Horseback Riding

The whole time we were in Mufindi, we were trying to go horseback riding. However, we were so busy that there just wasn’t any time. Finally, we were going to go on Thursday, but then it rained so we couldn’t. After that, I really didn’t think we were going to be able to go at all. When we woke up on Friday, it actually looked like a nice day though. There was a little bit of blue skies and everything. So, we decided to ask if we could do it that day. By around 9, we still hadn’t heard anything and we thought if we would go it would be in the morning, and then it started raining. Once the rain came, I thought for sure there was no way we were going now. But around 1:15 Paulo came over and told us we would be leaving at 2:15 to go.

I don’t know why I go horseback riding. Every time I go, it sounds like a good idea beforehand. I get to thinking that maybe I have gotten over my fears of horses, but as soon as I’m getting on the horse, I realize my fear is still there. It was an interesting experience. I’m sure I’ll go again and be just as afraid as I was this time. Right before we started to go, I think my horse was trying to get me off because it was kicking up its leg and turning its head around and nudging my leg. As soon as I went to say something though, our guide took off! So I just had to hope that my horse was okay with me being on there. Oh, and my horses name was Kusuku. At one point, we were walking on a path that had a cliff wall on one side and Kusuku decided he wanted to walk right next to the wall. I’m surprised I didn’t fall off or get my leg crushed. The toe of my boot was actually crushed in. I was leaning away trying to get my leg up, and almost fell off in the process, it was actually very scary. And then, without warning our guide started us trotting! I had never trotted on a horse before and didn’t plan on doing it so it was definitely scary. Kusuku decided too that he wanted to gallop instead of trot! That was even scarier. At one point, Renee’s horse got a little bit behind and took off running to catch up. She couldn’t hold on so she just laid down and grabbed onto the horses neck! It was hilarious. However, if I were here I know I probably would’ve fallen off.

Homestays

Day 1: Friday April 25, 2014

            Today was a day that I was both dreading and excited for. We started our homestays today. I was dreading this because I knew that it would be a little awkward. However, I was excited for it because I knew it would be a very unique experience. Our homestay families came to pick us up around 3:45. It was weird to say goodbye to Renee and Julia because we have experienced everything together so far and we are never apart for more than a few hours. Its going to be a really weird 48 hours without them!

            When I arrived at my homestay house, my Baba (dad) gave me a tour of the house. I have my own room (which our director made sure of beforehand). Afterwards, we sat on the couch for a moment while he asked me questions like “What food do you like to eat?”. We then walked together to the store to get sodas and cookies. When we came back Mama was home. I asked her if she needed any help with cooking or anything and we ended up walking to another house. I’m still not completely sure why we went there. We sat there for a little and had another soda. I was so full that I did not want to drink it, but they made me. We walked back after and I ended up helping wash the dishes with my sister Uzia. I have 5 sisters and 1 brother. In order they are Emma, Abia, Uzia, Faraja, Shamila, and John. While I was washing the dishes, people kept walking by and staring at me. It really can be annoying sometimes to always be stared at. Also, while doing dishes, Uzia was washing the dishes with dirt. It was very interesting for me to see this. She was using the dirt as something that would be able to scrape off the food. I thought it was a good idea, but at the same time I was taken back by it because that is not something we would ever even think of doing in the United States. Also while I was outside, I saw Kulwa (one of the students we did a day in the life with) outside his house, which was right across the street. He waved and this made me feel more comfortable. I also saw Harry (a Form V student who is staying there during his break and working at the Montessori school with me) outside and he came over and talked to me a little bit.

            After doing the dishes, I moved into the kitchen to help Mama and my 5 sisters cook dinner. They were all singing songs while we were cooking which I thought was really cool. I got to help cut some vegetables and even got a turn at stirring the ugali, which is a lot tougher than you would think! We had ugali, beans, vegetables, and meat for dinner. It was very good. This was only the second time I’ve had meat in Mufindi (Easter was the first). After dinner, I was so tired, but I didn’t want to be the first one to go to bed so I stayed up. We ended up watching some Tinkerbell movie on Emma’s laptop. I was a little disappointed when we started it because I was so tired and didn’t think I could make it through a whole movie. However, luckily we ended up watching only around 15 minutes of it. Once we turned off the movie, Mama brought out a container of like Vaseline and all the kids dug right in and started rubbing it all over their bodies. It was quite interesting to see. Right after, that, I headed straight to bed.

