not

Least

A

Dead

Bat

Rotting

On

The

Floor

In

Our

Water

Storage

Room

.

It was too much for me. Actually just the memory of it is too much, which is why I couldn’t even write about it normally. EW.

Dad- you should be proud of me, because even without a pink hood and tennis racket, I was still able to dispose of it all by myself! J

After some deep cleaning, ie lots of sweeping, things are back to normal here in good old Muyenzi!

However, I must also mention our lack of charcoal in more depth. My guess is that it sounds fairly primitive to be cooking on a small charcoal stove. I can assure you that it feels that way. When we came home, we only had enough charcoal to last the weekend, and when we run out that’s certainly not a good thing since all of our food needs to be cooked and all of our water needs to be boiled. When we went to the market on Saturday, we made a point to ask everyone, only to fine out that there was actually no charcoal available in all of Rulenge and Muyenzi…oh boyyyy. This was the point when we finally realized that no one here actually cooks with charcoal. They all use firewood! What? The cavemen used firewood….seriously my mind is blown. For one, I can’t believe that I’ve lived here for 4 months without realizing this, and two, that everyone still cooks on firewood. So, needless to say, no charcoal on Monday was a struggle. Come Tuesday, Marisa and I asked around at both of our schools, and thankfully we were able to secure a half of a sack from some old man at Bukiriro. I never thought I would be HAPPY to receive a sack full of charcoal! I don’t know why we tell children that Santa only gives charcoal to the bad kids…