National Examination Week

The excitement these past few weeks in school has been the Form 4 national exams. The students take a test in 8 or 9 different subjects, and some take more depending on which classes they’ve taken. Every school had security guards stationed 24/7 for the exam papers, which were locked in the headmaster’s office. Teachers from each school were also transferred to other schools in the district to proctor the exam. These are certainly not taken lightly! The students took two tests per day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. I haven’t actually seen the exams from this year, but I’m sure they were quite difficult. I’m not sure exactly what it takes to pass the examinations, but I know that they do not need to pass all subjects to move on. If a student does pass, they are able to continue to the Advanced level, forms five and six, before eventually attending a university. Unfortunately for many of my students, A-level will never be a reality, as last year only one student passed the exams. There are a handful of very bright students in the class this year though, so perhaps Bukiriro will send a few more students onto Form 5 next year. It’s hard when education isn’t a priority in the community and when these students have so many other responsibilities at school and outside of school. Combine this with lack of teachers and resources and a curriculum that hardly relates to their lives, it’s a wonder that students show up day after day! They are so eager to learn! Case in point: One day, I was going to let my Form 1 class have a break from doing exercises/practice problems, since I had given them exams both class periods before. And what do they ask me? For more exercises! I certainly didn’t say no, and gave them a few problems to work on, which they all completed in their notebooks and delivered to my office for marking. A teacher’s dream! I didn’t even mind the fact that I had to correct 65 notebooks for Form 1, and then another 60 for Form 3 that day. In America, it was nearly impossible to get students to turn in work most of the time, while here, they ask for more. An interesting perspective. 

"This is my mental breakdown"

It’s bound to happen sooner or later, right?

Well, it hasn’t actually happened yet, but this is a common household phrase used by Marisa and me daily. Literally there are so many things that could cause a breakdown at any moment, so it’s best to make a joke of it, claim it’s our breakdown, and have a good laugh about it. Here’s a brief list of possible reasons to use this phrase:

-  **It’s raining, you have no clean underwear, and now you can’t do the wash…

-  **You decide to lay down and take a brief afternoon nap in shorts and a tank top, and 15 minutes later you are summoned from a deep sleep by a neighbor and now must scramble to put on a tshirt and wrap yourself in a kanga while waking up to answer the door…

-  **You wake up to find dead grasshoppers on the floor in your room…

-  **You’ve lost 14 games of solitaire in a row…

-  **You’re hungry, so you decide to make guacamole, but apparently the avocados are bad. And the very few other vegetables that have made it to Thursday are also bad. So the dilemma is what to have for dinner when all you have is rice…

-  **Your ankles and back are consistently covered in bug bites (from what bugs, who knows, where I’m encountering such bugs, who knows, and why they haven’t gone away in a month, also no one knows) and they itch so bad!...

-  ** Flies…

-  **Your feet are never clean, and sometimes two wet wipes per foot isn’t enough for the amount of dirt…

-  **You realize that you left your house keys at school while on the piki piki home, but you actually can’t communicate with your driver to ask him to go back...(although by the end of my 15 minute ride, I was able to figure out what to say: “Simama, nimesahau ufunguo yangu shuleni”…or something like that anyways. Granted, it was too late by the time we were already home, so I just prayed that Marisa’s keys would open my locked bedroom door. My prayers were answered, although that says something about the security of our belongings.)

-  **You are stuck at school in the afternoon because of the rain, and the teachers tell you the rain might not stop for hours…(luckily it was only one hour)

-  **You can’t sleep because the bats in your ceiling combined with the frogs in the makeshift pond outside your house are so freaking loud…

-  **You sweep an aggressively large pile of bat poop out of your house every day, most of the problem being the ceiling tiles over our dining table…

-  **Your phone dies, but obviously can’t charge it at your house, and the next day it rains so the solar charger at school doesn’t work either…

-  **You’re riding on a piki piki home with all of your things after a wonderful weekend in Kigali (although you left your raincoat on the bus, so that’s gone forever) and Mother Nature decides it’s the perfect time for a downpour…

