Leaving

August 20, 2015

I'm currently in a Dar Es Salaam cafe ordering a sandwich and a cappuccino which will cost me about $6; that's more than my weekly food budget in the village. I'm trying really hard to think about my departures from the village, my school, Iringa region and the country, but as much as I try thinking about it, I don't feel anything. I don't feel sad or upset or guilty or anything that I would expect to be feeling. I should feel like I'm abandoning my students in the middle of the year. I should feel like I haven't done enough for the school as a whole. I should feel sad to see the simple life I have grown to love coming to an end. But I don't. If anything, I feel excited. And that's the worst. Close friends I've made here trying to say goodbye knowing they will likely never see their American friend again, and I'm over here smiling like an incensitive ass hole thinking about reuniting with my family and friends back home, salivating over pictures of fast food and craft beers, fantasizing about driving a car again..

I want to force myself to feel bad or sad or something more negative than I do, but that doesn't make sense either. Forcing it might even be worse. Like an unnatural pity feeling only shown to falsely validate the feelings of those around me. So I'm stuck here between the village and the states feeling nothing. 

It makes me wonder if these feelings of loss or guilt or sadness will ever hit me. Maybe they'll catch up to me in the states inexplicably at a restaurant when I hear an ad on the radio for tanzanite jewelry. Or will it be in a movie theater when the hero amazes the audience with a phrase in swahili that only I will understand while he's on a top secret mission in East Africa. What if it doesn't catch up to me? Would that be better or worse? If I don't ever feel it, what does that say about me?

I guess I'll just eat my sandwich and let time tell.

Update: 24 months

July 15, 2015

Here's what will be the final "Update" here in Tanzania. It's been a wild ride this Peace Corps thing and now it's almost time to say goodbye to what has become my second home!

"My job"

My has been pretty much the same the last three months as it has been for my whole time here. The main change has been how I have been preparing for the end of my service. It's a weird time to be leaving in the middle of the second semester, so I am trying to cover what I see as important for the students. Generally that means the topics that appear frequently on their national exam and the practical exams. I've done some preparation for their practical exams already with the students and they enjoy them a lot. It's fun to see them make connections between the theory and the experiments they do. In the next month I will be continuing to give them practice with the most common practical set ups so they will hopefully be familiar with them come testing time in November. As far as classroom teaching goes, I will likely only have time for about one more topic before I leave the school in less than a month. Meanwhile, I have reminded them that my time is short here and if they have questions about previous topics, now is the time to ask because they likely won't have a physics teacher after I leave.

"Life"

Life these last couple months has been really good. In May, I finished up teaching for the semester and graded my exams. Early June brought on my close of service (COS) conference, where my whole training class got together again to have one last conference preparing us to leave the country and readjust to life in the states.

The highlight of the June break for me was a series of visits from friends and family. On June 20th, Emma, Alexis and Gabe from University of Portland arrived in country! We made a quick hop down to Mbeya and did a hike to a crater lake there, followed by a brief stop in Makambako. They had Ugali with my second master like my parents had six months before. Then it was off to my house in the bush. We got a chance to relax for a few days while we cooked great food, washed some clothes, had a bonfire, checked out my school, walked through the village, and met a good number of my friends in the community. 

Emma, Gabe and Alexis outside my house in the village.

After relaxing a bit at my house it was off to Iringa and a safari in Ruaha national park. We got to see a wide variety of animals and we stayed at a campsite where we were entertained by the songs and dances of two tribes in the area (Hehe and Masai).

Checking out some lions in the park.

From Iringa we split the journey up to Moshi into two days of bus rides. There we met up with two other friends, Cody and Chrissy, who would climb the mountain with us. We started our climb up Kilimanjaro on July 4. It took about 4 days to get to the top and a day and a half to get back down. It was a real test of endurance and our bodies' ability to adjust to the thin air! All six of us made it to the top although one stopped a little early at the first of the three peaks due to altitude sickness.

Starting the climb on day 1.

The view from camp on our second night.

Looking out over Kenya on day 4.

Watching the sunrise from Gilman's point.

Emma and me at the summit! Uhuru peak.

After the mountain, Emma, Gabe and Alexis left from Moshi and Chrissy and I left for Iringa where we met up with a group of my aunts, an uncle and family friends! We stayed with them in Makambako and I showed them around town. They had some local food and then we went for a brief visit to my village. They got a chance to see my house, my school and a few villagers. At the school they enjoyed meeting my second master and seeing the laboratory project we had just finished! After their short visit, the family had to take off for Iringa to catch their flight the next morning, but Chrissy stayed around for a couple days and saw how I have been living here. We cooked together, she saw more of my school and students, she met a few teachers, and she had a relaxing time at my house as I started teaching again. Now she has taken off for Iringa to catch her flight to head back to the states!

