14 Jan 2009
So the blog is back…Here’s my excuse why its been a while since the last update…Somehow last semester became incredibly busy. It was one thing after another. Form 4 mock exams, form 2 mock exams, mid terms, mid-term break, graduation, form 4 exams, form 2 exams, and terminal exams, not to mention other random interruptions. All of these things lasting about a week each. Last semester seems like a blur but I guess a lot was actually going on and the rest of the time was spent trying to catch up/still find time to do other non-school related things. Things go by so quickly. Now I say that I feel so busy all the time like a chicken with my head cut off (which I have actually not seen happen yet, as we eat more dried fish for animal protein than chicken around here, though I did see a turkey get its head chopped off for xmas but he was held down and rigged w/ some kind of fancy pully system). About me running around, that is probably just me- but everywhere you go there you are right?
So some people have asked me about my regular days here, and after about 5 weeks of summer vacation (its summer here, though I know you guys are freezing at home) I will try and remember what its like (I might as well, school technically starts on Monday). There is probably some misunderstanding that because im in a foreighn country life is way more exciting than usual. But you will see for yourself. Sorry for all of the parentheses, (analyze that however you like).
So usually I wake up around 545 or 6:00. On MWF its 545 because my students run by my house for morning mchakamchaka (morning run which consists of a lap or two around the football field). I wake up because I think they put way more effort into screaming/singing their exercise chants than the actual run. On the other days I wake up to my cat crying and the chickens invading my house (more on that later, I haTE CHICkens), kick out the chickens, let the cat in the mosquito net and on the bed so she stops crying. I really don’t know why I actually set my alarm. Then around 6 40 I decide I shouldn’t be late for school, drag myself out of bed, make myself some oatmeal mixed with ulezi (millet). Then I eat my oatmeal, give the cat some dagaa (small fish) w/ ugali (corn flour mixed w/ water), do the normal bathroom routine, and get dressed. Getting dressed here is way easier. First of all most of my outfits are tanzanian style these days, which means the top matches the bottem as in its all one pattern, also its usual to wear an outfit 2 days in a row so on at least 2 days of the week I don’t even have to chose an outfit. The tanzanian made clothes don’t seem to get as dirty as my thin cotton t-shirts I sometimes wear so the 2 day thing is not a smelly issue. Also with short hair I don’t have to do a THING, not that I really did before anyway,,,,minus finding a hair thingi. Its great. Im not gonna get another hair cut until I leave. So this next couple monthes will probably be full of bad hair days.
Back to the schedule…I listen for the school bell to ring which can be anytime betwenn 7 am to 720 am. I think it just depends on whatever teacher is Teacher on Duty for the week. Then I realize im late and look around the house for whatever item im missing find a pen and im off, up the gravel road about 300 yards to the morning assembly which is incredibly painful. Sometimes the students pass out if there are a lot of announcements, Im scared that’s gonna be me some day. After announcements there is signing in, greeting everyone to see how they slept, awoke, etc, check the schedule scramble to get notes written/finish grading (ugh)/deal w/ students/bull shit with the other teachers/return home to grab something I forgot/go to class. About class…. I have 26 forty minute periods a week. Which is not a whole lot. All of them are double periods. My students cant handle 80 minutes of class. Neither can I. Its long. My arms get tired. Usually class goes really well for the first 55 minutes, and then the remaining minutes are usually when the girls start acting up. I don’t blame them. I couldn’t handle the 80 minute classes in college. I try to give them breaks stand up, stretch, jump up and down. Usually there is some kind of interruption or class starts late, which solves the double period length issue, but then we are so far behind on the syllabus so I feel bad either way. Then at 1050 there is chai break. Students eat their breakfast (uji, cornflour mixed w/ water as a soup, w/ sugar and maandazi or chapati, if they buy them) and the teachers may or may not have a meeting depending on whether the mkuu (head mistress) is around or not. Then its back to teaching/notes until school ends at 240 and then usually lunch is ready, ugali and beans or rice and beans, and then I run home chill out, prep for club or do whatever random thing I have to do that day, go on my evening run or play netball, then its bath and dinner at a friends house or even mine if I actually cook. And bed by 10. Weekends are way more exciting, I ll save that for another day. Im tired of writing. My tolerance of using a computer or even the internet is very low these days….. Happy Birthday AMY O, MELissaa McG and Jennyyyy!!!
26 FEB 2008.
“DON’T Be ashamed try and speak ENGLISHI!!!!!!!!!”
This month flew by and im super busy! I think I finally actually know whats going on completely these days and so im actually given some more responsibility even if it includes watching students slash grass for an hour which is boring. I did get some of my students out of punishment 2 days ago. They were being punished for not speaking English. THE WHOLE SCHOOL SHOULD BE PUNISHED FOR NOT SPEAKING ENGLISH including the teachers and myself. Usually I stay out of all the long conversations during meetings but I knew it was going to end up pulling some of our health club kids out of health club which only meets for like 2 hours a week anyway. So I spoke up and said that if the health club kids had to be punished they would do it another day. This did not go over so well at first. And im like why do you think punishment for something like speaking english is more important than a health club? (it’s not just health club. Students are pulled out of class alll the time for random punishment and its hard enough to keep 73 kids learning well in the classroom and its even harder when they are not allowed to show up and half the time its not punishment if the studnets don’t wanna be in class anyway) So it further went into a conversation about what did I really think of the english situation and the punishment situation, which like I said, I usually stay out of considering I don’t really see how forcing the students to speak english will help when we teachers don’t even use english and actually use kiswahili to tell them to speak english. And im not the biggest on punishment anyway mostly bc its so much extra work. And this particular punishment was a waste of time and I actually said that. Well turns out my neighbor was right along with me. So the kids got out of punishment and we all agreed that we really cant only speak english here so we might as well just reward the ones who can. ok. things are actually going well miss you guys.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Friday, August 22, 2008
Almost midterms, again...
