So today was officially my last day of my first semester! I am in Mbeya sharing some good time and homemade Kahlua with sometother volunteers. yes - I come to Tanzania and learn how to make my own booze...Kahlua, wine...it's delicious, inexpensive, and a good gift to give to Tanzanians and other PCVs. An all-around successful endeavor.
So, once I return to site, I have a stack of physics exams to grade. The form II and form IV students are sticking around the school to study more for exams, so maybe I will continue teaching a little (oh my, i need to learn about magnetic induction and trigonmetric functions without using a calculator...yikes) Marking my tests will be interesting. The invigilation of exams is horrible here, I was pretty annoyed. Firstly, we are not allowed to invigilate our own exams. Which would be fine, but all the Tanzania teachers give the students their exams. Stand in the room for a few minutes. Then walk out of the rooms for 10 minutes, then walk in and watch for 5 minutes and then walk out again. So, on average, they "invigilate" for a total of about 45 minutes out of a 3 hour exam. Tell me that the students aren't cheating? It's interesting...students who usually get 20s on my exams all of a sudden understood the material...they got 60s and 70s on my final......I must have gotten MUCH better as a teacher or they cheated some. I'm gonna guess option 1. Just to make myself feel better :)
But as for my break, the only thing I have really scheduled is the girl's conference in mid-June and then travelling around Tanzania and possible Kenya with Scotty. I am so excited to see Scotty.
The last few weeks at site have been hectic but good. We had a blood drive at my school (I imagine that as my dad reads this following section, he may have a heart attack...), and as the "health teacher", I felt it was my duty to set an example and donate blood...at first I was a bit skeptical. I mean, purposely sticking myself with a needle in a country with an evelated HIV rate, a little scary. But it was very clean and professional. Besides sitting on unsturdy wooden chairs in a classroom, it was like the red cross in America. I even got cookies and soda afterwards. I was one of 9 people that gave blood. The only teacher.
One of the interesting things about the blood drive was teh conversation we had. It realyl illustrates some differences between Tanzanian and American culture. So before we go the blood taken, they tested our blood for iron, weighed us, asked us questions (you know the usual: have you been to africa in the last 6 months...) So, I don't think a lot of the girls had really ever had their weight taken before. As we were sitting, with needles in our arms, our conversation went something like this:
Student 1 : Dada, so and so, how much did you weight?
Student 2: 82 kg
Student 1: THATS SO MUCH!
Student 2: I know! How much were you?
Student 1: I was only 72kg.
Student 2: Madam Catherine, how much were you?
So by the end of the process, I knew everyone's weight and they knew my weight. And no problem. It was all in good fun. No awkwardness. Just interest.
The other interesting piece of news is that my headmistress got transferred. So I have a new headmistress. She seems really nice. We had a 2.5 hours emergency meeting today to discuss whether we should require our students to purchase school t-shirts. All in Swahili. Only about 1/2 of which I understood. Glad we got that important issue settled...especially when more important issues are being ignored. Like how to address the issue of cheating on exams.
OK. So that's it. I'll leave you with some words of wisdom from my site mate, the incredible insightful Mwalimu Theo, "I really with you could just jump on people's heads in real life to kill them" (said as he was playing a 2nd grade computer came.
Cheers!
the end
10 years ago