Day 2: April 26, 2014

            I slept horrible the first night. I kept waking up because there was a rooster that would not stop making noise. I also kept waking up because I knew we had to go to church that day and I had forgotten to ask what time I needed to be up. I was secretly hoping that church would have been really early and they would have already left without waking me up. However, this was not the case. I ended up getting out of bed and getting ready at around 7:15. So early for a Saturday in America! However, they are up early everyday here! For breakfast, we had mandazi, chapatti, and chai. Once again, I was very full, but there was one chapatti left and Baba said “Kula chapatti”, which is the command for “eat the chapatti”. So, I ended up eating it although I was already full.

            We left at 9:15 for church. I hadn’t realized that some of my sisters had already left. I walked to church with my brother, John though. The walk sucked. Although it was only about 15 minutes, it was all straight uphill! I was so tired by the time we got here. My asthma really does not do me good in the high elevation here. Church was horrible. I’m only glad that I at least couldn’t understand what they were saying, because if I could have understood then it would have been even worse. It was super boring, super uncomfortable, and unnecessarily long. In the beginning, after singing a few songs all the children left to go to their own church. So, when the children came back in, I thought that church was almost over. This was not the case though. I kept thinking it was almost over and it just kept going on and on. It ended around 12:30 and we walked back to the house for lunch. For lunch we had rice, beans, and vegetables. I was thinking that we would just get to rest for the rest of the day, but not long after eating I was asked if I would be going to church again with them. They told me it was very far, but I said I would go because I didn’t want to be the only one sitting at home. At around 2:30, we began the walk to church. We ended up walking so far that we passed Renee and Julia’s houses. I yelled at Renee’s house from outside and then I heard Julia laugh and realized they were together! This made me a little sad because I was all-alone at my house and they had each other. We ended up dragging them along to church with us again. This church was even more boring than the first one. I did end up falling asleep for a little but I was too tired to even care at that point.

            We arrived back home at around 6:30 and I again helped with cooking dinner. All my sisters were singing songs again and they asked if I liked to sing. When I told them yes they asked if I would want to learn the song. So I said yes and they taught me it. They were all very happy when I was able to sing it by myself. I learned the Swahili part of the song before learning the English part. If I knew the English part, I would never have agreed to learn the song. It was about jesus and some stupid stuff about being happy because you were with jesus and he was taking away your sins. Yuck. I was no longer happy to be singing it. For dinner that night, we had potatoes, beans and vegetables. I swear I am not eating any beans for a very long time when I get home!

            On a side note, while walking to and from church I got asked some strange questions from Emma and Abia. Some of the questions were:

-       Which church do you pray to?

-       In your country do you dig?

-       In your country is there tea?

-       In your country is there electricity like this? (Pointing to telephone wires)

-       Do you like alcohol?

-       Have you tried the bamboo alcohol?

-       In your country do people grow beans?

-       In your country does it look like this? (Pointing out to the scenery)

-       In your country do people farm?

-       What types of people pick the plants? White or black?

-       If a black man and a white women reproduce, what will the child be?

Some of these questions were just hilarious. I told them that I don’t pray to any church and they were completely shocked. They had no idea what to think about that. They kept asking me if I really didn’t pray to any church and why not and all this stuff. I thought it was funny. Everyone is so religious here. When we went to Madisi Secondary School, one of the kids asked us all what our religions were. I hesitated for a minute, but I said that I was an atheist and they had no idea what that was so their teacher, who was a lady from America, told them to look it up in the dictionary. The next time I saw Justin after that, he walked into our house and gave me a high five and I asked what for and he said that it was for saying that I was an atheist at the school. He thought it was the funniest thing ever and gave me major props for doing it.

            I ended up showering that night because my family kept asking me when I was going to shower, so I just decided to do it that one night. Right after my shower though, I went to bed because I was so tired even though it was only 9.

Day 3: April 27, 2014

            When I woke up this morning I felt pretty good because I was feeling much more comfortable with my family. I did let myself sleep in a little later though and didn’t end up coming out until around 8. By then, breakfast was almost ready. For breakfast we had bread, a boiled egg, and chai. It was once again really good. I wasn’t sure what we were going to do for the rest of the day, but I soon learned that we would be going to the field. It was quite a long hike to the field. When we got there, they had already dug holes in the ground and we were going to be planting beans. I had to throw 2 beans into each hole with some of my siblings while Baba sprinkled fertilizer in all the holes. After completing all of that, we had to go through with our hoes and cover up all the holes; this was a lot of work. I was definitely ready to go by the time we ended up leaving.

