Slasher supervisor/ Where is a blowtorch when you need one?

So, I after one important month (plus a few days) of me feeling a little useless I have officially started school! This past Monday (3^rd) we had a staff meeting that started at 10 am and lasted until 2 pm. For the non-calculators out there or people who are bad with time, like myself, I sat through a 4-hour meeting that was mainly in Kiswahili. Not to worry, I was prepared for the meeting. I brought a pen, notepad and the all-important novel. If I have learned one thing it is this: bring a book wherever you go in Tanzania.  I am grateful however, that my counterparts and Mkuu did not take offence to my reading. In all honesty, I paid attention to as much of the meeting as I could, but after a while my brain gets tired of having to translate from Kiswahili to English and I tune it out. After four hours, I learned that I would be teaching Form 1 Physics and Math (about 28 periods a week). Now some of you out there might be laughing, especially if you know how many Calc and Physics classes I took in college. If you guessed, one Calc class and no physics classes you would be correct. In fact, I have disliked physics since senior year in high school (Thank you, Mari Jones for helping me to pass!).  That being said, I am actually excited to teach both subjects because I will have the opportunity learn the material over again and hopefully obtain a new liking for both! Towards the end of the meeting my Mkuu addressed the 5 year plan for the school and subsequent goals of which numbers 13 and 14 were to construct a “botanical garden” and a “frog/ fish pond”.  I commend my school for trying to improve itself aesthetically, but I think it would be more important to finish putting windows in our classrooms and buy the computer we need to type exams. As an aside, one of my secondary projects is to get a used desktop for my school so we can type up our exams instead of paying someone to do it. In the long run it would save the school a lot of money. My other secondary goal is to build a basketball court at the school (not entirely altruistic), but a goal I feel I can accomplish within the next two years.  Okay…so in all the meeting was actually the shortest 4-hour meeting I have ever sat through (probably due to the novel) and I am proud to say I survived my first meeting in a different language.

Monday night also brought a new experience for me. Let’s lay the scene: I was on the phone because for once my Zain plan was working (it allows me to call other volunteers for free!) with my friend Kat. I was cooking rice and veggies and sitting outside on my back porch. It is also important to note that my umeme (Kiswahili for electricity; pronounced ooo-may-may) had gone out, so I was cooking by flash/candle light. So, while I was cooking/talking on the phone I noticed something move by one of my buckets on my porch. Being the curious person that I am I stood up and held my lamp over my bucket when I saw it…. a tiny black SNAKE! Alright, so although it was tiny, it was none the less …. a snake. Honestly, I like snakes about as much as Indian Jones, so not really at all.  Actually, Kat got the brunt of my encounter with the snake because I proceeded to scream, bellow, yelp, and shriek into the phone. My first thought was to jump on to the chair, which I did. My second was to grab the kerosene that was in my kitchen, throw it on the snake and then light the snake on fire. Thankfully, Kat talked me out of this bright idea by saying that I probably would not want a flaming serpent anywhere near my house and truthfully, she was right. Although…. it would have made for a better blog entry, no? So..in the end the snake and I went our separate ways, but next time I see one near or in my house…it will be getting the blow torch I purchased yesterday. (Just kidding)

School officially started on this Monday and foolishly I thought I would begin teaching, so I prepared a lesson plan. Little did I realize the first couple days/ week of school is designated for school clean-up. Back in the states, school clean-up might involve having students clean up garbage on the playground. In Tanzania, school clean-up means that the students arrive at the school with buckets, hoes and “slashers” from home. For all of you unfamiliar with a slasher, it is a metal tool that looks a lot like a golf club, but has a sharp end and is swung back and forth to cut grass. Apparently there is a severe lack of lawn mowers in the country and livestock that wish to eat the grass around our school, but no lack of teenagers with slashers.  So, my first officially duty as a teacher in Tanzania was as (and yes, I was given this title by the assistant head of school), Slasher Supervisor. I was to make sure that the students were cutting grass and if they were not, I was to punish them. Now, I had no problem supervising the slashing of the grass, but I was not about to punish a student for failing to cut grass. Hell…I wouldn’t even want to cut grass. I believe the students should be in class learning, but schools are run differently in Tanzania. I would not say that their way of opening school is bad or good, but just different. Truthfully, I am glad that the grass in front of my house was slashed and that snakes will probably no longer want to live there, but am I glad that students were doing the work, no not entirely.  Today the same events took place, but in the afternoon it started to rain and the students took shelter in their classrooms. Since I had a nothing better to do I ventured into one of the classroom and had a very long and impromptu Q&A session with some form 4 students. I was asked every question from, “How old are you?”, “Do you have a boyfriend?”, “Do you drink beer?”, “Why does America have nuclear weapons?” to “Are widows inherited by their husband’s brother?”, “Is female circumcision practiced in America?”, “Do people eat ugali?” and “Why is there not a cure for HIV?”. I found all of the questions to be very good, but some more difficult to answer than others. In all sincerity, so far, the opportunities when I get to share my culture and what life is really like in America with students here are the times I feel I am doing the most. Afterward I just exude happiness… there is really no other way to put it. I think, or rather know, that in the long run my students here will do more for me, but in the meantime, hopefully I can teach them something that will stay with them for life.

As for other updates on my life here at site: I planted my first crop! Mchicha (mm-chee- cha), a leafy green, has started to grow, so I think I will start to plant the rest of my seeds this week. I will hopefully go to the fundi this week and ask him to make a crate for my mtoto wa mbwa (dog of baby), aka puppy. She will hopefully arrive within the next two weeks, just in time for my birthday!!  Also currently in training for the Kilimanjaro half-marathon that will take place at the end of February. I have no idea why on Earth I decided to train for another one, but I figure I shouldn’t let the opportunity pass me by…you only live in Africa once, right?

In all I am just thankful for the start of school, a daily routine and what I consider to be the beginning of my real life in Tanzania. As is wont, I hope that everyone back at home is doing well. Miss you all. All my love from TZ.