safari ni hatua

A question that I'm sure every Peace Corps Volunteer asks him/herself at some point during their service is "Am I making a difference?"  I've talked about this before, but I wanted to revisit the question not in terms of individual success or failure, but in terms of Peace Corps as an organization.  A lot of people hear two years and think that's a really long time.  And it is a long time, for not being able to see friends and family.  But with regard to our actual job here, I have come to see why we don't stay for 6 months, or one year.

The truth is that fitting into a completely foreign culture doesn't come overnight, and it doesn't come easy.  It's a long, slow process that takes time, energy, and at times a lot of frustration.  But the end result is a very rewarding one.  And this is why I have come to appreciate the fact that we are here for an extended length of time.  If I left after 6 months, or even one year, I'm not sure I would have really felt like I had accomplished much.  "Much" in the sense of my work here at school.  Don't get me wrong, being able to converse in a foreign language after 8 weeks of training, making friendships with Tanzanians, and being able to live independently in a very foreign country are all big accomplishments themselves.

Yet those are all smaller steps on the way to the much bigger - and also much harder to attain - goal of truly helping people.  And in that respect, I feel like my work is truly beginning this year.  Did it take me all of last year to adjust to living in Tanzania and here at school?  I don't think so, but then again by the time I did feel like I was really fitting in, there wasn't much of the year left.  Second semesters in Tanzanian schools are very busy times, due to the national exams, and often it's pretty hard to get much of anything done past the beginning of September.

Yet now, I'm already well-adjusted, and feel like this year is a year where I can make a bigger impact at my school.  I wasn't sure how I'd feel about returning to Tanzania after being back in the US for the holidays - even though I was happy here, it's still hard to leave everyone again for a second time.  But once I got back to school, and took some time to think about the past year, I realized that I'm really ready to make a difference (or try at least) in the lives of the students and teachers.  That kind of heady optimism can lead to crushing failure, it's true, but I have a year's worth of experience to back me up now, and that experience lends me a great deal of confidence in what I'm doing that I didn't have before.

So is two years worth it?  From my perspective, absolutely. 

In other news, I recently got a penpal project going, between my students and students from my mother's school.  My students were really excited, and I hope it will turn out to be a really nice opportunity for them to get to know Americans who are closer in age to them.  At the very least, it will give them good practice in their English skills.

Also, I have a new neighbor who arrived almost 2 weeks ago - she's a PCV who transferred from Kenya.  As I'm sure you all know, Kenya experienced (and still is) a lot of post-election violence, which led to first some and then all PCVs in the country being evacuated.  A small number decided to transfer to Tanzania, and one of them was placed at a school about 20 minutes from mine.  Her school is much needier than mine (she's only one of two science teachers for a school of 400+ students), but I hope she'll enjoy it here as much as I have.

And finally, I wanted to say that it was wonderful seeing all of the people that I was able to while I was home.  Of course I would have liked to stay longer, but it was still great getting to be with all of you, especially during the holidays.  I wish all of you reading this a belated, but heartfelt, happy and healthy new year!

It isn't every day that you meet a person who makes a fundamental and permanent impact on your life.  Adela Njuu, my host mother, was one such person.  As I sat in the tiny living room of her house for the first time, more than one year ago, I don't think I could have possibly imagined how much I would come to appreciate and care about both her and her family.  She gave so much to me, and asked nothing in return.  Life in Tanzania can be frustrating at times, because many people will see you as a source of money, and nothing else.  But she treated me like a human being, and indeed more than that - like her own child.  I will never forget how proud she was when I brought home my final Swahili exam, or how she was so concerned with me being the best-dressed trainee at our swearing-in ceremony.

Yet memories are all I have now, because last night I received news from her daughter that she had passed away, finally succumbing to the cancer that she had been struggling against for almost 6 months.  Since June it has been an emotional rollercoaster - the initial shock and despair on finding out she had cancer, to the hope that she would recover after having an operation and beginning chemotherapy, to the heartbreaking pain she had to endure due to the chemotherapy, to more hope when she seemed to be gaining strength, to the crushing defeat when an ultrasound showed additional tumors, to a feeble chance that a second operation would remove all the remaining tumors, and finally to the acceptance that her fate was sealed when the doctors saw during the second operation that there was nothing more they could do.

And so it is with an extremely heavy heart that I bid farewell to one of the friendliest, most welcoming, and most giving people I have had the privilege of knowing in my entire life.  She was more than just someone whose house I lived in for a short while and then said goodbye to - she was like the second parent that I never had.  The following words are for her, and I hope that she can hear them, wherever she may be:

May the Lord bless you and keep you

May the Lord shine His face upon you and be gracious unto you

May the Lord lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace

I didn't want to bury this at the bottom of another long post, so I'll make a separate entry - assuming Peace Corps approves my vacation form, I will be coming back to the US for Christmas and New Year's (more specifically, from December 21st until January 6th).  I certainly hope that I will be able to see everyone at least once, as I've missed all of you.  I'll be e-mailing some of you folks who are a bit far from NJ about coming to visit (or if you can come to NJ, since I most likely will not have a car).  I'm looking forward to seeing folks, assuming I don't go into shock from being back in the US...

