I had the realization the other day that I have officially been here for four months. Wow! In some ways that seems true to me and in others it doesn't. Other than that, I'm not entirely sure how to comment on this milestone. It simply is. In fact, I really don't have any way to neatly and coherently sum up this week's events other than a multitude of vignettes. Some are short, some are long, some are with the kids, some aren't, but they are all parts of my life here. Enjoy!
-One day this week, I went into Class VII to hand back a science exercise book. Class VII didn't have a teacher, and they were on a slow but steady incline to rowdiness, so I made the standard threat of "if you guys don't have enough work, I can always give you more to do." Of course, that's followed by, "NO MADAM!" and then quiet. One of the girls followed me out to our desk and asked if we could do "science experiements." I was confused at first, but then I realized that she was talking about what I've been doing with Class V. Since we're studying the circulatory system and I have a stethoscope, what better thing to do than to listen to hearbeats and take pulses? I thought about it for a minute, and then I was like "Ok." Playing with Class VII sounded way more fun than correcting :) We took pulses, then I made them run around outside just to raise their pulses, we did the math on how many times their hearts beat every minute, every hour, every day, every year, and then how many times since they were born. I then took the stethoscope around to each student so they could hear their hearts; if we couldn't find theirs quickly, they listened to mine. Some were slightly embarassed to wear the stethoscope, I had one or two who didn't even want to at first. However, they always got this slow smile on their faces when they heard "the drum" and they all assured me that their hearts were good and strong. :)
-In this week's English class, since they started getting religious vocabulary, I decided to do a translation project. So, I got to translate the Lord's Prayer with them from Swahili to English. I feel that alone speaks for itself, but tt was awesome to go to the Swahili version and realize how much I could figure out. It was a really fun activity!
-I tossed a rock into the cultural pond and made a large ripple. Christine and I were heading back home after going shopping, and the dala dala was full. Its interior design made it smaller to begin with, and there were a large number of people on it. We were just leaving town though, so we still had a ways to go when we stopped again. I was thinking "This had better be a small child or we're not going to fit them on." Nope, older, big woman. I was sitting in the seat closest the door, so the woman was trying to squeeze past me to the last open spot, standing in the aisle next to me. However, there was just no reasonable way to accomplish this, so I stood up, took the aisle spot, and gave her my seat. Since I was so close to the front, I couldn't see the faces of everyone else, but apparently they were pretty shocked by the mzungu giving up her seat for the woman. They were trying to figure out from looking at the back of me is I was old or young; culturally, if I was not a mzungu, at my age this would have been appropriate but not necessarily expected. If I would have been clearly a child, it would have been expected. However, wazungu get a special placement and special respect, so this was very unexpected and apparently shocking.
-I got to have my first (very small) bargaining experience this week. On Friday, Christine and I went kitange shopping because I only had one and wanted more. We went to some shops by the market where I found four (!) that I liked. In most shops here, the price isn't really set in stone. This can work against wazungu because people here assume we have a lot of money. In comparison, this is true, and I don't blame them for wanting to make a little extra money. We just don't have to pay it if it's too unfair, and usually us starting to walk away is enough to make the price reasonable. Bargaining itself is an art, and then doing it in Swahili makes it all the more interesting. It worked out ok; I love my new kitanges, and I got good prices! :D
-This is a chore I expect to never have to worry about when I return to America. On Saturday afternoon, I spent a solid hour sewing holes in my mosquito net. You have to tuck the net in around your bed which pulls on it, and because the wood used to make the beds is rougher here than in the US, it abuses them. I feel like every morning I wake up and there are two mosquitoes on the inside of my net, and they're always fat. Sadly, the next morning, I found one new hole, a hole that the thread came undone, and one fat mosquito in my net.
