Reports from Tanzania

Here’s what we’re bringing around the world in 8 fifty-pound bags (don’t ask me how we’re pushing this stuff around at the airport):

• 100 pairs of shoes
• Mountain clothing
• Mountain emergency medicine for 150 guides
• More school supplies for orphans (we already sent 160 pounds worth via mail)
• 60 small backpacks
• Fun gifts for orphans

When one orphan heard he would receive a backpack, school materials, and a pair of shoes, he exclaimed, “I’ll be as rich as Obama!” Ha! If we all could have such a fabulous attitude with so little.

June 11, Rachel: Officially met Dr. Greg who is much like Clara and has a brain that moves at the speed of light and who can accomplish twelve things at once; Dr. Greg introduced us to other volunteers at the orphanage and showed us around some useful places in Moshi (like where to buy food, exchange money, etc.), and he brought us to see our new apartment.

Met Zainab otherwise known as “Mama Zara,” who is so well known that if anyone messes with us they will have to answer to her”“and that means a great deal in this town. She is another who can accomplish twelve things at once, and later this evening we’ll be working out some details about training the guides and porters on some basic medical stuff (this is more Clara’s area of expertise, but I’m eager to learn as well). Since she rescued us from customs and is providing our apartment, she has already proven herself to be a wonderful resource here.

June 11, Clara: We’re about to meet with Zainab who is already interested in having me train up the guides each day at 5 p.m. in the med kits we’re making. She figures if I do this for 15 days straight, I will have hit the majority of them as it’s during the busy season. I am in tech-weenie, germ freak heaven: I get to teach about germs, drugs, and saving lives in the backcountry and Rachel gets to be my dummy (imagine her with fake injuries, receiving practice shot after practice shot of an epi pen to the thigh, etc.). I’m sure there might be more to do for Zara, but that’s the starting plan for now.

We also visited the orphanage in the late afternoon. The kids were friendly, completely manic after a full day of school in their enclosed, 10 x 10 dirt yard and compound they call their home, and extremely touchy/sickly. Ew. I’m sure you all are rolling your eyes at the thought of me among them all. Ha! However, it’s evident they need so much love and support, so I’m going to rally and get excited about playing some educational games and teaching them songs/dances to music on some afternoons with Rachel. She’s a natural at dance. She’ll keep me in line with my manic germ tendencies as well. After all, pushing your own comfort zone once in a while is always a good thing.

June 15, Clara: Today, I trained our third set of mountain guides in basic emergency first aid and will be delivering 100 assigned pairs of shoes to the orphans in the next 20-90 minutes (African time). The orphans all traced their feet on a piece of paper with their name before naptime yesterday, and Rachel patiently chose shoes for each in our apartment all morning yesterday and today with the help of my guide friend,  who deciphered if they were female or male shoes. No flashing pink shoes for little Anushai”“not good for the growing male African ego.

June 16, Clara: It’s official: I fell in love with the orphans today. We set up our own African Foot Locker in the small office this afternoon and, with Rachel’s guesstimation size assignments from the previous day’s foot outlines, Dr. Greg helped us call in two orphans at a time for fittings. Rachel was in her element as the shoe fundraising project was her true baby back in the States”“she had a teacher’s organization and quick fix-it mind ready to use at any moment for an ill-fitting shoe. I, on the other hand, practiced my Swahili while assisting every other orphan who sat on the magical couch of shoe gifting. I first started with “sawa?” (okay?) and soon advanced to “sawa au kubwa?” (okay or too big?). Lucy, the head matron and part-time teacher, has taken a liking to me and helped me piece together more sentences every now and then.

…As I saw the orphans’ eyes literally alight with the knowledge that they had a brand-new pair of our very used shoes, all saying, “Thank you, Teach-ah,” to both of us as they walked out, I realized that if I had traveled halfway across the world for just this moment, it would have been worth it. I have a picture of all of them literally tumbling over each other to come inside the doorway (Dr. Greg had to reprimand them often to stay back). One girl, Glori, about ten years, was a bit shy and I was trying to see if her heel was slipping in a pair of pink shoes that light up like a mini-disco ball when you step. I encouraged her to jump up and down; when she saw the dance party happening on her toes, peals of laughter erupted and she spun around freely, arms extended, like a woman in one of those allergy medicine commercials in the middle of an open, floral field breathing clearly for the first time. I took her hands and we sashayed a few feet to the other wall and back as I randomly crooned the melody from “New York, New York.” We even had a bonus Croc fitting at the end for ten or so of the orphans so that we could take several pictures for the company back in Boulder with the hope of further sponsorship.

This experience, matched with the first aid discussions I’ve been having with Zara guides every day at noon, has been deeply satisfying on a spiritual level. In this country with so little, you give up the luxury of self-absorption America teaches you and simply reach out. I can’t anticipate what the next two weeks will bring, but I am eager to keep learning about a style of living we would all do well to emulate.

