Sitting alone in my Pawpaw Tree

As I was putting on my backpack today to roll on into town, a dead bird fell out. An ominous beginning, no? Since the internet cafe is my first stop, I haven't had anything drastic happen....yet. We'll see though. Today is the first day I will go to the TRA (the IRS of here) and attempt to thwart the customs men from charging a box I got sent. Apparently they are legendarily capricious and sometimes charge quite a lot, up to fifty American dollars, for someone (white) just to receive a package. However, word on the street is that they are -gasp!- bribe takers. Sometimes a little under the table grease gets the package over the table a bit easier. The best part is, they're not pretentious about their bribes. From what I hear, anything and everything flies. If you get a big box of candy, alright we'll take a Snickers! Some new shoes? Gimme them laces. So I guess its sort of a game to see how and what you can give them to retain the rest of your belongings. I've never tried this sort of haggling, but my Swahili has been on point lately, so I'll give it a go. I even asked Ester to give me some greetings in the local tribal language, Kihaya. I practiced them on the "mzungu" walk into town, with inspiring success (by the way, nearly every email I got since that last post has involved that word somehow referencing me. Thank you for the empathy, my fellow wazungu...). Every person whom I greeted properly stopped walking and turned around to face me with a jaw-hanging-to-their-chest amazed sort of look, which generally broke into a giant smile and some sort of response which I couldn't follow. It made me realize how much of an effect learning Kihaya could have on my stay here. Sure, a lot of the foreigners learn Swahili, thats pretty common. Some of them are even fluent. But its not every day an mzungu rolls on by with a truly local greeting. At first I was planning on not learning Kihaya, as greater Bukoba is the only place its spoken in the world, but now I'm reconsidering. Sure, I'll never use it again, but who knows what could happen while I'm here. It may even save me a Snickers bar and shoelaces at TRA. We'll see...
In other news, I've got a few questions for y'all. I mentioned sometime that I was planning on trying to implement a music program at school. The secondary schools, they are all business. There is no art program or music program (one and the same?), and I think the students miss out on something. So I'm hoping for....exposure of music I suppose. There is hope, as some of the local drum music is great. There is sadness, as most everyone prefers American rap over it. Right now my plan is to petition Peace Corps for a grant to get some sort of simple instruments (read: recorders) with which I can teach the students some basics of music. In conjunction with that, I will have a music hour once a week in the computer lab (Aaron willing...) where I show them different types of music. We'll see how it works. I already talked to the headmaster, and he gave me a "you're on your own, but that sounds great!" kind of statement. So I guess I'm looking for ideas. Despite my plans, I really don't know where to start. Does anyone have any great memories of something music-related from school? Or a method of learning about music they particularly enjoyed? Preemptive thanks for the help has been given.
Second, one of my fellow teachers, a young guy with the unfortunate name Oswald (no offense if you are reading this and also named Oswald) has been asking me a lot about how he can go to university. I have been trying to give him ideas and encouragement, but there is a real issue with funding here. He did extremely well in his biology exit exams from form 6, and is looking to go into medicine. The amazing thing about his story is that he was orphaned at the age of 7 or so, and some sort of orphans' trust fund paid all his school fees up through A-level of secondary school. Unfortunately, this fund has never had a student progess with the drive and ability of Oswald; he is the first to have attending a university as a legitimate prospect. They are not equipped with the kind of funds to send him even to public university. I tried seeing about loans or scholarships, but both are in rare supply, so that's out. I've given him the best advice I have, but as it stands unless a benefactor appears I somewhat doubt he will continue his education. So my question is this: Does anyone know of any sort of grants/scholarships/places to find funding for a case like his? Or does anyone have any advice that I could pass on to him? Again, anything helps (knowledge-wise, keep your money in your pockets for now).
That's it for now. I am in the slow process of posting some pictures of my house and whatnot. My aunt had the brilliant idea to have a caption contest. So if you see a picture that strikes you as needing a witty caption, be free and add it. Otherwise, take care, and congrats Mikey G. on getting married, big fella.

Affirmative Action?

