What a day...

Welcome to Saturday in Tanzania. We were told to be ready at 6:00am this morning outside of our house to travel to Ngara with all of the teachers for a district meeting with the DEO. So, Marisa and I set our alarms for 5:20, got ready in the dark, ate a banana and walked down our hill to the road at 5:58. None of our neighboring teachers were around, but we figured they would show up in time. As the sun started to come up, we took out our cameras for some picture taking to keep ourselves entertained. But come 6:30 decided to head back to our house and wait for the other teachers and the vehicle that was supposedly coming to pick us up. Twenty minutes later, a truck pulls up our hill, honking the horn like crazy, and stops in front of our house. Finally…so we head outside, and quickly observe the fact that it’s full, wondering how on earth the 8 Muyenzi teachers are going to fit. We were the first ones to the truck, and we were warmly greeted by the friendly faces of all the Bukiriro teachers, as well as teachers from another nearby school. However, they were solidly already packed in, so Marisa climbed in the front and I had the honor of sitting in the back with all of my teachers. The teachers from across the street hadn’t made an appearance all morning, but the second master from Muyenzi came running out of his house to catch a ride. Well…when there’s no room, there’s no room, and here that means you just drive away. We are still uncertain how any of the Muyenzi teachers actually made it to this meeting…

But now, let me try to explain how this journey worked exactly…The vehicle was like a large jeep/truck, and there was a row of seats in the front for the driver and passenger (where we fit 4 people). In the back, there were two rows of seats along the windows facing each other, where 6 people were sitting on each side, knocking knees in the middle. Now I had the honor of sitting in the middle of these two rows, on some sort of metal box, as all of our legs became a tangled mess and people had no where to rest their arms but on my lap. And as if the 17 people that were in the truck weren’t enough, we stopped to pick up another man along the way. He squeezed in one of the back rows, as a fellow teacher stood on the seat next to him and balanced over the top of my head. 18 people. The two questions I was asked at this moment were: “Do you know the song Hakunaga?” (which is about a man’s one true love, and yes I do know the song), and the other “How do you find Tanzanian transport?” (chizi sana). After 15 or 20 minutes, we stopped to drop off two people who could take another vehicle, so I was able to move to an actual seat. And while this seat was next to the back door and I was being smushed and covered in dirt simultaneously, it was a little better. That didn’t last long though, because we stopped to pick up another man, so back to the middle I went. I can’t decide if it was more or less awkward that I was sitting in such close proximity to men that I knew, but it is what it is.

So when we finally arrive in Ngara at 8:00 for this meeting, we walked around for a little while before taking our chairs at 8:30. This was the first meeting for all of the secondary schools in the district to come together, so I’m assuming that it was very significant for education in this area. It’s hard to say though, because even though they emphasized the need for English instruction, 95% of the meeting was in Swahili. We just sat politely, understanding random words here and there, but overall having no idea what was happening. At 11:30 we had a break for chai and a piece of bread. And then continued with speakers and questions and whatnot, until a break for food at 3:30. Now, sitting in one chair for 7 hours is quite a long time…now imagine that the medium of communication is foreign to you so you don’t understand a thing that’s happening for 6 and a half of those hours. Ahh. The food was pretty good though and it was nice to have another break, but we were quite wrong to think it was over at this point. A few more presenters and some final questions, and finally around 5:30 we were finished. Only a 9 hour meeting. We concurred that the 16 hours bus ride from Dar was actually slightly better. But in reality, although we might not have found today to be worthwhile for us, I think it did have a great impact on the teachers in our district. Ultimately, the greatest goal is for teachers here to promote education themselves, and I do think that was accomplished today. So it was a success all in all, even if it was the longest day of my life…