            When we got back we began cooking lunch, which consisted of ugali, beans, and vegetables. I was glad it was my last meal there. After lunch it was around 2:30 so we only had a little bit of time to kill before going to dinner at Jenny and Geoff’s. I sat in the front of my house with some of my sisters. Emma ended up braiding my ponytail and they all stood around watching. At around 3:15, all my siblings began to shower and get ready to leave. We left at around 3:40 to walk to Jenny and Geoff’s house. When we got there, we started off by playing charades. It was really fun. All the words were in Swahili so it was like a test for us as well. After that, we all introduced our families and said what we liked most about the weekend. We ate dinner all together when we were finished with the introductions and then it was time for everyone to leave. The homestay was definitely a unique and interesting experience, but I was definitely glad to be back at protea.

My homestay family.

(Emma, Abia, Shamila, Faraja, Uzia, Mama, Baba, John)

My homestay family's house.

My homestay family's house.

My homestay family's kitchen.

The view from my room during my homestay.

My homestay family's living room.

Easter

          We got to sleep in on Easter! It was such a nice feeling to be able to wake up whenever. We did have to be up by 10 though, which is definitely sleeping in to me! I have noticed that over the past few months, even when I was back at home, I just haven’t been able to sleep in. I woke up around 9:30, went online for a little while I was waiting for water for my shower to boil. I took a shower and got dressed around 10 so that Julia could braid my hair. I was planning on wearing a dress and looking nice, but it was pouring rain outside. I was going to just wear jeans and a sweatshirt so that I would be warm, but I just decided to go ahead and wear my dress. At around 11, we headed over to the Tree House for a volunteer Easter brunch. It was a potluck so everybody brought something to share. Since we haven’t really been able to cook ourselves and figure out how to use the wood stove and everything, we just made cookies since we already knew how to make those in the wood stove. Some other things that were there were French toast, bagels, coffee cake, eggs Benedict, pasta salad, and ham. Everything was so good. There was also wine, coffee with baileys, and mimosas to drink. It was really fun and nice to eat such amazing food. Even though we have been getting a little spoiled by our house mama, Upendo, at our volunteer house. She makes us some pretty good food. Its going to suck to go back to school and eat rice and beans again.

            At around 1 Renee, Julia, Brett, Amari, Molly, and I walked over to Fox Farms so that we could start hiding Easter eggs for the egg hunt and filling up water balloons. I started by filling water balloons with Renee. We didn’t have any special thing for the faucet like you normally would so it was a little difficult. Renee was really struggling at first. She was getting more water on me then in the balloons! We finished those and shortly after all the kids arrived. There were about 60 kids there from the children’s village and some from the neighboring village. At Fox Farm, the whole Fox family was there visiting for Easter. They’re a British family so there was all these little kids running around with British accents. It was cute, but when the kids arrived, they all starting yelling “The orphans are here!” It was really sad to hear that even though I know it’s important for those kids to know what orphans are and how they are lucky for having both their parents. All the kids looked so nice and were really excited to begin the Easter egg hunt. I have to admit I teared up a little. Its really sad how many kids are orphans here. It made me really happy though that the NGO puts this on every year for the kids. It was really cute to watch them all do the egg hunt. They were very excited and were running all over the place. Right after the egg hunt, we headed down to another area where we had a water balloon fight. It started a little unexpectedly and I got nailed in the face by one right when it started. After that, the kids lined up so that all the candy could be distributed equally. I think that by the time the people passing out the candy got back to the first person that they had already eaten the candy that they were just given! After getting all there candy, as if they didn’t already have enough sugar, the kids then got in line to receive a soda and a sugar cookie. The all drank the soda so fast including the young ones! One little boy Musa, maybe around 2 years old, threw up from all the candy! The funniest part was that once he threw up (all over himself I might say) the other kids just handed him a soda to wash it down with! Poor kid. He looked miserable. He came over and sat right next to me. He had a cookie in one hand, a piece of candy stuck to his sleeve on the other arm, and throw up all down the front of him. He then proceeded to fall asleep while sitting up. I’m sure he felt miserable, but it was sure cute to watch.

            After the festivities, we walked back home where we just relaxed. We were told that we would have brunch leftovers brought to our house in about 1 hour for dinner. 3 hours went by and we still had no food. We were all very hungry and Paulo was over so he made Brett go walk to see where our food was. Brett came back with the food and Amari and Molly. However, as we pulled the food out we were realizing that it was not going to be enough for the 6 of us to eat. So we headed into the kitchen where we started throwing some stuff together. We ended up making some really good sauce out of tomatoes, onions, eggplant, cabbage, pineapple, green pepper, and a bunch of spices. It turned out to be so good! We heated up some coconut rice that we already had to go with it, the ham from brunch, and we made some toast. I was so tired afterwards that I really just wanted to go to bed, but everyone else really wanted to watch a movie. So we decided to watch Monster’s University. I ended up falling asleep not long into it though. When it was over, I went straight to bed.

