Update: 12 Months

July 11, 2014

K. Here goes another quarterly update. A little late (as usual...). And it's a big one! On July 5th, my 'class' and I hit the one year mark in country! Here's how I feel about the last few months of my first year in Tanzania:

"My Job"

I've been on break this past month and will be starting teaching again this coming week. I'm hoping to pick up a few more periods this term as the Form II and Form IV kids are prepping for their national exams this fall (and my current 4 period week doesn't quite meet Peace Corps guideline of between 16 and 24). I have heard that there is a Form VI student who will be helping out in the physics department with me for a month or two, which will be good.

Besides teaching though (which is nothing new), I have taken on some new responsibilities also. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I am now the assistant warden in my region and went to a training for that in June. But also, I was selected to help with the Pre-Service Training (PST) of the new education class which arrived in country this last week. At the beginning of this month I went to a Training of Trainers (ToT) to prepare for this training. I will be going to do Shika na Mikono sessions at PST with a few other Shika members in late August. We will give the trainees an idea of the science education situation in country and provide ideas to cope with the challenges they will likely face.

Planning session

During our few days at ToT, we outlined our sessions, decided on what activities to do, and got a shopping list of materials we will need. 

"Life"

Life has been good these last few months. After finishing up my semester, I had a few other volunteers come and check out my site which is always fun. We baked a lot, ate more than is healthy, and caught a few World Cup games at my village bar. I have a couple brackets going: one with a friend back home (which I've already won, you know who you are), and one with my counterpart here (which I still need to run some numbers on). It's been fun keeping up with games though, and finding places to watch has been an adventure on its own!

After my volunteer visitors left, I flew up to Arusha to meet some other visitors. My aunt, uncle and cousin came to visit! They started up north since it was on my uncle's bucket list to climb Kilimanjaro, and after he and my cousin got back down (they summitted successfully!!) we hopped on a flight back down to Iringa to give them a cultural experience! It was cool to fly again. After taking long and uncomfortable bus rides for a year, flying through the air with leg room and three seats to myself seemed like the miracle that it really is. (If you don't understand, search for Louis C. K.'s stand-up bit on human flight).

Our ride to Iringa

During our PST last year, we were shown a chart which outlined the common periods of ups and downs for volunteers throughout service. I'm still not sure if it's accurate because of how people generally operate in our situation or if it's accurate because it tells us how we're supposed to feel and we obey, but apparently it's accurate for many. It shows the roller coaster of PST with major ups and downs with fast falls and fast recoveries. There's a low portion during the first three months at site, when people are coping and getting a better understanding of what they got themselves into for two years. Then comes Early Service Training, you get to see your friends again, you're getting a handle on the language, you realize that everyone is facing similar challenges, you get new ideas for tackling them. It's a high point.

At MSC, we have a low which we like to call "mid-service crisis." I can't say I've hit this yet, and I'm not sure if I should be concerned about that or not. I think the things that contribute to this usually are realizing that you're only half way through this, not finding success in all (or any) projects, not being able to see any change in students or community, and becoming jaded. So we will see what happens in the coming months. I might have a mid-service crisis to look forward to!

"Back Home"

My relationship with friends and family back home hasn't changed a ton since last time, but I am noticing that the list of people I have direct communication with on a regular basis is pretty short. Which isn't a bad thing necessarily, and I'm not even sure if that's new in these past few months. Just something I've noticed. Most of the contact I've had with people back home has been more sporadic, or indirect through Facebook or other social media. I haven't made myself easy to relate to by moving to Tanzania for two years, and that doesn't make communication easy. So thank you to all who have kept in touch, directly or indirectly, consistently or sporadically, through pictures, messages, Facebook statuses or letters. I am so grateful that you haven't all forgotten your long lost "Joel," "Jor-el," "Joelizle," "Joelle," "Schmoel," "Pumpkin," or whatever you call me. I'll be back before you know it.

2 Biggest Challenges Right Now:

- Balancing jobs. I have a full semester ahead: teaching, exam prep, mid-service training, pre-service training, and a possible girls science conference. I'll have to find ways to keep an eye on all these things so nothing gets left too far behind.

- Ehh... I don't know. I guess keeping motivated to continue learning Swahili again.

Well there it is again. Another three months. 12 down, 15ish to go.