Now life is back to normal. A few weeks left at school for me. As amazing as it is to have visitors here, I'm happy to have some time by myself now so that I can finish up my work here and say my goodbyes before leaving for good.

"Back home"

This time "back home" came to me! It was wonderful having some guests and  I'm thinking it will help my transition to have some friends who have witnessed first hand my life here! I've started planning certain activities for my return including two weddings, a trip with my dad to Texas, a visit to see Emma in Tahoe, a Mexico trip with friends, and a New Years celebration. Hopefully I can include enough time for relaxing in between activities during a busy first few months back. Home is seeming so close now! The remaining time will fly by and I just hope to make the most of the last bit of my time in my home here in Tanzania.

2 Biggest Challenges

- being patient

- figuring out how to say goodbye

Update: 21 months

April 20, 2015

Oops. Late..

Spaced on this one a couple weeks ago. But it means I have more to report... So it's not all bad!

"My job"

My primary job here as a teacher is winding down. I will likely only have a couple of weeks of teaching after the June break before I leave my site. It's been a bit of a task keeping motivated (and keeping students motivated) in this last stretch with the end coming quickly. But it has also been good. My swahili being better now makes communication easier and keeps my students more attentive for the most part. Also, having more experience under my belt and teaching topics for the second time (after having taught them last year) makes me feel like a more competent teacher.

The water/laboratory project has almost been completed. The lab benches have arrived, the small tank is installed and had been filled with water by the gutters, the large tank is going to be finished this week, and all that will be left after that is to connect the water tank to the sink inside!

The water tank outside collecting rain at the end of the season.

The lab benches in the lab.

"Life"

Life has been good these past few months. It's been really busy at times, but that keeps things moving along. I helped hand off the projects of Shika na Mikono to the new group of education volunteers, helped coordinate the site visits of the new group of health and agriculture volunteers (who will be swearing in this week!), and participated in a competition between volunteers over our Easter break!

After the competition, a few volunteers and I went down to Mbeya to check out a place called Matema beach on Lake Nyasa (also known as Lake Malawi). It was a relaxing trip, away from work. We did almost nothing but eat, sleep, swim and play Yahtzee. And that's exactly what we needed. But during this break (and now coming back from it) I realized that I'm exhausted. And it was evident that the type of exhausted I am now can't be cured by an week away from school. It's a tired that I can only maybe compare to the last few weeks of senior year of high school. I am ready for a change in scenery, a change in activities, and a change in lifestyle. So now in the last four months of my time here I'm doing all I can to stay productive in this last stretch.

"Back home"

I feel like I have an unrealistically positive view of what going home will be like and as I'm fighting my senioritis, I'm also fighting these unrealistic expectations of my return.

"Joel, your friends can't drop everything they're doing to go on a cross-country road trip with you just because you've been gone for a while."

"Joel, people don't want you to talk for hours about Tanzania just because a foreign language came up in conversation."

"Joel, your friends don't understand your swahinglish. In fact you're probably really annoying them.."

I've also been reading a lot about how readjustment goes for other returned volunteers. Doesn't sound like the smoothest transition ever. So that's something. Worth preparing myself for mentally. But not worth stressing about probably.

2 biggest challenges

- staying focused

- staying focused

Crazy.

March 26, 2015

This past month has been crazy. It all started when I went to town to buy supplies for the rain water catchment project at school. I went in on a Saturday and met up with some other volunteers. We went to dinner in the evening and when we got back about an hour later all four of our computers were gone. The next two days we worked with police but nothing turned up. Frustrating.

So I got back to school a couple days later and had about 24 hours to quickly put together some notes and exercises for the students to do while I was at Pi day and the Shika hand over meeting. I also needed to instruct my second master and the mason about how to build the tower and the big tank for the project. Then I took off for Pi day. That took about a week. Then a few days in Morogoro for the Shika hand over meeting. During the meeting, I was informed that, as the warden of my region, I was to organize the site visits for the new group of health/agriculture volunteers coming to Iringa. Also, our midterm tests are this week, so during the meeting I was writing those exams to send to my school for printing.

I got back to school last Thursday evening, taught on Friday, did somemuch  needed laundry, and on Sunday I went to Makambako to meet the new volunteers. This week has been a whirlwind of trying to get into the class for some review, entertaining a guest, showing the new volunteer his site (and helping with communication/transportation), organizing for his return to training, and checking in intermittently on the project at school. We started our midterms today and on Wednesday next week we will be finished and will be on easter break for about a week and a half.

