August / September Roundup

School was closed for the better part of August because of the national census, which gave me a few weeks to do some travelling.

NICK VISIT

Though he could only be here for about 6 days, Nick's visit to Tanzania featured, I believe, a pretty good sampling of the country's sights, early history, both spectrums of its widely separated social and economic classes, and inevitably some of its larger annoyances, namely with travelling. We started the trip in Dar, getting to see some different parts of the town and the beaches, and later went to see The Dark Knight Rises in (supposedly) the biggest movie theatre in East Africa - mostly just an indulgence for me to remember what a movie theatre looks like. Then the next day we stood on a typically overloaded bus for 2 hours going to Bagamoyo.

Bagamoyo used to be the major port city in East Africa during the height of the slave trade, but eventually the business captial moved to Dar and Bagamoyo has been in a steady decline ever since. Now it mostly serves as a historical and tourist site. We saw the Kaole Ruins which included remnants of mosques dating back as far as the 1500's, and also a Catholic church (very rare in that part of the country) that was built around 1900 and has some very nice murals inside. Next to the church was a museum that basically gave the history of Bagamoyo from its origins, through the part it played in the slave trade, then came under German control up to World War II and given up as a British colonial town until Tanzania's independence in 1961. What's interesting is the name of the town used to be something similar that meant basically a place of hope, but got changed during the period of slave trade to what it is now, Bagamoyo, which means "Lay down your heart," meaning that pretty much everyone who came there in those days would never return to where they came from.

After coming back to Dar, we headed on South to Iringa, where we met up with another volunteer and his friend for a joint safari in Ruaha National Park, the one I had visited with Christine a while ago. We used the same guide as the first time, and funnily (or not) enough, got a flat tire at the exact same spot that we did then. So we got into the park right at sundown, which was beautiful of course. We had the whole next day to see pretty much all of the major animals, including a few male lions all resting together. We stayed in the little metal huts inside the park and at one point during the night, all of the guards were yelling at us not to come out because there was an elephant just hanging out sitting right outside our door. Naturally we went out anyways and jumped on for an evening ride. Then on the way back we got another flat tire (well, actually the same one that they had "repaired" inside the park), so by this point we were all pit crew pros.

After Ruaha, we had to go right back to Dar for Nick's flight home. One more flat tire on the cab ride to the airport just for completeness, and then Nick was off, leaving all of his newfound "friendies" behind (who coincidentally seemed to include every taxi driver that we walked past in the country). But he did leave me with plenty of mementos from home, including a giant bear-sized container of animal crackers. You know me too well...

MSC

The week after Nick's visit was our Mid-Service Conference or MSC, also in Dar. It was great to see everyone from our class again, and it really was like a family reunion since we were all staying in the same hotel for the most part. We had a few training sessions on sharing ideas and experiences from site now that we've been there for over a year, and then a doctor's and dentist's appointment, but overall the week was very laid back. We were able to check out a couple of Dar's nicer beaches, one of which had a pirate ship to play on. By far my favorite part of the week was finding a real basketball court where they hold youth league practices every evening. I went there one night to check it out with a couple other volunteers and we got to play full court 5-on-5 scrimmage games with the guys there. And they were so good, much better than any other Tanzanians I've seen play before. It was so nice to have that since I've really been missing playing real basketball on a nice court. I actually found out about the place from a coach I ran into at this kid's camp that I just stumbled upon earlier in the week, but was apparently hosted by two NBA players - Hashim Thabeet (I think the only Tanzanian basketball player in the NBA) and Luol Deng from the Bulls. Unfortunately I had just missed them when I found the place, but it was still lucky to find out about that other court.

SONGEA FEST

Capping off the week of MSC was our adventure to the largest annual Peace Corps get-together event, Songea Fest, held in my hometown Songea, which is normally about a 15 hour bus ride from Dar. Because our whole class was together already, and most of them wanted to go to Songea, we more or less rented out a big bus to take us all down there in style, and were able to put on our own movies and music for the whole ride.

At Songea Fest were a ton of volunteers and even more delicious food. The major event was a huge BBQ featuring pork burgers with cheese, ice cream, plenty of sides, and of course, a giant tub of guacamole that used somewhere around 75 avocados. It was a much bigger success than my last attempt of such proportions last Thanksgiving, since the avocados were actually ripe this time around. And not a drop remained at the end.

Sunday morning there was the typical 3-on-3 basketball tournament. It was actually a good turnout with 6 decent teams. Myself and another person from my same team in Njombe Jam won our second straight PC basketball championship, though without an exciting 6-2 comeback this time.

The final event was the talent show, for which me and 5 other guys from Songea dressed up in shiny orange (how'd you guess?) robes of sorts, and, sporting the finest in fake moustache fashion (thank you random care package gifts) put on a pretty good performance to the Backstreet Boys' "I Want it That Way." So I suppose be on the lookout for embarassing pictures to come on that one.

SOLAR POWER

The end of break meant a return to school for me and, roughly 10 percent of the students...? I suppose it's just a natural trend for schools in this country, especially boarding schools, for students to gradually filter in over the first week or so back. It meant I didn't really have my normal teaching schedule, but did give time to talk with my Headmaster and others more about our Solar Power grant. We've now gotten the money from the US Embassy and are currently looking for a reliable retailer of the materials and a good technician to install them. There is another school near Njombe that has a system similar to what we want ours to be, so we may very well use the same contacts that they did. We should have enough money to get solar panels to power our new copy machine, which doesn't run well off of the generator, and to light at least half of the classrooms. Though it sounds like the Headmaster wants to keep the generator running for the classes in the evenings and use the solar as a backup for when the generator breaks down. I think its a good idea, and also to use solar for the copier, since it is pretty much useless right now, and it would be so great to actually be able to have print-outs for my classes next year. Finding the right retailer is probably the most important part of the project, since there are so many fake and poorly made materials up for sale here. Once we decide on one for sure, the installation should go relatively quickly.

MATH CONFERENCE

Right after getting back to site, I was notified of a national math conference in Arusha this week by one of the Peace Corps staff, and he asked if I could go since I had said earlier that I was interested in going to trainings like this. I gladly accepted and so that is where I am now, in Arusha, way up north near Mount Kilimanjaro. The conference lasts all week and they will be having different discussions on teaching methods and materials relevant to teaching in rural secondary schools in this country. There are probably around 200 or so math teachers from all over the country, including me and 2 others from Peace Corps, so it's a pretty cool opportunity to see how the Ministry of Education views the issues related to teaching math in Tanzania. The conference came at a good time, since my students have a week full of mid-term tests this week. Though when I get back, I will only have 2 weeks of prep time for my Form IV students before their National Exams. I can only hope that they studied over their break, because that sure isn't alot of time to review the 4 years of material they're responsible for in all their subjects! But I still have many that I feel confident about in math, so hopefully they can even exceed my expectations!

That's about all for now. Stay tuned for the next update and keep sending yours my way!