-On Wednesday night, I had a flashback to the days of waiting to see if the next day is going to be a late start or snow day. That afternoon, the head teacher told us that one of the next two days was going to be a Muslim holiday, it depended on the moon that night. That meant we were either going to get Thursday or Friday off, but we were planning like it would be Friday. Well, that night the power went out from 6 pm to 11 pm. So, we had no way of knowing if the Muslim's had called the holiday on Thursday or Friday. We didn't know what it was about the moon that they needed because the moon was out that night, we just basically had no idea what was going on. We just planned that we would go to school the next day, which was good because we did, which we learned at 6 am Thursday morning.
-The good news that I don't believe I ever reported: Pastor's son Nathan got accepted into seconday school in Mtwara! It's a technical school, so it's focused on math and science, perfect for an aspiring doctor! The bad news: A few days in, Nathan got a bad enough case of malaria that he missed three days of classes. Pastor and his wife went on Friday to go see him, but before they did, Christine and I made a card for him. This was a half hour long project that included on the front a hand about to kill a mosquito and the mosquito aware of his imminent doom, about twenty stickers, and far too much enjoyment on our part. Please pray for him that he feels better soon! We heard he's still pretty weak, but he was able to go to class at the end of the week. Going to secondary school so far away was a pretty scary experience alone, and this is a really hard way to begin that experience.
-Friday night, Christine and I ran into a slight water shortage. Mama Vanessa had come over in the morning to clean and do laundry which uses a lot of water, and by the end of the day, we had one bucket left for the two of us to shower with. How do you fix that? Simple! There was a slight trickle of water coming out of the sink faucet, so I put the pitcher under the sink, let the trickle fill the pitcher, and dumped into another bucket for my shower. Life in Tanzania.
I think that's all I have for now. To conclude, I have a few prayer requests. First off, as I mentioned, please pray for Nathan. Next, please pray for Pastor; he lost one of his sisters this week. He won't be able to go to the funeral, so please keep him and his family in your prayers. Also, please pray for me this week. As the science teacher, I've been assigned to teach some more sensitive topics in class, and I'm not looking forward to it. It's important information that needs to be taught, and I really want it to be beneficial for the kids, so please pray for them too. Finally, please pray for Christine and I next weekend. We will be travelling to Dodoma to visit the Methodist church there and another UMC Missionary, who herself is actually Korean. I'll be very excited to update again after our trip!
God bless,
Kjirstin
-One day this week, I went into Class VII to hand back a science exercise book. Class VII didn't have a teacher, and they were on a slow but steady incline to rowdiness, so I made the standard threat of "if you guys don't have enough work, I can always give you more to do." Of course, that's followed by, "NO MADAM!" and then quiet. One of the girls followed me out to our desk and asked if we could do "science experiements." I was confused at first, but then I realized that she was talking about what I've been doing with Class V. Since we're studying the circulatory system and I have a stethoscope, what better thing to do than to listen to hearbeats and take pulses? I thought about it for a minute, and then I was like "Ok." Playing with Class VII sounded way more fun than correcting :) We took pulses, then I made them run around outside just to raise their pulses, we did the math on how many times their hearts beat every minute, every hour, every day, every year, and then how many times since they were born. I then took the stethoscope around to each student so they could hear their hearts; if we couldn't find theirs quickly, they listened to mine. Some were slightly embarassed to wear the stethoscope, I had one or two who didn't even want to at first. However, they always got this slow smile on their faces when they heard "the drum" and they all assured me that their hearts were good and strong. :)
-In this week's English class, since they started getting religious vocabulary, I decided to do a translation project. So, I got to translate the Lord's Prayer with them from Swahili to English. I feel that alone speaks for itself, but tt was awesome to go to the Swahili version and realize how much I could figure out. It was a really fun activity!
