New Hairstyle

A lot of the students really like to do hair, but as they are all required to keep their hair short while at school, they don't get the chance often. I don't usually let them mess with mine, because it gives me a headache. But every now and then I will relent. 

Above, Hawa, Lissa and Jackline pose with the finished product, a rather lopsided set of French braid pigtails. 

Well, pigtails plus one little extra braid of to the side...

Daniel got in this photo even though he had nothing to do with the hair and was just passing through. 

 

Library Cleanliness

This afternoon (Friday), one of the library student workers, Mispina, and I spent a while cleaning the library.  I think it looks pretty good now!

Last weekend, the students made a complete mess of the library. Usually, it's not too bad on Monday, but this week it was awful, with books scattered everywhere and piled in the floor, cookie wrappers left in the seats instead of being thrown away, and dominoes everywhere. I called them out on it at Monday night devotional; many of them who had been in the library that day agreed that it was really trashy that day.  I told them that if it was in such a bad condition again this weekend, then we would have to have a weekend in which they aren't allowed to use the library at all, which they don't want to happen as many students enjoy hanging out there and reading books.  I reminded them to put books back on the shelf when they are finished with them, or if they don't know where they go, at least stack them neatly on the table.

So today, I took a photo of what the library looked like right before I left on Friday, with one of the preform students, Melau, in the way.  Hopefully next Monday will be better! 

Form 4 Finishes NECTA!

Form four has finished NECTA! The NECTA (the Tanzanian National Exams) is a set of exams in each subject that students take at certain grade levels: year 4 and 7 in primary school, year 2 and 4 in secondary school, and year 6 in A-levels (college prep; we follow the British system here).  The form 4 exams are a very big deal as the scores on these exams will determine what schools the students can get into for A-levels or colleges as well as what subjects they've scored high enough in to study there.  For example, if someone wants to be a doctor, they need to study sciences: physics, chemistry and biology, but if their scores in one or more of those subjects aren't high enough, they might only qualify to study a different three subjects and so will have to go a different career direction.  So, it's been a lot of study and stress for our graduating students!  

But today, they are finally free.  After finishing, Benedict and Salum stuck their student numbers (exams are recorded by number, so that there will be less bias from the graders, knowing only a number and not a name which might tell them if the student is a girl or boy or from certain tribes) on their backs and wore them around for a while.  Not sure why, but then students are always doing strange things.  

The students were being a bit silly, but I don't blame them as they've been working so hard on exams for the last week and a half.  Finally free!  Now all that remains is returning books, emptying out lockers, packing and having a final special dinner with the teachers tomorrow night before they head home on Thursday night or Friday morning.  

Below, Benedict is wearing a mask today.  Full-scale mask wearing never caught on here, especially as the official policy here is that we don't have corona virus any more (an honestly, nobody around here seems to), but the idea of wearing a mask if you are coughing a lot to stop the spread of even just colds and flus has caught on just a bit.

Below: How many photos do I have of these two??  Gabriel and Salum are two of the biggest hams around here; I swear they can smell a camera coming out from across campus.  It'll be weird to not have them in nearly every picture next year! 

Salum insisted on turning the camera around and getting a photo of me, too.  And the unsuspecting preform student who just happened to be standing next to me at the moment.

We heard a commotion outside; normally a couple of students have the job (it's an elected position on the student council) to ring the bell for classtimes, lunch, etc., so not just everyone gets to ring it.  However, to celebrate with form four, the time keeper on duty let Baraka ring the bell for lunch.  We remembered why we don't let Baraka ring bells.  Nah, he did fine, maybe a little overenthusiastic, but I have to give him a hard time.  Salum decided we needed a photo of Baraka ringing the bell, so here he is holding the handle pretending that he is still ringing it. 

I'll miss this class, but I'm happy for them to finally finish and go to have a nice long break!  (A really really really long break--form five doesn't start until July or August.   They'll be bored out of their minds in a week.) 

