From 300 to 3,000

This morning we gained a huge respect for kindergarten teachers. Having to handle 13 kids between ages 2-4 is very tiring. Every 10 minutes or less we had to change what we were doing. We switched between numbers, ABC’s, colors, singing, drawing, and anything else we could think of on the spur of the moment. We were very relieved when 11:30 came around and we knew we would have 2 days of rest before getting attacked by little kids again.

We went back to the mission house for lunch. Nothing really happened after lunch until around 4, when we went to the secondary school for more teaching.

This time we actually came up with a partial plan which, like everything else here, changed. We were supposed to be teaching how to write a story, but because both Lee and Jennifer joined us, they turned it into write a paragraph about what you think America is like. This is very different than writing a story. We both decided we would be very disappointed if we were told that we were going to be taught how to write a story, but it turned into writing a paragraph. We’re on Tanzanian time though, so we just kind of went with the flow.

After the lesson was over Lee and Jennifer left to this mission house, but Montana and LuRue stayed. LuRue talked to some guys who were asking lots of questions, and Montana talked to a few of the members in her fandom. LuRue was asked questions like if Montana could be sold away for 300 cows but then upped it to 3,000 and some real questions like how do we get our food in the USA and marriage of different races. Montana was asked several questions including whether or not she could sell her brother away to one of the girls, which obviously she said yes to. One of Montana’s fans gave her a lollipop that said Big Bom XXL.

The students had to leave for prayer, so we left to the mission house around 6:00. No one else was around when we got back, but dinner was served earlier. We decided not to wait for the others and just started on our own. The others caught up to us later and even finished their dinner before LuRue did. We had a few random conversations and play four games of Uno, which Montana won 3 of, before parting our separate ways.

The Chaos Continues

This morning Montana and LuRue stepped very carefully over the ant tunnels on the way to the kindergarten class. Yesterday LuRue had stopped to watch the little critters at work and inadvertently took some home with her. After a few sharp jabs, she went to her room to literally get rid of the “ants in her pants.”

Today we didn’t have to go all the way to school to be greeted; the little ones ran up the path to escort us and to fight over which ones got to hold our hands. We’re getting pretty good at managing to attach about three to each hand.

When we arrived at the building, the “teacher” (who is a volunteer & not a teacher, we’ve learned) was sweeping out the room. We gathered together all the children & got them into action games, much of which consisted of running around in circles, flapping our arms, or whatever else we could think of to do to keep the kids moving.

The morning was spent jumping from one thing to the next, often with frantic “what next?” looks exchanged between Montana and LuRue. We had some extra books today, but when it takes less than 5 minutes to go through a book, even reading 4 extra books doesn’t take up much time. Some of the children seem to be about 3 years old, so it’s amazing that they sit at their desks shouting out numbers, letters, etc as long as they do. We always make sure to mix in a lot of “dreadful dancing” & jumping activities, along with outdoor activities. “Change” is the name of the game.

At noon we enjoyed a special meal, as it was “farewell” to Morgan, who has been here for 5 weeks, and to Jean, who has been here for 2 weeks. We had all spoken our “words of wisdom”, as Edward called them, last night…now we heard from MamaTony, Mohammed, and from Edward, who emphasized how much it means to the village of Pommern to have the Global Volunteers here. Over the years the little bit we spend in the community has resulted in the creation of new shops, as well as showing the villagers that even though our skin is a different color, we are “people” just like anyone else.

Morgan, Jean, and Mohammed took off in the Global Volunteers van as the rest of us discussed what we would be doing in the afternoon (which included a hot African shower). A couple of team members went to plant seedling pine trees next to plots of older trees now a few feet high. They will be harvested for lumber one day, probably in about 10 years.

Jennifer, Montana, and LuRue went to the secondary school for the usual afternoon session. There were no tables of students waiting on the lawn for us; today we were asked to teach Form 3 students how to write a story. There was the usual mixture of vocal students (mostly a few boys) with the rest of the class smiling shyly, but remaining silent. After a bit of confusion, a story was finally written on the board by Montana, which developed into a story about Montana. Montana decided to add a

sentence to the story in which she was eaten by a lion. There is a “Montana Fan Club” at the secondary school and one of them just happened to be in the class. The student wrote a few sentences about Montana, the professional Alaskan dancer. LuRue saw the story first, and then beckoned to Montana to come over. Montana’s dream of becoming famous is taking form.

