Tunafunza (We are learning)

How time flies! One month ago we had just landed in Dar es Salaam and hadn’t even seen Berega yet. We’ve had so many experiences this month that it feels almost as if we have seen it all; although we know that’s not true. 

After the other volunteers arrived in Berega, we divvied up class schedules to everyone’s liking. Mike and I each have full schedules, with him teaching math, science and geography/history/civics to Standards 2, 3, and 4; and me teaching English, science, and reading/remedial reading to Standards 1 and 2. The kids have never had reading classes before; they have been taught how to read, but haven’t had classes where the aim was to think about their reading/reading comprehension, like we do in U.S., so it’s a bit of a stretch for them. I’m mostly teaching things like making predictions and using context clues, etc. in Standard 2, and in Standard 1, I’m just trying to get them to talk about their reading at all. (Most of the kids in Standard 1 have pretty weak English, so it’s difficult to get them to talk about anything at all in English, let alone a story they have been read to in English.) The kids are definitely getting used to us, and (from a teacher’s point of view) Mike has surprisingly good management skills for a first year teacher. Way better than I remember having.

Outside of school, things are going great with the kids, as well. Everyone knows where everyone lives in Berega (it’s TINY), so we have frequent visitors, especially from those kids who live nearby. We have definitely bonded with a lot of our kids, and it’s kind of the best. They are super helpful in teaching us about town, showing us where to buy things we need (or if Berega even has what we need!), and just coming over for laughs while they climb our trees. These kids are great kids, and they’re so happy with what they have, it’s hard not to admire them. 

A couple of weeks ago, we took a bus an hour away from the village to a town called Mkongeni, which has a big Maasai market every Saturday. We brought one of the Standard 4 kids with us, who is Maasai but not from that village, because he said he wanted to go (also a great asset for communicating). It was cool! We got to walk around all the different stands of people selling Maasai khangas (the rectangular-cut fabrics everyone seems to wear in a million different ways here), some jewelry, wood cuttings, weapons, and, of course, all the cattle they could wrangle up to sell. We had some tea and chapatti, as is custom in the mornings, and Mike was happy to get a machete and some kind of club. 

Just a week or so later, the same student invited all of us to a wedding celebration in his village. It was to take place last Monday, and we were all pretty psyched to go. Our head teacher made it a half day for us and arranged transport to bring us there and back. Then a half hour before we were supposed to leave, we found out that it had been postponed until Wednesday. Funny how often that kind of thing happens. Anyway, we left in a pickup truck, drove for about an hour, then hiked the rest of the way to the village because the roads (roads?) were too bad. We didn’t see any kind of celebration, really, but we were introduced to a lot of people from that village, as well as many who were visiting for the wedding, just like us.  We were told that Maasai weddings are generally a three-day long celebration, so it may have been that we missed the ceremony, that it hadn’t happened yet, or that their ceremonies just aren’t anything like ours and we didn’t recognize it as such. But we got to spend several hours there, and it was a really cool experience, even if a little confusing! 

Last weekend we were invited to go to the local church in the village by a couple of the British men who were here volunteering; it was their last Sunday before returning to the U.K. We were happy for the invitation (it is a little daunting going to church when you speak and understand so little of a language! - especially because we had been told we would have to introduce ourselves in front of the congregation). It was a great service, and there was even another pastor (our neighbor) translating for all of us wazungu (white people). It was great! So outside of the translation, we understood certain words, like “our Father”, “love”, and “Jesus Christ”, but we were super grateful to be able to understand the message with the translation. Anyway, the Brits are gone now, but we felt super welcomed at the church and will definitely try to make it regularly.

To help matters (both in that regard and just in living here), we started taking Swahili lessons from one of the local teachers. We have only had two lessons so far, but we will be taking them twice a week. It has been helpful, for sure, but we really need to practice, and that takes time. We’re great with our numbers and general market talk, which is necessary if you want to eat around here, but we still need to step it up. I guess I shouldn’t be complaining; a month ago, we knew no Swahili whatsoever, and right now we can get by ok in buying things at the market, restaurant, or duka. I am excited to see how much we know in another month! 

Yesterday, to top off our weekend, we went on a hiking trip up one of the mountains that we can see so clearly from the village. It was about a 20-minute piki-piki trip, and then an excruciating 2-hour hike to the top. Some of it wasn’t so bad; some of it was like vertical paths where you had to use your hands to pull you up. Man, I sucked. I want to think I really love hiking, but I think I’m secretly the world’s worst hiker. Mike was great and helped me a ton, but even coming down from the mountain was brutal. The kids from the neighboring village where the mountain is just took off their sandals and slid down all the dirt paths barefoot, but I’m not there yet. Nor anywhere close. It was a tiring trek, but I’m glad we did it (and I’m glad it’s over). But since I would love to eventually hike Kilimanjaro…looks like I have a lot of work cut out for me. :/

This weekend we are planning another trip to Morogoro, the small city that is about two hours away. It’s not as nice as Berega, not so calm, but it’s necessary to go there sometimes for supplies and cash. (Otherwise I think we’d both do without it.) But it does have pizza, and really good Indian food, and a lot of things we need around the house that we can’t buy in the village.  

