Youth Service!

WOAH. Super, mega, intense, crazy weekend. I survived though, bwana asifewe (praise the Lord).

So, let's just start with Saturday. I had stayed up late working on my sermon for Sunday, so I didn't wake up until about 9:30. About ten minutes after (I was still in my jamies) one of the teachers came over with a cord wanting to use power for the preschool graduation going on that morning. Also, keep in mind that since the school is ten feet from our house, there are tons of people milling around because of the ceremony, staring at the wazungu, and all the craziness. Christine was on her way to play ultimate frisbee, so I had to explain to him that we were down to our last electricity credits (seriously, I was quite scared that by the end of the day our power would be out). We can't buy credits ourselves since we don't have an account, we have to have the Pastor do it for us. He then offered to go buy us the credits himself if I gave him money, and as we were sorting that out, the translator for my sermon the next day showed up (I'm still in my jamies). He wanted to meet up with me at some point to discuss the sermon, which was still unwritten. Well, I was going to be going to town that afternoon and not returning until the next morning because Christine and I were babysitting for the missionaries that night, so we just kind of had to meet right then. While we met, the teacher returned to get the money, the pastor came over to enter the credits for the electricity, and the translator stayed for about forty five minutes. It was about 11 am when this all ended, and I hadn't started working on the sermon which was my plan for the morning/afternoon. Surprise!

When they all left, I did get to work, and it went well but took a lot longer than expected. This may surprise many of you who are familiar with my debate and speech career in high school, but when I give a speech, I need to have it written out. I am not good at just having an outline and speaking from that. I forget stuff, get off topic, etc. So, I had to write it out, especially because this was such a huge sermon because it was for the Youth Service. When the translator was over, we were talking about it, and I told him that I had been instructed to talk for at least twenty minutes on my part, twenty for the translation. He looked at me kind of funny, and said "Can't you go at least thirty?" I really just wanted to scream "NO! I really can't!" I grew up in a culture where 15 minutes is a sermon five minutes too long, and as a debater and philosophy major, you make your point and move on. Trying to talk for twenty was tortorous. I told him I would try for 25; I'm still not sure he realized that I was stretching it for that and that I was not making it longer.

I had planned to leave the house by 3 in the afternoon for town. That became 5. But on my jaunt to town, I had a revelation of sorts: culturally, I had truly advanced so far. Probably because I was running late and therefore rushing, my mind didn't have time to think about getting on the dala dala and where exactly in town I had to go, I just did it. No problems. Didn't get lost. I even made it to the missionaries' house without getting lost or calling for help. That afternoon, I had gotten lunch of chips mayai at the duka next door, and I was wearing my kitange; one of the shop owners commented that I looked African :) It's crazy to think where I was at a few months ago, and how far I've come. It was a boost I really needed to get through the next morning.

At the missionaries' house, we had about 12 kids, ranging from ages 2 to 12. We did crafts, made a chain link, they played pin the star on the tree, we watched Charlie Brown Christmas and Rudolph, (there was a slight theme). By the end, we had two asleep and all the others were nodding off, so I think we call that a babysitting success. After that, we went back to one of the missionaries houses. As payment in a sense, we got to spend the night with them. It was a mini vacation to the first world. I actually had a real hot shower and I slept with A/C! Sadly, neither one of those things excited me as much as I thought they would. Recently, Christine and I did figure out how to make bucket showers more tolerable. We have a hot pot, an electric kettle, and if we mix a pot of hot water with the rest of the bucket, it's just perfect. I'm to the point now where I don't mind if it's a running water night or not. Don't get me wrong though- the night was great, and even if they weren't as exciting as I had anticpated, they were still quite exciting.

The next morning, we were going to have some time to hang with the missionaries (who is a couple with three of the kids we took care) before going back to Kihonda for the church service. None of the other missionaries live in Kihonda. They all live on the other side of town, which is already a half hour dala dala ride away from us. It's the "richer" part of town; missionaries, researchers, and government officials pretty much occupy the area. We still figured we would have plenty of time because the service didn't start until 10. Surprises happen though. One of the missionaries (likely) got malaria (not as scary as Americans think, by the way. It's a common occurrence that as long as it's addressed quickly isn't very problematic, just not very fun). However, her husband didn't want to leave her with the three kids to take us back, so another missionary came over and took us to the dala dala stand right away. Everything worked out, just a hectic start to an already stressful day.