Also, now that I think of it - if there's anything specific those of you reading this would like me to write about, let me know.  I know that most of my entries are more introspective, and that I might not be giving much information about day-to-day life here (which I'm not very good at writing about).  But if there's something you want to know, tell me and I'll write about it - it's easier for me to write about more mundane stuff if I have some direction :) 

Yesterday our school had two visitors from an NGO called ViAfrica, which is based in Moshi.  They donate computers to schools, as well as providing service contracts and training - their approach is really great for this kind of environment, because here in Tanzania, simply donating computers isn't enough.  People from other countries might think that donating a computer is always a positive thing, but that isn't necessarily the case.  Usually, the computers that get donated to Africa are extremely old computers that aren't worth anything in the originating country, and that would otherwise simply be thrown away.  This is the case for many things here, including clothes.  Ever wonder if those old clothes you donated actually went anywhere?  Well, they do.  It's a never-ending source of amusement (and sadness as well) to see Tanzanians walking around with shirts like "Johnson Family Reunion 1997", or men wearing "I Defeated Breast Cancer". 

But clothing is one story - computers are another entirely.  Donating very old equipment can often be a hassle, or worse a serious drain on a school's resources.  The problem is that spare parts for old computers can be difficult - actually generally impossible - to find here.  This means that when an older computer breaks, it's probably done for good.  Otherwise, the school has to spend money (if parts are available) fixing up an old, crappy computer that it could have used to purchase a newer computer for probably the same price.

Donated computers are also usually of widely varying types, which makes supporting/servicing them that much more of a headache, especially when you consider that your average secondary school will not have anyone on staff that knows about computer repair.  In our computer lab, for example, there are computers that came from the US, from the UK, and from Germany.  That means we have three types of keyboards, one from each country.  When your kids are trying to learn how to type, but every other computer is different, it can be very frustrating for them.  The US and UK keyboards aren't that different, but the German ones are.  To be honest, that kind of annoys me that someone wouldn't consider that maybe Tanzanians don't know German before donating the computer (the country did used to be a German colony, but almost nobody here speaks German).

I remember a scene in The Constant Gardener when Ralph Fiennes' character goes to Sudan to find a doctor who supposedly knows why his wife was killed.  He finds him working in a small village, where the doctor shows him "donated" medicines from Western countries that are well past their expiration dates.  I believe the line he said was "disposable drugs for disposable people", and called Africa the dumping ground for the world's refuse.  When I first saw the movie I thought maybe the writers were being a bit sensationalistic, but after being here I'd say they weren't that far off the mark.  People and corporations from wealthier countries get to write off donations, but often what they're donating is junk - so basically, they get a tax break for dumping their trash on Africa, instead of in a landfill.  As optimistic as I tend to be about the long-term outlook of the human race, it's stuff like this that makes it hard not to become extraordinarily cynical.

I do recognize that not everyone who engages in charitable giving is doing so for nefarious reasons, and that probably most people are genuinely trying to do some good.  However, simply wanting to do good isn't enough (the road to hell, and all that), because even the most well-intentioned plans can be detrimental if they are based on idealism and not in reality.  There are consequences to everything, and ignorance of possible ramifications is not an excuse for blind giving.

This applies to Peace Corps volunteers as well.  The title of this post was the title of a short passage given to us during training by another PCV.  It talked about how a volunteer was living in an area where there was very little water, and so he decided that he wanted to raise money to build a well and a windmill that would pump the water up to the surface.  This was a rather large project by Peace Corps standards, but he got the money, and everyone in the area was very happy.  They build the well and the windmill, and for the first time in a long time the people had a reliable source of water. 

The PCV finished his service, and went back to the US.  After several years, he returned to the country where he had served, and visited his village.  What he found was that the pumps for the well had broken, and nobody in the village had the skill to fix them, so the magnificent contraption he had built was now in disuse.  Which means the people in the village were back to square one, despite all the money that had been spent.

Now this person was a PCV, who was not some far-removed donor who has no idea what the reality of the situation in a remote village is.  He lived there, he worked with the people, and he knew what their needs were.  But despite this, he still managed to use a large amount of money on a construction project that ultimately turned out to be a failure.  If someone like this can make an error, it's easy to see how your average person in the US might have little to no idea as to how their donation is actually going to affect people.

But for most PCVs, I think, there is a desire to contribute something more to our schools than just teaching.  Why?  Because teaching is an intangible contribution, and most of us will probably never see the fruits of our labor while we are in the country.  However, it's much easier to point to a classroom and say "I built that".  It's something concrete, and there's instant gratification.

Not that that's the only - or even main - motivation for PCVs to write grants.  I think every single PCV is at a school where there is a glaring need for something, whether it be a library, computers, a science lab, books, or something as simple as desks and chairs.  My school is a pretty nice school by Tanzanian standards, but even here there are very obvious needs.  And we came here to help, right?  So self-gratification isn't the reason, it's just that many PCVs came here because they want to help, and it's very difficult to see a problem but say "sorry, I can't do anything".

We had a session about this during our in-service training.  The Peace Corps staff asked our Tanzanian counterparts how they would feel if the PCV left their school after two years with only having taught.  Most of them said they would feel sad that the PCV didn't want to contribute more to the school - the session was done for a purpose, because this type of reaction isn't what Peace Corps wants.  Our primary purpose is a human resource, not as a source of money.  Therefore, the staff then had to explain more what exactly the role of a PCV is, to try and get them to understand that even if the PCV doesn't build/donate something, they have still given to the school.

Which is true, but that's harder said than done.  I think the main purpose was to make it clear that our schools are not to pressure us into doing something we don't want (or that isn't wise), which is perfectly fair.  But external pressure isn't an issue for me, anyway - I've long since insulated myself from people asking me for things.  The pressure is rather an internal thing, and is me making myself feel like I need to do more than just teach.  And that's something I have to deal with myself.

Despite all this, I have identified a few projects that the school could really use help with.  I am constantly trying to analyze each one to make sure that I am going into this with both eyes open - I don't doubt that they will provide a real benefit for the teachers and students, but it all comes back to being realistic about the possible negative outcomes.  Obviously nobody can ever truly know the future, so despite the most thorough planning, it's still possible that something can go wrong.  But that's a risk you have to take, because otherwise nobody would ever do anything.  As long as you have thoroughly thought the process through, it comes down to what I said in a previous post - you do what you can, and hope for the best.