Aaaaaaand some pictures:

My Fourth of July of July outfit

Found a little bit of Washington on a local bus!

Cousin Christine and me at the Masai market.

Puppies

Doesn't get much better than a well stocked veggie hanger.

Holiday (Likizo): Part 2

June 29, 2014

This morning my aunt, uncle and cousin took off for their safari in Ruaha National Park. I am waiting to head up to Korogwe for TOT (Training of Trainers) and have time now to fill you all in on what I've been up to for the past week or so.

As I mentioned in an earlier post I met up with my family in Arusha. My uncle and cousin were already on Kilimanjaro when I got there so for the first couple days, I was just with my aunt. We went on a driving tour of Arusha with a guide/driver, saw the market and went to the natural history museum. It was a pretty relaxing time staying at a fancy lodge with good food and not having to cram into stinky buses with crying babies and chickens to get around.

One of the days, we decided to go on a tour of a coffee/cheese/honey place on the slopes of mount Meru. This was a gooooood decision. The trip up was eventful as even our heavy duty Land Rover got stuck a couple times on the way up. Once we got to the place in a village called Mulala, the hosts treated us with some of their home-grown, home-roasted coffee. It was great, and a perfect way to begin the tour on what started out as a cool, misty day.

As we drank our coffee, holding our mugs tightly to keep our hands warm, the host gave us a brief history of the place. It turned out the whole thing started as a donation made through the Heifer Project. It started as just one cow and as that cow had babies, the operation grew into what it is today. What at first was a very local business has now grown to shipping significant amounts of cheese into town and even as far as Dar Es Salaam. Along with the business of cheese making, they have opened their doors to anyone interested in coming and now run a successful tourist attraction. As we signed the guest book, we noticed many many groups from the US, Canada, Germany, Switzerland and other places around the world.

After our coffee was finished and we had a good idea of what this place was all about, we were invited to open a bee hive and help harvest some honey. The hive we opened was one of stingerless bees so no protection was needed.

Some hives on the side of a building

Our driver and host opening the bee hive (it's inside a hollowed out log)

Scooping out the honey

Our host scooped the honey into a pot, but left the majority of the hive in tact so that the bees could continue to produce honey after this round of harvesting was over.

After we had all tried some of the honey and the hive was sealed back up, we took off on a hike around the village.

A path.

We walked for an hour or so up a hill and around the surrounding villages stopping intermittently to learn about plants used for medicinal or cultural purposes. One plant isused to bring peace to strained relationships, another is used to stop the bleeding if someone gets a cut... By the time we reached the highest point on this hike we were just able to see the peak of Kilimanjaro! Unfortunately, with only my iPhone camera, I couldn't get any decent shots of it. We did get a shot of this chameleon though.

Chameleon on our hike.

When we got back from the hike, lunch was ready! The food was great, and while not terribly different from what I am used to in my area, it did have some distinct variations.

I'm dumb. No pictures.

After lunch we were invited to dance and clap along as some mamas sang some traditional songs and walked us over to their cheese-making facilities. It was mostly just some big vats, a number of molds, and cheese cloth. It's amazing how much cheese they were able to produce with such little (and simple) equipment.

From there we were ushered to their coffee plants. They showed us the process of picking, drying, shelling, roasting and grinding the beans. We participated in the process, helping to shell, roast and grind the beans using a wood fire and a mortar and pestel. 

Shelling the dried beans.

Roasting the shelled beans.

Sifting the roasted and ground coffee.

While waiting for the beans to roast, the hosts showed us some traditional Masai huts. The structures were made of bamboo and other branches and woods which were then coated with a mortar made from water, cow dung, and ash. The roofs were made of banana leaves.

Once the coffee was finished, they brewed it up and gave us a chance to taste it as we recapped our day and got ready to head back to our lodge.

(If you're ever in Arusha the place is called Agape Mulala Cultural Tourism Enterprises and I would highly recommend paying them a visit)

That night we had made plans to watch the World Cup with a high school friend of mine who is volunteering at a hospital in Arusha this summer. So she brought a few volunteer friends to our lodge and we  had some food and beers and watched the game!

The next day, my uncle and cousin got off the mountain and showed up, stinky and dirty and exhausted back at the lodge. They had successfully reached the summit the day before and were happy to be back at a reasonable elevation and temperature. We spent most of the day relaxing and letting them clean up and get their things in order. The next day we would head to Dar on the way to my site.