-I tossed a rock into the cultural pond and made a large ripple. Christine and I were heading back home after going shopping, and the dala dala was full. Its interior design made it smaller to begin with, and there were a large number of people on it. We were just leaving town though, so we still had a ways to go when we stopped again. I was thinking "This had better be a small child or we're not going to fit them on." Nope, older, big woman. I was sitting in the seat closest the door, so the woman was trying to squeeze past me to the last open spot, standing in the aisle next to me. However, there was just no reasonable way to accomplish this, so I stood up, took the aisle spot, and gave her my seat. Since I was so close to the front, I couldn't see the faces of everyone else, but apparently they were pretty shocked by the mzungu giving up her seat for the woman. They were trying to figure out from looking at the back of me is I was old or young; culturally, if I was not a mzungu, at my age this would have been appropriate but not necessarily expected. If I would have been clearly a child, it would have been expected. However, wazungu get a special placement and special respect, so this was very unexpected and apparently shocking.
-I got to have my first (very small) bargaining experience this week. On Friday, Christine and I went kitange shopping because I only had one and wanted more. We went to some shops by the market where I found four (!) that I liked. In most shops here, the price isn't really set in stone. This can work against wazungu because people here assume we have a lot of money. In comparison, this is true, and I don't blame them for wanting to make a little extra money. We just don't have to pay it if it's too unfair, and usually us starting to walk away is enough to make the price reasonable. Bargaining itself is an art, and then doing it in Swahili makes it all the more interesting. It worked out ok; I love my new kitanges, and I got good prices! :D
-This is a chore I expect to never have to worry about when I return to America. On Saturday afternoon, I spent a solid hour sewing holes in my mosquito net. You have to tuck the net in around your bed which pulls on it, and because the wood used to make the beds is rougher here than in the US, it abuses them. I feel like every morning I wake up and there are two mosquitoes on the inside of my net, and they're always fat. Sadly, the next morning, I found one new hole, a hole that the thread came undone, and one fat mosquito in my net.
-On Wednesday night, I had a flashback to the days of waiting to see if the next day is going to be a late start or snow day. That afternoon, the head teacher told us that one of the next two days was going to be a Muslim holiday, it depended on the moon that night. That meant we were either going to get Thursday or Friday off, but we were planning like it would be Friday. Well, that night the power went out from 6 pm to 11 pm. So, we had no way of knowing if the Muslim's had called the holiday on Thursday or Friday. We didn't know what it was about the moon that they needed because the moon was out that night, we just basically had no idea what was going on. We just planned that we would go to school the next day, which was good because we did, which we learned at 6 am Thursday morning.
-The good news that I don't believe I ever reported: Pastor's son Nathan got accepted into seconday school in Mtwara! It's a technical school, so it's focused on math and science, perfect for an aspiring doctor! The bad news: A few days in, Nathan got a bad enough case of malaria that he missed three days of classes. Pastor and his wife went on Friday to go see him, but before they did, Christine and I made a card for him. This was a half hour long project that included on the front a hand about to kill a mosquito and the mosquito aware of his imminent doom, about twenty stickers, and far too much enjoyment on our part. Please pray for him that he feels better soon! We heard he's still pretty weak, but he was able to go to class at the end of the week. Going to secondary school so far away was a pretty scary experience alone, and this is a really hard way to begin that experience.
-Friday night, Christine and I ran into a slight water shortage. Mama Vanessa had come over in the morning to clean and do laundry which uses a lot of water, and by the end of the day, we had one bucket left for the two of us to shower with. How do you fix that? Simple! There was a slight trickle of water coming out of the sink faucet, so I put the pitcher under the sink, let the trickle fill the pitcher, and dumped into another bucket for my shower. Life in Tanzania.
I think that's all I have for now. To conclude, I have a few prayer requests. First off, as I mentioned, please pray for Nathan. Next, please pray for Pastor; he lost one of his sisters this week. He won't be able to go to the funeral, so please keep him and his family in your prayers. Also, please pray for me this week. As the science teacher, I've been assigned to teach some more sensitive topics in class, and I'm not looking forward to it. It's important information that needs to be taught, and I really want it to be beneficial for the kids, so please pray for them too. Finally, please pray for Christine and I next weekend. We will be travelling to Dodoma to visit the Methodist church there and another UMC Missionary, who herself is actually Korean. I'll be very excited to update again after our trip!
God bless,
Kjirstin
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