26th April 2010 - Union Day

Today is Muungano Day here in Tanzania. Muungano means “Union” and it’s the day that commemorates the union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar into the United Republic of Tanzania. It’s always nice to have an extra day to play around with.

Yesterday was the Sunday when parents visit the girls at school, and so I met some new people again. They come to visit and then have an opportunity to meet with the teachers and to ask how their daughters are doing, etc. It’s a nice chance to get to know them a little and to share insights about the students. Of course those who don’t have visitors get a little down in the mouth, but hopefully that doesn’t last long.

On Saturday I had a nice visit from a former student of Murigha. When she phoned I couldn’t quite recall who she was, but of course recognized her when we met. As we talked I began to remember her story. She applied for and was accepted as a student in 2000, but her mother came to me and said that she really couldn’t pay her school fees as required but she begged me to allow her come to school and she’d try to pay little by little. She was a widow, with a couple younger children as well, and just didn’t have any means to get much extra money. I agreed that Ashura could come to school, and for four years I met her mother innumerable times, as she would bring minuscule amounts of money. Sometimes it would be only a couple thousand shillings (out of the 300,000 that were supposed to be paid), other times one pencil, or a jar of the cheapest lotion, or a bar of the cheapest soap. But Ashura was a good student academically, and a fantastic worker. She worked with the cows a lot, and was very responsible in everything that she was assigned to do. When there would be some money coming in for scholarships or school fees, I’d make sure that some of it went into Ashura’s account. And so she finished her four years of secondary school, and then was chosen to go on to Teacher’s Training College. By that time I had left Murigha and was back in the U.S. and so didn’t hear from her during those years. So having her phone out of the blue was a real surprise. She was here in Dodoma to take an entrance examination for further studies in adult education, and I hope and pray that she gets this opportunity to advance herself. Right now she’s teaching in a primary school in Singida region, in a remote village to which she has to walk nine kilometers after getting off a bus. As is usual in many village primary schools, there are more kids than teachers should have to deal with, and she teaches science to 80 to 100 kids in one classroom. It’s a real miracle that kids learn anything with conditions like that, but it’s testimony to the dedication of the teachers that they do. Anyway, it was wonderful seeing Ashura again, and to know of her successes. Her mother’s belief that education would change Ashura’s life has borne fruit.

12th April 2010 – Back to School

Today we were back in the classroom after two weeks of a change of pace. It was nice to have had lots of time to do organizing and catching up, etc. but I realize how much I missed the kids. It was great to see them again this morning, and they seemed fairly ready to get down to work immediately. They were all back except for two, who are reported to be sick, so that’s good. No slacking off with these students.

We are definitely into a change of season, with the windows beginning to rattle at night with the wind. The dust is more and more visible on our bookshelves and other furniture as well, so that means we’re moving into the dry season. But looking around outside there is still so much to bring enjoyment to our eyes. Every open space, i.e., any space that doesn’t have building going on, or farming going on, is filled with wild flowers ( or some would say “weeds that bloom”) – yellow ones, white ones, purple ones – some very tall, some medium height and some creeping on the ground or climbing on whatever they find to climb on. The shapes of the flowers and their shades of colors are so many and so lovely. The millet is also getting ripe and will be ready for harvest before too long. One problem with millet is that the grains are so small and so well-loved by the birds. Birds perch on the top of a head of millet and just start eating from the top down until they have had enough to eat. People try tying all kinds of things on the stalk or over the head, but I still see missing grains on mostly all heads. Every creature has to eat, I guess.

Easter was quiet here but nice. We do notice more noise during the days when the primary school children are at home rather than at school, but on the whole they aren’t at all bothersome. It’s actually nice to hear them at play outside, with their giggles tickling us as well.