Okay so I know that its actually been a really long time since the last blog….so ill sort of try to catch everybody up. A lot has been going on, but then again a lot is the same as usual…ssoooo right now were on the second term, summer break (or I guess its winter here) has passed and after the pain of grading and writing report cards BY HAND and doing the averages NOT ON ExceL, I got to head up north and we climbed mt meru in arusha and it was a lot of fun and was BEAUTIFUL. We reached the peak at 6 am-ish so the whole way up we had amazing view of a huge mountain, I later found out was kilimanjaro. Now, when we started the trip I knew it was kili, but when leaving for the summit at 2 am with not any sleep and not much oxygen I didn’t really think about it… Well it was cold and fun. And I ate some pizza in Arusha. That was good.
Now back to grading. Most things here, I really am not bothered by, bucket baths, I don’t really have a water issue, not really an electricity isssu, but im pretty sure that even with alll the modern technology in the world I would still hate grading. Its like having to stay inside on a snowday. And yes, I do have a computer, but I dropped it, and the charger wasn’t working, and by not working I mean I had to hold it into the computer so that it would charge, therefore I never charged it. Now I fixed that. But would have been nice to have a computer for grading, though then I would have felt bad if it had taken me less time than my Tanzanian friends, but it probabbly would have still taken long bc I did all the averages wrong or not the “tanzanian” way the first time. Now I know. So maybe next time grading will be less painful.
So towards the end of last term I started hanging out in the village a lot more. It s nice to get a break from the school bubble and theres always something new for me to learn. And there are a couple families that Ive known for a while but its nice spending more time with them now. Like this one fam that has a lil chai shop near the market area, on Sundays before church, we all make chapati together so that is fun and most people think its funny that I can/cant really roll out the chapati all that well. (chapati are like tortilla but thicker and tastier and probably way more bad for you).
Im trying to think of a funny story that happened lately, but im kind of in school mode…which can be pretty funny too. Oh, so I really really like my students. They are hilariious most of the time, and first semester I think I kept checking my self to sort of be more conservative and more “teacher-like”….well, I let a little looser lately and my students have gotten to know my personality,,,, which is fine. Except I know my form one students way too well considering I teach them 3 subjects. Soo we had some little respect issues recently, which I pretty much blame on myself. Mostly I didn’t really see it coming , well I sort of did, but im not that big on complete control, so it didn’t really bother me. And then It did. Also then my students started calling me dada. Which means sister, which I didn’t really catch onto or know that it was not okay. But then I sort of realized it wasn’t so I talked to one of my friends in the village and she was like yay, they should probly stop that. So when I had a little talk with one of my students. She totally knew that it wasn’t okay once I called her out on it. This really pissed me off because I knew then that they knew that I didn’t know it wasn’t okay. So we had a little chat. Me and my form ones. I didn’t know I could sound so “ticked off teacher sounding” but I did. Actually, im kind of proud of it. So it worked. That and the fact that they did not get their tests back for a few weeks which was the punishment. They really wanted their tests back. Some of them I don’t know why they want their tests back... And I sort of took things down a notch in the classrooom I think when I have too much energy it kind of instigates things so recently things are much better. PS. I used to sort of instigate things when class got boring, probably led to some of the issues too. So that is my failure/I learned something now and its gonna be okay story. Maybe some of you teacher ppl can relate/think duh Bev I could have told you that was coming.
More school things…sorry, I live there so even if I try not to my life revolves around it. OLYMPICS. I love the olympics at home. I would like to watch them more here. Soooooo we had our own little “School Olympics” and everyone in the school was involved. It was super fun and low key and we had it on 08-08-08 (which was a holiday here w/ no school. Is it a holiday at home? We also had a day off on 07-07 FYI). So we just had a few events, net ball, football, and some random running races, relays etc, the high jump and long jump (the dirt here is somewhat sandy, so is not really hard to make a sand pit). Then they got little medals made out of paper which were kind of sad looking but I think they loved them anyway. So that was a highlight of lately.
Ohhhh one more school thing. Lots of the teachers are leaving. They are going to study. If they teach for 2 years the govt will pay for their university. Good for them. Sad for me. My friends are leaving me. Oh well the new teachers will prob be cool too.What else….
Got to go to a wedding of one of the families I chill w/ a lot in the village. It was Sooooo fun. I LOVE DANCING. We got to dance from one village to the next which was about 1.5 miles away (the bride moved to live w her hubby who lived in the next village so after the ceremony that s where we went. Then when we got there we got to dance even more until the football game in the afternoon. That was alos a very fun time. Again. I love dancing. Weill internet time is almost up.OHHH and I shaved my head. Im not crazy. Seriously. Its fun to do scary things almost like bungee jumping. I don’t know if peace corps lets us do that. I was scared. But it wasn’t a bad decision. Hope all is well at home. Thanks for the letters/ packages shout out to all of you!!!!!!!!oh and bye bye Bry Bry if you re reading this !!!!!!