I was so nervous throughout the whole service. I kept reminding myself that I had already had the sermon written, the worst really was over. I had to sit up front for the whole service, as in the front of the church looking out at the congregation. The service wasn't excessively different from a normal church service except that the youth led everything. There were a number of Swahili songs, and the English song was "Awesome God." Since a few people are actually in the English choir, they sang the verses and everyone together sang the chorus since it's pretty easy to learn. I actually know how to play "Awesome God" on the piano, so I volunteered to accompany them. That was terrifying. I was trembling all over. I haven't taken piano lessons in over six years, meaning I haven't played in front a group or person for that matter in at least six years. Also, I've never accompanied anyone before; that's a bizarre feeling. This was defintely the largest group I had ever played in front of; it really did go ok though! Not perfect, but we never even practiced with the piano and the whole group until Friday, so considering we only had that one time, it went amazing.

Not too long before I gave my sermon, Upendo (the translator, also a youth) told me that the service was going long enough that I could shorten my message. I was kind of caught off guard because now that the whole thing was typed out, it all made sense together. I wasn't sure how to take out and still have the whole thing make sense. I tried to do my best as I went, but the pastor's daughter who was emceeing the service still passed a note up to us maybe only 2/3 of the way through saying "Please end it soon, people are getting tired." Oh well. I was so happy the whole ordeal was over! Everyone who said anything to me said it was good. I'm not convinced though that anyone here would tell me otherwise; I'm pretty sure that would not be appropriate at all. We ate our meal afterwards, and headed home. I happily crashed the entire afternoon.

This week was rather bizarre once more. The class teachers were still doing their end of the year reports, so on Monday, the head teacher came up to us and said "Ok, we three are going to entertain the students today." We did this everyday this week. I got bored! I mean, I only teach Class IV math and science, and since it's the end of the year, I just wanted to find a spot to stop for break and then pick up when we came back. I hit the end of two chapters on Monday, so we were kind of done then. We had Class IV write letters to God as a journal activity, we let them color, play with the math flashcards, read, etc. You could tell the kids were done. I was trying hard to keep them doing math practice, and they were just getting crabby with each other. There was definitely a lot more bickering and discipline issues. I had to assign my first lines to some students.

After three days of that though, Thursday was a good day. We knew it was the last day for the students, but not all of them knew that, so they were still sort of on task. I read a lot with a number of the students in the morning, which because of the unpredictable chedule I hadn't done much for two weeks. It was really nice to do that again. However, when you're only working with one student at a time, the rest of the class is left to create trouble, so I had to go into Class IV to do math, where I just had them doing review instead of moving on to something new. Just to make sure they would behave though, I promised them that if they got their work done and handed it in, they would get a surprise after break. Christine has a ton of Bill Nye the Science Guy episodes, so as a end of the year treat, I let them watch two of those. They were pretty happy. :) We had one last assembly that afternoon, and then the school year ended! The kids were very excited (not surprising at all), but afterwards a ton of them ran over to me and Christine and mauled us! There were hugs, handshakes, and they wanted to make sure that we would both be back next year. It was a really nice way to end the year!

Outside of school, this week has been pleasantly calm. I've been really tired, perhaps from all the excitement last week. I can't believe I have only two more days until I leave here and go to Europe for two weeks! I'm meeting my mom in France on Monday morning, Sunday night central time. Please keep both of us in your prayers for safe travel! We will be visiting France, Switzerland, and Italy, ending up in Rome for Christmas at the Vatican. It won't be the same as home, but it will be an adventure! I will have a blog up sometime while I'm there hopefully, if not one when I get back here.

I hope you all are having a blessed Christmas season thus far!

God bless,


Kjirstin

A Cultural Contention

I think I've learned that the best way to get material to write a blog is to wait long enough for stuff to happen, even if that means just about two weeks. I apologize for not posting anything (although, in my defense, there wasn't much last week). This week on the other hand.... oh boy. It's been psychotic. I am so ready for it to be over and for life to go back to normal for one week and then I'm off to Europe for Christmas with my mom.