That’s all for now. We are sorely missing home and all of its niceties, and all of you. Keep us in your prayers, think about us often, and don’t forget to reach out every once in a while! We probably won’t have electricity when you do, but it is wonderful to read messages from home (it gets pretty lonely around here sometimes). We love you all! 

Karibusana Tanzania!

We made it to Berega, Tanzania after many long flights and another long car journey. When we finally landed in Dar es Salaam and experienced how the airport works (visas, baggage -- wow -- and customs), we were greeted warmly by our driver (Abdullah) from school holding a sign with our names on it. He took us to a very nice hotel, where we slept for about 15 hours. The next morning, he picked us up and took us to the grocery store. We discovered that is actually very challenging to shop for things when you don't know what is in your house, and when you don't know the names/prices of anything, and when you don't know when the next time is that you will see any of this stuff. Also add to that that the first ATM we went to had no shilling, the next only let you take out $100USD at a time. Anyway, we survived that trip, made it to the market with fresh fruits and vegetables in Morogoro 4 hours later, and then even survived the extra 2 hours it took to get to Berega.

In spite of the incredible amount of sleep we had gotten, by the time we got to our house, we were pretty beat again. We unpacked, met another volunteer, and fell right back asleep. The next day, we took a walk around the village with the other volunteer, and she talked to us a lot about Berega and where we could find certain things we'll need. She introduced us to a couple of the students at the school, two of whom escorted us on our walk. We saw things like the orphanage in town, school, the hospital, the street where the market lines up, the Hands4Africa farms, and some beautiful places where you can go to get a great view of the mountains. We even checked out the grounds where they will be building the new school building. It was a great walk and helped us to feel a little less like strangers.

We went to what is affectionately known as Monday Market to Berega's English speakers and found that is extremely difficult to ask for or buy anything in a language you know nothing of. Since then, we have learned how to ask "how much does it cost?", "do you have ___?", "change", and our numbers, more or less, up to the thousands. (Tanzanian shillings start at 50, most things cost around 1-2,000, and the highest bill is 10,000.)

We went to school on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, to get a feel for it and meet some of the kids. The only grade currently in session is Standard 4; all of the younger kids start up again on the 17th. It's kind of nice, because we've been able to take this time to kind of get to know these kids on a deeper level than we would have if they all came back at the same time. Even though neither of us has a lot of experience with older kids, these ones are pretty sweet and straightforward. They're very helpful and have been practicing our basic Swahili (mostly greetings and numbers, at this point) with us, which is great. One of the boys is from a Maasai village and it takes him a couple of hours to walk home, so he stays at the school boarding. From what we've been told, other kids from Morogoro and even as far as Dar es Salaam board at the school because of its good reputation. I guess having native English speakers for teachers is a pretty big perk.

Teaching in Tanzania is also super different than what we had expected. It's nothing like in the States, but the kids still seem to learn and retain quite a lot. In the village, school really does seem to be a huge privilege for kids, and is certainly not an obligation, with most kids in the village not going at all. I guess it goes to show that kids will learn - it's inherit in their nature - when they want to, no matter what strategies or resources are available to them.

At first glance, life in Berega is kind of bittersweet: we have lost power every day for 4 days (sometimes it comes back on, but in the middle of the night); we have lost water on a couple of occasions; we took our first bucket showers yesterday after getting sick of waiting for electricity for warm water, and then losing water altogether; and the pikipiki (motorcycle) drivers are unforgiving and kick up dust and dirt that irritate your eyes like nothing in the world. However, the town is very welcoming (apparently the common thing to say in Swahili is "Karibu" - "Welcome" - or "Karibusana" - "Very welcome", so even when you talk to anyone in English, you hear nothing but, "You are very welcome!"); it's quiet and peaceful and slow-paced; and the kids are just fantastic. They're quick to come up and hold your hand, quick to give you hugs, quick to tell you they love you. They're so grateful to have us here and love spending all day (and a lot of the evening, too, at after school or just showing up at our house) talking to us or playing games with us.


This weekend, we are planning to go to Morogoro to do some shopping with the added bonus that Saturday is a national holiday called Nane Nane (literally 8 8, for August 8th, to celebrate farmers) and it is supposed to be pretty nice in the city. So we'll blog again soon, assuming we have power ;)