Now back to grading. Most things here, I really am not bothered by, bucket baths, I don’t really have a water issue, not really an electricity isssu, but im pretty sure that even with alll the modern technology in the world I would still hate grading. Its like having to stay inside on a snowday. And yes, I do have a computer, but I dropped it, and the charger wasn’t working, and by not working I mean I had to hold it into the computer so that it would charge, therefore I never charged it. Now I fixed that. But would have been nice to have a computer for grading, though then I would have felt bad if it had taken me less time than my Tanzanian friends, but it probabbly would have still taken long bc I did all the averages wrong or not the “tanzanian” way the first time. Now I know. So maybe next time grading will be less painful.
So towards the end of last term I started hanging out in the village a lot more. It s nice to get a break from the school bubble and theres always something new for me to learn. And there are a couple families that Ive known for a while but its nice spending more time with them now. Like this one fam that has a lil chai shop near the market area, on Sundays before church, we all make chapati together so that is fun and most people think its funny that I can/cant really roll out the chapati all that well. (chapati are like tortilla but thicker and tastier and probably way more bad for you).
Im trying to think of a funny story that happened lately, but im kind of in school mode…which can be pretty funny too. Oh, so I really really like my students. They are hilariious most of the time, and first semester I think I kept checking my self to sort of be more conservative and more “teacher-like”….well, I let a little looser lately and my students have gotten to know my personality,,,, which is fine. Except I know my form one students way too well considering I teach them 3 subjects. Soo we had some little respect issues recently, which I pretty much blame on myself. Mostly I didn’t really see it coming , well I sort of did, but im not that big on complete control, so it didn’t really bother me. And then It did. Also then my students started calling me dada. Which means sister, which I didn’t really catch onto or know that it was not okay. But then I sort of realized it wasn’t so I talked to one of my friends in the village and she was like yay, they should probly stop that. So when I had a little talk with one of my students. She totally knew that it wasn’t okay once I called her out on it. This really pissed me off because I knew then that they knew that I didn’t know it wasn’t okay. So we had a little chat. Me and my form ones. I didn’t know I could sound so “ticked off teacher sounding” but I did. Actually, im kind of proud of it. So it worked. That and the fact that they did not get their tests back for a few weeks which was the punishment. They really wanted their tests back. Some of them I don’t know why they want their tests back... And I sort of took things down a notch in the classrooom I think when I have too much energy it kind of instigates things so recently things are much better. PS. I used to sort of instigate things when class got boring, probably led to some of the issues too. So that is my failure/I learned something now and its gonna be okay story. Maybe some of you teacher ppl can relate/think duh Bev I could have told you that was coming.
More school things…sorry, I live there so even if I try not to my life revolves around it. OLYMPICS. I love the olympics at home. I would like to watch them more here. Soooooo we had our own little “School Olympics” and everyone in the school was involved. It was super fun and low key and we had it on 08-08-08 (which was a holiday here w/ no school. Is it a holiday at home? We also had a day off on 07-07 FYI). So we just had a few events, net ball, football, and some random running races, relays etc, the high jump and long jump (the dirt here is somewhat sandy, so is not really hard to make a sand pit). Then they got little medals made out of paper which were kind of sad looking but I think they loved them anyway. So that was a highlight of lately.
Ohhhh one more school thing. Lots of the teachers are leaving. They are going to study. If they teach for 2 years the govt will pay for their university. Good for them. Sad for me. My friends are leaving me. Oh well the new teachers will prob be cool too.What else….
Got to go to a wedding of one of the families I chill w/ a lot in the village. It was Sooooo fun. I LOVE DANCING. We got to dance from one village to the next which was about 1.5 miles away (the bride moved to live w her hubby who lived in the next village so after the ceremony that s where we went. Then when we got there we got to dance even more until the football game in the afternoon. That was alos a very fun time. Again. I love dancing. Weill internet time is almost up.OHHH and I shaved my head. Im not crazy. Seriously. Its fun to do scary things almost like bungee jumping. I don’t know if peace corps lets us do that. I was scared. But it wasn’t a bad decision. Hope all is well at home. Thanks for the letters/ packages shout out to all of you!!!!!!!!oh and bye bye Bry Bry if you re reading this !!!!!!
Thursday, June 26, 2008
its been a whilllleeeee
Wrote this a while ago,,, have more to say about recent stuff but will later on...just finished up finals and am heading to climb mt. meru w/ some friends...
15 April 2008
So its about 2 in the morning over here right now, and no, I don’t have wireless internet or any internet within 3 hours from here, I just had the genius idea to write my entry before and then I ll just save it and put it on the internet when I get there in the next few weeks, I do have my lap top here. Well I cant sleep. Maybe you are thinking, what’s new? But sleeplessness is way unusual for me in this part of the world.
Probably you don’t remember but a LONG time ago in October I think I wrote in my blog about teaching about the Amoeba, at least I think I mentioned it, well anyway, I think that I have met this Amoeba. Well I really hope not, but tomorrow Im going into town to get it checked out. My friend has an Amoeba, he named it Sparky. Maybe hes making it up, not the Amoeba part, the name. Whatever it is has caused me to downsize big time,,,he he, im not really that upset about that part….but seriously its uncomfortable even if I maybe could fit in my Sophomore year jeans again. Wow, Im just realizing I sound like im constantly having some weird illness, but not really this is like 2 in 7 months. This is just the exciting stuff that happens, otherwise Im pretty healthy as usual. And scabies have been gone for almost a month!!! Hooray… Oh great I probably just invited them back by saying that….