-  **Here’s the most recent use of this phrase, October 26 7:07AM: It’s Friday morning, and you wake up early to get ready for school. You look out the window and notice that the students normally running up the hill to make it to school on time are nowhere to be found. Then, you receive a text from volunteers in Ngara who say they don’t have school today. So you call your neighbor and fellow teacher to find out if this is true, and sure enough, he laughs and says “Of course there’s no school today!” like it was common knowledge. [insert stomps and frustrations loudly echoed throughout our house]. Somehow we missed this memo, but apparently everyone knows because even my driver didn’t come to pick me up this morning!!!….Seriously, how did he know??? This is one of those times that I just wonder, since I told all the teachers at school yesterday “see you tomorrow,” but apparently something was lost in translation.  This is actually the worst news possible though. Mostly because going to school gives us something to do during the day, and a long weekend in Muyenzi would be cause for a breakdown.  If we would have known however, we could have planned our getaway to Kigali this weekend instead and spent more time there! AH! We’re in the midst of planning a little weekend getaway now, so I’m sure we’ll come up with something exciting…but really…

On the brighter side, if we didn’t enjoy laughing so much, we’d be having a hard time of it I think. Finding joy in the little things has taken on a whole new meaning. I look forward to my twice a week bucket bath, the waves and “Good morning teacher!” from the little school children I pass on my ride to school every day, the daily delivery of fresh milk (which literally just came to our door as I’m writing this! J ), the view of cattle from our window as they are herded by our house come rain or shine, our Thursday night blogging routine, and of course class time with my students. We’ve made it through our first seven weeks in Muyenzi, and we have seven more before winter break. Although I’m sure we’ll continue to joke about our mental breakdowns, I’m confident that between the two of us we’ll keep each other strong. Just imagine how boring these stories would be if our life wasn’t so crazy…if I ever write a book, the most exciting parts will be when we’re on the verge of a breakdown, so might as well just laugh about it now. 

Market Day in Rulenge!

We’ve really begun to settle in to life in Muyenzi these past few weeks. Meaning, little access to internet, and hence the lack of posts recently…but stay tuned for more regular updates this week!! The newness of our home has faded and the reality of our life here has begun to set in. A few weekends ago, we decided to stay in Muyenzi for the weekend rather than travel to Ngara so that Sue (one of the Ngara volunteers, from England) could visit us at our home instaed! So we walked to the market in Rulenge for our weekly shopping.  We met up with Sue and walked back to our house together. And let me tell you, I have a whole new appreciation for the students who walk from Rulenge to school in Muyenzi everyday. It takes over an hour both ways on the only gravel road in the area, and we were carrying our weeks worth of groceries, it was hot, and there were mountains to climb…I was so excited to be home after that morning! In case you’re interested in our weekly shopping list, our purchases that weekend totaled $10USD and included:

7lbs of tomatoes

10 carrots

4 green peppers

1 cabbage

5 eggplant

6 cucumbers

5 onions

4 avocado

2 rolls of toilet paper

2 boxes of matches

3 packages of biscuits (perfect snack with peanut butter! and 3 packages lasts us two weeks)

2 small packages of laundry detergent

We had enough rice, flour, sugar, pasta, potatoes, sunflower oil, peanut butter and kerosene left over from the week before. While we aren’t up on American prices recently, we figure this would be at least 4 times as expensive if shopping in the US…

As you might have noticed, our diet is quite limited.  We do make some good varieties on our trusty charcoal jiko with what we can find though! Here’s our weekly meal schedule with the occasional variation: (Sunday) Eggplant stewed with carrots, tomatoes, onions, garlic and ginger served with chapatti; (Monday) rice with stewed carrots, green peppers, and onions; (Tuesday) pasta with fresh tomato sauce; (Wednesday) rice with boiled cabbage; (Thursday) leftover rice with guacamole; (Friday) mashed potatoes; one week we were lucky enough to have enough eggs to make omelets…literally the best day ever. Sometimes we make cream of chicken soup from a packet, which is a nice little change of pace. Occasionally, we can get a freshly picked pineapple from the Muyenzi town center, and we usually manage to find a few eggs each week. Bananas, even though we live amid thousands of banana trees, are hard to come by. The bananas grown here are cooking bananas, usually stewed with tomatoes or served fried. I’m not a huge fan of them, so if I can avoid them, I do…although a giant bunch of these bananas costs about 10,000Tsh for 50 or so bananas ($6.50USD). We much prefer eating the sweet bananas (which are 4 for 100Tsh…literally pennies each), but we can only find them when we go to Ngara town. We take what we can get.

