Things Aren't Always Rainbows and Puppies.

School restarted last week: July 2nd, although most students didn't show up until a week later (which worked to my favor because I could go to Matema and hang out with Scotty instead of teaching – guilt free.)

So, I started teaching again on the 8th. On July 9th, one of my students, during the evening drank a mixture of different chemicals in an attempt to kill herself. She was rushed to the hospital. Fortunately, she survived. On July 12th, she returned home. Sadly, for her, she is only allowed to return to school on the days of National Exams...She will sit for exams but not be able to be in school to learn the material necessary to pass the exams. Apparently, the reason she drank the poisons was that she was upset about her report card grades. But that is heresay, it may not be thereal reason. She was upset about her grades, tried to kill herself, and now her grades will suffer as a result.

It's too bad that she felt like grades were THAT important. It's too bad that there was no one that she felt like she could go to to get help. It's too bad that there's no services in Tanzania for her, or other troubled teenagers, to help them learn how to deal with there emotions in a more appropriate manner. It's too bad that she had to return home after on 2 days in the hospital, instead of being able to get adequate treatment. It's too bad that she all but lost her right to an education because of one bad decsion. And it's too bad that there's virtually nothing that I can do to help her.

I wish in highschool that I had understood how unimportant report card grades are. That is even more true here. At least in America, your report card has some effect on which colleges that you can get into. But even then, not super important.Here it is even less important. Here, report cards mean nothing. O-Level report cards have NO effect on which A-level school you get into. Which A-level school you get into depends solely on National Exam results. Report card grades mean very little, besides maybe, that you need to work a little harder or that you are in good shape for the National Exam. Especially here, report card grades are NOT a measure of how smart you are. The questions on exams are usually so obscure that they are not a real test of understanding. Take form IV English grades. Form IV is the equivalent of sophomores or juniors, it is the highest o-level form. They, hypothetically, should know English. There are some Form IV students who could get an A in English and I can't hold a basic conversation with them in English. On the otherhand, there is a Form II student, who I think got a C in English: who absolutely refuses to speak to me in Swahili. Only English. Her English is impeccable. How did she get a C in English? Although she understands English and can speak English: (a) the English tests are written with so many awful, grammatically incoherent questions that even I would do poorly on the exams and (b) The exams ask for themes of poems (and all poems, apparently have the exact same theme – poverty, so students need to regurgitate an answer), asks you to write letters to friends (and if the letter is in the wrong format, but the English is perfect, it is graded as incorrect), and asks other really advanced question to students who can not speak the language. English tests, in no way, test for understanding of English. Same goes for other subjects.

Obviously the important thing is that the girl is, physically, OK. It's just a shame that there is really no help that she can get, so that there isn't a next time. It's really a shame that her opportunities in life have been dramatically reduced, that she can no longer study, that she can't return to school, that she can't return to being a normal teenager.

Other than that, I have bulked up my schedule this month. I am painfully behind in both my physics and math syllabus, so I've arranged extra meetings each week for both English and Math. With the result that many days I am teaching from 7:30 in the morning to 5:30 at night with a 1 hour lunch break. And then two nights a week I will be teaching from 8:30-10:30 at night: about 31 periods of physics and math a week. In addition, I announced that I was going to start teaching computers to students who were interested during prep time (8:30-11 pm every night). I expected maybe 30 or 40 students to apply. 96 students. 7 computers. Hmmm. So, I will be teaching computers three nights a week, 4 kids per computers. And really no idea what I should be teaching them... And then of course, health club, which is morphing into a FEMA Club, under that students guidance. They are very excited about having a FEMA Club.

Our FEMA Club Motto: “Badilisha vijana kubadilisha dunia” = “Change the youth to change the world”.

Scotty vacation

So, my Scotty-vacation is officially at an end. Yesterday, Scotty bussed to Kenya and I bussed back from Dar to Mbeya. It was sad to say bye.

The trip started off great...with AirKenya losing Scotty's checked bag. So we had the option of waiting around for them to find it or we could leave Dar without any of Scotty's stuff and just kind of wing-it as far as clothes go. We chose the second and left for Mbeya the next day, after splurging on some expensive and delicious food in Dar (I even found a SUBWAY restaurant and had a sandwich). We go to my site on Sunday night. Technically school started on Monday, but only about 20 of my 110 students were there so on Monday, we packed all my clothes into a bag and headed to Matema beach until Wednesday.

Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday we hung around my site, I did test revisions with my students that were there. On Friday we had a long staff meeting. The outcome of the staff meeting: we decided to send all the students home again to collect school fees. So, I am pretty sure that I am not going to have any students this week, too. And tomorrows a holiday. Oh...Tanzania.

Anyways, on Saturday, we bussed back to Dar: ate at a really nice rooftop restaurant, and went to bed. Sunday we hung out in Dar, went to get Scotty's bag from the airport, and found this really odd Big-E type fair. It was cool, we walked around there for a while. I bought some cheese. And some jewelry. And then Monday, we parted ways. Sad.

The bus ride yesterday was AWFUL! I finished my book about 1/2 way through the ride. Usually it takes about 13.5 hours to go from Dar to my site. The bus leaves at 6 am and usually arrives at Kayuki around 7:30 pm. Yesterday, the bus left at 6 am and arrived in Mbeya (about 2 hours from my site at 9 am). Since the guy that sold me the ticket is an idiot and said that the bus was going to Malawi, when it was really going to Zambia, this bus wasnt passing my site, so I need to get off in Mbeya town. But since the bus took 4 hours longer than it needed to to get to Mbeya town, all the cars running to my site had stopped running, so I was stranded in Mbeya. I hate African travel...So I am in Mbeya now, getting ready to finally head back to Kayuki. I think I am done with long bus rides for a few weeks...

One of the things that Scotty and I noticed while being together and reminiscing on old college times is how much our "normal american social skills" have deteriorated. There were several times that we'd be doing something, and we'd realize that - wow, if our friends back home saw us right now, they'd be absolutely mortified with us. Some examples:
-We each wore the same clothes for like 5 days, before we thought that they were dirty enough to be changed
-My parents sent me packets of condiments (after not eating condiments for 10 months, they are pretty much the most delicious thing ever), so Scotty and I feasted on avocados and mayonaisse. Healthy, huh?
-When we are on the bus, we had saved our chicken fried rice for the night before. Without thinking much about it, we dug into our leftovers with our hands, since we didn't have any silverware. Yes, we ate chicken fried rice with our hands on a crowded public bus. We also ate avocados and mayo with out hands, but that was in the privacy of my own home.
-At that fancy restaurant, each night we went, we polished off half a bottle of ketchup with out fries, because ketchup is so yummy. We also played cards while waiting for our food and then had a debate about whether we were supposed to tip or not: usually in Tanzania, you do not tip, but we were at a fancy, touristy restaurant, so maybe we were supposed to. We ended up tipping 1000 shillings on a 18,000 shilling bill.

But the good news about our social detereoration is that at least we notice that we are behaving oddly. But the bad news: we've still got one more year to pick up weird habits. :)

Thats all. Today I am back to school to start work again and to get back into a routine. It'll be nice, I am looking forward to starting work again, but I'm sad vacation is over. Happy belated fourth of July.