So what does all of this have to do with a visit from an NGO?  Well, as I said, they donate computers to schools, and a few months ago I submitted an application to them (but I didn't actually write the application - the school's secondmaster did that).  They finally came to visit our school yesterday, and after the visit, I feel fairly certain that the school is going to receive computers (20) from them.

These are still used computers, but there's an important difference - the NGO has minimum specifications they require for all the computers (for example, they all have Pentium III CPUs or faster), and they also make sure that all 20 computers are of the same type.  This is a really wonderful idea, because a) it means you're getting pretty fast computers, and b) having them all be the same makes supporting them so much easier.  They also do all of the installation for you.  But the two best parts are that they provide a service contract to schools at a low cost (about $30/month), and they also provide training for teachers and staff.

These two aspects are really, really crucial.  Why?  Because it's actually not that hard, I think, to get computers here (at least in the northern part where I am, which is much more developed than the rest of Tanzania).  The problems come after you get computers - who fixes them when they break, and who teaches?  Sure, you might be able to find someone who can teach Microsoft Word, but finding someone who knows how to open a computer and replace things like RAM, the CPU, or the hard drive is exponentially more difficult.  That's why computers that break here often stay broken, simply because nobody knows what to do to fix them.  So the service contract is a great way to make sure that the computers stay functioning, and that the students and staff can continue to benefit from having them.   

The training is important as well, especially for a secondary school. Teachers don't make much money here, and anyone who is knowledgeable about computers can probably find a higher-paying job somewhere else, which makes attracting a computer teacher to a secondary school a difficult proposition.  Obviously you can try and train current teachers so that they can become competent enough to teach computers, and in fact this was one of the goals for my second year of service.  However, realistically it's a bit more difficult for me, simply because I also have a rather full load of teaching duties as well.  If we get computers from this NGO, it will be another source of training for the staff, and it will also be coming from a more professional source.  As much as I know about computers, my guess is that they can do a better job than me at teaching.  Plus, their training can continue after I finish my service, whereas any training I do will be finished when I leave.

To me, I think this NGO (and there is another one like it as well in Moshi) is a huge step forward in providing assistance to schools.  There's so much more to IT development than simply giving equipment, and I think their model can really ensure the sustainability of computer teaching.  Plus, while the NGO is based in the Netherlands, the local branches are staffed almost entirely by Tanzanians, which means Tanzanians are helping Tanzanians (and not just Westerners).

To be honest, this NGO is the reason why we might be getting computers, because if there were no service or training components to their assistance, I would be extremely hesitant to bring more computers here.  I expressed this sentiment to my headmaster, explaining to him that while I could bring computers here, what happens if I leave and the school doesn't receive another PCV?  I mentioned this before, but this was exactly what happened after the last volunteer left my school in 2004 - he wasn't replaced, and as a result the school basically stopped teaching computers.  For me to bring computers here and then have them sit idle after I leave would be a waste of time, when those computers could have gone to another school where they would actually have been used.

So am I falling victim to the "edifice complex"?  Maybe, but I'd like to think that I've thought this through as much as I possibly can.

I came across an article on the BBC the other day (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7013764.stm) - it's about how almost none of the countries in Africa are going to meet the UN's Millennium Development Goals, which are supposed to be met by 2015. The fact that the countries aren't going to meet the goals isn't really all that surprising. Why? Well, those goals were probably set a bit unrealistically high, and also, one thing you learn very quickly here is that everything (and I do mean everything) takes longer than you think it will.

The article then goes on to expound upon some of the reasons why development in Africa is lagging so far behind, and the possible reasons are many. They include:

- Promises by Western countries to increase aid are being reneged on

- Wars and other conflicts

- Poor governance

- Poor infrastructure

And of course, there are many others. In fact, when you really think about just how many barriers there are to development in African countries, it can be very discouraging. Where do you even begin? Do you try and get more kids in school, do you work on combating the multitude of deadly diseases, do you work on human rights issues such as women's empowerment, or maybe do you try and deal with rampant corruption that sucks huge chunks of these countries' budgets and puts them into the hands of corrupt politicians? Everywhere you look there is a glaring need, but realistically you cannot fix them all at the same time. Yet, ideally (at least in my not-all-that-expert opinion) they all need to be worked on together. So what to do? Well, you do what you can, and hope for the best.

That's a hard thing to come to grips with being a development worker in a third-world country, because it is very easy to be overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the problems people are facing. In a sense it's good because there is unlimited opportunity for making a positive difference in peoples' lives, but it's also bad because no matter what you do, there will always be a million more unresolved issues staring you right in the face. And if you get too caught up with trying to fix everything, you'll wind up fixing nothing.

Some Americans deride the Peace Corps as a way for tree-hugging hippies to get a free two-year vacation on the government's dime. They think, what can some arrogant college graduate who thinks he/she is going to save the world really accomplish? I admit that I thought that myself before coming here, and I think that's a very American attitude to take, because we are so fixated on dollar amounts as a precise measurement of assistance given. More = better. There's also the sense that money can fix any problem. Unfortunately, here in Africa money can create just as many problems as it solves.

It's no secret that the US government has, over the years, given huge amounts of money to dictators and leaders in Africa who should never have received a dime - much of this money was given to capitalist leaders due to Cold War fears about the spread of Communism. Even if a head of state was killing his own people, as long as capitalism was alive and well, we looked the other way. Money is a dangerous form of aid, because much of the time it never gets to the people who actually need it (but rather highly-paid politicians who drive around in Land Rovers, own several big houses, and send their children to be educated in Europe or the US).