30th March 2010 – Holy Week

We have finished the first half-term of school and so now have two weeks of vacation. The students from other towns went home by bus early on Saturday morning and the rest dribbled out later on Saturday morning. They were SO excited to be going home and anxious to see their families and friends. They were relieved to have finished three days of mid-term exams, and of course are now anxious to see their results. I chuckle at them and their intensity. They agonize over the questions that they don’t know the answers to and the expressions on their faces as they think are memorable. Some of them lay their heads on their desks, I guess thinking that the answer will pop up through the wood! It will be good for them to have a little rest and relaxation from the stress of getting used to a new school, being away from home, new classmates, studying in a language not theirs, in short, all the new things they’ve been confronted with during the past three months.

I spent many hours marking their exams and once again it seems like 90 papers never end. There were some laughs along the line, however. One of the sections had to do with new vocabulary that we had just learned, and one part of that vocabulary was the names of places and another part was the names of young animals. One answer that I got for the place where bees live was “bees home”. Sure. And the answers for young animals were the best: A young cat is called a “catlet”; a young sheep a “sheeplet”, or the best for a young sheep, a “piglet”. We’ll need to do some revision of those words ……

I celebrated my birthday by being on the bus for 12 straight hours! We Maryknoll Sisters had a meeting in Arusha over the weekend so I had to travel on Thursday. I had called a taxi the day before to pick me up here at 6.00 a.m. for a 6.30 bus. When he hadn’t appeared yet at 6.15 I started to phone him, and after a couple tries he answered and said that he was on his way. He arrived at 6.22 and we flew to the bus station. We arrived, I got on the bus, and the bus took off. (The taxi driver found a flat tyre on his car when he woke up and had to rush around trying to find another car. That’s not easy to do when so few people own cars.) The trip was fine; safe and just long. The bus is big, can hold 50 passengers, but the driver seems to do his job effortlessly. At one point he was eating peanuts from the shell, talking on his cell phone, passing a long lorry, all while driving us. All the religious symbols he has near him on the bus must do some good as talismans for protection; he’s got some from every religion under the sun.

We have had some rain this week after quite some time of none so that is hopeful. There was needed a few more showers in order to bring the crops to their desired state, so this was very good. The weather is cooling off considerably, especially at night. We almost need to pull a sheet up at night now .
Do you want to know one thing I’ve noticed about getting older (notice I say “older” and not “old”) is that I can’t change a light bulb anymore! Now that may not be a problem for many, but we have a time trying to get someone to change a bulb. Why? Well, it seems they’re really high up. We find that we don’t have the balance that we used to have, and so climbing even a short step ladder and reaching up is challenging to balance. The youngsters we know who would be happy to help us don’t have these kind of lights at home and so don’t know how to remove fixtures and change bulbs. Others are busy, working until late at night and asking them to come seems like an imposition. I never thought I’d see the day when changing light bulbs was a big problem …

We’re in Holy Week now and may you all have a blessed one. When we arrived at the church on Palm Sunday, we found almost no one there. It was only after a little while that someone came up to us and asked us if we weren’t going for the Palm Sunday procession. Where was it? At the main road, about a ten minute walk away. We should have known that we were out of the information loop when no one else was in the church waiting for Mass to begin. Anyway, the procession was great. Lots of people, lots of singing, lots of tree/bush branches being waved.

Happy and blessed Easter to all.

15th March 2010 – Always Listen to Advice

Sometimes I wonder why it takes some of us so long to heed advice from those who have more experience in certain matters. Here is how I learned the lesson in a less than easy way.

For a couple weeks we had a family of wasps building a house on our gate, a couple of feet from the door through which we go in and out. Everyone who had visited us had noticed this construction going on and each one warned us about how severe the sting of a wasp can be and advised us on how to get rid of them: Some day after dark, spray the family with insecticide so as to slow them down, then knock down the house and crush it. Well, I delayed, and continued to watch them grow bigger, to increase in number, the house to get larger. Saturday morning when returning from praying with our Small Christian Community, I opened the gate and was immediately stung by one of them. I came into the house and made a paste of bicarbonate of soda and water, applied it, and the pain quickly became a little less. I was teaching within a short time and so rushed off to do that. The students noticed my white flaky arm (dried baking soda paste) but I explained what had happened and went on with the class. The pain and the swelling weren’t bad on Saturday but Sunday, Sunday night, Monday, Monday night the redness and itchiness were really severe. By Tuesday the swelling was down and the itching tolerable. I kept thinking about how it would have felt like to have more than one of those creatures do the stinging, or what if it had been a child that was stung. By next time I may have learned to listen to advice.

