Processing New Textbooks

As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, most of my free time this week is taken up by processing our new textbook shipment.  It's quite a process of stamping, labelling, and taping the books, so I'm grateful to this group of form four girls who spent their Friday afternoon in the library taping books with me. 

Also on Friday afternoons, we have club time.  Baton is the student in charge of the science club, and the students meet in the library.  He borrowed my laptop to show an educational video to the group. 

 

Annual Textbook Order

Part of my job as the school librarian is to put together the annual textbook order.  We have in the budget each year funds to buy additional books and to replace books that have been destroyed, so early each year I get a list of requested books from all of the teachers.  Here in Tanzania, we have a goal of having at least one textbook of each type per every two students, which qualifies us as a high-level school.  In many schools, several students share one book, so one of our goals this year was to hit that mark with all of our major textbooks. 

Textbooks generally cost from $4 to $8 each, with a few of the higher-level ones being a bit more, so it adds up fast.  This year we spent over $1900 on books!  Running a school can be quite expensive.  (Speaking of which, if anyone wants to sponsor a student or contribute towards scholarships, let me know...) 

Making the order is just the beginning of my work.  It took a while (nearly two months!) to get our order from one of the bookstores in Arusha, but they did deliver them, so that was nice.  Fortunately, we have an empty office at the moment, so I commandeered it.  First, I had to unpack all the books and check what we received against my original order and against the receipt.  There were some books missing and a couple of things on the receipt I didn't recognize, so it took a day or two to sort that out.  The bookstore made a second delivery a couple of days later with the missing books.  

Then, the books needed to be processed.  Even with students helping, it took a couple of weeks of spending most of my time at work outside of class working on it.  First, we stamp the books with the school stamp in the front, the back, and somewhere in the middle.  Then, I write in the front cover, the last page, and on the bottom of page 50: AOCSS, Form 1, Oxford Biology, #1/20. (or whatever form/book it is).  I go through my inventory of our existing books to number books that are being added correctly.  After all of that, we completely wrap the covers in packing tape to help them last longer, as these textbooks are cheaply made paperbacks, not durable hardcovers.  

So, with several hundred books, it takes a while!  I am especially grateful for the form four girls who spent several afternoons in the library taping books with me.  

Finally, I delivered the books to the individual teachers and they added them to their inventories, as they are responsible for keeping up with their subjects' books until the end-of-the-year inventory. I enjoy working with the books, but the big annual book order is quite a job! 

 

Projects in the Library

Just a typical Tuesday afternoon! One of my students got ahold of my phone and took a few pictures of me working in the library.  I'm currently in the middle of a big project to organize copies of old exams and arrange them in binders so that students can easily find them and use them for practice.  Lots of sorting, hole punching, and numbering to do!  Today, I'm working on civics exams. 

 

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.) 

 

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. 

Sunday at the School

Today was our first Sunday together at the school after our long Corona break.  The triplets and my student helpers were happy to have our Bible class together again.  After I finished Bible class, I went back to the library, which was busy today with many kids studying, reading and catching up with each other.  It's so good to see the library full of life again! 

(Above) Jackline and Edina, two of our form 3 students.  Below, Athuman, a form 2 student whose hobby is disturbing me and generally being underfoot in the library, is trying to look cool in a photo with me.  

(Below) Stephanie and Doreen, two of our form 2 students, took a quick selfie on my phone. 

In the evening, I went out to Kisongo to get some groceries.  It was a cloudy evening, a bit unusual for this time of year, and I got a photo of the strange light while driving back towards Monduli Mountain. 

 

Library Work Day

Even with school closed because of the corona virus, I still go up to the school to work in the library two or three days a week.  There's plenty of organizing, cleaning and maintenance to do, and now we are beginning to receive work that students have done at home that we need to check and return to them.  We won't be able to really count this work for much as far as grades go, because some students have no way of accessing it.  They live in remote places, don't have internet service, don't own any devices to receive things on, or don't have parents that supervise them (some teenagers are self-motivated enough to work on their own, but some just aren't at that age.)  However, for those that we can reach and those that are studying at home during this time will have a leg up once school does start again.  

There are plenty of students hanging around Monduli with nothing much to do, especially those who graduated last year but don't start Form 5 until July (assuming schools are opened again by then).  Wilson, who graduated last year and has been trying to find work, has come to help me out several days.  Today, Clement wandered by with nothing better to do when I was picking Wilson up, so we put him to work, too.  I had them move some boxes, take the trash down to the burn pile, and sort and arrange all the literature books so I could easily inventory them.  We still had plenty of time, so I set them to work cutting out new book covers out of construction paper and poster board to tape onto textbooks whose covers have fallen off.  (The textbooks here are paperback and not super well made to start with, and then the students abuse them, so they look rough fast).   

The Library is Getting Full

One thing I've been doing during while school is closed for COVID19 is processing a bag full of books that Lewis Short donated from his personal library before moving.  I've mentioned before my process: scanning the books into our LibraryThing account (online book catalog), stamping them with the school stamp, adding stickers for genre, category and points in our reading system, and then covering them with packing tape to make them last longer.  I had these at my house, so I could sit around and listen to podcasts or watch some TV shows I downloaded (first time I've watched TV in...maybe three years?) while I worked.  

The shelves in the library are getting pretty full!  I may need to raise money to build another shelf soon, if anyone is interested in helping to grow the Alpha Omega school library!

Busy Library

Another busy day in the library!  The library is crowded this Wednesday afternoon!  Above, one of our form three library workers, Baraka, checks out books for his classmates. 

We received several big white folding tables in the container shipment, as well as these blue chairs.  Three tables (only two so far, but another is promised), as well as a set of blue chairs, have been assigned to the library.  The students are really enjoying the new workspace! 

Here's a wide-angle shot of the library.  In the foreground, you can see the two unabridged dictionaries we received.  The students have been REALLY impressed that there are so many words in the English language!  Of course, already several form one boys have lugged one of the things over and claimed that they were checking it out as their weekly story book.  I have a feeling they won't get tired of this joke for a while. 

Nembris and Anneth, two of my form three students. 

Salum and Norman like to be hams. 

While everyone's having fun around me, I'm trying to get through a little grading, checking some recent homework assignments. 

There were little scraps of paper inside a lot of the books; I'm not sure exactly what for.  However, these students don't waste much, so Innes and Denisa are using the small scraps to make colorful bookmarks.

See? Look, we're studying! Really!

Monday in the Library

It's another busy Monday afternoon in the library!  The students, on their lunch break right now, are checking out the new books that are now in the shelves.  We've still got a lot to go, but the first few boxes of books are available for students to check out now. I've also made a poster with all of the color-coded genres on it.  The students were all referring to it so much that I temporarily stuck it on the wall right by the shelves.  I'll affix it more permanently in an empty spot of wall by the door eventually.  I'm waiting first to see if we need to add additional genres, depending on how many books of different types that we get.  

Michela and I are still processing more in between our regular lunch-hour duties of helping students find, check out, and return books.  

More Book Processing

We're still at it...another afternoon of stickering and stamping and taping.  Beth is here helping Michela and I again, and one of our student workers, Baraka, has also spent several hours helping.  A few other students have volunteered to help, specifically with the stamping part, but I've got to be careful who I let handle the ink pad.  Charles was doing quite well stamping books, but he would get carried away and also stamp passers-by.  

I'm not sure why we received a book in Russian...we also received a copy of the same book in English.  Perhaps Ralpha and Twyla (missionaries up the mountain in Monduli Juu) would like it? They were formerly missionaries in Ukraine for a while and learned some Russian.