Truly, last week was pretty normal, still learning how to teach Class IV and so far science is a lot harder than math. I got to experience my very first skype failure; I tried to talk to someone on skype and it just didn't work. The internet here can be very entertaining. Sometimes it works great, other times it's terrible. Sometimes your email will work, sometimes it won't, sometimes facebook is on byt skype is off, it's keep you on your toes. I always find this entertaining because at my missionary training we were asked to name one pet peeve, and I said slow internet to which the room groaned empathetically (I didn't quite realize the internet situation at the time). For the most part, it works. I've learned to be flexible and always have non internet activities ready. I've been waiting for this to happen with skype. So far, I've always gotten my skypes to eventually work some, but this one just didn't. However, I ended up later having a perfect skype with that friend and then later another perfect skype with a different friend, so that was wonderful!

This week was annual exams at the school; since our school year runs with the calendar year, the students have end-of-the-year exams, then we for some reason do one more week of class, and they have a month off for Christmas. I'm spending two of those week in Europe, the other two here. Anyway, although the school made sufficient effort to be organized and timely about the exams (they actually had a printed time table!) we got off by Tuesday because the printer didn't have a number of exams ready. We ended up having to do exams Thursday as well, and then Friday the class teachers spent the day compiling scores into yearly reports, all by hand. It really was a boring week in a sense too then. It was just an odd tension all around. Our whole job during test days was for all the teachers to sit in the empty classroom, the one I use math for, waiting for test times because they became very unpredictable in timing. Meanwhile, we were correcting, which went relatively fast, sometimes teaching Class IV who didn't have to test because they just took national exams, but mostly just not knowing what was going on. After a few days, it's very tiring. I did at least help with the marking (correcting) so I'll felt like I at least contributed. Interestingly, I corrected the Swahili exams; I even got a few right! :D

This Sunday is also the church's youth service. We've been preparing pretty much since I got here. I'm so ready for it to be over for a whole host of reasons. The biggest is I was asked to give the message, and I am utterly terrified. This isn't just any old sermon, this is the message for the Youth Service. This is like a mega service; usually our services are two hours long, this will be three to four. There will be tons of music, a drama, a meal, and my sermon. Please, everyone, pray for me. Multiple times a day, or hour or minute. I have been an orator, debater, tutor, teacher, but I really don't think I'm a preacher. Especially for a minimally twenty minutes speech. This may come as a shock to some people who know me, but I don't like to give long speeches. I'm a former philsophy major and debater; we were drilled with make your point, move on. Here the opposite is expected. There are many Sundays where we can tell that Sunday School is going long, which means the sermon is going long. I have seen some up to 45 or 50 minutes. Mine will have to be translated, so it will automatically double in time, but my portion alone needs to be twenty minutes. Thus far, I'm doing something very similar to what I've talked about before, 1 Timothy 4:12. I'm talking about the role God wants for youth in the church and how we can fulfil that. I'm really focusing on how we're Christians today, not of the future. Again, still no idea how culturally relevant this actually is. There will be a blog entry about this, so, stay tuned for next week's episode!

At the same time as this other stuff, the church hosted a seminar for Tanzanian and Congolese pastors this week. A pastor from Florida came! It was really fun getting to discuss with someone else life here and working internationally with the chuch. He has a lot of great ideas, and is really enthusiastic about Tanzania and the people here. He introduced some really counter cultural ideas in the seminar such as financial transperancy and time management. I know those seem like overdone topics in America, but here they're not heard of. Time is a funny thing here. It exists but that's kind of far as it goes. Money in smaller amounts is also not as managed. Hopefully some of the things got through.

Ironically, this whole blog was supposed to be about this next issue for other reasons. Then, the Floridian pastor mentioned this to me, and we had a very long chat about it. It's not something new to me being here, but it's been on my mind a lot more recently. Last Sunday, the pastor's daughter was in Dar on Sunday, so I was more or less the head teacher for Sunday school. I had a ton of kids, and they don't speak as much English. I can't really yell at them then if need be or scold them or anything. I have to have one of them translate, and I don't even know their names. I really struggled controlling them that day, and I was visibly frustrated. These kids are at least 8 or 9 years old, they know better. In Tanzanian culture, children are taught to respect their elders. I am clearly older, and I'm a mzungu! I don't usually have so many problems with this. After the class, the girl who was translating for me (who is also a Class IV student and I know fairly well) looked at me and said,

"Madam, you need to hit them. Then they will listen to you."