A Day in the Life of a Secondary School Student

Things have been starting to get really busy here, which is good in a way, but also a little tiring. Two days ago, on April 15 we did what is called “A Day in the Life”. Basically, we did everything that a normal secondary school student does here so that we could see how hard they work. We had learned the previous night exactly what we would be doing and even though I sort of knew what to expect, nothing could have prepared me for the next day. We began our day by waking up at 4 a.m. We had to get up early so that we had enough time to get dressed and make ourselves breakfast. It was really important to eat a good, filling breakfast because the secondary school students don’t eat at school. We were supposed to be picked up at 5 a.m. by the students so that we could begin our long walk to school. The walk is 10 km, around 6 miles. It’s no easy walk. It’s up and down huge hills and there were times where it was really hard. Not only that, but it was raining the whole way to school. So when going down steep hills you had to be really careful not to slip and fall. I’m not sure how we all managed not to with how slippery it was! The students were late to picking us up and didn’t actually come until around 6. It took us 2 hours to walk to school. When we got there, the students we were paired up with for the day went to class and we met with a lady who works there, Janelle, and the head master of the school, Edgar. The school was a private school. They told us about some of their accomplishments. In the past year, every student that took the exams passed, which is phenomenal. At the local public school, nobody passed. Jenny originally told us that we would be students for the day and going to class with the students. However, when we got there they had other plans for us. We ended up getting to teach English all day to Form 3, 4 and Pre-Form students. I had so much fun and definitely loved it. The kids were really into it and it really made me realize just how much these kids appreciate education. If we were at a school in America, there is no way the kids would be as into the learning as Tanzanian students are. It was amazing to see and experience.

            We left school around 2:45 and begin our long journey back. I was so tired. I really wasn’t sure if I was going to make it all the way without taking maybe a little break. We took a different route back, but it was just as hard and had just as many hills. I was paired with a student called Dotto and Renee was paired with her sister Yasinta. So, we both got to stop in the same place on the way back. We stopped about 20 minutes from the NGO at their house in the village. Immediately, they began to cook what would be their one meal of the day, ugali and cabbage and tomatoes. Normally I don’t really like ugali, but I was so hungry that this ugali was fantastic and I ate a bunch. When they were waiting for the water to boil, the girls were doing their households laundry. Never did they have a free time to do something for fun. Right after we finished eating, we had to go straight to their mandatory prep study time at the Tree House (Jenny and Geoff’s house) from 7-9:30. Our job there was to help tutor the students in whatever they may need help with. I was so sore already by that point from all the walking we did during the day. By the time 9:30 rolled around I was exhausted and ready to get right in bed. The walk back to our house from the Tree House seemed very long.

            This whole experience was really eye opening and I am really glad that I had the opportunity to experience it. I have gained all new respect for these students. Secondary school here in Tanzania is not mandatory even though it is equivalent to our high school. As a matter of fact, they even have to take a test, pass it, be chosen to go to secondary school, and even pay for secondary school. The thought that these kids are walking 20 km a day just to go to school that isn’t even mandatory is amazing. These kids know that education is the only thing that is going to keep them out of poverty and they are willing to go to great lengths to be sure that they receive the best education they possibly can. I don’t know how they do it every day. I couldn’t even imagine getting up the next day to do it all over again, let alone every day from Monday-Friday, rain or shine. It really opened up my eyes and 2 days later, I am still in shock over it.

            Other than that, I’ve just been really busy with schoolwork. Slowly but surely, we are getting it all done though. It’s not so much that the work is hard, but it takes a lot of time because for some of my classes we have to do interviews and then write an essay on those interviews. On top of all the schoolwork that I have, I also have my own individual research project to complete which is the main reason why we are here. I have never done a try research project before. I’m glad I took Writing 101 for Psychology this summer though because I feel like that has definitely helped me. I’m starting to really get started on it now, which is good considering we only have 2 weeks left here! It’s crazy that our time in Mufindi is already half way over. Time is now going by so fast with just 4 weeks left in the program. These 4 weeks will probably go by the quickest as well. I’ve got a good amount of literature review material done. I’ve read some articles and now I just need to type it up. After that, my next step is to write down interview questions that I want to ask and then to plan out days to go conduct the interviews! I decided that I will be doing the interviews at the Montessori kindergarten here where I work, and the kindergarten at Igoda Primary School, the name of the village which we are in. Hopefully I can get some good information and come across good findings. I’m kind of excited to write the paper in a weird way. It’s my first real research paper in which I am going out and conducting the research myself so that’s going to be a pretty cool experience. I just hope I can get all that I need in the short amount of time that we have left here.

