Another Saturday in Arusha

February 27th was a beautiful Saturday with bright, clear skies (definitely not a guarantee this time of year, as rainy season is getting started).  The picture above is looking down my road from my front gate.  I went to Arusha with Beth and Emmy to run errands and do some shopping.  Emmy got a lollipop at one point as we were running errands downtown.  She loves to see if they will turn her tongue different colors, and this one definitely did!  I took a photo so she could see it since we didn't have a mirror.  I told her that now her tongue matches her dress. 

I needed to get new keys made for the school library and a few others things, so I spent a while waiting at a roadside key fundi waiting for them.  This is one of the main roads downtown, a block or so over from the main market.  

While shopping downtown, Emmy found these giant tulle bows on a head band, and Beth let her get one.  She enjoyed looking like Minnie Mouse in such a big bow! I got this photo of her when we finally stopped to eat something-between-lunch-and-dinner at AIM mall after we finished our errands for the day.  

One the way home, we turned onto the Monduli road at just the right time of day (between about 5:30 and 6:30 in the afternoon) and it was a clear enough day that we could see Mt. Kilimanjaro briefly beyond Mt. Meru before we went far enough that Meru blocks our view.  Only on the clearest days is Kilimanjaro visible this far away--nearly 100 miles away.  It's hard to see in pictures, but if you look to the bottom right of Mt. Mery, just between the mountain and that biggest bush, you can see the snowy peak in the distance. 

While it's not the dramatic shape of Meru or Kilimanjaro, I think our Monduli Mountain is beautiful, too, especially in the afternoon light as we drive home. 

 

February End-of-Month Exams

Form one didn't take end-of-the-month exams in January since we were still in our introduction-to-secondary-school period with them, so this is their first time to take exams here at Alpha Omega.  On Tuesday in class (before exams start on Wednesday), we talked about exam vocabulary.  I've realized that many students struggle because while the exam questions are easier for form 1 students, the instructions are the same and they don't know the meaning of some of the instructions.  I look forward to seeing how they do on this first exam!  

After exams were done for the day, some of the form one boys were being silly in the library.  I like to get photos of form one students; someday when they graduate these photos might pop up again, and we can see how little and cute they were back then.  I like to look at pictures like these from my first form one students; most of them were this little then and are much taller than me now! 

Ashley, Marco, George and Philipo

 

Girls Having Fun on a Sunny Tuesday Afternoon

The netball pitch behind the classroom building.  We'll have to move it eventually, though, as a second classroom building will eventually be builts here. 

A beautiful Tuesday evening at school! The girls played a netball game (similar to basketball), but I was busy in the library and didn't get down there to take pictures in time to catch any of the game. I did get some photos of the girls playing around later, though! 

Two form three girls, Denisa and Theresia

 

Racing the Rain on Sunday Afternoon

On Sundays, I'm at the school early to teach the children's Bible class, and then I usually do some work around the library or with the students and leave around two or so.  On this day, it was already well after three and I was in a hurry to get out today as dark clouds gathered; I don't want to get caught out on a motorcycle in a downpour. The students were doing some work around the grounds, slashing some grass and such, after lunch, and I stopped to chat with them while waiting at the gate for my boda boda driver, who was running late.    

There are vines growing on the school gate with these beautiful orange flowers.  I need to learn what they are called. 

I made it home JUST in time--the rain was starting to fall as I hopped off the boda boda and unlocked my gate, and thirty seconds after I stepped inside the bottom dropped out.  I had told my driver he could wait with his motorcycle under the overhang at my gate if he wanted, but he had other work to get to.  There's no way he made it anywhere before the rain came, though.  Here's the view out of my living room window just a few minutes later: 

 

Football Fridays

Like many students around the world, our students love football (soccer)! Every evening from five to six is "sports time", and some students kick around a ball during that time most days, while others less into sports use it as free time.  On Friday evenings, however, Oscar, who is in charge of sports, usually organizes a more formal game.  Sometimes it's one form against another, or sometimes it's students against staff (with a few students drafted onto the teacher team if there aren't enough people).  This game was form four against staff.  Since I already had my camera at school for the school pictures earlier in the day, I got out my zooms lens and got some action shots from both the game and of other students playing around outside. 