Dinner was more quiet than usual without talkative Morgan and Jean, but as Edward said, by tomorrow we will have developed into a new “team”, because the dynamics have changed.

Kindergarten Chaos

Today was probably the most organized day yet. At least we knew the basics of what we were going to be doing. We woke up at around 7, had breakfast with most of the group, and, at 8:15, went to the primary school. We started by introducing ourselves, then we got the kids to get up and move around while we sang songs like “Alice the Camel” or “5 Little Monkeys”. Montana tried to record them singing and dancing, but that didn’t go very well. The first video showed Montana that there was a hole in her pants on the butt and the second video was a two-minute video of LuRue’s butt shaking.

We tried teaching the kids several things like the alphabet, number, or body parts, but we’re pretty sure that didn’t understand anything we said. The kids went out to recess where they played a different version of duck, duck, goose and sharks & minnows.

After recess, the teacher (well, not really a teacher, but someone who spoke Swahili) told the kids to write numbers on smaller blackboards. We helped them write the numbers correctly, and then everyone went outside to draw on the dirt. LuRue and one kid had a pattern where LuRue would draw something, then the kid would and so on. Montana thought it looked like a person holding a cup of tea and a loaf of bread.

They went back to the mission house for lunch and hung out around there for a while. Then went to pick up their homemade skirts. They came back to the mission house and tried them on. LuRue liked how hers turned out. Montana’s skirt, she couldn’t get on over her legs, so she had to put it on over her head, which was still very tight.

At 4, like usual, they went to the secondary school. This time there were less than 30 people, so it was easier to teach them card games. We started with “I Doubt It”, but then the kids wanted to play Uno instead. Half of the people were getting into it; the other half started going their separate ways. The game of Uno kind of turned a lesson on how to play Uno, Pommern style. Confusion took over and Montana and LuRue just watched the kids play.

After getting back from that, Montana and Morgan went out for a walk around the town. At the house, it was very quiet. LuRue mainly worked on filling out a Global Volunteers question form, while the others read.

It was then time for dinner, which was French fries, chicken, greens and store bought cookies. LuRue’s favorite part was obviously the chicken and Montana’s favorite part was the cookies.

After dinner, since it was the last night Morgan and Jean would be there, the group discussed their goals and whether or not they met them, then read the journal. Everyone shared some words of wisdom and went their separate ways for the night.

Tanzanian Time, Part Deux

Today we learned that Tanzanian 4:00 really means 10:00, 6:00 really means noon, and so on. The day begins when people get up for the day, which is traditionally 6:00am (except for Montana and LuRue). We learned this the hard way when our teacher for the day (a new one…yet another) told us that we’d be teaching the lesson at 4:00. To us, 4:00 is the time of day when we have been getting together with the students for informal games.

But it didn’t matter too much anyhow, because we spent the first class period in the teacher’s office, not doing much of anything. When it became clear that we’d be doing the same thing for the second period, we said we’d like to at least walk around the school grounds. As it turned out, we were intercepted by Edward. When he learned that we were free for some time, he took us to the kindergarten building some distance away.

 

There we were introduced to the student teacher who speaks no English and 11 adorable children about 3 or 4 years old. Edward has decided to place us there since, for this week, we have been placed with teachers not prepared to have “wazungu” helping them. Mr. Haran from last week has been absent this week to attend to a medical problem. We didn’t stay long at the kindergarten, but did get to place brand new blindingly white socks on the feet of the amazed kindergarteners. We could imagine them running home later to show off their new socks. We also know that within days the socks will be the color of the red dirt so prevalent around this area.

We returned to the school in time for the staff meeting in which the schools grades were listed from the national testing done recently for Form II. The headmaster was not happy and tried for a balance between encouragement and disappointment while talking to the teachers.