So there's a human dimension to development assistance as well, and as I said above, all aspects of development are important. I don't deny that hard cash isn't needed, because it is. But in education, for example, giving money to build schools isn't going to do much when there aren't enough qualified teachers to actually teach. Human resources are just as important as monetary resources, and that's what Peace Corps volunteers are - we're not here to throw cash around, we're here to fill jobs that the host countries simply can't fill using their own citizens.

Another hard reality to face is the seeming unwillingness of people to work for their own development. I mentioned this a bit in my post about my students' motivation, and it really is a difficult pill to swallow. My best guess is the lack of interest is due to a combination of things - too much dependence on foreign aid, a lack of thinking about the future, a feeling of helplessness, or an acceptance of things as they are.

The aid issue is a difficult one - as I have said, too often the way aid is given creates and promotes a beggar-like attitude on the part of the recipient, and can have lasting psychological effects. I see it all the time in Tanzanians, when they say things like "we Africans aren't as smart as white people". There is a deep-seated feeling of inferiority, which is heart-breaking to see. Part of that may be left over from colonialism, but I think part of it is also because they are so used to receiving aid for everything that they feel as if they are unable to do things on their own. And while it's true that Tanzania isn't exactly capable of sending a human to the moon right now, that doesn't mean it won't be able to in 50 or 100 years. There's a difference between having the financial means to do something and having the innate capability. Sure, most African countries are lacking in the former, but that doesn't mean your average African has any less innate ability than your average American. Yet that's what some people here think.

At the same time, I don't think it's either fair or productive to say that the white man is the source of all of Africa's problems. When reading stories about African development, it is sometimes obvious that the author is unwilling to point the finger at Africans as well, for fear of maybe being labeled a racist. After all, Africans are all just poor, starving, but innocent people, victimized at the hands of evil colonialists for generations, right? Wrong. Africans are also the cause of Africa's lack of development, and to deny that is to deny the truth. Tribalism, lack of respect for women, rampant corruption, disregard for the rule of law, cultural norms that prevent the effective combating of health problems such as AIDS, and complete disregard for time (as I said, everything here takes longer than it's supposed to).

So what does this all mean? Well, it means that what's going to determine whether or not Africa develops is not how much Western aid pours in, but how badly Africans themselves want to change. So while I don't consider for a moment that my time here is wasted, I also have come to believe that the sole responsibility (or even a majority of it) for Africa's development cannot come from outside - it needs to come from within. If Africans truly want Africa to develop, then it will. If they don't, then Africa will continue to be the world's backwater.

Got a whole bunch of pictures up, finally, and from pretty much my entire Peace Corps experience.  I'm labeling them now - as my friend Eric noted, Tanzania is indeed an incredibly beautiful country.  Hopefully more people will take notice of the country, especially now that the government is really pushing tourism.  And really, when you think about what the country offers - Kilimanjaro, Zanzibar, and some of the best national parks on the continent - it's hard to see why the country *shouldn't* be attracting loads of people.

I'm also trying to upload a few examples of Tanzanian/African music to the site, so that those interested can get a feel for what it's like.  That might take a bit more time, as uploading a large music file using crappy internet is an exercise in frustration.  Probably will have to wait on the music until the next time I'm in Dar and can use the internet at the Peace Corps office :) 

So our Form 3 students did their chemistry midterm this past Saturday, and the results were hilarious, in a really sad kind of way. Out of 97 students studying chemistry, 22 of them passed, and 75 failed. That might seem bad in its own right, but when you take into consideration that an F here means a score of 0-20%, it goes way beyond bad and into the realm of "holy #@$#@%".

Now, I admit that the exam wasn't easy, at least by Tanzanian standards. My goal wasn't to try and throw the students' self-esteem in the dirt and then proceed to stomp all over it - in fact, almost all of the questions on the exam were taken nearly directly (with slight modification) from previous Form 4 national exams. But I am at constant odds with what my students think science is and what I think science is. They always want me to put more and more questions asking for definitions on exams (this one had none). They want multiple choice - this had one. They want matching - this had none. What they don't want are questions that probe their understanding of the subject, because those types of questions they fail miserably. Why? The obvious answer is that they don't understand chemistry, they simply want to memorize as much as possible. Which is a bad way to study science, because the more you understand, the *less* you have to memorize.

The result of this exam is that many of the students are not going to be allowed to continue to study chemistry, which is fine, because many of them really shouldn't be studying the subject anyway. The problem is that some students in Form 3 failed the Form 2 physics exam, but did passably well in chemistry. Normally secondary school students study physics and chemistry together, or none at all. But some students complained, so the school decided to let some of them study only chemistry. However, the condition was that at some point this year, students who did poorly on an exam would not be allowed to study chemistry any more. Turns out the academic master decided it was going to be this exam. The phrase "sucks to be you" comes to mind right about now.

My guess is that we won't get rid of all 75 students that failed, as only having 22 students left isn't even enough for one stream. So maybe we'll lower the bar to, oh I dunno, 10%? That still won't add that many students, as most got between 0% and 8%. I have to admit though, that marking this exam was probably the most fun I've had yet, as some of the answers students gave were so asinine as to make me crack up laughing. For example, one of the topics of the exam was electrolysis, and one question about electrolysis required students to fill in a table for a series of electrolytic cells. The first column asked the students to write which electrode (there are two in each cell) each electrolysis product would be produced at - the title of the column was "Electrode Produced at (cathode or anode)". Yet probably close to a third of the students wrote *numbers* in that column - genius!