Every morning at school, I have chai break with one other teacher, which is a nice morning meal. Usually we have chai, made hot from fresh milk, with mandazi (fried dough). Some days we switch it up and have rice, bananas, potatoes or groundnuts.  At home, we also have fresh milk delivered daily that we boil in the evenings for chai. I’ve tried to explain the concept of drinking cold milk in America, but that’s just craziness. Although some days I miss a cold glass of milk, I do love the chai! Perhaps when I get back, I will have my own cow so I can have fresh milk everyday for my hot chai! But really…

Check back this week for more updates!! I promise to be more in touch in the coming weeks, including tales of our weekend adventure in Kigali, Rwanda, and our use of the phrase "This is my mental breakdown"...:)

Chizi kama Ndizi

This week’s top fourteen:

1.      We rode home from Ngara on Sunday in a coaster bus built for 12 with 25 people. Typical.

2.      I bought 3 freshly picked parachichi (avocados) from a local shamba (farm) at our town center for 200 shillings. Some quick math and that converts to 4 cents each. I’m going to hate American grocery stores when I get back.

3.      Guacamole and leftover rice makes a really delicious dinner. No joke. (And we can avoid the strenuous process of lighting our charcoal jiko. Although, we have finally been able to successfully light it by ourselves this week. The key is to gather the right sticks, go figure.)

4.      We have a new addition to our house…a second table! It literally was the best day ever when we could move our food off the floor. We put a beautiful kitenge on it for some decoration and this place feels homier everyday! We’ve also hung a large shower curtain on the wall that Marisa brought from America. It has a huge map of the world on it. It’s awesome. (And it covers up most of the dirt on the wall.) Next to the map we’ve hung my favorite picture from the local papers thus far…none other than the Wisconsin Badgers beating Utah 16-14. Random? Certainly. Why this is news worthy here I have no idea, but it was a nice little touch of home!

5.      In order to protect my eyes on my piki piki ride to and from school, I wear sunglasses everyday. Thankfully I brought two pair, because my first pair inevitably broke in my over-packed bags at some point. However, when I was leaving school on Tuesday, I was bouncing down the intense dirt path to school and my sunglass flew out of my hand. My driver speaks no English, and we were going much to fast to stop, so I said good-bye to them. Now, I haven’t seen any sunglasses here, so it was actually really sad that both pairs I brought have already seen better days. When I got to school Wednesday morning though, one of my form 4 students came to my office and handed me my sunglasses! They found them on the side of the road and knew they were mine. How wonderful! Students here are awesome.

6.      Thursday evening we had dinner with the Member of Parliament and other volunteers in our region in Rulenge. He is travelling to Dar es Salaam for the next few months, so he wanted to see us all before he left. His house is so nice; it was a good change of pace to have some electricity! It was nice to see the other volunteers as well and the food was delicious!

7.      The French and English teacher at our school left this week to go to the university in Arusha. Which means we no longer have an English teacher? I’m actually unsure, but it’s possible no one is teaching English. Sad day! But then two new teachers are beginning on Monday, but one is teaching biology and the other chemistry. So we have five science teachers and no English teachers? Ah. I don’t even know….

8.      We have two lizards and at least one frog that live in our toilet. Literally. It’s an unfortunate reality…for all parties involved.

9.      We visited the Muyenzi girls and Mama Kabibi at the hostel two nights this week. Our social schedule was booming, obviously. It’s a good time though, with a mix of Swahili and English conversations, some bui bui visiters (giant spiders), and too many “chizi sana’s” to count. Everything is chizi sana here. That’s Swahili for “very crazy.” Oh Mama Kabibi! Also, the girls taught us one of the songs they sing at church, “Asante Shukuru.” We sing it before bed every night to make sure we remember it, because at any moment someone might ask us to sing for them. But really, it happens.