Other exciting news,,,, Matako had her kittens!!!!!!! March 15 I went out for the usual Saturday hike up the plateau with a few of my students. Before I left she was being all clingy and whiny and I just had a feeling that was the day. I had also had that feeling the day before, then the day before that… But anyway, when I got back from the hike she wasn’t crying at the door for me and I kind of called around from her, and then in my room I heard an echoe of faint cries and there they were, on my second clothes shelf on top of my nice comfy CLEAN clothes. Ohhhhh but they were so cute so they used my fleece as a cushion for a good week ( I am still waiting to actually NEED to wear a fleece). Two little babies. Tako 1 and Tako 2 (Butt cheek 1 and Butt cheek 2) NO just kidding, but that’s what I tell SOME people. One is tan and white and one is sort of blackish, not tabby and not calico. I think they are both girls but havent checked in a while. My friend Mat is taking one of them Im actually very scared of what he might name it, and then one of the primary school teachers is going to take the other.
That was an exciting week…Midterms…Actually midterms are somewhat boring. Unless you count giving out zeros for cheating as not boring. But I really hate doing that and I tell the students that every time. At the point that midterms came along (we all give midterms during the same week) I had really only been teaching my form ones science and math in English for about a week and a half after we completed the English Orientation course, so there really wasn’t much to test on. They did way better than I would if I had to take those exams in Kiswahili. Actually I really don’t remember why completely, but I did not like proctoring exams…oh yes, because of the tapping. When a student needs something, like extra paper, a question read to them (the ink smudges), they tap to get the teacher’s attention and then I would have to climb up and over to their seat and tell them and then by the time I’d sit down someone else would do the lil tabletop tap. But I also remember, that the second I think of having to be the one actually taking the exam, boy am I glad I am NOT taking that exam, not that mine are difficult exams, but hopefully my Kiswahili exam during training was my last exam ever. Yeh, that’s probably not true…but hopefully.
I did say mid terms was an exciting week….One afternoon I was grading exams in between tests and it almost started to rain, so I remembered I had just done some laundry that morning and did not want it to get all wet. Went down to my house was hanging up my underwear on the lil clothesline in my guest room/office when my backpack, leaning against the wall, moved a little. So Im still holding a couple pairs of underwear and I look over at the bag thinking, oh Matako hasn’t been able to kill many rats this week since she’s been busy with the kittens, its probably just a rat rustling under the bag. BUT, just to make sure it was a rat and not S”OMET”HI”ng else, I very tentatively pulled back the bag and stepped back. Not two seconds after I pulled the bag a greenish brown head and a long slithery tongue emerged from behind the bag. So in my head Im like OMG there is a giant puff adder in my room (guest) I quickly jump out of the room, then think better and shut the door, flinging the underwear all over the room as the door his the clothesline, locked the door. At this point im like squealing and jumping around and flapping my arms like aghghghghghQQQ!!! ( and I used to play with my neighbors snakes when I was little) I ran into my room checked on the kittens and they were safe and was just thinking thank goodness it didn’t go in my bedroom and get the kittens, and oh my gosh (im keeping the language PG) if it had been at night and im stumbling around by candlelight barely seeing 2 feet in front of me and I stepped on that thing -----eeeeeeeek. So still squirmying and making awful squirmish noises and pretty much laughing like I do when I m nervous -I run up to the school to tell someone, and I run into my Mkuu (head mistress). And im like NYOKA (snake) in my house, she had been talking to the fundi and he immediately grabbed this long bamboo pole and some other kids grabbed big sticks and we all made our way down to the house and then I remember my underwear flung all over the room, not like im embarrassed its granny panties or anything, but underwear are like not okay to be flashing all around here and these men are gonna have to go in this underwear confetti room. Yeah, that’s probably the last thing I should have been thinking of…So I let them into my house point to the room, the fundi opens the door and starts banging around with the big bamboo stick with me peaking around the corner ready to jump up on the coffee table just in case it comes out, when I see a flash run across the floor, and a long thick giant LIZARD . Yep. A KENGE (it looks like a lizard, don’t know what it means in english). Not really harmful. Though they say it eats chicken eggs, maybe it could have gotten to the kittens since they were less than a week old. They ended up killing it anyway, and hung it up on a string. I tried to get a picture. IM telling you it was BIG really!!!
Well Im actually gettting tired now. So NDOto njema for now.
15 April 2008
So its about 2 in the morning over here right now, and no, I don’t have wireless internet or any internet within 3 hours from here, I just had the genius idea to write my entry before and then I ll just save it and put it on the internet when I get there in the next few weeks, I do have my lap top here. Well I cant sleep. Maybe you are thinking, what’s new? But sleeplessness is way unusual for me in this part of the world.
Probably you don’t remember but a LONG time ago in October I think I wrote in my blog about teaching about the Amoeba, at least I think I mentioned it, well anyway, I think that I have met this Amoeba. Well I really hope not, but tomorrow Im going into town to get it checked out. My friend has an Amoeba, he named it Sparky. Maybe hes making it up, not the Amoeba part, the name. Whatever it is has caused me to downsize big time,,,he he, im not really that upset about that part….but seriously its uncomfortable even if I maybe could fit in my Sophomore year jeans again. Wow, Im just realizing I sound like im constantly having some weird illness, but not really this is like 2 in 7 months. This is just the exciting stuff that happens, otherwise Im pretty healthy as usual. And scabies have been gone for almost a month!!! Hooray… Oh great I probably just invited them back by saying that….
