Training Comes to an End

It’s hard to believe that our three weeks of training is coming to an end. We’ve spent the last week observing and teaching classes at a tuition school, where students come to study and take extra classes during their break. It has been wonderful! We divided our group into English teachers and math/science teachers. With three math teachers and three science teachers, we were lucky to have the opportunity to group teach two lessons each.  On Wednesday, two other women and I taught a lesson on subsets…definitely very exciting! (Well, at least we thought so!) It was a very encouraging experience, as the students were all quiet and respectful during the lesson, answering our questions and taking notes throughout. Even as we did independent practice, students weren’t afraid to ask questions and the joy of correct answers was contagious! On Thursday we were able to teach the same class a continuation of our previous lesson, discussing operations on sets. Once again students were fantastic and even enthusiastically participated in our group activity that we planned! It such a lovely change of pace from the middle school students I was teaching last year, and while there are still challenges, behavior and respect are not among them. Rather, speaking at a slow enough pace for the students to understand our English accent, using level appropriate language, not having access to a copy machine or printer, students not having a ruler, pencil, or notebook for class, being covered in chalk by the end of the lesson…just to name a few. But overall, these are challenges that I am happy to face as I prepare for my classes because the ultimate goal is that the students are learning. As long as I have a piece of chalk, I can relay my knowledge to them. It’s as simple as that.

Now on an interesting note, we’ve spent the past two weeks in Iringa shopping and preparing for the journey ahead. While we were able to find most items on our list, the Form 4 Math Textbook was not available. Iringa is a fairly large city, and the main bookstore had many textbooks. But they did not carry Form 4 for math, which is disheartening. The more I learn about the Tanzanian education system, the more I realize the lack of quality math education. It seems as if most students do not even make it to Form 4 math, because many of the government schools in rural areas do not even have a math teacher. Now, imagine that you are back in high school and that at the end of senior year you need to take a National Exam that is cumulative. This alone determines your grade and whether or not you pass, yet the material is typical of the collegiate level in the US. Set theory, linear algebra, advanced trigonometry, calculus, statistics, etc. And now with all of this pressure on you, you have no math teacher so you must learn the material on your own. Hence why the bookstore may not even bother to carry Form 4 books. It is simply unrealistic to expect students, even the brightest, most motivated students to learn this content on their own. When I get to my site next week I will finally find out which school I will be teaching at. There are two secondary schools within 3km of our home, and it is possible that they will split me and the other volunteer between the schools. My fear is that neither school will have a math teacher, but only time will tell.

So in the morning we will be leaving Iringa bright and early, driving back to Dar. We will have a farewell dinner as a group one last time on Saturday evening. Sunday we are free to do whatever we need in order to be prepared for our sites, because once we get there, resources are few and far between. I’ve stocked up on peanut butter, notebooks, chalk, a solar charger and a solar powered lantern (life without electricity will be an adjustment!), pencils and pens, rulers, binders, kanga and kitenge with beautiful prints (traditional fabric for skirts/wraps/towels/blankets/etc), and some other random necessities. Chances are the most we will have access to in Rulenge is a food market twice a week and maybe a few small shops. Definitely no water or electricity in the village, so we will need to have water delivered from 3-4km away everyday. I think we’re going to invest in bicycles as well, since our home is actually 7km from the village. If you want a laugh, picture two mzungu (“foreigners”) in skirts on bicycles transporting food, charcoal and other items from the market! It will be a good time and I’ll definitely let you know how successful we are.  And while our actual home is unfinished at the moment, we will be staying in the two spare bedrooms of the Headmaster’s house. Hopefully within the month our house will be finished and ready to move into, and luckily it’s right across the street from the Headmaster which will make the move a little bit easier.

On Monday I will hop aboard a bus with the three other volunteers in the Kagera Region, and it will be an 11-12 hour ride to Kahama where we will stay overnight. Then very early on Tuesday, the same bus will take us from Kahama to Ngara, which is only about 4 hours. There we will meet our district representative who has offered to put Marisa and I up for the night in Ngara, while the other two volunteers will move into their home. Finally, on Wednesday we will have private transportation for the hour drive to our village! It will definitely be an intense few days, but I’m definitely getting very excited to finally be at our site, to unpack, and to settle in for the next few months.