One of the classes we did an English lesson with.

Farm to Table

As part of our stay here, they have a few activities planned out for us to do so we can really get a feel for the village life. The first activity we did today and is called Farm to Table. At 9 a.m. we met near the guardhouse to get ready to go to the garden. It was cold and rainy, but we had been told we would be working rain or shine, just like the members of the village do. The purpose of this particular activity was to show us just how hard life can be for some people. Many of the secondary school students are on a work-study program. They have to work in the garden while attending school. Of course I thought that was tough, but I didn’t think about it too much because I myself held multiple jobs throughout high school. However, my mind was quickly changed not long after we began our work. At first, it was really fun. We were using a ho to dig weeds up out of the garden. After about 5 minutes though, it was no longer fun and had become real work. The garden here is on a hill, and that says enough. Not only we had to do physical labor, but also we had to walk up and down this hill while doing so. It got very tiring very quick. Not to mention, it hadn’t stopped raining since we got there. Luckily I had on my rain boots and a raincoat, but the people working in the garden weren’t even wearing any shoes! It was freezing outside! I could only imagine how cold their feet must’ve been.           

            I really think this was a good activity because it showed us just how hard life can be. Even though we are living in the village, we aren’t really experiencing what other people experience on a day-to-day basis. We live in a nice house, with our own big beds, and running water. We are even lucky enough to have a house mama cook all of our meals for us and do our laundry for us. By participating in this activity, we were able to really get the full experience, if you could even say that! We only worked in the garden for 2 hours, not even that long. However, students will often times work out there for hours after school until dark just to pay their way through school. It truly was an experience to be able to do this activity. After working in the garden, our house mama, Upendo, came to meet us at the garden. We picked some vegetables with her before turning back to the house and then cooking what we had just picked! That was a lot of fun.

One Free Day

Yesterday was the first day since we have been here where we have had nothing to do. It was actually kind of nice to finally have a break. We actually had planned to do stuff, but with some miscommunication the plans fell through. We are kind of separated from the villages around us. We mainly just live in the vicinity of the NGO. There are Jenny and Geoff’s house, 2 volunteer houses, and the Children’s Village. There was supposed to be a big market in one of the neighboring villages, about a 45-minute walk from here, and we had planned to go with Paulo. He said that we should eat lunch around 12 and then we would go around 12:30. However, 12:30 came and went. We thought that he was going to come pick us up at our house, and it turns out he thought that we were going to his house. So, we ended up not going. I finished the book I had just started the day before called The Little Princes. It was a true story about a guy who started an organization called Next Generation Nepal. I really enjoyed the book because I felt like at this time in my life, I could really relate to it. After finishing the book, I was pretty bored and wasn’t sure what to do with my time, so I decided to get outside for a little bit. I put on my running shoes and set off for a run/walk. It’s very hilly here so it’s kind of hard to run. Also, the ground was still wet and muddy from the rain, so that made it slippery and difficult as well. It felt really good to get out though. The scenery is so beautiful here and it actually reminded me of running through the hills back home. I stayed out for almost an hour before returning to the house. I then just hung out until dinner. After dinner, we decided to watch Anchorman. I ended up falling asleep though.

Chekechea Day 3

I walked to work again this morning by myself. Personally, I enjoy walking by myself because I like to walk slowly and enjoy the view. When I got to work today, all the kids were so excited to see me. They kept saying “Emily!” and then would just smile at me. It was very cute. I am slowly starting to learn all the kid’s names and feel very proud of myself for doing so! Today I mainly just helped the kids with their activities on the floor. There are some things about the school that I am starting to notice and not really like. For example, during the first circle time, at the end of it the kids are asked what day it is before they can be excused to go start an activity. If they don’t know what day it is, they get punished. These kids are only 3-6 years old! I barely even know what day it is sometimes. They are expected to say what day of the week it is along with the day, month, and year. It’s crazy. Two of the punishments for not knowing have included squatting with both of their hands raised in the air and frog hopping across the classroom and back. Some of the kids have even cried while performing these punishments. It’s really sad. Another thing that I have noticed that I’m not too sure about is that they don’t encourage the kids to play collectively. They are very strict about the students sitting on their own mats and completing their own activities. The kids are scolded if they are playing an activity together. For example, the other day 3 kids were playing with blocks and pretending to build a fire and then cook over it with the activity material that contains bowls and dried corn. These kids were scolded and told to return to their own mats and work on their own activity. How crazy is that?! The kids were being creative and using their imaginations! I always thought that was kind of how the Montessori system was, but it doesn’t seem like it through this school. It was really shocking for me to see that. I thought maybe it was just a one-time thing, but I have seen it happen more than once.