Above, Dismas and some of the other boys kick around an extra ball. Below, Jackson loves to come up to school on Friday to watch the football game and play around; he jumps right in with the older kids even though he's only seven. 

Melau shows off his skills. 

The younger boys watching the game.

 

School Picture Day!

School picture day!  Well, sort of.  Taking school pictures isn't really a thing here, but the students' application for the national exams as well as our school insurance documents require passport-style photos of the students.  They have to have a blue background, and we originally thought we could take them against the blue walls of the library, but there's not any big enough blank piece of wall in the library, and it was too dark inside without flash, but the flash washed out the light blue until it looked white. However, all of the boys and some of the girls have these bright blue sheets on their beds.  So, Nelson-John volunteered his sheet, and thankfully it happened to be clean.  Some of the taller boys got the job of holding it up.  

Below, form one are lined up for their pictures.

I brought my camera, and my coworker David took the pictures, since he's the one who does the paperwork we needed them for and knew the detailed requirements.  According to the requirements, the students have to be looking straight forward with both ears visible; some students' ears are too flat against their heads to show, though, so to make sure the photos didn't get rejected he was sticking little wads of papers behind some people's ears.  Below, Isack mans the clipboard, keeping the list of students who have had their pictures made so we can make sure not to miss anyone.  

 

Literature Class with Form 2

Today in my form 2 class we started our new class reader, Rehema the Housegirl.  Here in Tanzania, there is a set of class readers, both in English and in Swahili, that students read for the literature part of English and Kiswahili classes.  The ones for form one and two are quite short and written about Tanzanian characters.  

We will read the book together in class, one or two chapters a day (there are nine chapters).  Usually I read the chapter aloud first, and then have students reread it aloud with each person reading one paragraph.  On their national exams, they will have to write essay questions discussing one of the books we have read, so they need to know at least one or two of them really, really well.  

This book is about an 18-year-old from a small village with a poor family and a father that drinks who goes off to the big city of Dar es Salaam to work as a house girl and send money back to her family.  A house girl is a young woman who lives with a family and helps with any type of household work--cooking, laundry, cleaning, childcare, anything of the sort.  Some are treated as a member of the family and called dada (sister) and in fact often are young cousins or nieces of the husband or wife who needs somewhere to go between leaving school and being ready to start a family of their own, but some are treated poorly, expected to work long hours for little pay. This is pretty common in this society.  Many people ask why I don't have at least a part-time housegirl to do my housework, since they assume a foreigner can afford it.  (I could; you can get someone here in Monduli for about five dollars a day, but as I'm only one person and not especially messy, I don't see the need.  It's easier to sweep my own floors than to be home at certain times and set up a schedule with someone).  

In the story, the mother of the family Rehema works for treats her poorly, often withholding pay and blaming her for any little thing that goes wrong.  The father of the family, however, has a thing for young girls, and when she is feeling very alone and unloved in the big city and also dealing with her friend dying of AIDS, he says nice things to her and brings her gifts.  Long story short, his wife throws her out of the house when she gets pregnant.  But the gardener, a kind old man, sees her crying and gives her some advice--he has a niece who works in a place that helps girls like her.  The niece, Mary, helps her to sue the man for child support, which isn't often given without a fight around here.  Her mother thinks her life is over when she has a child out of wedlock and so young and uneducated, but she is inspired to fight for a better life and goes back to school, becomes an interior designer who eventually owns her own business, and volunteers with the program to help other young girls like she had been.

It's a lot to unpack for a bunch of (mostly) fourteen-ish year olds, but it reflects the reality of life for many girls, and there's plenty to have opinions about and learn lessons from.    This is my first year teaching literature (the last couple of years Oscar and I have split classes with me teaching grammar and him teaching literature, but this year I'm doing everything for form 1 and 2 and he's doing everything for form 3 and 4), and I'm really enjoying it so far.  