I even had about 6 students leave the examination room after less than 10 minutes, each saying "nimeshindwa" (I have failed). That kind of annoyed me, because if you couldn't even answer one question on the exam, most likely that means you didn't read through your notes even once. And to be frank, I don't want to teach students who aren't interested in learning.

I'd be interested to know what our students are like compared to others - my guess would be that they're on the low end of the scale. They're not bad kids (we have basically no serious discipline issues), it's just that they're not good students. It seems like that's a common problem at private schools here, because generally the students that do well on their national exams go to government secondary schools, due to cost. Tuition at a government school is significantly cheaper than a private school - my school costs about 500,000 shillings per year, which is quite a lot of money, and probably an amount many rural Tanzanian families cannot afford to pay. A government school, on the other hand, might cost 70,000 shillings per year, which is significantly cheaper.

Not that government necessarily equals better in terms of education - there have been four new secondary schools opened in our district in the past 2 years, one of which is maybe a 5 minute walk from mine. The problem is that these schools don't have much of anything, including teachers, books, or any kind of science laboratories. I met a teacher from the neighboring school at our school shop one day, and my jaw almost hit the floor when he told me he was a teacher...he looked about 13 years old. He's an example of the government's "crash program" which takes Form 6 leavers and sends them through a short program (6 weeks I think?) that supposedly allows them to be teachers. My school has some young teachers as well, but we also have teachers for every subject, a computer lab, a semi-functional science lab, and a small-but-growing library. Yet we don't get top students, simply because they go to government schools.

So motivation is a bit of a problem, but there's only so much I can do. All of my students (there are two of us teaching Form 3 chemistry - I teach Form 3A, and the other teacher teaches Forms 3B and 3D) were taught everything they needed to know to solve the problems on the exam. I had even typed a list of about 100 questions from previous Form 4 national exams, and gave a copy to each student. I told them that the questions on the exam would be similar to the past exam questions I gave them, so if they were able to do the ones I typed for them, they would be able to do the midterm. I also came to the classrooms during preparation the night before the exam, to answer any questions the students might have. Only one student asked me questions.

So they're probably going to get a lecture from me when I return the exams, because I'm not sure what more I could have done. I gave them the resources and knowledge they needed to perform well, and I made myself available to answer questions. Sometimes students are afraid to ask teachers questions (hello getting beaten with a stick!), but I know the students aren't afraid of me, so the only reason I'm left with for why they don't ask questions outside of class is that they aren't studying.

Which I think is true, as I've been observing the students' habits a bit more lately. The Form 3 students are probably the best in the school, but the Form 2 students are really bad - if you sit by their classrooms you see students going in an out of the classrooms all day (going to another classroom, going to the bathroom, whatever). I'd say at least half of them are going to fail the Form 2 national exams, which means a lot of them won't be returning for Form 3. And during preparation time in the evening (from 8-10 pm), there's so much chatter coming from the classrooms that it's hard to believe much studying at all is getting done.

Part of the reason is that many of these students are interested in one thing above others: relationships. Granted, that's a normal part of any growing kid's life. However, there are two major problems here: one, I've read some studies that show that a very large percentage of secondary school students are already having sex (a much larger percentage than in the US), and two, the consequences of them doing so are much more serious here. If a girl gets pregnant here, she can say goodbye to school, as she will be going home moja kwa moja (straight away). And of course, there is the threat of HIV/AIDS, which is made worse by the fact that condom use is still not where it should be.

But to top it all off, it's a distraction. And here, it's a distraction that the students simply cannot afford, due to the uphill battle they're constantly fighting with the education system - lack of resources, bad teachers, and a language they don't understand (English). Any time they waste chatting up a fellow student or running off into the bushes to get it on is time that could have been spent studying, so that at least they could get the laughably low marks that they consider passing in this country.

There's especially something going on here between the Form 5 boys and the Form 2 girls, and it's really starting to bug me. Our Form 5 students aren't great students either, and I constantly see the Form 5 boys hanging around the Form 2 classrooms. I've been talking with a Form 5 student who is a friend of mine - really nice kid - and he's pointed out that some of the Form 5 boys have "girlfriends" in Form 2. I think what annoys me the most about it is that, by our standards, that kind of relationship is inappropriate. The Form 5 students are generally 19-20 years old (some much older), and the Form 2 students are around 14-16 years old. To me, that's an unacceptable age difference, as the Form 2 students really are still kids, while the Form 5 students are much more like adults.

It doesn't really surprise me, as age preferences for men here border on pedophilia (and often cross into it). Younger girls are apparently more attractive because "wako freshi" (they are fresh, which is basically saying they haven't become old enough to have nasty things like STIs, or to become unattractive from years of hard work/popping out babies like there's no tomorrow). It's probably also because it's easier for an older man to mentally dominate a young girl, so that he can make sure she does his bidding and nothing else.

Which reminds me of a funny conversation that came up when I was talking to some of the younger teachers outside one day. The topic came up (as it always does) of whether or not I was married, and when I said no they all started asking me if I wanted to marry a Tanzanian woman (these were male teachers, by the way). I said race/nationality made no difference to me, so why not? Then they all said how they wanted to marry a white girl. Which I found amusing, because your average American woman, for example, isn't going to put up with the crap that women here are expected to. I told them as much, saying an American woman probably wouldn't be happy sitting at home all day cleaning and cooking, while the man went out drinking with his buddies at night and slept around (yes, I know there are people in the US who might fit that description, but percentage-wise it's simply not the same).

So after further pestering I said I just hadn't found the right person yet, when they told me I should just marry any Tanzanian woman, and that I should do it soon-ish (like, within the next week). I then had to explain that for me, I would probably have to know someone for a long period of time before marrying her, including living with the person. I said that otherwise, if you marry too soon, you might not realize that the person has some personality traits you really don't like, etc. They responded to this by saying that a Tanzanian woman "hawezi kukusumbua" - she is unable to bother/disturb you. Which means that a Tanzanian woman would do whatever I wanted to, no questions asked, and therefore how could she do something that would anger me?