            After work, I returned to the house where we ate lunch (fried rice and salad) and then Justin came over to talk about our research projects. We talked mine over and refined it a little bit. I think I am specifically going to look at the teaching style being teacher centered vs. student centered in the Montessori school as well as how kids are being disciplined in the classroom as well as praised or rewarded. I’m excited for my research and I think it’s going to be very interesting. It is going to be a lot of work though. I’m not as stressed out as I was before coming here because I now feel like I am getting things taken care of and I have the time to complete everything. I was originally most worried about the MCD assignments, but now I think my biggest task will be my own individual research project. We also got our schedules today and found out that we also have work on Saturdays. Which was a bit surprising. It’s just until 12 though as usual so that’s not too bad. We also are scheduled to have volunteer movie night and craft night so those should be fun.

Chekechea Day 2

Today was my second day working at the Kindergarten. As I was walking to work, I came across 2 of the students, Tito and Melania. We walked the rest of the way together. Melania was so sweet. She held onto my hand the whole way and was next to me a lot in the classroom as well. We started off the day with circle time as usual. Today, Usto (the head of the education department) was in the classroom. Seeing him with the kids was amazing. He is so incredibly great with them. During circle time, he got into the middle of the circle and was teaching the kids how to say; “My name is…” in English. He had them repeating it after him until they got it and then he went around asking everyone “What is your name?” and they had to reply. For the most part the kids got the hang of it. He then sang the song Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes to try and teach the kids body parts in English. After that, he moved on to eyes, ears, mouth, and nose. It was really fun to watch all the kids.

            After circle time, I observed the classroom again. I paid special attention to whatever Usto was doing because it seems like he really knows how to work with kids. I found one of the activities he did with Twiloo and another little boy very interesting. The kids had around 8 blue 3-D shapes that were all different. For example, a cube, a sphere, a pyramid, etc. They also had pictures of different objects that were shaped like the blue 3-D objects. The kids had to look at the picture, figure out which shape it was similar to, and put it in front of that shape. It was really neat to see the kids working and trying to figure out which shape the pictures looked like.

            Usto then took 4 kids aside to do a math lesson with. Every student had a chalkboard to write the problems on. They started off with 1+1, then 2+1, 3+1, 4+1, 5+2, 6+2, and lastly 7+2. For each problem, the students would first write it out on the chalkboard. They would then use beans as a counter to try and figure out the answer. They would put however many beans equaled the number underneath the number. So for 5+2, they would count out 5 beans and put them underneath the 5, and then count out 2 beans and put them underneath the 2. After that, they would count the beans all together to come up with their answer. For the most part, the kids really understood it. The main problem they sometimes had was that they would write their numbers backwards.

            Another fun part of my day was towards the end when the older kids had a Swahili lesson. They separated the older kids, who will be going into Standard 1 next year, from the younger kids. The younger kids got to continue the day as usual, completing an activity of their choice. I decided to stay in the room with the older kids to see what they would be learning. They had a small Swahili lesson. They began by writing out the vowels: a, e, I, o, u. Afterwards, they were instructed to write: ba, be, bi, bo, bu. Then cha, che, chi, cho, chu and lastley da, de, di, do, du. After they had written all of that, they moved on to actual words using those syllables. The teacher would say a word out loud and the students had to write it down. For example, bao or baba. I sat in between Tito and Melania during this exercise. I was so impressed by Melania’s work. Her handwriting was very neat and she did everything almost perfectly. I think I only had to help her once when she missed a letter in a word. She is definitely very smart.

            After work, I came back to the house for lunch. We had a delicious Sheppard’s pie. It was definitely a lot better than the chipsi we had for lunch yesterday! We then hurried over to Swahili class. Some secondary school students, who live in the house where we were having class, were watching through the window. Paulo told them not to watch through the window and that if they wanted they could come inside. He then quickly put them to work by making them come up with sentences. It was very funny actually. The students were a little bit shy and at first would barely talk. They still were at the end, but they ended up talking some. It was actually nice to have “an audience” during class so we can practice being comfortable talking in front of people. He made us talk about our family out loud to them and I felt pretty comfortable with that. I think that being in the kindergarten will help me become more comfortable because I do talk to the kids. I don’t know how much I will really be in the classroom though from here on out since I will probably be starting to work on the tasks that they want me to complete. Hopefully I will get to be in the classroom though. I really enjoyed being in there and getting to help with some lessons today.

