Teaching Tanzanians: Round 1

July 30, 2013

Today I taught my first class of Tanzanian students. Which coincidentally was also the first class I've ever taught. It was a double period (80 minutes) and I was told  the class would just be starting the Statistics section of the syllabus. Not knowing what to expect, I prepared a lesson to cover pictograms, bar graphs and pie charts. I only got through pictograms. And I'm pretty convinced that at least 70% of the class had no idea what I was saying for the whole period. It could have gone better, but honestly, I'm glad nothing disastrous happened.

I think the most difficult aspect of the class is the language barrier. The students are going to be tested in English, and all higher education is taught in English, so it is important for me to teach in English. But most of these Form 2 students know very little English. Not that my Swahili is good enough to teach in their first language.

But there are a lot of really encouraging things about this first experience. The students were very attentive. Many of them were actively participating and answering questions. AND I was able to get some of the quicker students to help the slower (or language lacking) students to complete the class work.

They tell us to celebrate the small victories, so I'm going to smile about this for a little longer, however insignificant the lesson may actually have been..

Also, I gave a list of ingredients to my host father ("Baba") and I was told I will be cooking spaghetti for my host family on Sunday!! They have no idea what they are in for.

Education Training

July 24, 2013

I just saw a green mamba! My kaka says it can paralyze me if it bites me. Woah. 

So like I said in a previous post, along with learning the language and culture, I'm also learning about how to be a teacher. If you education majors are wondering how I can become a half decent teacher in the short two month training, I'm with you. It's going to be pretty rough at first... And maybe for another year or two. We'll see.. Haha

In Tanzania, they break education up a little differently than we do in the states. There's primary school which kids usually start at around 7 years old. This lasts for 7 years and at the end the kids take a national test to see if they are competent enough to move on to secondary school. 

The jump to secondary school is a much bigger one here because the students move from being taught in their native Swahili language to being taught all subjects in English. This, as you can imagine, makes even the most basic concepts difficult to understand, just because of the language barrier.

Secondary school has four grades, called Forms. We are told that Form 1 is approximately what we would call 8th grade in the US. At the end of Form 4, there is another national exam which determines whether or not the student will be able to move on in their education.  After ordinary level (O-level) secondary school students move on either to advanced level (A-level) secondary school or sometimes directly to a college or university.

We are told that we may have students who are 19, 20 or 21 (maybe older) if we teach the higher Forms or at an A-level school, so I'm keeping my mustache for the respect that it will instantly win. At least for the time being.

As far as my education training goes, we've been spending the past few days doing some "micro-teaching" among peers. This involves preparing a 15 minute lesson using subjects in our syllabi and giving it to 4 other teachers-to-be. Then we give pointers to each other and talk about how the lessons went. This helps us to get comfortable at the blackboard and also gives us some practice planning a lesson.

This coming week, we will start student teaching an ACTUAL CLASS of REAL TANZANIAN STUDENTS. Oh boy. My "internship" will be with a Form 2 math class, and I am told that my first lesson will be on statistics. Hopefully I will get a little more guidance on what specifically to teach before Tuesday, but either way I'm definitely going to need to brush up on the material (not to mention dumbing down my English to whatever level the students are at...).

This "internship" will last just about for the rest of training, until I go on my site visit (visiting the site where I will be for the next two years).

I guess that's enough on education training for now.

Much love to all of you!

Joel

Daily life

July 22, 2013

Hey guys!

So on June 11th, the whole group of us PCTs (Peace Corps Trainees) were taken from Dar Es Salaam to a town called Korogwe where we will be training until September 9th. We are training in three main areas: language/cultural training, education training, and health training. Part of the language and cultural training is formal Swahili class for about 5 hours on most days, but a really big portion comes informally through our home-stay experience. The teacher and health training comes in the form of student teaching in local secondary schools and lessons and information sessions (not to mention MORE vaccinations) from the Peace Corps doctors. But more details on these things later.

I thought I would post an outline of how my days here usually go.

6:00 - wake up, get water from my bucket filter and brush teeth

6:30 - host mama notifies me that there is "maji moto" (hot water) ready for bathing

6:35 - take towel and soap to "choo" (outdoor bathroom with pit latrine and bathing stall) and take a bucket bath.

6:50 - host "kaka" (brother, 24) comes to the house and eats breakfast with me. This usually consists of some sort of carb rich food (bread, mandazi, or a roll or some sort), a hard boiled egg and chai.

7:20 - walk to the local secondary school or get picked up and taken to the teachers training college in town.

8:00 - begin training (language/culture, health, or education or a mix depending on the day)

10:00 - chai break (a morning break with tea and often some light carby food)

10:30 - continue training.

12:00 - a mama from town brings food to the school for us or we are fed at the TTC (teachers training college). Usually rice, beans, cooked African spinach, some kind of meat in a sauce, sometimes potatoes, chai, sometimes a banana or watermelon slice, sometimes a cole slaw type thing.

1:00 - keep learning

3:00-5:00 - we are set free from the structured learning for the day

5:00 - some days I go straight home to my host family. Other days I will go to town with other volunteers to unwind a bit and grab a soda or a beer.

6:45 - get home. I'm usually instructed at this point to bathe. I usually comply. It gets sweaty here.

7:00 - eat dinner with two of my three kaka's. usually consists of about the same stuff as lunch. Sometimes a mango, papaya or other fresh fruit for dessert.

8:00 - Sometimes share pictures with my host family. I brought a bunch of photos. Some of my American family or home which they really like. Some of the oly crew. Some of friends that were on the wall at "The Cabin" during graduation, so my host family knows some of your names and loves the pictures. (Thank you Fiona!)