June 19, Clara: Perhaps the biggest update in the past few days is the chaos we have come to embrace at the orphanage. We are almost to the halfway point in our trip, and no one is ever at the orphanage who says they will be there and the proclaimed scheduled time for our teaching/enrichment program has yet to be held. Furthermore, we have discovered that although the orphans respond well to structured (with running incorporated) language games, their attention span is limited after a full day of school and they cannot share supplies/toys without turning on each other in a fight. This is certainly understandable: in an impoverished “family” of nearly fifty, a balloon becomes a valuable commodity to keep under your bunk bed or to lord in front of one of your weaker siblings. Match this with a lack of discipline (we need one of the two lead males, Dr. Greg or Teacher, around) and local schools who still hit children into submission, and our grandiose ideas of boosting each orphan’s English skills by a full level wane. However, we have not lost heart! We purchased a boombox this morning in town so that we can turn every lesson into a kinesthetic, musical experience (two techniques the orphans respond well to), and we return with the Hokey Pokey (both in Kiswahili and English), YMCA, and a sentence relay game this afternoon. Also, we remind ourselves that simply bringing shoes and backpacks for each orphan while also providing the touch and attention they so desperately need is beneficial. And, of course, we bask in the sheer success and efficiency of our medical training with the guides as well!

June 23, Rachel: …We take delight and pleasure in each new day here. We often comment that although we have a “schedule,” it’s laughable, because one never knows what is going to happen, or how it will happen here, not to mention how long it will take.  Laundry could take one hour, or four hours depending on electricity, how long it takes to boil water, how many people stop by to visit while one is doing the laundry, if they want to help with the laundry, etc. etc.  A trip to “quick get water” could take five minutes, or two hours as you might run into someone whom we’ve met and they might want to take us to just the “right” store but then stop to run ten errands on the way.  The whole thing makes me laugh, mostly because Clara still finds it hugely exasperating due to lack of “efficiency”; boy does she love efficiency! Ha! I don’t mind anymore. If I get one thing accomplished in a day, it is a good day. And though there just isn’t enough time for me to express it, I feel myself  changing here. I’m slowing down and looking more. I may not be breathing as deeply, but metaphorically speaking, I am. I delight in the pattern of just walking to get where I want, eating when I am hungry, and just being.

June 27, Rachel: I am reminded of the maxim “the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” Not only is this familiar since I teach it, but the sentiment truly holds in the case of our experience here. Back in the U.S., our mission seemed crystal-clear. After nine months of detailed e-mailing to both Teacher (the founder of the orphanage and daycare program as well as a local preschool) and Dr. Greg (the full time doctor volunteer originally from Alaska who now lives in Moshi), Clara and I felt we had an idea of what we were facing. My own research on African education taught me a few things that I felt would be useful as we approached teaching here. I learned that classrooms in the typical public school held 40-60 students. These students sit in desks, sometimes 3 to one desk. I learned that the student to teacher ratio is about 45-1. Therefore, I thought these students would love nothing more than to reinforce their skills with some kinesthetic learning opportunities and games. So that is what Clara and I planned”“kinesthetic and tactile English learning games geared toward the more advanced English learners. That is not, however, what we got.

Since arriving, I’ve learned more details that bring some clarity to this educational environment. Corporal punishment is the norm in most, if not all, public schools (not the ones founded by Teacher, though!). Rote memorization and regurgitation with loads of repetitive homework are the strategies for learning in not just public, but also in private schools. There is no such thing as “differentiation” for learners or “kinesthetic learning” not to mention Bloom’s taxonomy. Students are simply assessed at various levels and they either move up to the next level, or they don’t. If they don’t move up, they can continue studying and assess again, but after a while, many of these students give up and quit school. The drop-out rate is staggeringly high. As if the students’ struggles weren’t hard enough, Tanzania’s teachers are, ironically, those who couldn’t get degrees in anything else: they were not qualified as competent, so in desperation (so that they wouldn’t be on the street jobless), the government gave them teaching certificates and hired them in the public schools. THIS is the environment we walked into so confidently two weeks ago.

Our passion and enthusiasm for our task has not waned, but reality has sobered us just a touch. The older students (who we had initially planned to be working with daily) are simply too burned out by their morning lessons and loads of homework each day to want to work with two American teachers who are volunteering. Instead, they watch us warily as if our techniques are foreign to them (which indeed they are!). They sit and either work on their homework, or they help the matrons with laundry, cooking, and other household chores, much as an older sibling might in any family (except with over 50 members including matrons, this family is much larger!). They also have additional evening studies with Teacher each day, as clearly outlined on the office wall, so I can appreciate their resistance to give up the few minutes of independent time they have.  Therefore, it is the younger children who flock to us. These kids range from about 4-9. Some are Muslim, some are Christian, but ALL attend church on Sundays (for no less than three hours, so we are told). Though they are taught to be “good,” family dramas ensue often and little fights or temper tantrums break out sporatically, particularly among the smaller boys who love to punch and kick their way to what they want. Our firm “hapanas” (no’s) have little effect, however, so we rely heavily on Lucy, the head matron who speaks English quite well and who helps us keep order. If Lucy is unable to be there (after all, she has other duties and chores to attend to herself), Clara and I have discovered that our task triples in difficulty.