            We met with Justin and Paulo afterwards to discuss our workload for school and tell them which ones we need help with. Hopefully this won’t be too much work and we really will be able to enjoy our time here. I think we will be okay. Education is the only class where I have to e-mail my assignment every week. So that is the one that I really have a deadline for. Of course for MCDP I of course have to stay on top of it because we have a big assignment for each week. However, for History, the questions are really easy and won’t take much time at all so I don’t have to stress about those too much. 

Chekechea Day 1

First off... Chekechea means Kindergarten in Swahili...

Today I began my job at the Montessori Kindergarten. I was very excited after briefly visiting the kindergarten on our tour yesterday. I met Amari in the classroom office at 7:30. We started by going over what exactly I would be doing there. For today, tomorrow, and maybe the next day I will simply be in the classroom observing. More specifically, she wants me looking at all of the material and possibly keeping track of what material is the most popular and what the students seem to not be interested in so that they can keep up with the needs and desires of the students. By the end of this week, I will begin my work on compiling a report that crosses the Montessori syllabus with the Tanzanian syllabus. The purpose of this is to show the village that the Montessori school is teaching to the Tanzania syllabus, but just in a different way. The village has had a difficult time accepting the Montessori school and the NGO is still working hard to gain acceptance from all community members. By compiling this report, they hope to have something to show community members so that they will begin to trust and realize that the Montessori school really is teaching the same things. Also, many surrounding villages are beginning to try and adapt a Montessori school of their own. So, the report that I will be compiling will also be put together and translated so that it can be given to surrounding villages to use as a guide when creating their Montessori schools.

            Overall, my workday was awesome. The kids were so cute and really smart. When I first arrived, I was greeted with hugs from 2 little boys named Tito and Godi. It was so sweet. The teachers were also very welcoming and made me feel really at home. For the most part, I just observed and helped some of the kids with their activities. Circle time was by far my favorite part of the day. I will definitely need to break out my video camera one day for circle time. The kids jump around and dance and it is just so cute and funny. At one point, the teachers even tied a Kanga around a child’s hips and then the child went into the middle of the circle and everyone clapped a beat while they shook their hips! I was cracking up. It was so cute and those kids definitely have some great rhythm! Also, all the kids wanted to be next to me and hold my hand at circle time. It was really cute. I was in love.

            I got off work at noon and then headed back to our house for lunch. For lunch today, we just had chipsi (basically like French fries). It was definitely weird to have that as a main course, but it’s actually really common here. The best part about it was that we had ketchup! They don’t have ketchup here normally. They have either tomato sauce (which is really not good) or chili sauce, which we normally use. I didn’t realize until today how much I really missed ketchup. It was really nice to have it again.

            After lunch, we had Swahili class. We knew we had class, but we weren’t sure where we were supposed to go. So we just stayed at our house. Eventually, Paulo came to get us and told us we were supposed to have class at house number 4 in the children’s village. So, we all walked there together. We had Swahili for a little bit and then we met with Justin to discuss our research projects. I’m thinking for my project to do a comparative analysis of the Montessori kindergarten and the kindergarten in the village. I’m not exactly sure what to do yet though and I have to figure it out by Friday. For example, maybe looking at the teaching styles of the 2 and comparing them. I’m not sure. I definitely have a lot of thinking to do before then.

            Right after Justin’s class, we headed over to the Tree House (Jenny and Geoff’s house) for a goodbye party for a group of Carpe Diem volunteers that have been here for about 10 days. The party ended up being a lot of fun. Each group had to perform a musical number in front of everybody. For ours, Julia played Don’t Stop Believing on the piano and we sang along. It didn’t go exactly as planned. Our singing was a little off but everyone joined in so it was good and a lot of fun.