Other exciting news,,,, Matako had her kittens!!!!!!! March 15 I went out for the usual Saturday hike up the plateau with a few of my students. Before I left she was being all clingy and whiny and I just had a feeling that was the day. I had also had that feeling the day before, then the day before that… But anyway, when I got back from the hike she wasn’t crying at the door for me and I kind of called around from her, and then in my room I heard an echoe of faint cries and there they were, on my second clothes shelf on top of my nice comfy CLEAN clothes. Ohhhhh but they were so cute so they used my fleece as a cushion for a good week ( I am still waiting to actually NEED to wear a fleece). Two little babies. Tako 1 and Tako 2 (Butt cheek 1 and Butt cheek 2) NO just kidding, but that’s what I tell SOME people. One is tan and white and one is sort of blackish, not tabby and not calico. I think they are both girls but havent checked in a while. My friend Mat is taking one of them Im actually very scared of what he might name it, and then one of the primary school teachers is going to take the other.
That was an exciting week…Midterms…Actually midterms are somewhat boring. Unless you count giving out zeros for cheating as not boring. But I really hate doing that and I tell the students that every time. At the point that midterms came along (we all give midterms during the same week) I had really only been teaching my form ones science and math in English for about a week and a half after we completed the English Orientation course, so there really wasn’t much to test on. They did way better than I would if I had to take those exams in Kiswahili. Actually I really don’t remember why completely, but I did not like proctoring exams…oh yes, because of the tapping. When a student needs something, like extra paper, a question read to them (the ink smudges), they tap to get the teacher’s attention and then I would have to climb up and over to their seat and tell them and then by the time I’d sit down someone else would do the lil tabletop tap. But I also remember, that the second I think of having to be the one actually taking the exam, boy am I glad I am NOT taking that exam, not that mine are difficult exams, but hopefully my Kiswahili exam during training was my last exam ever. Yeh, that’s probably not true…but hopefully.
I did say mid terms was an exciting week….One afternoon I was grading exams in between tests and it almost started to rain, so I remembered I had just done some laundry that morning and did not want it to get all wet. Went down to my house was hanging up my underwear on the lil clothesline in my guest room/office when my backpack, leaning against the wall, moved a little. So Im still holding a couple pairs of underwear and I look over at the bag thinking, oh Matako hasn’t been able to kill many rats this week since she’s been busy with the kittens, its probably just a rat rustling under the bag. BUT, just to make sure it was a rat and not S”OMET”HI”ng else, I very tentatively pulled back the bag and stepped back. Not two seconds after I pulled the bag a greenish brown head and a long slithery tongue emerged from behind the bag. So in my head Im like OMG there is a giant puff adder in my room (guest) I quickly jump out of the room, then think better and shut the door, flinging the underwear all over the room as the door his the clothesline, locked the door. At this point im like squealing and jumping around and flapping my arms like aghghghghghQQQ!!! ( and I used to play with my neighbors snakes when I was little) I ran into my room checked on the kittens and they were safe and was just thinking thank goodness it didn’t go in my bedroom and get the kittens, and oh my gosh (im keeping the language PG) if it had been at night and im stumbling around by candlelight barely seeing 2 feet in front of me and I stepped on that thing -----eeeeeeeek. So still squirmying and making awful squirmish noises and pretty much laughing like I do when I m nervous -I run up to the school to tell someone, and I run into my Mkuu (head mistress). And im like NYOKA (snake) in my house, she had been talking to the fundi and he immediately grabbed this long bamboo pole and some other kids grabbed big sticks and we all made our way down to the house and then I remember my underwear flung all over the room, not like im embarrassed its granny panties or anything, but underwear are like not okay to be flashing all around here and these men are gonna have to go in this underwear confetti room. Yeah, that’s probably the last thing I should have been thinking of…So I let them into my house point to the room, the fundi opens the door and starts banging around with the big bamboo stick with me peaking around the corner ready to jump up on the coffee table just in case it comes out, when I see a flash run across the floor, and a long thick giant LIZARD . Yep. A KENGE (it looks like a lizard, don’t know what it means in english). Not really harmful. Though they say it eats chicken eggs, maybe it could have gotten to the kittens since they were less than a week old. They ended up killing it anyway, and hung it up on a string. I tried to get a picture. IM telling you it was BIG really!!!
Well Im actually gettting tired now. So NDOto njema for now.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Will you have my scabies?
Scabies
So, this is actually a bit of old news, but considering its been about 2 monthes since my last post, I guess it will be new to you guys. So since about the first week at site I had like little bug bites between my fingers and on my arm. THey reallyyyyyyyyy itched and especially at night. It kind of went away, then came back, then went away again. Didnt really think much about it, but then my friend had the same thing on his fingers and and i said, oh ive had that too........ so turns out it was scabies, which are apparently little bugs that get under your skin and lay eggs. So now, its the running joke that i spread scabies around our region. (lie, not my fault) Boiled all my clothes--really annoying---and got some lotion for them. Well, its been almost three monthes since that first outbreak,,,,and the scabies have decided that they are sticking around. It's actually not so bad, kind of like mosquito bites. I think i might be ablt to get some more medicine sometime soon.
CAt.