 

Lewis Arrives for a Visit

On Tuesday, Lewis and Michela arrived, Michela for a visit and Lewis to assist with some business work that needs to be done at the school.  Form 4 finished their last exam this morning, and they'll be leaving over the next couple of days, so they were happy to see Lewis one more time before leaving.  Some who live locally he will be able to see again on future visits, but some who live many hours by bus away it will be harder to keep in touch with.  Many of the students were hanging out in the library after finishing the exam, so he stopped here first when he walked up to the school to greet them.

 

Physics Practicals are Deadly

I think the physics practical (the practicals are exams done in the lab, in which student have to demonstrate their ability to complete certain experiments or procedures) killed form four.  I came in to the library and found several of them flopped all over the place.  

Science Club Studying History

So, the Science Club has started meeting in the library on Friday afternoon during Club time. However, for some reason they've been learning about history so far. Students have made presentations on some topics they had read about, and today, Baton, who is the student leader of the club, asked me if they watch a documentary about World War II.

We got the projector set up, and they're now watching. We watched one in English, and now we're watching one in Swahili. 

Friday Afternoon in the Library

Another Friday afternoon in the library... Benson got a few selfies in. In the first one, you can see that I actually do work around here sometimes. :)  Below, Benson and Lee are just being silly (which is on brand for them).  

Friday afternoon is club time at school, and the science club has asked to hold meetings in the library.  Baton, who is in form 3, is leading the group. 

A little Friday afternoon relaxation... 

 

More Papers to Grade...

The life of a teacher...more exams to grade!  I'm trying to get through another stack this week, for both form 1 and form 3.  These are exams that I wrote myself, so I really should have known better than to give form one so much writing to do; it takes a while to mark!  

Below, dry season continues.  We keep thinking the rains will come any time, but for now it's still dusty and brown.  I continue to be happy about the lack of mud, though.  The field across the road from me seems to be growing weeds, despite the lack of rain.  A lot of the farmers are starting to plow up their fields, ready to plant corn quickly as soon as the rains do start.  

 

Lowering the Flag

Every evening at exactly 6 pm, we hear a whistle blow.  It's time for the lowering of the flag.  If anyone is outside, they should stop and stand still and quiet until it is lowered.  The students who are Scouts (a Tanzanian boy scout/girl scout sort of organization) take care of the flag-raising and lowering; Bahati in form four is this years Scout Commander, and he's the one lowering the flag today. I happened to be in the administration building at 6 today, so I got a photo of him at work out of the door.  

As you can see, the Tanzanian flag is green, blue, black and yellow.  The green is for agriculture, the blue is for water (the Indian Ocean, as well as the many lakes in Tanzania, especially the enormous Lake Victoria on the western border), the black is for the people, and the yellow is for the mineral resources of the country.  

I was in the library until late tonight, working on various projects and helping students with things.  Someone picked up my phone and got this photo of me chatting with Isack Jeremia.  Fridays are usually long days! 

 

Wednesday Afternoon with Form One

Welcome to Wednesday afternoon with form one!  We just finished up today's class, and I let them get a few photos in the classroom.  It's always good to get some form one photos, so that we will have photos of them little and cute to embarrass them with in the slideshow when they graduate.  ;)  Above, Ariel, Johnson and Hussein just finished their group work.  Below, Brenda and Careen got a selfie.  Ezekiel hid his face, though.  

Lissa posed for the camera as Benson took a few photos while I helped a few people finish up their assignments.  We've been working on descriptive writing, so today I brought a whole stack of magazine to class.  They had to pick out a person in a photo in the magazine and write a descriptive paragraph of that person.  

Benson got a selfie with me, and then with various other classmates.  I've deleted most of them from this post; there were a lot. Teenagers love selfies everywhere in the world! 

