My life

Last Saturday, dressed in the best clothes i own, in Tanzania and America combined, but without a tie because it was hot, while pushing my bike up a big hill to deliver the car battery that my friends forgot, I realized my life is getting strange. I was on my way to my friend's wedding, which I had spent Friday baking cakes for, because nobody in the village knows how to make a cake. The cake had already been taken, they were going to come get the battery, which was charging using the solar panels we have at school, but it was half and hour before the reception and nobody had come to get it, realizing that without the batter the hour spent making the microphone work with the boom box would be wasted (no electricity there) I got the battery. The reception was to be held in a very small primary school classroom. The "MC's" (yeah, two, we're classy) are both teachers, so why, you might ask, if we will be in a classroom, and teachers will be doing the talking to we need a boombox with a microphone? I asked this too, the best answer I got was it is a wedding, I think also they like all the static the microphone makes. The wedding was fun, ended early because we didn't think to bring a light to use with the battery, so after 7:00 or so it gets pretty dark.

So things are going well here. They recently moved a water spigot down really close to my house, I promptly bought a hose, and can water my garden (which has really helped the grass grow in it), it is also great for spraying out my bathroom, which is much better than having to wash a bathroom like in the states. I have also bought a car battery for my home, which I can charge things and run a light; there are nights now where I stay up past 10:00, just because I can still see. School is going well, we have a break in September I might try to get a trip planned for. Not much is new for me though, I'm still here, still doing well, seem to be going to town a lot, we are getting new group of volunteers, so I've been on a few of their welcoming committees, including today. Time for me to try to submit an application to get an over-seas ballot.

Been a while

So things are going well, but I'm terrible at updating the blog. We got the solar set up mostly working at school, one part doesn't work, but isn't so important, another we blew a fuse on, so I bought two while I'm in town. It's working pretty nicely. My schedule is changing a lot too. I used to have 3 streams (classes) of form one. Then a school near me opened up, and took about half, leaving me with 2 streams of less than 35 students, which is really nice. Last week the teachers decided since the classes were so small it would be better to combine them, so now instead of teaching the same lesson 3 times a week, I'm down to one, but with almost 70 students, which is less fun, but gives me a lot of free time.

Also bought an internet phone, which is a lot of fun. Not so great for most internet, but for checking gmail, it is wonderful.

Nothing else is new, next time I'm in town I'll try to get some pictures online

So I've gotten a lot of questions about my school. I teach secondary school, which is sort of like middle and high school. I teach forms 1-4. Form one is the first part of secondary school, they were taught English in primary school, but lessons were in Swahili. In primary school everyone is supposed to be comfortable in English, and lessons should be taught in it. That said, every area of Tanzania has a different tribe (there are about 120 in the country), each tribe has it's own language. My area is Wahehe, they speak Kihehe. So every child first learns their tribal language. Swahili is their second language and English is their third. So if I say something in English, they try to translate it into Swahili, and then into Kihehe. So form ones, I teach mostly in Swahili. To pass form 2 and form 4 they need to pass a national exam, which is in English. So I also think it is important to use as much English as I can get away with to help them learn it, my form 4's I don't use any Swahili.

Class sizes are large usually. There are 3 classes of forms 1 and 2, each with 40-50 students. Chemistry and physics are mandatory for the first two years (forms 1 &2), so I have all of them. Form 3 has about 100 students in it (there aren't enough classrooms, so they are all in the same one) but since physics is optional and they didn't like vectors, I only have 7 students. The same is with form 4, but there are only about 70 students, I have 7 again. The small classes are really fun to teach, the bigger ones are ok, but you can't really work with an individual student.

We also have a library, with very few books, but the last volunteer has sent 3 or 4 boxes of books for us. Right now the students aren't allowed in the library because they are afraid the students will steal books. I'm going to try to get some screens put on the windows, so they can't pass books through, and maybe they'll let me open it every once in a while. We also have two classrooms and the library that are wired for electricity. I'm looking around at prices of solar panels and batteries so maybe we can open them at night, but I don't really know anything about such things. It would be really good for the girls at my school to have a place to study at night, at home they are given chores, so we'll see. Anyway, ask any questions that I forgot to answer.

Merry Christmas

Hope everyone had a good Christmas, I spent it with some other volunteers, cooked a lot of good food. I got some pictures up today. I'll spend new years at site, I think the teachers there celebrate, so it will be good to get to know them, most have been away on holiday. I start teaching on January 2, so this afternoon or tomorrow my headmaster is supposed to help me make lesson plans and such, hopefully I'll know what I'm going to be teaching soon!

Site!

So I've been at site for a week, time is going fast. My house is nice, it is on top of a big hill, so I have a good view of the sunset, and a strong breeze every night. I have a small house, with a living room, kitchen, and bedroom. I don't have electricity, so I go to bed pretty early at night. I don't have running water either, but the walk isn't too far. I am the third volunteer to live in this house, so it is set up pretty well for me, some of the people moving into new houses have to buy all new furniture and pots and pans, and all that good stuff. My house is right next to the school, about a mile from town, which is an easy bike ride. My town has a few food items, but for most things I bike to the next one, about 7 km away. School is on break until January 2, so I'm hoping to get a garden planted (I need a fence first to keep out chickens) and my school has a lab, and I would like to poke around a little bit. Anyway, that's all my computer time, mabye pictures later

Site Announcments

I found out that I'm going to the same region I visited. The closest town to me will be called Mafinga, which if you are looking at a map is between Iringa and Njombe. I visited Njombe, it was fun, they even have a cheese factory there, which is hard to get in Tanzania. My house won't have water (but the walk isn't supposed to be too far) or electricity. The girl who I am replacing was at site announcments and really liked the site, so I'm excited. The other great thing about the south is every September I hear the volunteers have Septemberfest, where they all get together and try eachother's homebrew wine, so I'm pretty excited about that. Anyway, I don't have any internet time left, hope all is well

Shadow visit

Thursday I'm heading to the Irnga region to visit another volunteer and see what she does day to day. She's an environmental volunteer, and we just had a talk on permaculture, and I'm hoping to learn a little about that. It is also in the mountains in the south part of the country, and we were told to bring warm clothes, so I'm really excited about that part! We are having Thanksgiving in Dar es Salaam, the country director ordered 3 turkeys, so hopefully they come. After that we have graduation, where we become real PCV's (peace corps volunteers) instead of PCT's (peace corps trainees). Today I took my final Kiswahili written test, and tomorrow is the final oral test, and then I could potentially be done with language for 2 years. Or if I don't pass I could take more classes. Also rumor is that if you want PC will hire a tutor for you at site, which would be awesome, but I'm not sure how likely that is.

I've been putting off treating my mosquito net above my bed, because I don't want to take it down. I've been really excited about doing it at site, because I push up against it and get lots of bites. Then another trainee told me when he treated his he got really dizzy in bed for about a week. One night he got up to get some water and walked straight into a wall! So I'm not sure how I feel about doing this anymore, maybe I can sleep in my hammock (that has a mosquito net) for a week while the other one cures.