The last Sunday of the month is visiting day at school and teachers are asked to be there to discuss with any parents who want to their concerns about their daughters. On the last Sunday of February there were quite a few parents who came to visit, including one with a baby who has been born since her daughter came to school. It was a thrill for Doreen to get to meet her little sister! There was crying and laughing going on, both from those who had visitors and those who watched from a distance while others embraced their mothers. The parents that I talked to were concerned about their daughters, asking about their progress in their lessons, about their discipline at school, how they behave, how they get along with the other students, etc. And inevitably they thanked me for not only teaching their daughters but also for caring for them, guiding them, helping them develop.

1st March 2010 - Another New Month

Another month has passed and all is well here; I hope the same is true for readers of this rambling blog. We continue to have some lovely rains, and everything is green and beautiful. The corn and the millet look so tall and green and healthy, and the peanuts look great, too. With all of the sandy soil around, I guess peanuts (called “groundnuts” here) do very well. Right now many fields of them are in bloom so they are pretty with their little yellow flowers. We have had a taste of some of this year’s crop already and they are fat and nice. Last year was the third bad year in a row for crops in this area, so people are about at the end of their food supply. The hope that the good rains has given this year is a great boost. Of course, I don’t know if the same is true all over the country or just in our immediate area, but this rainy season has made people very happy.

I spent what seemed like hours and hours marking papers this past week. Monday and Tuesday of this week were days for giving monthly tests, and so after giving the test there remains what? Right, marking them, of course. It seems like 90 papers are never ending, and I got really tired of some of those sentences before I could finally put them away. As expected, there were some high marks (in the 90’s) and some low marks (19 and 20). Some of those with low marks shed a few tears when I returned the papers…. School pass mark is 45 and supposedly they will be returned home if they don’t manage to get that average, hence the tears. They will be given some time yet but still it makes them anxious, of course.

Last Sunday I had a couple visitors, both young girls who have just finished their A (Advanced) Level examinations at different schools here in Dodoma. One is the daughter of a fellow who was one of the first employees at the school in Singida and she was just a little tyke when I last saw her. The other is the daughter of a teacher at that same school. She was in her first year of secondary when I left Murigha, and now she’s finished those four years plus two years of A level. She wants to be a doctor so badly; if she does well in the exams she just did, she has a chance at one of the four medical schools here in Tanzania. The government helps girls who pursue careers in science but she’ll still need extra financial help. Her parents are very supportive with whatever they have: her father has a teacher’s salary (not fantastic) and her mother farms and also does some sewing for people. The other girl also wants to go to University, and is aiming for a career in accounting. Both are lovely girls, hard working, smart, charming. May their hopes be fulfilled.

15th February 2010 - Green everywhere

Happy Valentine’s Day to all. I hope everyone enjoyed the day yesterday.

We’ve had some lovely rains in the past two weeks; none was too hard or destructive but nice and gentle just when needed. The green everywhere is so soothing to the eyes, and the little wild flowers that have begun blooming are so pretty. There are many butterflies and moths, and hordes of insects. One morning we found gazillions of little black bugs all over outside, and inside wherever they could manage to get in. They have an odor which isn’t all that pleasant, so we’ve been trying to get rid of them little by little. I don’t know where they hide when we sweep. When we think we’ve got them all swept up and turn around, there are a bunch more. It’s obvious that every living creature likes the rain as much as we do.