 

Italian Night at My House

While the Shorts moved back to the US earlier this year, Lewis is still involved in the work here.  He'll be working on the fundraising side of things in the US (if you or your church would like to support the work of the school here, get in touch!) as well as making periodic trips back here to help out with the school management.  He had intended to return earlier in the year, but due to the school being closed for covid and flights not coming into Tanzania until July, he wasn't able to come until August 6th.  He will stay until just after graduation, on September 12th.  

While he was here, we decided to have a get-together of us North Americans.  I volunteered to host, so Beth and her family and the Williams from Monduli Juu came over.  We had an Italian food night: I made lasagne, spaghetti with cream sauce with chicken and peppers, and pasta al pesto.  Beth brought garlic bread and a cake and the Williams brought a big salad, so we ate well.  

Beth brought a cake for dessert because her husband, Tizo, had his 40th birthday that week.  He didn't want a big to-do, but this seemed a good opportunity to at least have a cake and sing happy birthday.  The kids entertained themselves after dinner with some of the playing cards I had, and the adults got involved.  Twyla and Jackson had quite a spirited game of War.  Lewis and Emmy didn't seem to have such an organized game; it seemed to mostly be making a mess (I found cards under the couch cushions months later).  

It was also a good opportunity to go through the very last of the things the Shorts had left behind and send most of it home with Ralph and Twyla to give out to people from the church up on the mountain or to be repurposed in some way (old mosquito nets can be used as netting to keep the birds off of something or other they're growing). 

 

Spring Rolls!

Beth is the best! She made spring rolls today, and she made enough to send a boda boda (motorcycle taxi; usually they are for having them take you somewhere, but you can also get them to run some errands) over to me with some!  They were wonderful and made a great dinner. :) :) :) 

 

Welcome Back Exams

Typically, when we return after the June break for the second term of the school year, we have "Welcome Back" exams.  The idea is that students might study a bit during the break or at least try to remember things a little bit if they know they'll have exams right away when they get back.  Also, some students tend to be slow returning after a break, wandering in a few days into the term.  If there are exams right away, it encourages parents to make sure their kids return to school on the day they are supposed to.  However, since this year we are coming back from a three-month break instead of a one-month break due to corona, Gerald (the academic master) decided to be nice and have our first set of exams at the end of July, so the students had nearly a month back at school to get back into the groove of things first.  

I took a couple of photos of form one as they took their English exam today.  I had always used the word "to proctor" an exam in the US, but the commonly used word here in English is "to invigilate".  It sounds impressive, anyhow.  

 

Bowling in Bible Class!

Another fun day in Bible class!  As we continue our study of the kings of Israel and Judah, we had a little bowling game today as we talked about knocking down idols to other gods.  

 

Feels Like October in July Today

It's cloudy today, which is a bit unusual for this time of year, but we're unlikely to get much rain.  The dry season is well underway now, despite today's clouds.  The cornfield across from my house is drying in the field.  Here, corn is mostly used to grind into meal for making ugali, so it's usually left to dry in the field for as long as possible before harvesting.  

Below: the road in front of my house.

The cloudy weather today and the drying corn stalks and sunflowers gave the day an autumnal feel, which I enjoyed since we don't really have the four seasons here.  This is our winter, the coldest time of year, but it's in the 70s most days. 

Above: we have a lot of sunflowers around here, too; there were some planted along the edge of the corn field that I enjoyed seeing this year.  Below: even the sticker weeds can be beautiful sometimes! 

I took these photos while I was out in front of my house, because the mobile signal is a bit better outside than in my house.  I was talking over whatsapp with my mom and grandmother; Nanny was in the hospital after heart surgery and Mom was staying with her.  It was three in the morning there, but Nanny's internal clock was off kilter after so many days in the hospital.  It was her 83rd birthday.  We've celebrated her birthday on July 19th all her life, but when she turned 70 and started looking into Medicaid and such, her original birth record was pulled and it turns out that the date on it was actually July 16th, so since then she's sort of had two birthdays.  

As it turned out, it was the last time I ever talked to her, as she passed the next week.  She was my last living grandparent, and she and I had always been very close.  Losing her is hard.