Our “4:00 class” began at 10:00. After a little back & forth with the teacher about whether we had to follow the book, during which the students would barely speak one at a time, or whether we could do our own lesson during which all the students would call out all the words all the time, the teacher left the room for most of the class, leaving things in the hands of Montana and LuRue who like to get the shy students (just beginners in speaking English) to call out lots of words as much as possible, and to get them to laugh and smile.

After lunch, we were housebound for much of the time due to thunderstorms and very heavy rains. We returned to the secondary school at 4:00 (10:00 Tanzanian time) for games. Since the grass was too wet to be outside as usual, we had to use classrooms. Attempting to deal with about 25 Form I students in a room filled with desks and chairs was mind-boggling. The initial result was chaos. Trying to organize everyone into two groups with chairs around a “table” with students who don’t speak English was challenging enough, but then trying to teach them “I Doubt It” was another hurdle. Word by word, charade by charade, we finally got the idea across to enough of them to “sort of get it”.  We were then invaded by even more students who were onlookers. As it turned out, the shuffling of the cards was as important as entertainment as anything else. Since we measure everything we do by the smiles and laughter we can pull from these super-quiet, super-shy students, we called the hour a success.

On the walk home, the thunderstorms began to rumble again, causing Montana to speed-walk the last few hundred yards, but she was thrilled to see two actual bolts of lightning. No pictures, but an image that will surely remain in her mind forever.

Tanzanian Time

In Tanzania being flexible is very important. Today was a day full of surprises from the moment we woke up through tonight. We woke up at 7 am. Another half hour to sleep compared to last week. The group ate breakfast, then headed to the secondary school for who knows what. Once we got there, our usual person was not there, so Edward showed us to another guy who eventually led us to a Form III class. The Form we were teaching before was II, so the lesson we used last week wouldn’t work as well. The lesson went something like introductions, talking about the places we lived, then working with R’s and L’s.

After the class, we followed our teacher to the computer lab where LuRue asked questions and Montana attempted to read a book about the level of Magic Tree House. After an hour of that they were led to the teacher meeting, where not much was said because none of the people in charge were there.

After that, another teacher, Henry, took us in for the next class. Jean had already been working with him to plan a lesson about present tense in English, so when we charged in, it ruined their plan. So, for that class period, we were students the whole time. We each had a few minutes of talking, but that was it.

That class ended around 12pm, so then we headed back to the mission house for lunch and then to the store we ordered skirts from, but they were not completely done yet. The lady told us to check back in this evening.

We then headed down to the secondary school again to play the card game “I Doubt It”. This time we were working with Form I students, so they were harder to get to talk, but it seemed like they enjoyed the game.

Everyone went back to the house, but not too much longer after, Montana, Morgan, and Jennifer when out for a walk down and up some roads. That was about 45 minutes to an hour long. They met up with the rest of the group as they were heading off to the sewing shop to see if anything was done, which it wasn’t. No surprise there. So tomorrow after school we will check back in again.

We went back and had dinner, which was actually pretty good, or at least the hard-boiled egg part was.

After dinner we were invited by Edward to express our opinions. LuRue stated that she had been disappointed in the English class where she & Montana had to sit for an hour listening to the teacher give a lesson on the present tense of singular and plural verbs with no interaction with the students. Edward promised that he would make other arrangements for tomorrow. Other volunteers also spoke up with their concerns and adjustments were made.

We learned about some drama in the village today. Last night three thieves broke into a fabric shop by punching a hole in the back wall and stealing 98% of the inventory. Of course there is no insurance here so the owners just have to take the loss, which is extremely significant to them.  The thieves have been caught, but the fabrics are gone

In another instance Lindsay told about a woman being brought to the clinic where she was working. People rushed over to the woman & took her into the doctor’s office where she was heard to be crying loudly. We heard later in the afternoon that the woman’s baby (1 to 2 years old) had died suddenly.

The bishop of this district came for a visit. He was the one who got the Global Volunteers program started here in 1985. The first one (Jamaica) has now closed, so this program in Pommern is the longest-running program in Global Volunteers.

The group then talked about what was going to happen tomorrow, but neither of us have a concrete idea of what’s going to happen tomorrow, so tomorrow will be another day of surprises.