My flowers are beginning to bloom and they are lovely. They are a very common flower and grow very easily and fast; I don’t know what they’re called (maybe some kind of zinnia?). I should have put some more manure around when I planted them but I didn’t and even so they are still nice for the eyes. I have them in three different places: by the septic tank , on the side of the house, and outside the wall in front of the house between the gates. The ones on the side of the house are really spindly since the soil there is a mixture of left-over cement from when the house was built and pieces of rock. Still it’s amazing that they’ve grown at all.

I want to share with you an incident of a morning last week, one that happens over and over and typifies the spirit of hospitality one meets so often here in Tanzania. I had just arrived at school and was walking toward the teachers’ office when I met a woman. She is one of many who are working on the school compound, cleaning up the construction mess, carrying cement or water or whatever else needs to be moved from one place to the other, or doing any other odd job that might need to be done. These women come every morning with the hopes of being hired for the day, in order to get enough money to buy what is needed for herself and her children. She was carrying a cup of tea and a few maandazi (something like bread but is fried, maybe more like a doughnut) on a plate. When we greeted one another, she held out the tea and maandazi and said, “Njoo, tunywe chai,” meaning, “Come, let’s go drink tea.” Of course I thanked her, and then continued on my way, marveling all the while. Even after all these years of living here I still don’t have that same kind of spontaneous reaction that she has, the one that invites another person to share whatever she has.

Yesterday we were in church for three hours at a special Mass for the children who were joining the Holy Child Society. There were probably about 40 of them, dressed in white shirts/tshirts, some with yellow skirts or trousers, and all with a yellow headband on their heads. They danced in, and danced to all the songs that the choir sang, and were they ever dear. Some started out barefoot and some with shoes but by the end there were more bare feet than not. It was obvious that they had practiced a lot, and their gestures followed the songs so nicely. Everyone was so happy and joyful and singing and swaying along with the children. It was the long windedness of the Padre and the chairman of the parish council that made the time seem long; watching the children was a joy.

1st February 2010 – Fruit in Season

Every day, every meal, I seem to be making a remark about the wonderful fruit we’re eating these days. This month has us enjoying absolutely luscious mangoes, exceedingly sweet pineapple, and plums that are a wonderfully nice change. The mangoes that are big come from Tabora or Morogoro, and the smaller ones from Tanga region. Pineapples come from near Dar es Salaam, while the plums arrive from the mountains near Lushoto. You’ll note that none of this fruit comes from Dodoma where we live. This region is normally just too dry for such fruit, and so we get it trucked in from all these other places. There is something so extravagant about the mangoes and pineapples – they are just SO sweet, SO fleshy, SO juicy. I love going to the market and buying these things, interacting with the vendors who spend their day selling fruits, vegetables, rice, beans, everything under the sun. Most of the time I engage a young boy to carry my basket. They are always around asking to carry baskets of the people who are shopping, and so I usually give my basket to one of them who then gets a tip when we finish going around the market. The first time that I did that here after years away I didn’t know how much to give as a tip. I gave him 200/-and was looking for some more to give him when he said thank you and walked away! 200/- is about 15¢ US so I guess that won’t break the bank ….

These days there aren’t a lot of green vegetables like spinach sold in the market because since the rains have begun the native plants have come up and folks go out and pick them to cook for their green vegetable. However, not far from here is a windmill, and there are very small plots of vegetables, mostly spinach, that people grow there near the water source. It’s nice to go there in the evening to buy a couple bundles of spinach and then come home to cook it for dinner.

This week there were several homes destroyed in this section of the city, destroyed by a bulldozer. They were homes of the traditional type, with mud brick walls and either earth roofs or maybe some pieces of aluminum roofing sheets. If they had roofing sheets, those things were taken off first, and then the houses were destroyed. We don’t know the whole story but most folks say that these were houses of folks who had already been compensated for their land and given other land to move to but who hadn’t done that yet. And I don’t know if it was because these plots belong to someone else or if they are to be used for some development purpose. Anyway, two houses very near us were razed, but the people who lived there had another place and had moved the night before the bulldozer came. They’re very philosophical about it, so I suspect that they knew it was inevitable. I just hope justice was done.