We flew in to Iringa early in the morning and after getting into town, we immediately hopped on a bus down to Makambako. We dropped our things at the guest house and went into the market where we bought some produce for dinner at my house the next day and wandered around visiting my vendor friends. We got some local food at one of my favorite restaurants in town and then kicked back to watch some soccer and relax after a long day of travel.

The next morning we got a hold of one of my village friends who picked us up and took us to my house. It was a long, cramped ride in his small car with all of our luggage, so we were quite relieved to be out of the car when we reached my house. We dropped our things off and took a walk through the village. It was fun introducing my family to my village friends and watching the interactions unfold. A lot of smiling, miming and, on my part, translating. We wandered for a little while around the rural roads to give my visitors an idea of what life is like in my area.

Once we got back to my house, we rested for a bit, played cards, and then I showed them how I cook. We got the jiko going and made some rice and a veggie peanut sauce that has become a staple in my diet at site. Then it was time for some World Cup again, so we grabbed our jackets and headed into the village bar. Unfortunately, the bars in the village were only showing the Portugal-Ghana game so we couldn't see the US play their final group stage match, but the game we saw turned out to be almost as important for the US as our own game.

It was really cool to show my family how I live and especially how the Tanzanians in my area live. For most tourists, Arusha and Dar and Zanzibar are what they think of and what they see when they visit, but those places all cater heavily to westerners, which doesn't give most visitors a realistic look at everyday Tanzania. For me, life in Arusha and Dar and Zanzibar is much closer to life in the States than life in my area. The visitors willing to rough it in the "tented camps" in the national parks have more creature comforts (hot running water, electricity, satellite TV...) than I do at my house in the village.

After we left my village we headed back up to Iringa to spend some time before the three of them left for their safari in Ruaha. We checked out Masai alley (for souvenirs), a craft shop, and had some more local food at a hole in the wall place in the produce market. Oh, and of course we found a good place to watch the first knock-out round World Cup matches.

Cousin Christine and I at Masai alley.

Now the fam is off seeing animals in the park and I'm waiting for my bus to Korogwe tomorrow. The end of my week of luxury and back to PCV life.

Note: for anyone thinking about coming, this is a decent look at the kinds of things  to do here. Safaris, tours, watching soccer (World Cup or otherwise), living simply, etc. And if you're considering coming, let me know and I would be more than happy to help answer questions (budgeting, travel, lodging, safaris...anything)!

Wardenship

June 19, 2014

Peace Corps does a pretty good job of keeping us safe using many techniques including cultural integration advice, language training and warnings about unsafe areas. But they can't do it all, so they have us PCVs help out.

In each region there's a designated PCV called a Warden who is the primary contact for the main office's security team. I was recently appointed (for lack of a better term...) as Iringa's Assistant Warden. The current Warden is going to be leaving in December so I will take over then as the actual Warden.

Basically, we need to have ways of contacting all of the Iringa volunteers in case of an emergency and make sure people are safe.

The Warden's other responsibility is that we are the main force in developing new sites. If there is a village or school in the region that wants a PCV, one of us will make initial contact with the community and help them fill out the paperwork to help them get one.

Earlier this month, I was in Iringa for a training mostly about how to manage emergencies like natural disasters or political instability. Things that could become more relevant with coming elections and political clashes.

So that's another thing I'm doing now.

Holiday (Likizo): Part 1

June 19, 2014

I'm done with my first full semester of teaching here! It was a pretty good semester, but now I am enjoying some time away from the classroom.

For the first week or so I hung out at or around my site. I had some other volunteers visit me at my house. These visits frequently revolve around food and this was no exception. We made peanut sauce rice, pork tacos and baked coffee cake, brownies, banana bread and a chocolate cake.

Coffee cake

Tacos

Brownies

We also got into the village a couple of times to watch World Cup games. The villagers love meeting new guests that I have over and it's always fun to watch soccer in such a different environment than the sports bars that we're used to. I'll try and get a picture of the village bar where we watch games.

I have been working on an outfit to where for the Fourth of July here. Here is a sneak peak. More pictures after the event!

After my site, I went with another volunteer to a neighboring site for a night, where we checked out the health clinic and had some amazing home-made coconut curry!