It is on these days that I am eternally grateful for my classroom management skills (and the fact that they work!) in my Colorado classroom. I have discovered how much more difficult it is to build rapport with a child when I do not speak that child’s mother tongue (though my Swanglish is improving, I would say I speak like a four-year-old). That is not to say that I haven’t made connections. Alfonsi (a sweet faced little boy of about six) has endeared himself to both Clara and myself by “helping us” as we arrive each day. He loves to pull our notecards and other teaching materials out, help us to remember names, and organize things for us. His grin is infectious and I can tell he will grow to be quite the charmer. His favorite move these days is to leap into our arms and then stick up his thumb in a positive “thumbs up” pose. Perhaps if he is strong, he will one day be a guide on en lima (the mountain), a good job for many of the men in Moshi. Then there is Esther. Esther adores posing for our cameras, and she has a sassy pout which speaks of someone who has studied fashion magazines. She loves to dance, and even performed a traditional dance for us just two days ago. Glory is shy and prefers to be on the other side of the camera, but her round face lights up when we single her out for attention and her giggles are infectious. Richard is a born leader, and at 9 he is well on his way. He learns quickly, has a strong grasp of English, and I think he has a secret crush on Clara as he watches her every move and looks to show off to her whenever he can. Older girls like Mwanaidi refuse to participate in our learning games, but yet she mysteriously knows the moves to every dance I’ve taught. I’ve grown to look forward to her daily hugs as she says “good afternoon, Teacher.” Jenipha 1 (there are four Jenipha’s so they are numbered according to their ages) has a knowing smirk. She is a rockstar at cat’s cradle and jumping rope. Maurini and Brighti are the two littlest sisters, Brighti having just gone through HIV therapy so she is sensitive and cries often. However, both girls adore wearing frilly princess dresses (even in the blazing heat they wear velvet and lace!), with no worries about dirt or practicality. Other girls aren’t quite so “girly,” but they adore individual attention (as any child would). Jenipha 2 is wicked-smart and often wins at our language charades game. Novati and his twin Regi are both eager to please. Sometimes I catch Regi watching me and when I smile, he ducks his head as he blushes. Each day I learn more names and grow more fond of these children. My heart breaks for them as I think of how uncertain their futures are. Agnes wants to be a lawyer, and though she works tremendously hard in school, there is no guarantee that she will ever reach that goal. In my classroom in Colorado, I teach my students knowing that the majority will go to college and even grad school. I do not question their paths, and I believe that if they want to grow up to be doctors and lawyers and engineers, then they will.  The children here will be lucky to grow up healthy and go on to any career or profession. They will not necessarily have choices; as one guide told us openly when we asked if he liked his job, “I have to love my job. It is the only job I have.”

Today I am thankful for choices. I always have a choice, and I teach my students that they have choices as well. I didn’t realize what a gift “choice” really is.

I don’t know how significant Clara and my impact will be on the children here. It is true we have introduced them to new techniques and practices, but I do not know if it will have any lasting effect. Yes, their English has improved a bit, and that is important. Yes, they have had fun and (hopefully) will use the resources well. The shoes, backpacks, CD player and educational CDs, the extention cord and learning supplies will absolutely go to good use. However, we have only 5 days left here before we begin our long journey home. I am thankful for what I’ve learned as I hope to take these lessons back to the states with me. I know now that the children of the Kilimanjaro Orphanage Centre do not attend public school; they attend private school. Who pays for this, you might ask? Sponsors including Dr. Greg, Zainab Ansell of Zara Tours, and Americans and Europeans who have found the link on the website and who wish to help. Upon my return, I hope to persuade my students to do a little fundraising and perhaps sponsor one orphan’s education for a year. Will this solve all his/her problems in life? Of course not, but it might just offer them a choice they would not have had otherwise.

July 6, Rachel: I have returned state-side, and after a couple nights of catch up sleep, some scorchingly hot showers and a pedicure, I’m starting to feel like an American once more. Some highlights of my last few days and nights in Tanzania:

• Learning a South African line dance that has become hugely popular all across Africa
• Watching Clara eat a whole fish which she tried to saw in half with a butter knife
• Meeting the families of our guides and being warmly welcomed with open arms
• Being gifted a rooster whom we promptly named “La La”
• Traveling with said rooster on a packed city bus; thankfully he only pooped once
• Traveling with said rooster on the back of a motorbike as we rode to the orphanage to say our goodbyes
• Giving “La La” to the orphans who were thrilled at the prospect of eating him
• Hugging the orphans and providing them myself as a human jungle gym as we said our goodbyes (thankfully, I kept my tears contained until after exiting the orphanage gate)
• Getting incredible views of Kilimanjaro from the airplane as we departed

…This experience has been life changing. I had a feeling it would be, but I wasn’t prepared for the emotional connection I would feel to a country and people literally half a world away. I don’t know what the future holds for me. I don’t know if I’ll go back any time soon. But in the words of our knowledgeable African guides Frankie and Julius, “why not?” After all, “hakuna matata” isn’t just a catch-phrase here. It’s a way of life. So with “no worries” in mind, I push forward toward my next adventure”“whatever that may be.

Thank you all for providing such wonderful support to me during this journey!