I didn't realize that she didn't know I would never beat her. I just looked at her and said,

"Dear, we don't beat in the US. I will never hit you." And she was floored.

Now that I'm in a full teaching position, corporeral punishment has been on my mind a lot more. It's a pretty big thing here. I was at least warned by my coworkers this summer (many of whom are native Africans) that I would probably see it. The reality is some days I feel swarmed by it. Parents do it at home. Teachers walk into a classroom with sticks. I've actually reached the point where I can tell you just by the sound of a whack how much it actually hurt. Sometimes, when it's just the kid's bottom or even the arm, because the sticks are relatively thin, they don't hurt that much. However, getting hit to the back of the hand, calves, or the face always hurts. Depending on the teacher, they will use the stick for discipline, noise control, etc., but many will beat students for poor academic performance. There is one teacher in particular who students are terrified to make a peep in her classroom or do poorly (and sadly, it's one of our worst subjects).

 It took me a long time to learn how to stomach it, but I'm not here to tell these people that this is wrong. It's a cultural practice. They aren't trying to hurt the children for the sake of pain but for discipline. I rarely see them overdue it or do it for pleasure; it is purely about rearing children, and everyone (including people associated with the church) does it. I don't mean these as reasons to excuse the act. No matter what, I think it's wrong, but it helps me to understand why such an act seems reasonable. And everyone grew up with it. When they were in primary school, they were beat. Thus, as adults, they see that as the reasonable response when a child is misbehaving. Children then grow to expect it, and this is where the problem lies. Insert a teacher who refuses to pick up a stick but does need to discipline at some times, your options become an issue.

So far at school, I haven't had too many problems with this. We've come up with other options to avoid beating. Sometimes we assign lines, we'll make the students kneel beside their desks (which doesn't seem terribly awful, but they hate it!) or even running around the building a few times. If worst comes to worst, we can send them to the head teacher's office. I have threatened this a few times, but this almost an empty threat. If I do that, all he's going to do is yell at them, beat them, and send them back. I really didn't avoid the beating that way; I just made someone else do it.

As a missionary, I'm here to spread the word of God. The only standard I feel I can judge by is that of the bible; western culture is not something I'm here to promote. Obviously, hitting a child with a stick in American would consitute immediate termination in a school setting like mine, and probably lawsuits. Here, it's everyday life. These cultural differences are something that the visiting pastor and I ended up talking about; for him in the seminar, such topics as time management are really American minded. Those are not African concepts, but he presented them as good ideas in general, not because Americans say so. He really had a very loving and respectful attitude towards Tanzania, something I appreciated so much. Some missionaries aren't as conscientious of their attitudes sometimes (and I might be just as guilty, although I do make an honest effort to not do it).

He did say that the one Western concept that he does challenge Tanzanians on is corporeral punishment. The head teacher took him on a tour of the school, and somewhere in the process this came up. He was pretty honest with the teacher; some people in America would be upset and unwilling to support the school if they learned that this is something that happens. The head teacher was pretty shocked apparently, and they had a good discussion on it. As the American pastor pointed out, here they would never beat a teacher, there are other ways to punish that they recognize. Therefore, there should be other ways to discipline children that don't involve physical hurting a child.

I'm very glad this conversation happened. It's something I would love to say, but as the pastor and I talked about later, I don't have that opportunity. He so bluntly put it as "I'm only here for a few days, and quite frankly, I'm from a large church with a lot of money. I can say something. You have to stay here for months, you really can't." And he's right. This sadly isn't worth causing contention over because I alone can't change the attitude here. People would likely be more offended, and no more likely to change their minds. In the meantime, I'm doing my best to show alternatives and hope that my example will say something, even if only quietly.

Ok, that's enough for now, so much is going to happen in the next few weeks. In a way, I'm looking foward to January when the school year starts again and we have a few months of just school. Nothing crazy. I hope your Christmas season has started off joyously and continues to do so!

God bless,
Kjirstin

PS: My advance account got set up! If you feel like called to donate to me, here is the link:

https://www.umcmission.org/Give-to-Mission/Donate?type=1001&project=982465

Go to the drop down list of place to donate, find my name, and fill out the rest. Thank you so much!