Now I am in Iringa preparing for my flight up to Arusha tomorrow. I will meet my aunt, uncle and cousin up there and will travel for a few days with them. They have told me they want a cultural experience here so after being pampered in the touristy north, we will come down to my area and spend some time in my banking town and even a night at my house! They have been thoroughly warned, but somehow they still want to check it out.

Tonight I am just relaxing and watching some World Cup games in town and making reservations for when we return to the south. More on the secon half of break in July! Here's a pretty picture I guess.

Boys Conference

May 20, 2014

This last weekend four other volunteers and I helped to put on a boys conference for boys from our respective villages/schools. I brought some Form 1 boys who do well in school and participate actively. Others brought more Form 1 boys or boys from upper primary school.

We all got together at a venue outside of Mafinga on Friday mid morning and were there until late morning on Monday. The main purpose of this conference was to teach the boys about life skills and things that they do not otherwise learn in school. But the conference had other goals also. We all brought counterparts with us and they did most of the talking during sessions. This is partly because they can convey the messages in Swahili way more effectively than we (volunteers) can, but also because we want them to learn these topics and learn how to run a conference like this. As Peace Corps says, it's about building capacity.

During the conference we put on sessions about HIV, budgeting, studying science, gender roles, role models, puberty, goal setting, entrepreneurship, and other topics.

My counterpart and I helped mostly with the science, goal setting and HIV transmission sessions. The week before the conference we worked on what to teach during these lessons and we had some good information and activities to do with the students. So when we showed up we just had to make a few teaching aids and then got going.

Playing a math game with some students during the Shika na Mikono (hands-on science) session

Students with their straw tower for the physics part of the session

Teaching about gende roles. On the left: things that men do. On the right: things that women do. In the middle: things that both can do. Cooking, cleaning and raising children were all in the middle (wooooo!), but somehow pregnancy is only for men...

My counterpart teaching the session about making goals. When we talked about realistic goals we had to crush some dreams by telling them that they couldn't be president of the US because they weren't born there... Poor kids. But hopefully they have better ideas of what they want to do in life and how to achieve it now.

My counterpart helping to explain the goal setting activity.

The kids had a ball with the condom balloons during the HIV prevention talk.

Giving the students their certificates of completion for the conference!

Along with all of the learning we also had some good food...

...had a movie night (they loooooooove Cool Runnings!!)...

...and got some exercise while learning about health.

We also did some Insanity work outs with the kids one night and had a dance party with them after the graduation ceremony and some skits about what they learned. All the kids seemed to have a really good time and they kept asking if we could continue the conference all week. For some of them, this is the farthest they have ever travelled from their villages (~80 km), and the accommodations (hot running water, electricity, plenty of food and water...) are way more than they are used to. Even if they learned nothing from the sessions, just staying at a nice place like that might be motivation to work hard to have a better life.

The kids (and even the counterparts) made a handful of new friends from different areas in our region which was really great to see. In the beginning we had to force them to sit with each other, but by the end we had to work to get them back into their school groups for action planning.

The last session we had with them on Monday morning was Action Planning. This was a time for them to think about what and how they can share the information they got with their friends,the  school and their villages. What they learned is relevant to everyone at their schools and most people in their villages too. Unfortunately we could only bring a small number of them to the conference. So now they will plan and schedule a session to share what they learned.

This was a very cool project to be a part of. We got to share some vital information with these kids and it was easy to see how much they enjoyed it. It was a good break from the normal school environment that the kids are usually in. And it was awesome to see the counterparts taking on role model and leadership roles in the different sessions.

After the students and counterparts took off, the nuns who run the place told us that they make home made noodles, cheese and sausages there! So we checked it out and I got some cheese and noodles and will be eating mac and cheese all week!

Happy to find a new cheese supplier (it's not easy to find around here).

Welp. That was my weekend. Now one more week of teaching, a week of tests, and then it'll be June break! Half a school year down!

Soccer (Mpira wa miguu)

May 14, 2014

In an effort to integrate more into the community, I went to play soccer with some villagers at a field near my house yesterday. They play most days and sometimes have matches against other villages. I have heard them before and knew that they played but recently I've been getting invitations from various people in the village (the guy making a new door for my house, some older men who hang out in dark rooms and drink the local alcoholic bamboo drink, the guy I buy tomatoes from...), so I decided to check it out.