10.  Some of my form one girls taught me the Bukiriro school song on Friday afternoon. The students were cleaning the environment, and the girls were cleaning my office while teaching me the song. They had written out the lyrics the day before, (because naturally they had asked me to sing them a song…so I sang Asante Shukuru and then asked them to write the words ofr the school song.) So together they helped me learn the whole song, which was hilarious. Especially when I turned around to notice all the form one boys peering into the windows behind me, laughing of course. I made them all sing with me then. Such good times, but I have learned it! Not by heart, there are way too many words for that…but at least I’ll be able to sing along when they sing it on Monday mornings. Although I wouldn’t be surprised at all if I was asked to sing it by myself at some point for the school…which would be ridiculous. I’ll let you know when it happens….

11.  We want to buy a chicken. And name her Chizi. Apparently for 4,000 shillings this could be a reality. Only $3. I’ll keep you posted.

12.  We want to host a sherehe at our house as well. Party time, Chizi included! This could be so insane, but so great at the same time. Perhaps we’ll just invite our fellow teachers, or perhaps we’ll include the form four students once they’ve finished exams. This is a work in progress, but we’ll go all out with soda and American music and everything. Oh I cannot wait!

13.  Also, the population of our village: 200. Wait what?! Yes, we live in a village of 200 people. No water. No electricity. One solar panel in the village center. One church. One school…which has over 300 students, most of whom walk 7km from Rulenge every day. One soccer field behind our house. A handful of herds of cattle and goats. And that’s all. For miles. It’s declared as “the bush” by locals, so we embrace it. We’re the 1% diversity. Literally. And every single person here knows us, and way too many things about us. My dream of teaching math in a little African village is the reality of my life. Love it!

14.  And last for this week, I’ll let you know that my Swahili is improving! So many people are trying to help me learn, including my students, fellow teachers, headmaster, Mama Kabibi, and everyone else I meet. However, they are also trying to teach us Kishubi, the local language…and boy does that get confusing! Sometimes I don’t actually know what language I’m speaking. But it happens. For anyone curious, here are a some words of the week that I’ve learned:

Uraho/Ndaho: How are you/I’m fine. (kishubi greeting)

Ulakoze: Thank you (Kishubi)

Mgomba: banana tree

Bui bui: spider

Kuimba: to sing

Nimeweza kuimba wimbo wa shule ya Bukiriro: I can sing the Bukiriro school song…

Lakini, siwezi kuelewa wimbo wa shule ya Bukiriro: But, I can’t understand the Bukiriro school song…siku moja. One day…

Wimbo wa shule ya Bukiriro

Ndio wakati na mda umefika

Amukeni wote twendeni shuleni

Ni jambo jema humushukuru Mungu

Kuona tumeamka salama

(Chorus)

Shule yetu hii ya Bukiriro tunaipenda sana.

Twawapongeza wazazi wetu

twawa shukuru walimu wetu

Asante sana walimu kutufundisha

Shule yetu hii ya Bukiriro

Inaonyesha ufunguo mpya

Na ngao yake inapendeza sana

Elimu ni ufunguo wa maisha

Jukumu letu kwa sisi wanafunzi

Ni kuimidi masoma zaidi

Vipindi vyote yapasa tujifunze

Sasa walimu kazi twawapeni

Tupate mwanga ndani ya shule yetu

Na change moto kwa walimu wetu

Taaluma nyingi yapasa tujifunze

Tupate nefsi kakote tuendako

Shule izae matunda ya Baraka

Madakitari walimu makarani

Maofisini kokote tuendako

Chimbuko liwe sec. Bukiriro

Tamati hapa na mwisho temefika

Tunaroomba kwa walimu wetu

Yakosoeni makasa tufanyayo

Tusipoteze hazina ya maisha.

One day, I will successfully translate this to English.

Life at Bukiriro Secondary School

I figured I should talk a little bit about the realities of teaching in an Tanzanian village. As you read, remember that despite everything, I seriously love it! That's a fact. But it has definitely been a challenge for many reasons. First, my classes are so large that it has been impossible for me to follow attendance or check for understanding. For example, my Form 3 class last Friday had 56 students, and when I walked in on Wednesday, there were 75 students. There were basically sitting on top of each other in 5 rows of 14 or 15 students, and there was literally no space for me to walk around at all. I had little control over who was taking notes or answering questions, and when I collected exercise books to correct the few problems I put on the board, only 44 students turned theirs in. Yet, how would I manage to figure out who did and who did not turn it in? And in reality, maybe ten students were able to successfully make a table and plot the points on a graph. So that was discouraging. I don’t know if they are struggling because of the material, or simply because of my English. Most likely it’s a combination of both, but how am I supposed to teach these students such a difficult curriculum when their skills are so low and so many of them are in one class? Challenges.