9:00 - my host family is Anglican so we usually sing some Christian songs (in Swahili, so I have no idea what I'm singing) and pray

9:15 - prayer time ends and the whole family tells me to "lala fofofo" (sleep like a log). I brush my teeth, tuck in my mosquito net and go to sleep.

This is the general outline for every day except Sundays. Sundays are our days of rest. Last week I went to church with my host family and relearned how to cook using local methods (over a fire or coal stove). This week I stayed home from church and relearned how to wash my clothes (by hand), met up with some other PCTs, and took a walk around the village with my kaka.

Note: I have very spotty Internet access and I won't have my computer with me until after training. So I will type up these entries on my iPod and post them when I have Internet. The date at the top is the date the post was written, though I may not be able to post it for a week or more later. Also, this may mean I post multiple entries at the same time that were written since the last one. Hopefully this makes sense...

End of Stage One

For about the past week, since we landed in Tanzania, we (42 of us trainees) have been living at a hostel in Dar es Salaam. This hostel is a little bit out of the main city center and is walled in, so we are in a sort of a haven. We also have running water, electricity, access to the internet, and toilets. These are all very nice things. These, as the Peace Corps constantly reminds us, are luxuries. In order to prepare us for likely conditions during the rest of our training and service, we have been told to expect none of these "luxuries" in our residences going forward.

Tomorrow morning, we will leave Dar and head to Korogwe, where Pre-Service Training (PST) is to be held. It is a 4 hour bus ride from here. We will eat lunch as a group and soon there-after we will be dropped off in various surrounding villages at houses which will become our homes for the next 8 weeks.

I didn't know Swahili when I left the US, as many of you know, and I would still say (other than a few phrases) I do not know Swahili. But tomorrow I will be plopped into a home with a Tanzanian family who likely will know little, if any, English. It's going to get WEIRD! Somehow I am really excited to meet/stare at/smile at/laugh with/point-at-things-and-ask-how-to-say-it-in-Swahili-with my new host family.

Oh! And I will be getting a cell phone and possibly an internet USB dongle (lulz) at some point in the near future. More to come on that soon.

Internet time is up now. Sorry for the short posts. I'll try and get more substance in when/if I have a more consistent connection.

Dar Es Salaam

A three hour bus ride, a 15 hour plane ride, a 5 hour layover, a 4 hour plane ride and a half hour bus ride later, 41 other new Peace Corps trainees and I finally made it to Dar es Salaam. We are staying in a Catholic compound and learning some basics before moving in with our host families in Korogwe.

Today started with a 2 hour crash course on Swahili and then we were plopped into the city in our first encounter with the public transportation system here, among many other firsts (shopping, restaurants, street vendors, etc.).

On Thursday we will be traveling to Korogwe and moving in with our host families. They have been prepping for our arrival for the past couple weeks I've been told, but since the training site is new this year, we will likely be the first Americans our families have had any close encounter with. I'm not sure if that's a good or a bad thing.. I guess I'll find out soon enough.

I hope to post more, but my internet/electricity access is a little unpredictable right now.

Also, with all that is new here, it's hard to know what is interesting. I have tons I can share but please let me know what you'd be interested in!

First Night in Philadelphia

Yesterday evening I landed in Philadelphia with two other Peace Corps Volunteers (PCV) who flew from Seattle. Unfortunately none of us sat together so we couldn't get to know each other. I tried to sleep for most of the flight. It didn't work. When we landed we met up at baggage claim. One of the PVC's aunt picked us up and took us to the hotel, which saved us a hefty cab fare.

The front desk at the hotel told me that my roommate had already checked in, which was the case for the others, so we went up to find them. Once we gathered all of the other west coast PVCs (the only ones who had to arrive a day early) we walked over to TGIFridays to grab some dinner.

(This is feeling very 3rd-grade-play-by-play-essay to me... Let me know if there's anything you want to hear that I'm not getting to. I'm new at this..)

It was a huge relief to meet some people who are going through the same thing I am. Up until this point, the whole preparation process has been somewhat isolating and my mental strategy has been to prepare for a new solo operation. I must have forgotten that I will be going over with 40 some odd other people who are in the same boat.

Everyone seems very nice and with the roommate introduction it reminds me a lot of freshman year in college. All of us are eager to make friends so that we can go through this together. The difference is the upcoming challenge. Everyone here is the "type of person" who would up and leave for 2 years to go to a new and unknown country that speaks an unknown language to teach 60-100 kids (none of us are Ed. Majors). And somehow, it feels like we all have a bit in common. Go figure.

Registration starts in 20 minutes so I guess I should get out of bed.. Today we get talked at for a few hours and then I can only assume that we will all celebrate our last night in the USA and the beginning of a new adventure. "Tomorrow" at 2 AM we get on a bus to JFK to fly to Tanzania via South Africa.

Until next time!

Intro: Pre-departure

Hey guys,

I'm making a "blog" right now. But more importantly, I am procrastinating finishing up packing the day before I leave for Philadelphia.

I haven't ever "blogged" before, so in my naivety I will most likely post my deepest darkest secrets on here. If that's not incentive to read, I don't know what is.

I'm going to try and keep it conversational too; Hopefully being a little less formal will help all of you helplessly devastated people to feel a little closer to me while I'm gone. You're welcome, mom.

I have been a little hesitant to rely on the internet for my communication to you all since I don't know where I will be yet, nor do I know if I will have electricity at my site (let alone, internet). But I guess I've been too lazy busy to find a different way to connect with so many people that didn't require internet access, so here it is. Hope you like it!

Hmm... here's an address.

Joel Nightingale
Peace Corps Tanzania
P.O. Box 9123
Dar Es Salaam
Tanzania

I might try and post one more tonight.