I have a cat. her name is matako. that means butt cheaks in kiswahili. i did not name her. i inherited her. So, little miss matako is a calico and is pretty small, shes also pretty prettyh. She was probably the most annoying thing at site for the first monthe. Attacking my feet, arms, anything that moved, keeping me up all nite, crying to come inside crying to go outside. i dont think she liked me very much-she missed her old mama, and most ppl can attest that i didnt really like her either. Then one day the fundi (school carpenter) cut her a cat door in my back door. This cat is awwesome now. SHe is so sweet and loves attention. unfortunately she has brought in a live in boyfriend, and with the cat door he cant stay out. THat may be the reason shes so happy now. who knows? im a little scared she pregnat, but we will see. THat will be fun. not. maybe.
garden
my garden is a bit of a laughing matter. i spent a lot of time digging. its just really small. but corn and beans and pumpkins are growing,,,
school
so school finally started and im pretty sure all of the students have arrived. its an all girls boarding school, fyi. so im teaching chem , bio , and math to form 1. chem to form 3. and physics to form 4. Hvent started teaching physics yet bc i just inherited the class from another teacher. a lil scared for that one, but i LOVED physics in high school, so hopefully it will be fine. So form 1 i actually havent started teaching any science yet. We ha ve 6 weeks of English orientation aka "baseline". about 1/5 of my students know a bit of english. some really didnt know any. All in all, I start teaching actual science in a week and its goonna be a lil scary. BUTTTTTTTTTTTT (one t) I loveeeeeee my students. OF course there are some annoying times in class when i have to call someone out for talking too much, or like that first week when i felt like all the stuff i pulled in high school was coming back to haunt me (passing notes, talking, playing jokes, "helping" other student s w/ homework., chaeatiing on quizes (although i dont think i ever did thata).
Other wise I really like being in the class room and trying to come up with fun activities. So one day i planned to have my students write me letteres. just about anything they wanted , i kind of wanted to see just how much english they could pull offf without a whole lot of structure. So i get to school on Valentines day, look at my lesson plan, and realize that V-day is the day i planned to have them write me letters.....Didnt have time to come up with something else, so i got over 50 Valentines day cards, with some great lines, I dont even know where they got them from. My neighbor is pretty funny teacher, and likes to give me a hard time. So of course he noticed that alll of my students were writing me valentines and got a kick out of the fact that i had to assign ppl to write me valentines. it was pretty funny. Thank goodness i go to an all girsls school. Otherwise that could have been bad. For the record, i did get other valentines, so ASANTE SANA to those who sent them.
SAturdays
When school first started, i was exhausted on saturday mornings. The end of my leisurely life style made me a lil tired. But a few weeks ago, I started getting a lil bored on my saturdays. I really wanted to hike up the plateau, but had no one to go with, because most of the people i hang out with are like, whiy would you want to do that? A lot of ppl have to hike it to transport things from other villages like for business, so i can see why they think its crazy that i just want to hike up it for fun. Well, i decided to see if any of my form one students might want to go with me. on friday i was like, "so tomorrrow im gonna climb the mountain, if anyone wants to come let me know". I figured i could talk a few students into going. Well, i was in for a shock. EVERYONE raised there hands and were really excited to go....so what do i do? i thougth. I wanted to pick five of my favorate students, but thats a pretty awful thing for a teacher to do i think. it might even be awful for me to have favorate studints, i dont know what the goldent rules of teaching are yet. , so i had everyone write there name and i picked five names out of the hat. So we all climbed the plateau and it was super fun and we drew maps of everything we could sseee. even got some pics so maybe i can get those up someoime in the next 6 monthes. Gonna go every sat from now on. computer time is out..... miss you gusy!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love getting mail and hearing from you alllllllllllllllllllllllll
So, this is actually a bit of old news, but considering its been about 2 monthes since my last post, I guess it will be new to you guys. So since about the first week at site I had like little bug bites between my fingers and on my arm. THey reallyyyyyyyyy itched and especially at night. It kind of went away, then came back, then went away again. Didnt really think much about it, but then my friend had the same thing on his fingers and and i said, oh ive had that too........ so turns out it was scabies, which are apparently little bugs that get under your skin and lay eggs. So now, its the running joke that i spread scabies around our region. (lie, not my fault) Boiled all my clothes--really annoying---and got some lotion for them. Well, its been almost three monthes since that first outbreak,,,,and the scabies have decided that they are sticking around. It's actually not so bad, kind of like mosquito bites. I think i might be ablt to get some more medicine sometime soon.
CAt.
I have a cat. her name is matako. that means butt cheaks in kiswahili. i did not name her. i inherited her. So, little miss matako is a calico and is pretty small, shes also pretty prettyh. She was probably the most annoying thing at site for the first monthe. Attacking my feet, arms, anything that moved, keeping me up all nite, crying to come inside crying to go outside. i dont think she liked me very much-she missed her old mama, and most ppl can attest that i didnt really like her either. Then one day the fundi (school carpenter) cut her a cat door in my back door. This cat is awwesome now. SHe is so sweet and loves attention. unfortunately she has brought in a live in boyfriend, and with the cat door he cant stay out. THat may be the reason shes so happy now. who knows? im a little scared she pregnat, but we will see. THat will be fun. not. maybe.
garden
my garden is a bit of a laughing matter. i spent a lot of time digging. its just really small. but corn and beans and pumpkins are growing,,,
school
so school finally started and im pretty sure all of the students have arrived. its an all girls boarding school, fyi. so im teaching chem , bio , and math to form 1. chem to form 3. and physics to form 4. Hvent started teaching physics yet bc i just inherited the class from another teacher. a lil scared for that one, but i LOVED physics in high school, so hopefully it will be fine. So form 1 i actually havent started teaching any science yet. We ha ve 6 weeks of English orientation aka "baseline". about 1/5 of my students know a bit of english. some really didnt know any. All in all, I start teaching actual science in a week and its goonna be a lil scary. BUTTTTTTTTTTTT (one t) I loveeeeeee my students. OF course there are some annoying times in class when i have to call someone out for talking too much, or like that first week when i felt like all the stuff i pulled in high school was coming back to haunt me (passing notes, talking, playing jokes, "helping" other student s w/ homework., chaeatiing on quizes (although i dont think i ever did thata).