First Day in the Village

We woke up around 7:45 today to begin getting ready for the day. Our normal house Mama, Upendo, is currently sick and needed to go to the hospital today, so it was up to us to make our own breakfast. Everyone was coming over to our place at 9 to get started with our tour of the NGO. After eating toast and boiled eggs and drinking chai, we were ready to begin the day. We started off our tour by going to the school building that is currently under construction with no funds for it. When the funds are there, it will be completed and it will function as a school building. One room with be the nursery for children 8 months-18 months. The next room will be for 18 months to 3 years, and the last room will serve as a kindergarten. They hope to place 30 kids in that kindergarten classroom as well as 30 in the other kindergarten classroom. We then continued on to the current Montessori Kindergarten classroom, where I will be working! All the kids were so interested in us and I really enjoyed being there. I can’t wait to start tomorrow. They have a lot of good material for the kids to work with, but are currently in desperate need for more science and culture material. Outside the classroom, there is a playground that is in honor of the first young girl that died at the NGO. At the age of only 11, this young girl had lost both of her parents to HIV. She realized that from time to time, she herself was getting sick. She wasn’t living in a good situation. She was living with a step grandmother who wasn’t really helpful to her. So this young girl took it upon herself to walk 15 kilometers from her house all the way to the NGO to ask for help. She was only 11, but spoke like she was an adult. She told of her parents passing of HIV and how she was sick from time to time and she thought she needed to be tested for HIV so she could know if she had it. She did indeed have it and Jenny said that she became the most stigmatized child she has ever known with HIV. No one wanted to touch her and no kids wanted to play with her. She wasn’t getting the treatment she needed at her grandmothers house, and one time when Jenny went out there she came out crying and begging for her to take her because she had no friends left and no one would play with her. So the girl ended up coming to live at the NGO, where she met for the first time other kids that were living with HIV. For a while, she was doing well, but one weekend when Jenny and Geoff went out of town, the girl was beginning to get sick. When they came back, she was immobile in bed. They rushed her to the hospital and it was found that she had a CB4 count of only 2. Normal people have a CB4 count of 1,500-2,000. She was very sick. She did end up getting better and was even walking around again. However, with an immune system that low, she got sick again and ended up passing away. They built a playground in honor of her and have plans to expand the playground. Listening to the story definitely made me tear up. 11 year olds are still little kids and I can’t imagine an 11 year old having to go through that and being as strong as she was. It was definitely a touching story.

            Afterwards, we continued on to the sewing school. The sewing school is where kids go who have had to drop out of school for some reason or another. They are gifted a sewing machine upon arrival at the school and upon completion of the course, they get to keep it so that they can start their own business. Along with learning in the sewing school, the kids also take English classes so that they will be able to sell their products. Some of the things that they are able to make are just amazing. They are really talented individuals.

            We then continued our tour to the children’s village. We went to the baby house where there were 3 babies at the time. There was one baby who was maybe around 6 months old, another around maybe 3 months, and another baby just 6 weeks old. I’m not sure if those are the only babies living there right now, but we were told they are expected to get 7 more babies within the next couple of days, 2 of them being infant twins. All of the babies at this house have no mother. Some of the babies lost their mothers due to HIV or during childbirth. One baby even lost its mother because when the mother gave birth (at a hospital) they forgot to deliver the placenta and the mother ended up dying from an infection. It was really sad to see all these babies and know they have no mother. However, seeing the way the house mamas interact with and care for the babies definitely helped. You can tell that they care a lot for the babies. The way the children’s village works is each house tends to house different age children for the most part. Each house also has a house mama. The house belongs to her and she is encouraged to treat it like her own house. So you will often see different flowers or crops growing in front of all the children’s village houses. The house mamas stay consistent so that the kids get a sense of family.

            We also went to see the cow, it’s calf, and the garden. The cow just had a baby around Valentines Day. Ironically, it has a heart shape on its head as well so it is named Valentino.  It was really cute and a lot smaller than I was expecting. The garden was also really beautiful and a lot bigger than you would think it would be looking down on it. We ended our tour with lunch at Jenny and Geoff’s house where we went over the behavioral contract and things like that. After lunch, we returned to our house where I took a little nap. We had Tanzanian style burritos for dinner, which consisted of chapatti, tomatoes, avocado, onion, refried beans and cheese. They were very good.

After dinner, Justin, Amari, and Paulo came by to go over our schedules with us. Originally, we were supposed to work from 7:30-3:30 everyday. However, we still have to have Swahili class, our research methods class, and all the coursework for our other classes on top of that. Our professors gave us a large workload to do while here, so we were beginning to get a little overwhelmed. They ended up changing our day to working from only 7:30-12ish everyday. We will then return to our house for lunch and then after lunch we will have Swahili, research methods, or just study time from 1-4. After 4, we are free to do whatever we want which is nice. Some of this time will probably be spent on homework I’m sure, but this will give us more time to really enjoy our experience here. I’m sure maybe I will spend some of that time over at the baby house! All of those little babies are just so cute.

Some of the babies at the baby housing drinking uji (porridge)

The new baby cow, Valentino