Power to the People

I was so kindly reminded by my aunt that I have not written in a while. Voila, my overdue blog post!

Things have been going around here. I can tell time is passing by because I find myself stuck inside most afternoons due to the heavy rains that grace Tanzania every “spring”. School is going well. I do not have as many students as I thought I was going to have. Come to think of it I don't know the actual number of students I currently teach, but it equates to roughly three sections of 80 kids.

One morning last week a parade of villagers with jembes (hoes) walked through the school grounds. According to my headmaster they were on their way to dig a trench for the new water supply. The water is going to be rerouted from another source, although as this plan was being hatched the water magically started flowing from the pipes around school again! As the villagers were digging the trench they cut through a PVC pipe that housed the electricity to the teachers' houses. How they cut through PCV with a jembe and did not think twice about it, I will never know. The electricity was eventually fixed by myself and a few of the male teachers. The whole experience actually produced two good things. One, I got to spend some QT/ Cross Cultural time with the fellow teachers. I attempted to explain to them that this sort of thing would never happen in the States. In fact, we rarely lose power unless there is a huge storm or everyone in NYC decides to turn on their air conditioners and blows the grid the middle of a heat wave. The second positive thing to come out of patching up the electricity was showing the other teachers that a woman can use a knife and knows something about wiring.

Last week, I went to Tukuyu to check the PO Box. To my delight, I received a Peace Corps newsletter and my VOA calendar! ( If you are thinking this is pathetic, you are right). On my way home, I jumped on the coaster as usual and was stuffed into a seat. The coaster is set up with two seats on one side and one seat on the other side of the aisle. In an effort not to waste space there is also a jump seat that drops down to seat a total of four full grown adults across. These four seats quickly become five due to conductors who want to make more money out of their trip. Most of the time there is no room to “sogea” or squeeze over and my experience last week was no exception. Normally I do not complain when they make me move to squeeze one more person in. On this particular trip, however, there was a hefty gentleman to my right and no room to move. The conductor tried to add another person, but thankfully the people in my row explained that they would not pay or would get off the bus if he tried to shove another body in our row. After hearing this loud exchange and realizing we got our way I got a little too excited (or was really delirious, not sure), fist pumped and yelled, “power to the people!!”. As everyone was staring at me the conductor turned around, parted two people in my row and stuck another body in between me and the stay-puff. Lesson of the day, don't celebrate too early and the conductor will always get his way.

Lately there has been much discussion in East Africa about aid from Great Britain. According to many countries over here Britain will not/ is threatening to with hold aid from countries who do not want to change their views or laws concerning human rights, namely gay rights. Somehow this topic came up in the teacher's lounge one day. A teacher was saying how he was listening to the news and he could not understand why someone would protect gay rights unless he himself was gay. I was not going to involve myself in the conversation (theme of this blog), but I felt the need to set the record straight, that someone who stands up for gay rights is not necessarily gay. Some of the teachers at my school think that Great Britain is attempting to, “make [Tanzanians] gay”. They are scared that the only thing keeping them safe from being overtaken is their culture in which it is illegal to be homosexual. I feel this issue is important because it has two sides. Tanzanians are very protective of their culture. In some ways I can see how their culture has been stripped down in the past few decades because of a need to keep up with other developing countries and new technology. As some teachers explained to me, Tanzanians feel the government's job is to protect and promote culture and if that means turning down aid from developed countries, then so be it. I think it is brave of them to tell Britain that they do not need financial aid. I think it is naive to think that homosexuals do not deserve the same rights as everyone else. I also think it is naive to think that establishing equal rights to homosexuals will allow them to “take over” and “cause an end to the human race”. Eventually I explained that I think it is a human right to love whom ever you want. After this confession I received a whole bunch of Bible quotes and that is where I decided to leave the conversation. Often I find myself realizing that no matter how much sense I think I make when arguing my point of view, people here will not understand where I am coming from. They are either deeply rooted in their culture, they feel they are being attacked or they rely on a really old book . I wish I could show them that forward thinking and culture can go hand in hand. Maybe culture could even be preserved by forward thinking...

Speaking of forward thinking, last week I was roped into judging an inter-school debate. Mporoto Secondary came to our school to debate the topic of corporal punishment in schools. It was actually really interesting because the debate was in English and because it was on a topic I feel very strongly about. The students mentioned all of the big pros and cons I have been struggling with since I became a teacher here. Apparently the students are more aware of the situation than I thought they were. One question that was asked during the debate, but unfortunately did not receive and answer was, “What method of discipline should replace corporal punishment in schools?”. For some reason the students could not come up with an alternative. I was again surprised because they are the ones on the wrong end of the stick (literally), but I really cannot blame them. I still have yet to come up with an alternative that would work in all situations. I truly believe the whole education system might need to be changed if the schools wish to eliminate corporal punishment.

While I am on the topic of corporal punishment, today was a rough day at school. I was busy in the staff room grading exams when one of the new teachers came into the room leading a form one student with a stick in his hand. He proceeded to make the student get down into plank position and hit him with a stick on his rear end until he cried. The entire time the student was crying and begging the teacher to stop. After about the fifth smack I looked up and felt the need to intervene. Besides the fact that the student was in physical pain, the whole scene was really disrupting. The teacher let the student go and then turned his attention to me because I had asked him to stop. He was claimed the student had cheated and I asked him if I had not said anything when he would have stopped. Unfortunately the conversation escalated amongst background laughter from the internship teachers. I should mention here that the internship teachers are not used to me being “American”, so what they were witnessing, someone going against the grain, was probably hysterical. The argument, by this point, ended with me explaining that the Tanzanian Ministry of Education says that the only person who is allowed to punish the students using corporal punishment is the headmaster. The teacher just laughed in my face. Now, I am know full well that I should not get into with other teachers, especially over the matter of punishments. I have been putting up with the same scene for over a year now and frankly my patience is wearing very thin. Just the other day at the school of another volunteer a student had to go to the hospital because a teacher beat her so hard. I honestly feel the need to step in when I see a teacher is clearly just picking on a student and taking out their aggression on the student. That is when things go from bad to worse very quickly. I do not think I would ever forgive myself if a student was hurt that badly and I did not step in if I could have.

Alright well I guess that is it for now. Going to enjoy a nice cup of warm, homemade, soy milk. Ah the joys of being a volunteer! I hope everyone is doing well at home! Miss you all! Happy Leap Day!

All my love from TZ!