3 lessons

August 27th

This week has been filled with learning experiences and I hope to share a few with you. First, and most important, always ask if water is boiled before you drink it. Do not assume that a family drinks boiled water. Second, don’t assign 150 students an assignment due on the same day. Third, if it isn’t rape than the gentleman is someone learning your preferences.

Last night, Lindsay and I decided to say hello to Mr. Mbughi. He called me as I was watching a soccer game but I could not understand what he was saying. Instead of trying to decipher him over the phone, I thought an appearance at his house may be easier. Lindsay decided to join me. She left for the weekend for Mbeya and wanted to say goodbye because she knew he would be angry with her. She promised to stop by his house during the week but he was never home when she did. We sat for about three hours chatting away with him. The postmaster is a very interesting man and sometimes he can be very draining to be around. By the end of the night I couldn’t stop laughing. It was one of those laughs that are uncontrollable. I usually only get them when I am really tired. I was very tired last night but I also was completely drained of understanding anything that the postmaster was saying to us. At one point he said that Lindsay was going to marrying his son (a form 4 student) and he wouldn’t pay her anything. We informed him that in America a boy does not need to pay a girl’s family cows in order to marry him. He did not understand. He wanted Noeli (yes, that is an “i” at the end) to marry Lindsay so he didn’t have to pay anything. He also wanted us to buy him a car and send it from America. Other random thought were said but as I mentioned, I was very tired and had trouble deciphering all of the words that were spoken. Around 9 PM we were served dinner: banana with pig meat. I jumped at the chance to serve myself first. Due to my fast thinking, I received the best meat (without skin and fat attached). I took my plate into my lap while the other two served themselves. When Mr. Mbughi finished serving himself, he didn’t think I had enough meat and threw a big piece with skin and fat still attached on my plate which hit my lap and made it dirty pig meat. Lindsay got very bad portions of the meat and I laughed throughout the whole meal. At one point I couldn’t hold in the laughter any more as I saw her face right before she dug into the fat. Mr. Mbughi didn’t understand why I was laughing but the two of us just sat laughing together. Towards the end of the meal I stopped laughing when Mr. Mbughi announced that he is lucky because he doesn’t need to boil his drinking water. His drinking water that I had three cups of and the drinking water that I had the day I got sick for an entire week. And the drinking water that I had last weekend before I ran home and sat in the bathroom for the rest of the day! I told Philmore, the second headmaster, today and he thought it was the funniest story I ever told. He told me that I should always ask because most families don’t boil water here. Now, I have learned my lesson. I am concerned that I am not sick from last night though, is my body now immune or do I already have some kind of bacteria growing inside me?

Each week I teach only about 10 hours total. I teach form 4 on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. I teach form 3 on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday. Every Friday, I have trouble getting through any material with form 3. Having two days off in the middle of the week makes them forget much of the material. It does not help that I teach them during the last period on Friday. On Wednesday and Thursday I went into their rooms during the tea break and gave them two problems to work on. When they are done, they are supposed to visit me in the staff lounge so I can check their work. During this week, I started teaching form 4 about book keeping. Each problem takes about 40 minutes or more to complete and so at the end of class I assign a problem and ask them to complete it and bring it to the staff lounge at some point in the day. By giving all of these assignments, I made myself extremely busy this week. I have two sections of form 3 that I teach which total over 100 students and then I have 45 students in form 4 that I also teach. Luckily, only about 20 students show up in my form 4 class each day so I don’t have many problems to check, but each problem is very long and so checking the problems takes a long time. I didn’t get much of a break on Wednesday and Thursday. The other teachers noticed it and kept apologizing to me throughout the day. I am glad to finally get the students to start asking me questions, but I should learn to space the problems out a little better. So that was the second lesson I learned this week.

One of the new student teachers from the University of Dar es Salaam, Anwilile, was the first student teacher to talk to Lindsay and I. And, he doesn’t stop talking to us. Some days he will just stand over me as I work and then after a few minutes ask me what I am doing. When I was sick two weeks ago, he really wanted Lindsay and I to visit his home. I refused because I was on a rice diet at that point and didn’t want to mess with my stomach, Lindsay went instead. This week was my turn to visit and Lindsay made some excuse so I went on my own on Wednesday afternoon. As we walked to his house (about 20 minutes) we had some very interesting conversations. We argued about whether hitting a student with a stick is a good way of punishment. His argument was that he teaches the form 1 students (8th grade equivalent) and after he introduces a topic he will go to class the next day and call on someone to say what they discussed the day before. The students don’t answer so he must hit them with a stick to remember, it is the only way. I explained that the students are scared of him and in a month they won’t remember a single thing he taught them. This was obviously not a good enough response and we went on arguing. I explained that after I introduce a topic I do an activity for the students to practice the problems on their own. I gave an example. He told me there is not enough time to teach and to do activities. He most recently discussed public services to his students. He gave them two examples (water works type person and I can’t remember his second) and then called on students to give examples, but none of them would answer so he hit them with a stick and then they started answering. I told him that maybe he should give his examples and then break the students into groups to discuss and come up with examples together to share with the class. I had a second suggestion as well but it is a lot longer and I don’t feel like typing it up, sorry! He was never satisfied so the arguing back and forth continued for most of the walk. When we arrived at his house I met his mom, sister, and 4 young siblings that were running around. After eating we sat outside with his mother. She spoke with Anwilile and then occasionally he would ask me a question or two. One of his questions was about the gentleman that knocked on my door a month ago and asked to have sex with me. He wanted to know how I knew the gentleman wanted to rape me. I told him that a man does not ask a woman to have sex if his intentions are to rape her. He didn’t understand. Instead, he asked me to recount the evening for him. I did and he suggested that the gentleman wanted to know my preference and winked at me while he said this. Perfect, now I know that if it isn’t rape then it is just a man wanting to know your preferences. After the conversation we went to visit his grandmother who was in a little, smoky hut on her death bed. She was able to get up and greet me but I think she has seen better days. She wanted to know if I had any medicine for her “cold” and I explained that I would give her some Vitamin C! She wanted the hard stuff though and declined. After about twenty minutes the grandmother had to go back to bed and so we went to feed the cows before heading home. When we reached my home he stayed for a half an hour waiting for Lindsay to arrive back from Isoko. I was very happy to see her again.

There you have it, three lessons I learned this week. Hope you enjoyed them!

Love,

Gretchen