Other wise I really like being in the class room and trying to come up with fun activities. So one day i planned to have my students write me letteres. just about anything they wanted , i kind of wanted to see just how much english they could pull offf without a whole lot of structure. So i get to school on Valentines day, look at my lesson plan, and realize that V-day is the day i planned to have them write me letters.....Didnt have time to come up with something else, so i got over 50 Valentines day cards, with some great lines, I dont even know where they got them from. My neighbor is pretty funny teacher, and likes to give me a hard time. So of course he noticed that alll of my students were writing me valentines and got a kick out of the fact that i had to assign ppl to write me valentines. it was pretty funny. Thank goodness i go to an all girsls school. Otherwise that could have been bad. For the record, i did get other valentines, so ASANTE SANA to those who sent them.
SAturdays
When school first started, i was exhausted on saturday mornings. The end of my leisurely life style made me a lil tired. But a few weeks ago, I started getting a lil bored on my saturdays. I really wanted to hike up the plateau, but had no one to go with, because most of the people i hang out with are like, whiy would you want to do that? A lot of ppl have to hike it to transport things from other villages like for business, so i can see why they think its crazy that i just want to hike up it for fun. Well, i decided to see if any of my form one students might want to go with me. on friday i was like, "so tomorrrow im gonna climb the mountain, if anyone wants to come let me know". I figured i could talk a few students into going. Well, i was in for a shock. EVERYONE raised there hands and were really excited to go....so what do i do? i thougth. I wanted to pick five of my favorate students, but thats a pretty awful thing for a teacher to do i think. it might even be awful for me to have favorate studints, i dont know what the goldent rules of teaching are yet. , so i had everyone write there name and i picked five names out of the hat. So we all climbed the plateau and it was super fun and we drew maps of everything we could sseee. even got some pics so maybe i can get those up someoime in the next 6 monthes. Gonna go every sat from now on. computer time is out..... miss you gusy!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love getting mail and hearing from you alllllllllllllllllllllllll
Saturday, December 29, 2007
goins on
wow its been a while since ive seen internet--merry xmas and happy new year everybody!!! ive been at my site now for a lil less than a month and so far it is pretty safi... which means i like it. School "starts" in 2 weeks though ive been told itll probably be later on till all the girls actually arrive... so im not feeling too rushed to get movin on the lesson plans. So what the heck have i been up to for the past month??? Surprisingly, ive been keeping myself fairly busy. i had this little list, yeah i know im such a nerd, of things i was really exciyted to do when i first got here. i thought id get lonely, so i wanted to have a plan of things to do. not really so. i have lots of visitors all the time----oh but back to the list... so i wanted to make bread, make a garden and a compost pile, make wine ( im a science teacher right? this is a science experiment), and try to learn a bit of the local language. there are 3 besides kiswahili. so hows that list goin? Tried it all. i made some friends the first week- a group of 13-14 yr old boys got really excited when they saw me start digging a compost pile behind my house and started to help me... so got the compost going, layer of dirt, grass, leaves/sticks/ more dirt/old mango peals... that lasted about a week till i realized the chickens would come and eat the food and the ants too. There are thousands of antssssssssssssssss. all over. they bite. i have to do a little jig sometimes when im unlocking my front door so they dont crawl on me and bite me. im sure its pretty comical.
im apologizing now. this post is gonna be so disorganized and more scattered than usual.
made bread.
made mango wine. waiting on it to age it for the next 3 weeks.
trying to learn some of one of the other languages. the older people get a kick out of it and its fun to learn.
first day i was here a goat had fallen down into the choo. I was walking around with Steph, the girl who has been the volunteer here for the past two years before she left, and we heard some baaing coming from a choo (outhouse). Sure enough, we walk in and its coming from underground. not much we could do but feel bad for the goat. thats a smelly place to spend ur last few da ys.
Tried to get curtains made for my room. Ended up with a skirt adn shirt. ----that is nottttt due to fumbling w/ kiswahili. i didint know the material i wanted to turn into curtains was nice enough to wear---oops. actually its a cute outfit.
tons has been going on in the past few weeks...lots of hangig out w/ neighbors...lots of playing lasti cardi,, Tanzanian version of "uno"....ive learned like 10 different versions of the game mostly id learn new rules that would "prevent" me from winning when i thought i would. but most of you know how terrrible i am at playing card games...
lots of walking around in the village.. by the end of the da y im wiped out. in bed by 9. its glorious. i can sleep in this country... well happy new year everyoneeeeee next time ill try to prep something beforehand becasuse im having a hard time decidiong what to say here!!!
miss you alllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll
bev
im apologizing now. this post is gonna be so disorganized and more scattered than usual.
made bread.
made mango wine. waiting on it to age it for the next 3 weeks.
trying to learn some of one of the other languages. the older people get a kick out of it and its fun to learn.
first day i was here a goat had fallen down into the choo. I was walking around with Steph, the girl who has been the volunteer here for the past two years before she left, and we heard some baaing coming from a choo (outhouse). Sure enough, we walk in and its coming from underground. not much we could do but feel bad for the goat. thats a smelly place to spend ur last few da ys.