It's been a weird month.

Shika Hand Off Meeting

March 26, 2015

So I'm a little late on this one, but here it is. A couple weeks back, the Shika na Mikono team had a hand over meeting to initiate its newest members. It started with three of us veterans and three of the new members going to Dar Es Salaam for the annual Pi day celebration. We had a prep day and got some math/science teaching aids ready. Then the next day we went to the event and presented them in a sort of science fair context. The event was mostly the same as last year when I went as a new Shika member so I'll leave out the details. Here are a few pictures from that.

A teaching aid to show that the same volume can look different in different containers.

A simple interactive teaching aid for equilibrium and moments.

This Tanzanian teacher brought a clever teaching aid which proves that 1 liter is equal to 1000 cubic centimeters!

After Pi day, we all traveled together to Morogoro where we met the rest of the group. There are six new members and six of the seven of us veterans were there too. 

We arrived in the evening and didn't have anything planned except for us from the older generation to get our schedule figured out for the next few days.

I ended up sitting out the first day because I wasn't feeling well (I'm fine now, mom. Don't worry). But the others started the day with a session about what Shika na Mikono is and what our generation has done in the past year. After that, they went to a local secondary school where we arranged to have a science day the following day. They took note of the space we would have access to, met some of the teachers, and got an idea of what activities we would do with the students. Then they went to town to buy any supplies we would need.

When they got back, we got to work constructing all of the things we would use the next day and planning how we would present them. The older generation tried to stay mostly hands off to let the new members get more experience.

The next day we went to the school again, set up, and guided students through our science activities.

Garret taught about acids and bases

Lucy and Sharon showed the students osmosis and diffusion in action

Rickie and Riley shared a teaching aid using water bottles to show elastic and inelastic collisions

The hand over meeting last year was really helpful to us because it just threw us into a situation where we had to be creative and get a feel for how many of the Shika na Mikono events go. This year it was good being more of an observer and seeing the new members get a feel for what Shika is all about.

Throughout the day, each station saw about 18 groups of kids which was repetitive, but also allowed the new members to improve their lessons incrementally each time. 

We ended the day with a group dinner at a really nice restaurant. Best steak I've had since leaving the states.

The last day was split in half. In the morning we broke into interest groups and in the afternoon/evening we talked about administrative stuff.

The interest groups were my favorite part of the meeting. The projects that we are currently working on were presented briefly to the new members on the first day so by the last day they had an idea of what they were interested in working on. The project I've been leading is a new resource for Tanzanian teachers. It will provide teachers with pre-made lesson plans that include some sort of activity or teaching aid that is worked into the lesson. The idea is to make it easier for teachers to use this book and the teaching aids it suggests than to write their own notes and just talk at their students. At its least effective, it will allow the students to be taught four lessons (for each form for each subject) using alternative teaching methods. At its most effective, it will show the teachers that using teaching aids and activities in the class improves student learning and in turn will spark the teacher into creating more teaching aids and/or activities in the future. So this book has been my baby for the past year and I have been a little nervous about what will happen with it in the next year after I have gone. But during the interest groups, almost all of the new members were really excited about it. We broke it down into what parts need finishing, assigned these parts to new members, and I think by June we should have all of the lessons finished and we should be able to get started on formatting and compiling them. I'm hoping to see a finished first iteration before I leave!

Other sessions were about teacher trainings, science conferences/competitions, IT stuff, and maintaining the current resources we have.

The afternoon sessions were about administrative stuff. Checking email, annual events, choosing a point person for communication, keeping contact with the ministry of education, etc. Boring but necessary.

For the next few months we will keep an eye on the projects in this transition stage and help out where we can. With my class on its way out, it's good to know that Shika is in good hands with the new members.

Good day

March 6, 2015

Today was a good day. Today felt like the kind of day a Peace Corps volunteer should have.

Before classes today I had a short meeting with my headmaster where we talked about the outcome of a workshop I helped lead last week. During the workshop we focused on what we, as teachers, can do to improve our school's results. In the workshop I specifically avoided the issue of corporal punishment. It seems to be such a hot topic and I didn't want that to get in the way of a potentially very constructive workshop. But when I met with my headmaster, he brought it up without me saying anything. He told me that he thought that corporal punishment should not enter the classroom and that we should be creative and use more constructive methods for punishing misbehavior. I was shocked. This came from the man who joked with me about my views of corporal punishment in the beginning and backed up his thoughts with bible passages advocating for hitting kids. So I was thrilled to hear him talk of at least reducing its use at our school!

After the meeting I had a couple of classes which went fine. Nothing too exciting, but also not bad.