I left the conversation at that, because any further explaining on my part would have fallen on deaf ears, and probably would have given them the impression that I was going insane. For me, the simple fact that someone would do anything I wanted, no questions asked, *is* a disturbance. I don't want to marry someone who will "yes, honey" me to death, or who will be content cooking and cleaning for the rest of her life. I want to marry someone who will challenge me, who is at least as intelligent as I am, who will tell me when I'm being a jackass, and who wants to succeed on her own and not be dependent on me. Basically, the exact opposite of what your average Tanzanian man is looking for in a wife, and probably the exact opposite of what many Tanzanian girls think they should be like. That's why I would find it hard to marry a Tanzanian woman, because subservience is something I dislike - it's a shame too, because there are tons of beautiful, kind, welcoming women here. But for me, kindness isn't enough.

...back from that tangent, I think these goings-on between Form 5 boys and Form 2 girls are going to result in my first actual act of punishing a student. Like I said, our students are generally well-behaved, and I also am of the opinion that if you treat someone like a child (i.e. punish them for every little thing they do wrong) they will act like a child, and if you treat someone like an adult they will (hopefully) act like an adult. However, I recently came across the Form 5 student who is my friend giving a note to a Form 2 girl. When I asked to see the note and opened it, it read:

"Hey Ester,

It is my hope that you are fine and you are going well with your examinations. The aim of this message is to say goodbye we shall meet again. Tell even Beatrice your friend and tell her that we shall meet. To communicate use (phone number)" - Goodluck S.

Now, at first glance that might look like a simple letter between friends (Goodluck is a boy's name - yeah, I know), but in the context of Tanzanian society, that screams something else to me. After talking to the student who had been asked to pass the note on, he admitted that the boy who wrote this was interested in this girl, and possibly her friend that he mentioned in the letter as well. I got a bit angry about the letter, and the student who was given the letter begged me not to show it to another teacher (especially my neighbor, who is the second master). Why? Because they had been warned about writing love letters, but of course this kid was doing it anyway.

I did wind up showing it to my neighbor, but I told him that I wanted to give this boy (and the girl as well) punishment myself, because his punishment would be caning them, and that's entirely ineffectual. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do yet, as I haven't decided how I want to confront this boy - whether I want to come down hard on him and give him a punishment that will be much more severe than caning, or if I want to (most likely) waste my time trying to make him understand why getting involved with a girl while he is studying is a bad idea. My guess is that it will be some of both.

Another problem is that part of me doesn't even want to punish the kid, simply because what he's doing is natural human behavior, and why should I punish him for that? The problem is this: these students need to make sacrifices, sacrifices that students in the US would generally not have to make. There are so many more hurdles in these kids' path, and in order to navigate them successfully and have a real shot at breaking the cycle of poverty, they need to be working much harder. Anything that gets in the way of them studying will only help to ensure they spend the rest of their lives working on the shamba (farm). So there's a conflict between my desire to let them be human beings, and my desire to try and make them understand that they can't be distracted by other activities if they really want to succeed. It's also hard for me to ask these kids to make sacrifices when they already have so much less than kids in other countries.

But this country isn't going to develop itself unless people are willing to work to develop it. No amount of Western cash is going to fix Tanzania's problems without a desire on the part of Tanzanians to help themselves. Part of that lack of desire I do think comes from a lack of a strong work ethic (which I would bet at least partly comes from the country's experiment in Socialism), but part of it also comes from Western donors, who come to the country, dump a large amount of cash, and leave. Never mind the beggar mentality that kind of giving creates, or that most of that money probably went into some corrupt politician's pocket - money was given, and therefore Western guilt about all of Africa's problems has somehow been assuaged.

What's the answer? We can certainly change our ways of providing assistance, but Tanzanians also need to change. If they don't want to change, then in 50 years this country will probably look similar to how it does today, and ultimately that's their choice. The biggest hurdle to changing peoples' attitudes is simply getting them to think about the future, which many of them don't. If a Tanzanian gets paid his salary today, chances are it's gone by the day after tomorrow. I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but saving is simply not something most people partake in. Why? They don't sit down and think that if they put away a small amount of money every week/month, that they will have a nice amount of money in case, for example, there is a drought and they can't grow food. Then, instead of starving to death, they could actually be able to purchase food for themselves.

It's the same reason why there are so many road accidents, why HIV/AIDS is such a problem, why students get such bad marks - they don't understand the consequences of their actions. For example, the first two students that I gave zeros to on an exam (for cheating) came up to me after class and begged me to forgive them. I asked them why I should forgive them, when I warned them several times during the exam to stop cheating, and that the next time I would give them zeros. Maybe they thought I was just blowing smoke up their asses, that I really wouldn't do it. Oops, I did! And then they scramble to ask for forgiveness. I'm normally a very easy-going person, but if you don't respect me, you will find I am a very unforgiving person. They know that cheating is bad behavior, they did it anyway, and then they want me to forgive them? Sorry, but no.

