Karibu!

Habari za asabuhi?

Salama!

I just asked you how your morning is going. Mine is quite peaceful! As I sit on the front steps of our little guest house watching the sunrise over the horizon, I can’t imagine being in a more beautiful place right now. We have been at the Mpingo Farm Stay for the past four nights, and so far our experience has been wonderful! The people are amazingly friendly, the food is scrumptious, and the landscape is breathtaking. What a wonderful welcome to Tanzania!

I suppose you are all anxiously waiting for me to tell you where I’ll be teaching this year too... I will be in the Ngara District at the Muyenzi Secondary School outside of  Rulenge. Here is the site description from last year’s volunteer:

School: Muyenzi Secondary School has about 350 students. The school has six permanent teachers. The staff is incredibly supportive and a great help. Each class has between 30 to 45 students. The school has some books, but not one for every student. MSS does have a laboratory for science classes, but no electricity. The school is located on top of a hill with a small village at the base. It is about 7km from Rulenge, the town where most students live, and volunteers can take a piki piki (motorcycle) to town. The ride is breathtaking. (And we’re hopefully going to buy bicycles to get to town!)

 Community: Rulenge is a small, rural town about an hour from the Burundi border and two hours from the Rwandan border. Rulenge is a ten‐hour bus ride to Mwanza, the largest nearby city in Tanzania. There are no paved roads or electricity in Rulenge, but that doesn’t take away from its charm. The people are warm and friendly. English is rare, so Rulenge is a great place to learn Kiswahili and even the local language, Kishubi. Saturday is Market Day and town bustles with activity because surrounding villagers come to sell their goods. There are a couple local pubs/eateries that serve chips mayai(a potato omelet) and mishkaki(beef skewers).

Living situation: Volunteers will live on campus, in school housing. This simple three room structure has two bedrooms and a sunny living room. There is a small, enclosed outdoor area where the bathroom and shower rooms are. This is also the area where you can wash clothes, cook and have some outdoor privacy. Furnishings will be very basic, as this is the first year that volunteers will be living here. You will not have electricity or running water, but a water source is nearby.

So, there you have it! You now know about as much as we do about our site. I will be living with another volunteer, and we will also be teaching at the same school! She will be teaching English and I will (hopefully) be teaching math! (more on that in just a minute…) I’m very happy to have someone to share this experience with though, as I’m sure it will push our boundaries in so many ways.  This past week we’ve had running water, cool showers, western toilets, home-cooked Tanzanian food, solar power, and even a slow internet connection! Luxury life! But once we get to our site, we will quickly learn to adapt to life without a faucet, kitchen, bathroom, electricity, etc. I suppose I’ll be planning lessons by candle light? I have so many questions right now, but learning to love the little things and appreciate what I do have will be the key to happiness this year.

For example, I went on a run with a few of the other volunteers the first day we were here. It felt so good to move around again after such a crazy long few days of flying! And although I’m pretty sure the entire village came out to watch as we ran by, it was a nice to have a little support to push on and keep running! The music that was blasting from the church nearby was an added perk too!

Or, how about last night when one of the men who works at Mpingo led us down to the river at the base of the hill, and then all the way back up to the village to give us all a small gift…Fresh coconut! He climbed the trees and cut down probably 25 coconuts, skinned them and cut them open for each of us to drink the milk from our own coconut! Such a kind gesture, and although I didn’t really care for the milk, I was able to enjoy some of the inside for an after dinner treat J

Side note: I would like to mention that we were able to meet with the heads of the English and Science departments at the Ministry of Education on Thursday. These women were extremely welcoming and happy to have us supporting some of their most rural schools.  I was left feeling very encouraged, they told us that we are “the boss” and we need to teach the students in a way that they will learn best. However, notice that there is no “head of the math department,” and unfortunately, there are many schools that do not even have a math teacher. What blows my mind though, is that these students are still expected to pass the math portion (1/3) of the National Exams at the end of their 2^nd and 4^th years of secondary school. This means that I could be coming into a situation where the school hasn’t had a math teacher in a few years, and I could be the only math teacher for all levels.  We are still unsure at this point, but I will find out when I get there. I could be in for a challenging, yet very rewarding year.

So with that, I’ll leave you with today’s activities: we were able to spend the day in Dar, buying our phones and internet modems while simply exploring the city. We are staying in Dar for two night before heading off to Iringa in Monday. It will be about a 6 hour drive up to the small mountain town, where we will continue our training and get to meet some of the volunteers from last year! I’m definitely looking forward to continue exploring this beautiful, welcoming country! Hopefully I’ll be able to keep you posted once a week, although that will depend on many unknown factors at this point…but no worries, we’ll figure out our lives here eventually!