I showed up early (or they showed up late...I don't even remember which is which anymore) and only a few guys had showed up. We started to kick the ball around and play a little keep away. This went on as more people came. One of them was constantly blowing his whistle to tell everyone to come.

When more people showed up we stopped playing keep away and started getting organized for a scrimmage. They put me on the non-red team (I was wearing blue), and asked me where I liked to play. I said midfield. That was a mistake. I am in nooooo shape to be playing center mid like back in high school, so I slacked off a little and played more of a forward/midfield combo.

As we were playing, a bunch of villagers (all men) came to watch. Most of them know me or at least who I am and they would get excited when I did anything. It was cool to have a cheering section, but I also felt like I had to prove myself a little. I made a handful of rusty mistakes, but I made a few decent plays too and I even heard some on the sidelines telling them to pass to me more or to play more like the European guy (me, apparently).

The villagers aren't bad! I definitely got a good workout and have some competition. But they lack a lot of the more refined skills that I have learned from some great coaches over the years. Things like "you don't always have to go forward." Or "play the ball on the ground." Strategy is pretty non-existent here. So I hope to bring some of that to them once I earn my spot with the team. They could really benefit from some new drills, more movement off the ball, less kick-and-run, and a more in-shape midfielder.....

Other than the villagers who I just started playing with, I've also been recruited as a coach for the school team. With them, I have automatic superiority as a teacher. So whether they like it or not, they do what I tell them. They have similar problems to the village team - a general lack of strategy - so I have been running some drills with them to make them think differently about the game. Things to make them think more as a team when defending rather than as individuals. New ways to handle corners and free kicks in the offensive third. Drills where the "goal" is a number of passes rather than an actual goal. I think for most of them, the purpose of the drills is apparent and they enjoy the different style that it forces them to use. For others, they just think it's funny when I make the losing team do push ups.

I'm hoping to help organize a friendly between the village and school teams. I'm still at the beginning of my relationship with both of these teams so we will see where things go from here.

New Teachers

May 1, 2014

This past week, after our Easter/mid-term break, the teachers from  teacher training colleges got placed by the government at schools around the country. We had a meeting with the heads of departments to discuss this (I'm the physics head by default since I am the only physics teacher). We got 5 new teachers, which was nice, but 4 of them only teach arts subjects (history, geography, Swahili, civics...). Each of the arts subjects are covered already by at least 5 teachers that we already had, which I'm afraid will mean more bored teachers and not much relief for the busy science teachers. However, the fifth teacher we got is a math teacher! Which was exciting, but unfortunately this means that the Form II students which have gotten used to my teaching style and who I have built a good relationship with are now his students.

At first I thought of this as a bad thing. I like those students, I have become invested in their success, they are comfortable with me, and now they have been taken from me (or I from them) without any consultation, mid year, and they will need to adjust to a new teacher while preparing for their national exams in the fall (I'm going to stick to Northern hemisphere seasons). It's not fair to me or to the students.

But then I thought about it differently. After about a year and a half, I will be gone. Relying on outside assistance is not healthy for any country (see USA oil addiction), and although I can be an example of different teaching and classroom management methods, it is important to pass the torch, even if it is earlier than I had hoped.

With this new mindset, I have been looking at ways to be useful around the school with my new four-periods-per-week schedule (I will still be teaching Form IV physics). Work is popping up everywhere. My second master desperately needs help with Bio and Chem, the English teachers want me to help their students, and as a member of the Shika na Mikono committee I have been offering my help to any teacher interested in making science/math more interesting with hands-on tools.

Many of the volunteers in the older education class have told me that teaching is not the most important part of our job here. This has become increasingly clear to me. I have never been observed in the classroom by anyone since pre-service training in July. No teachers are learning anything from me while I am in the classroom. And while teaching seems to be my 'job' here, the title "education volunteer" does not necessarily mean "classroom teacher." If I can get teachers at my school to see the importance of teaching aids and hands-on learning, this behavior change would have a far greater impact on Tanzanian education over time than any teaching I could do in my short two years here.

In short, I'm trying to see this schedule change as a blessing in disguise. Less time with my students, but more time to make an impact in different areas. And who knows? Maybe I'll be recruited to teach even more periods now that I'm a free agent again.