After classes we had a staff meeting with all of the teachers. The meeting was to share the conclusions of our teacher workshop with the headmaster and hear his comments on it. We went through a list of things that the teachers had volunteered last week as areas where change/improvement was needed. Things like holding more regular tests, monitoring progress in each department, and being more creative in finding ways to avoid using the 'chalk and talk' method all the time. There were some good ideas shared and I chimed in a couple of times to clarify that using teaching aids does not mean using more time, and in fact it can use less time since the students can more easily understand. When they brought ideas like 'I tried the discussion method but no students said anything and when I asked questions they didn't answer' I tried my best to stay calm and not shout 'maybe that's because you were carrying a stick around in class and all the kids were scared of you' or 'maybe that's because you didn't teach them well and that should indicate that you need to help them understand.' I also pointed out that some teachers don't understand me when I speak to them in English and they are graduates of teachers colleges and universities, so it's crazy for them to expect students to understand them when they're teaching without any visual aids.

The meeting ended well and I felt like a lot of teachers got something out of it. After that, I started heading home and walked with one of the history teachers. He was one of the more active teachers during the meeting and I was so happy that he saw the worth of the workshop and our meeting. He said he liked what I had to say about teaching aids and that he agreed completely. I am pretty confident that some teachers at my school don't like me for one reason or another and it's clear in meetings some aren't really paying attention. So it's really cool to me when some are accepting of new ideas and it's especially encouraging to know that my thoughts are valued by some here.

I think my patience with the school community is paying off. Not blowing up on them when they hit kids, not giving advice before understanding the situation, not pushing unnecessary projects, trying to assimilate into the culture... It's all for the sake of being taken seriously. Not just as a volunteer, but as a contributing part of this community. Only 17 months after arriving...

To top the day off, as I was biking home one of my physics students called out "TGIF!!!" as I passed his house. I had taught them to say that last Friday and he remembered!

Here's a few pictures for all you visual learners:

Students and a couple teachers playing volleyball after school

The girls mostly play netball

Form IV physics students taking a weekly quiz

Last semester

January 27, 2015

So here it is. 2015. The year I go back to the states. The year I get to see my friends and family and home again. The year I come back to the northern hemisphere, four seasons, rain year-round... And between seeing my family over break, planning for more to come in July and planning a trek up Mt Kilimanjaro with some friends back home, it's been hard to keep my head in Tanzania.

It's hard to motivate myself to keep learning a language I may never use again in seven months. My Form IV kids graduated last year and have moved on from school. The initial vigor of being a new volunteer in a new country and a new life has worn off and all that's left is some serious Senioritis.

But I still have 4-5 months of teaching left and if I'm here for anything, it's the kids. They're the future of Tanzania and they give me hope for their country. They're still so impressionable and I am doing my best to fill their heads with new ideas and perspectives.

Beside the students though, I've started working on a grant for a project at the school. One that will help the school a ton and as an added bonus, keeps me busy and the time moving. The project has two parts. One is a water catchment system that will collect the water from the roof of the laboratory into a 1000 liter tank, making rainwater available for students during the rainy season. Currently they walk to a river about 2 km away for their water, often multiple times each day. So this should help save some of their time and energy for studies and other activities.

The second part of the project is to build new lab benches in the chemistry laboratory. These benches will have sinks in them and running water will be fed to them from the catchment tank outside the lab. This will give the students a safe and well-equipped place to perform chemistry experiments. The chemistry teacher, a good friend of mine, is so excited to be working with me on this project and can hardly wait to be able to teach and do demonstrations in the new laboratory. He has been the only science teacher at my school (of about 700 students) for many years and I hope this new equipment will help to reinvigorate him and help him to inspire his students to continue studying science!

---start plug---

This project will be one that people back home can donate to if they so choose. There will be a Peace Corps website to go to where anyone can donate. If you're interested in supporting this project, feel free to email me and I'll make sure to let you know when it goes live. And yes, it's tax deductible.

---end plug---

Also, I'm still working on a new resource for the Shika na Mikono committee I'm on. It's a book to help science and math teachers use hands on learning techniques in the classroom. I've been working on the physics portion and other volunteers are working on chemistry and biology. This weekend I'll be handing over my part to another volunteer to start compiling all of the lessons into a single book, and then I'll start working on the math lessons.

Shika is also doing a teacher training in Mwanza in about a month that I will be helping with. We did one in Iringa last year which was really successful, so I'm excited to do another! It's good to get to the teachers before they've established any bad habits and show them how they can use activities and demos to keep their kids interested and involved in their learning.

So that's what I'm up to. Fighting Senioritis with a couple projects. I won't be here much longer but hopefully I'll leave feeling like I did enough.