 

Chinese Food for Valentine's Day!

On Monday night, I left work a bit early to go to Arusha with Beth and Tizo. I really needed groceries, and due to other stuff going on throughout the week it didn't look likely that there would be another chance.  While in town, we were supposed to meet some friends of Tizo for dinner at an Indian restaurant, but it turned out that the friends couldn't make it and the Indian restaurant wasn't open.  So, instead, we went to a Chinese restaurant that they like to go to for special occasions, since it was Valentine's Day.  I hadn't been to it, and I love Chinese food, so it was a fun outing.   

Emmy was so cute that day with her hair in puff balls!  She's getting so big! 

Below: sizzling chicken!  One of the things that I don't like about life in Monduli is the limited restaurants in a small town; the few we have are only Tanzanian food.  Previous to this, I've lived in big cities for all of my adult life, and even Columbia has quite a variety (Mexican, Chinese, Italian, etc.), so I miss having a variety of places nearby.  Arusha has quite a few options, so I really enjoy it when I get to try a new place there! 

February Baptisms

On February 9th, we had our first two baptisms of the year.  Last year we had eight, even with the school year being shortened by covid, so let's see how this year will go!  Our headmaster, Godfrey Mngoma, baptized two boys this afternoon:  Isack Jeremiah, who is in form four and will graduate later this year, and Johnson, who is in form two. These were the first two students to be baptized in our new baptistry built into the base of our school bell tower! The bell tower was completed last year; the first baptism in it was the son of the school driver, Deo, but he's still in primary school.   

Below, Mr Godfrey takes Johnson's confession while all of his friends and classmates gather around. 

One of the students was taking the photos on Mr Godfrey's phone, so while waiting for them to enter the baptistry, he took a few picture of the students around--I had to laugh when I saw Isack Peter (not the Isack being baptized; Isack is a popular name and we have three of them) being dramatic in the background. 😂

So, we have two new brothers in Christ today, Isack and Johnson! 

Wednesday Afternoon Adventures

Students as soon as class is over...

Wednesday afternoon...I finished classes for the day with form two, with the last class of the day, from 2:00-3:20.  They get sleepy in the afternoon after lunch, so as soon as class finished, many of them flopped.  Later, I got some photos at an afternoon assembly.  The students have assemblies at various times, and the teacher on duty calls them most afternoons at some points to make announcements and give instructions for whatever the afternoon's activities are. 

The prefects stand at the front facing the other students. This afternoon's activity turned out to include a punishment for form one for something-or-other (I think because many of them are in a bad habit of being late to class after every break); they had to pick weeds out of the grass around the belltower for a while (a pretty light punishment around here; it doesn't take that long with 37 of them in the class). 

While the weather had been so beautiful all day, it didn't last.  Just before I was ready to leave for the day, a dark cloud came over the mountain and the rain started.  David and Oscar joked about calling Tizo to come get us all with his car, but in the end, we all made our way home somehow.  I tried waiting a while to see if it would clear up, but it was almost dark before it lightened up so I decided to go for it.  None of my usual boda boda drivers were available at the moment, and most won't drive if it's pouring rain anyhow.  I finally got one, but he was way over on the other side of town and he was willing to come get me, but it would be a while.  I started walking, but it was rough going as I didn't have my muck boots with me and the road was quickly turning to sludge.  I got a ways, but realized it was going to take hours at the rate I was going picking through the slick spots.  However, Baraka, our school maintenance guy/general handyman around town (he's the one we all call when we need anything done around the house), happened by on his motorcycle and took pity on me, and drove me to the end of my road.  

My road was already too bad for a motorcycle to go on safely, so I picked my way on foot.  You can see the results.  I had mud up to my knees.  Sigh, is rainy season over yet?  (It just started.  It won't be over until May at least.)