Part of that comes from Tanzanian society, I think - in a sense, Tanzanians are almost *too* nice, in that they forgive things that shouldn't be forgiven or excused. I see it with teachers all the time - they're quick to hit a student with a stick, but much less willing to give a "real" punishment, such as giving a student a zero on an exam. There is a boy in Form 3 who is one of the few students who I would say is truly a bad seed, and the other day we caught him making a lewd gesture at some Form 1 students, after having searched for him all morning (he wasn't in class, but in the toilet). The teachers were pretty sure he had been smoking pot, and he got a rather stern lecture, after which the academic master told him to collect his books, that he was going to be sent home and suspended. I thought great, this kid might be getting a real punishment for once - and then later that day I found out that they were just "scaring" him. What kind of message does that send to a student? The result isn't that he's going to be scared, it's that he's going to think the teachers are all too pansy to actually follow through and punish him for real. Sure, they'll beat him 5 or 6 times (which is useless, as the kids who get hit a lot are basically immune to it by now), but they won't give him the kind of punishment that actually might change his behavior. They think they're being "kali" (fierce), but they're not.

So thinking about the future - yeah. Of course, that's also hard when "mungu atasaidia" (God will help). I don't ever remember seeing a strong sense of determinism among religious people in Western countries, but here it's really rampant. For example, people will say "If God wishes, we will see each other tomorrow". And God is supposed to help with everything, but - granted, I'm no Bible expert - I feel like if God actually exists, he would only help people who want to help themselves. I guess that's just the Humanist in me.

Anyway, before I get too bitter (talking about religion usually does that to me), and before I break my own website with this ginormous post, I'll end there. Still really enjoying myself, and I have a nice little break from teaching due to midterms and a one-week vacation. Going to go visit my host mother in Dar for a few days, and then back here to help a priest from the church next door set up a small computer lab for the girls' school in the parish. Thankfully the power situation has been resolved, so there's usually electricity.

Oh, and since I probably won't post again before the 21st, happy one year anniversary to all the PCVs in my group! Pretty soon we're going to be the old farts of PC/TZ - stepping off the plane seems like only yesterday and a hundred years ago at the same time. It also means a brand new batch of newbies will be coming in, and I only hope that they all enjoy their Peace Corps experience as much as I have.

Finally, I'm uploading a picture of the view of Kilimanjaro from my school (literally out my front door). I'm in the middle of reorganizing the pictures, so bear with me a bit, as it's hard to do massive picture uploading from here at school. But I'll try and get a few more up after the Kili pic within the next few days. Hope you're all doing well!

More than 10 months done, closing in on the one year mark...absolutely crazy to think about.  Been almost a month since my mom and cousin left, but it seems like just the other day that we were sucking dust on the roads of the Serengeti.  Was overall a great trip - had a couple days in Dar, then went to Zanzibar, the national parks (Tarangire, Serengeti, Ngorongoro, and Manyara), my host sister's in Arusha, and then my school.  Dar was...Dar, with the exception that the Kempinski hotel is insane.  Maybe my standards have been lowered, but I don't think so - probably the nicest hotel I've stayed in in my entire life. 

Zanzibar was nice, though maybe I was expecting a bit too much from it.  The beaches are gorgeous, and the hotel we stayed at was amazing, but Stone Town didn't quite live up to my expectations.  I think most of my gripe with Zanzibar is that it felt way too touristy.  Everything about the place, most noticeably peoples' attitudes, just left me with a less-than-stellar reaction.  For example, here in my village young kids will greet me by saying "shikamoo" (the respectful greeting used for elders), or even "good morning/afternoon/evening" (though usually it's good morning, no matter the time of day).  On Zanzibar, kids yell "jambo" (a greeting reserved exclusively for tourists) at you while sticking their hand out so you can give them something.  And I know that kind of attitude isn't present only on Zanzibar, to be sure - one of the reasons I go to Moshi so infrequently is that I get tired of being called mzungu - but it was much stronger and more obvious on Zanzibar.  A result of tourism, and in some ways not all that surprising, but still, it kind of tarnished my image of the place.

The national parks were great all-around, and it was nice I think spending less time in each park but going to more than 1 or 2 parks, because the variation in scenery is worth it.  Tarangire has loads of baobab trees, the Serengeti has flat, grass-covered plains that stretch as far as you can see, the Ngorongoro crater is simply awe-inspiring, and Manyara had a more closed-in, foresty feel to it.  It was a lot of driving, to be sure.  Part of me likes driving, because you see more than you would have if you had flown, but the drive out to the Serengeti I definitely could have lived without.  From the south of Tarangire to the western Serengeti was almost 12 hours, and the roads in the Serengeti are awful this time of year (no rain = massive dust).  Maybe driving one way wouldn't have been so bad, especially if we had started from Ngorongoro instead of Tarangire, but flying at least one way would have been a better idea.

I think my favorite park was Tarangire, and I believe my mom felt the same as well.  Partly because I liked the scenery second-best after Ngorongoro, partly because we saw a wide variety of animals in a small area, and partly because it wasn't stuffed full of people.  In both Ngorongoro and the Serengeti, a "rare" animal sighting (i.e. rhinos or any of the cats) will usually net a huge crowd of Land Cruisers parked right near the animal(s), making it feel more like you're at a circus than observing wildlife in its natual environment.  Tarangire and Manyara were much quieter, which is nice.  After you've seen all the animals for the first time and the shock value wears off, the surroundings for watching the animals become more important, and that's when the presence of too many other people can get annoying.

Manyara was enjoyable, and kind of a relaxing, quiet end to our safari.  Like Tarangire in that there were few people, though there were less animals than Tarangire.

The Serengeti was impressive simply because of the size of it all - where we stayed (in the western part, only maybe 50 km from Lake Victoria) there were plenty of trees, but in the eastern and central parts of the park, it's just flat, open, treeless space.  We were also there during the annual wildebeest migration, which was very interesting.  By then both animals (zebras migrate along with the wildebeest) were old hat, but seeing herds of literally thousands of animals was awesome.