Tried to get curtains made for my room. Ended up with a skirt adn shirt. ----that is nottttt due to fumbling w/ kiswahili. i didint know the material i wanted to turn into curtains was nice enough to wear---oops. actually its a cute outfit.
tons has been going on in the past few weeks...lots of hangig out w/ neighbors...lots of playing lasti cardi,, Tanzanian version of "uno"....ive learned like 10 different versions of the game mostly id learn new rules that would "prevent" me from winning when i thought i would. but most of you know how terrrible i am at playing card games...
lots of walking around in the village.. by the end of the da y im wiped out. in bed by 9. its glorious. i can sleep in this country... well happy new year everyoneeeeee next time ill try to prep something beforehand becasuse im having a hard time decidiong what to say here!!!
miss you alllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll
bev
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Friday, November 23, 2007
Site announcements
Hey everybody! Happy Thanksgiving!!! Yes, its been a while since I last wrote here. For no really good reason. A lot has happened and training is basically over. Last week they sent us to visit other peace corps volunteers who have already been here a year or two. We went to Tanga region which is just by the border of kenya. We woke up for the sunrise one morning and from the top of one hill we could see the plains of Kenya. The clouds hid the sunset, and the fact that the sun was actually rising behind another mountain made it hard to see. Other than that there was lots of hanging out and just seeing how a volunteer really lives.. Like do they eat chipsi mayai (french fries fried with egg) every other day like I have been doing for the past month or do they cook other dinners when they live alone. And actually the guy I visited did eat lotssssssssss of chipsi mayai, but I can tell you that I will be trying very hard NOT to eat anymore chipsi mayai. Dont get me wrong. ITs delicious, but besides the fact that my mama has told me that everyone in the village has told her that im getting nice and fat (for emphasis she holds her arms out and puffs her cheeks out) Id like to be able to make it up Kilimanjaro or Mt. Meru if I get the chance and not be the fat kid lagging behind. It was also FREEZING ok, no ice and maybe it was like 50 degrees in Tanga among mountains that reminded me of italy.
The trip was fun and rather uneventful besides riding the daladala (an overstuffed bus) around the sides of the mountains, on which at one stop I had to get out and puke. It was a beautiful ride though as long as i didnt think about falling over the side of the road and down many feet. I think the mountains were like 5000ish feet. Anyway after that we went to Dar Es Salaam the big city in TZ and had Thanksgiving dinner at our Country Directors house. The apple pie was delish. So after a pretty Americanized week and a few sort of boring saftety and security/finance/i dont even remember the other types of meetings they finally told us what we've all been waiting for....
WHERE WELLL be living for the next two years!!!! My site sounds great. We actually got to interview earlier during training and say what our ideal site would be. I had no idea and all i really said was that i like to run and that I like to eat fruit and play sports and then I talked to my interviewere about her kids for a while and some other random things.........
so where did that get me?/
Mtwara region. My village and school which im not allowed to mention on this blog and are down by the border of Mozambique. I am so excited!!! Ill be teaching at an all girls boarding school with about 500 students. The village that my school is closest to has like 800 ppl and is 55 km from the nearest bigger town. There is no public transportation but the school has a car and goes in like once a week. Its in a hilly area with lots of running and biking trails etc. The girl who was at the site before said that she used to run alot so that is goodthat ill be able to run. I tink i even have electricity and running water so that will make chargoing my cell phone a lil easier, besides that i dont know much but i think it soundg great---- We will leave next Thursday the 28th of november i think and take a nice long bus ride... Until then, keep me updated i love hearing from everybody!!!!!!!!!!!!
The trip was fun and rather uneventful besides riding the daladala (an overstuffed bus) around the sides of the mountains, on which at one stop I had to get out and puke. It was a beautiful ride though as long as i didnt think about falling over the side of the road and down many feet. I think the mountains were like 5000ish feet. Anyway after that we went to Dar Es Salaam the big city in TZ and had Thanksgiving dinner at our Country Directors house. The apple pie was delish. So after a pretty Americanized week and a few sort of boring saftety and security/finance/i dont even remember the other types of meetings they finally told us what we've all been waiting for....
WHERE WELLL be living for the next two years!!!! My site sounds great. We actually got to interview earlier during training and say what our ideal site would be. I had no idea and all i really said was that i like to run and that I like to eat fruit and play sports and then I talked to my interviewere about her kids for a while and some other random things.........
so where did that get me?/
Mtwara region. My village and school which im not allowed to mention on this blog and are down by the border of Mozambique. I am so excited!!! Ill be teaching at an all girls boarding school with about 500 students. The village that my school is closest to has like 800 ppl and is 55 km from the nearest bigger town. There is no public transportation but the school has a car and goes in like once a week. Its in a hilly area with lots of running and biking trails etc. The girl who was at the site before said that she used to run alot so that is goodthat ill be able to run. I tink i even have electricity and running water so that will make chargoing my cell phone a lil easier, besides that i dont know much but i think it soundg great---- We will leave next Thursday the 28th of november i think and take a nice long bus ride... Until then, keep me updated i love hearing from everybody!!!!!!!!!!!!
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