For my form 2 class, my biggest challenge is that I haven’t been able to have class! I’ve only had 3 classes with them in the past 3 weeks, because we’ve had so many interruptions. We have a lot of the syllabus still to cover, and they have national exams coming up in November, so I’m not sure how we’re going to make this work because we’ll have to move through the material quickly. But understanding is quite low for this class as well, as they get stuck on simple things like long division or solving simple equations. But do I spend time trying to build those skills or do I continue on with the syllabus topics? Challenges.

Form four has been a lost cause this week, as chemistry has taken over every period they were supposed to have math. While I could have insisted they have math instead, I didn’t have anything planned other than giving them a copy of the national exam from 2010. With their exams coming up in October, the most important thing now is to be exposed to the different types of problems and to practice taking exams. The issue here is that the math is extremely difficult. Some of the questions are so complicated and there are so many different topics that the test is literally impossible to pass. I also struggle because I’m not familiar with all of the topics (like double entry accounts, trial balances, solving logarithms by hand, or applications of matrices, among others). I’ve had a student take a few of the practice tests this week though, and he’s come in to discuss the answers, which has been helpful for both of us. I’m able to help him understand the material, while he has been able to explain some of the more esoteric topics to me. I feel for these kids though, because as much as I love math, this is a test that I wouldn’t necessarily enjoy taking…

I also found out this week that Bukiriro Secondary averages about 1 passing student from Form 4 per year on the national exams, out of classes with 75 ot 80 students. So why even bother? I can’t blame the few form 4 students who put their heads down when I try to answer questions on trigonometric ratios, because I’m sure it’s so above them that they have no hope of even getting close to passing. Grades are based solely on national exam scores, and passing in form 4 means going on to forms 5 and 6 before attending the university. Students who do not pass still graduate (as we’ve already celebrated), but they will be done with their schooling. Although in this area, completing form 4 is quite the accomplishment in and of itself. So it’s definitely an interesting challenge. There are a handful of boys in this class who have shown promise and initiative, asking good questions and correctly answering tough questions. But beyond that, I can’t be too hopeful.

(FYI, our kerosene lamp went out after burning for approximately 6 minutes. And since then, we’ve been sitting in the pitch black except for this computer light and Marisa’s headlamp. Gotta love it.)

Now, my form 1 students…they are a crazy bunch, but I love them. I’m trying to focus on learning their names first, and so far I know some of them! We’ve been doing geometry, specifically angles and transversals this week. And while they’ve been struggling with the difficulty of the material, they try really hard. There are about 65 of them who are there regularly, and while they were a bit chatty today, they generally cooperate, answer questions and take notes, which is nice. I’ve been collecting their exercise books nearly every day to correct the problems I give them, and I’m starting to get a general idea of who understands and who does not. Although because I don’t follow the attendance, it’s really hard for me to tell who is absent and who simply did not do the work. So I need a system. But I haven’t figured out what that will be yet, but I’m sure I’ll come up with something. I really like this class though, they’ve got personality and are a curious bunch, always asking me questions about America, my family, life at Muyenzi, and whatnot after regular class time is over. This is when I take the opportunity to practice some of my Swahili, and they nearly fall off their chairs laughing, which is awesome. I spent 30 minutes after class on Thursday answering random questions and telling crazy stories about my life, which was fun. They certainly are a good bunch. However, they told me that they don’t have an English teacher and want me to teach them English as well. So we’ll see if I can make that happen, because they could really use a language boost. I’ll keep you posted!

Hopefully next week, I’ll have a little better idea of what’s going on in my classes, because right now I feel like I’m floundering. But good news is that we are still healthy and happy here in Rulenge, and next Tuesday marks 50 days in country already! Such good times.