I was surprised we didn't see more animals than we did in Ngorongoro, but the scenery in the crater would be worth it on its own even without the animals.  I also got two of my best videos there - one of a pair of lions hunting, and a hilarious one of some baboons playing on top of a water storage tank at the entrance to the park.  My other favorite video came from Tarangire, which was of two giraffes fighting.

Also, if any of you reading this are planning a safari, let me know and I can give you the name of our guide.  Really, really nice guy, and was not only knowledgeable, but also seemed to genuinely enjoy nature and care about the animals.  Some guides will get right up close to the animals (which is neither good for the animals nor safe), but he was always careful to create as little disturbance as possible.  A good guide can really make or break your trip, so it was fortunate that we got a really good one.

The only sad part of the trip was that, instead of going to Morogoro to visit my host mother's house, we had to go visit her in the hospital in Dar.  I had heard that she had an operation on her stomach a short while after IST, and after talking to her a few times, she said she was being transferred to Muhimbili Hospital, which is the national hospital in Dar.  She was still there by the time my mom and cousin arrived, so we wound up staying an extra day on Zanzibar (instead of going to Morogoro), and visited her in the hospital instead.

The original operation she had was, as I later found out, for an intestinal obstruction, which is a really dangerous condition that will kill you quite fast without surgery.  But while they were performing the operation, they noticed some sort of growths in the GI area (still not sure exactly where), which after some testing they determined to be cancer.  Needless to say that was really disheartening to hear, as my immediate reaction was that this woman doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of surviving.  However, she is now going to the Ocean Road hospital, which is I believe the only cancer institute in the country, and she's getting chemotherapy.  She's going to have to take it for 6 months, after which they will do more tests to determine whether or not the cancer is gone, but my hope is that they caught the cancer early enough (since she hadn't shown any outward symptoms of it yet) that the chemo will cure her. 

It isn't going to be pleasant for her - I went to visit her shortly after she had her first treatment, and it's safe to say that this cure is almost worse than the disease.  She was vomiting all the time, and just generally didn't have much energy for doing anything.  It was sad seeing a woman who was always happy and laughing in such a depressing state, but it seems like the side-effects get better the more time passes from the time of treatment.  It's also a very expensive treatment - each dose costs almost 200,000 shillings (which is a PCV's monthly living allowance here, or about $160), which is a crazy amount of money for your average Tanzanian.  I was talking to a teacher here at school about it, and she said that if she ever got cancer she would just wait at home to die, because there is no way she could afford treatment like that.  Thankfully my host mother's family (including her sisters, daughters, and sons-in-law) are almost all working professionals - many of them in the healthcare field - so they have a fair amount of money.  Even still, it's straining their money quite a bit, so I'm helping them pay for the chemo.  My host family has never asked me for anything, which is why I knew that when one of my host sisters asked if there was something I could give them to help pay for the medicine, that they must be struggling to get enough money.  A rather sad situation, but if I am able to provide the assistance that allows her to get better, then my entire time here in Tanzania will have been worth it.

Otherwise, school continues to go really well.  Teaching's going to get a bit more tiresome, as I've started teaching the computer studies syllabus - this means a lot of time spent in the actual classroom writing on a blackboard, not having them in the computer lab.  Writing on a board and talking for 34 periods a week instead of more self-guided work with computers is a bit difficult, but I need to prepare the kids for the national exam.  Also I don't have much choice anyway, as they are paving the road that runs from Marangu up to Tarakea (on the border with Kenya), and they have to move the electric poles farther away from the road, because the paved road is going to be wider than the dirt one.  Guess what happens every time they move poles?  Yep, they shut the power off.  So most days, the power is off from 9am until 8pm - makes using the computers a wee bit difficult.

The President of Tanzania (Jakaya Kikwete) went to Tarakea on Sunday, so I got to see him in his car as he drove by.  He was supposed to come by at 10am, but in typical Tanzanian fashion he didn't actually arrive until about 11:30.  So we were all lined up on the road for an hour and a half, and then he drove by in 30 seconds.  But he had the window open and was waving as he went by, so I did actually get a glimpse of him. 

The health club is going more smoothly now, because the school finally decided to return to the old schedule and make the last period of the day for clubs or other activities (Thursday is clubs, and other days are sports/cleanliness/projects/debate).  The problem last term was that there was no set time for clubs, so even though I got permission from the academic master to have the club during the last period one day a week, if there was a teacher in the classroom in which some of the students in the health club were in, they couldn't come.  Now the time is definitely set aside for only clubs, so I'm getting more done.

I'm hoping to bring the students in the health club to visit a local hospital, and also a center that my site mate works at which deals with AIDS victims and orphans.  Plus there's going to be a school trip to Ngorongoro Crater either this month or next, and I'm also trying to see if it will be possible to climb Kilimanjaro this September/October with students.  In addition, two grant proposals will be going to Peace Corps this week.  Busy, but enjoying it a lot.

To finish this up, I'd like to share an example of why I think this country is so great - this past Saturday was the graduation for YCS, which is a Catholic students' group (this area is probably 90+% Catholic, due to heavy missionary activity).  The day started with a mass, and the priest began the mass by greeting everyone, as usual.  Except that he also said "salaam alaikum", which is the Arabic greeting that Muslims use to greet each other (it means "peace be unto you").  And it's not like there were lots of Muslims in attendance, as our school has a very small number of them.  But he knew there were a few Muslims there, so he said it.  And even more surprising, almost all of the students answered him (by saying "alaikum salaam").  There's really something special about a country where something like that happens - I know we have ecumenical services in the US, but frankly I could never imagine walking into a church or synagogue and hearing a religious leader greet the congregation in Arabic (or vice versa).  There are more than a few things in this country that people could learn from Americans, but there are also some big ones that they're already ahead of us on.