Well, my brother keeps riding me to post new entries despite my simple routine, so I will attempt to cater to his whims. I've written about my daily life here, and covered some of the more major events as far as school goes and whatnot, but I suppose that I've somewhat ignored the rest of my experience here. How the Tanzanians outside of my school setting live and breathe, how I relate to them, cultural differences and so on. Well, a few years ago I took a short month-long vacation to Japan. Prior to departing, I spent a decent amount of time studying up on customs and so on, in order to not commit any drastic mistakes (such as shaking hands with your left here...look it up). In my inquiries, I found many testaments to the disparation that occured between the Japanese people and the "gaijin," also known as me. From reading these accounts, I had fully expected to be ogled, asked to be in pictures, converse in English, and a myriad of other activities. Well, somewhat to my disappointment this did not happen, in the least. Once, when I was on a small local train near a small local village near the larger (and wonderful) village of Nara, two small children were amazed by my presence, and came over to see if I was real. I managed to mangle a Japanese greeting and picked one up and swung him around. They were pretty happy about that. But seriously, other than that I felt like I was just another person, especially in Tokyo.
I suppose you can see where I am headed with this... Anyway, before coming here to Tanzania, I didn't study about customs (Peace Corps gives us plenty of in-country instruction on all subjects), and I didn't hear any stories of alienation or recognition of racial difference. In fact, perhaps due to my Japanese experience, I assumed that white folks were just another part of life here and that Tanzanians were no longer impacted by our presence. Not so. The walk from Ihungo Secondary to Bukoba town takes me through several miles of small, rural homesteads and pseudo-villages. Well, I didn't hear the word gaijin once when I was in Japan, but let me say that its Swahili equivalent, "mzungu," has become omnipresent. I have become so attuned to this word that I can pick it out when a small child tries to yell to me from a quarter mile away. Which happens for the entirety of the walk. "Mzungu! Mzungu!" Once the chant begins, all the children running about these ruralities (and like I said, there are many, many children here) pick it up, and it becomes my mantra. Occasionally, on the more celebrant days, a horde of children will form a party behind me, clapping their hands with each successive chant. This continues, with varying frequency, everywhere here. Heads turn, and the "Hey look, a white guy!" shouts begin. It is a strange feeling, to be so obviously in the minority, and have it thrown in my face constantly.
What does all this attention mean? Well, for one, I cannot be discreet. When I'm around, people know it. Some days I'll hear yells from behind houses, from bathrooms, from god-knows-where. Some fellow going about his business heard the chant and picked it up, despite having no idea who he is yelling at. So discretion is out the window, get used to being noticed. Alright, I've squared myself with that one. What about favors? Its known, by us and the Tanzanians, the polarization in money between our countries. So this attention attracts some particularly needy or sometimes lazy folks who try soliciting us for any number of things. Requests either myself or Aaron have received range from "Give me your sugar to help my sore teeth" to "Take to to America with you," and more generally are concerning our spare change. That problem is a bit harder to handle than all the shouts. What to do...? I know that I can afford, easily afford, to toss a few shillings the way of that guy who's got polio and can't walk. But then what? Everytime he sees me, he expects the same treatment, and even extrapolates that behavior to all Americans. We all have extra money, and should help out those in more dire need, and if we don't, well that's because we are bad people. This is not my line of thought, but its one I've been introduced to. What do you think? I am polite and greet people, but thats where it ends for now. The poverty level is too high for me to make any difference greater than the one I am attempting to make by teaching.
Before you think, "That must be terrible to not have any privacy once you leave your house," or some such thought, I must defend the Tanzanians. One well-placed greeting will cause the multitude of chanting children to erupt into joy that the white man knows how to say hi. A smile is always, always matched with a smile the same size, if not bigger. So on most days, not only is the "mzungu" song tolerated, I take it with a smile. There is no insult intended, they are just happy and surprised to see me, the legendary white beast. Its a strange welcome, but an earnest, if a bit overdone. I'll try to remain good-humored about it (some foreigners take it as the most wicked of insults and end up bitter and resentful) and greet stares with smiles, yells with hellos.

Questions?

Since I last wrote, not a whole lot has happened. The school "officially opened," which means that all the O-level students arrived. However, as this is Tanzania where no one takes education seriously (except perhaps me and one or two others), only about a quarter of the students have shown up. Also, only some of the teachers have reported for duty. The school is in a sort of limbo now, as we wait for the rest to show up. The reason behind the absences is singular- money. The students are not allowed to attend classes until they have paid their school fees. Well, as Tanzania is one of less financially succesful countries in the world, the general populace doesn't tend to have a lot of spare change floating around. So what happens is the students' families have to scrounge and save the school fees, and typically by the time school opens, they haven't obtained enough. So the students just wait at home, perhaps laboring, until they have sufficient funds to attend. Well, this has become so widespread that the teachers in fact rely on it, and choose to not teach for the first week or two. Pretty crazy, to me. It seems like there must be some solution in which the students can attend on a per diem or something, until they complete their fees. In any case, this is definitely not the clockwork system (by comparison) of the good old US. But hey, I've got no worries, this only truly affects O-level, whereas I have been teaching for several weeks now. Once I decide what I think about all this teaching nonsense, I'll let you know. Also, I have been taking pains to become the school librarian in addition to coaching and teaching. And eventually I want to start a music program at the school. If I remember correctly, most US schools have, at the least, several years of basic music instruction/appreciation/history. Couldn't hurt to try, right? So that's really been it for me.
Nothing particularly funny or outrageous has happened. I found a baby bat with its hand wedge between a piece or moulding and a door. No idea how it managed that. I freed it using my trusty .75kg hammer, and it just flopped to the floor. Well, I didn't want my cat to go into a frenzy, so I attempted to aid this poor little thing. In the end, I'm pretty sure it died of fright. Ah well, try to do a good thing by saving a diseased mammal.... There are pictures of the bat and cat on my other page.
I suppose now I will answer questions which I have received over the last month or so, and maybe a few that I make up. If you are curious about anything at all, leave me a comment-question and I will answer it. Unless its Shawn and he's asking about things better left unsaid.
Are you only teaching lecture?
No I am conducting lab twice a week as well. Lecture consumes about 6 hours of my time per week, lab another 6 or so. Then I am having study hours for about 6 or 8 hours as well. Since I'm giving the rundown, once we have more balls (for sports) I will be coaching for about 6 hours a week as well. The rest of my time goes to cooking, eating what I have cooked in a slow, savoring fashion, studying physics, and reading. Its easier than working a 9 to 5 job, so far.

What do you do for your free time, such as movies or TV? and Tanzanians?
Myself, I read mostly. I watch movies with Aaron on his laptop on occasion. We have no TV, but have managed to wrangle the first season of Lost, and some Simpsons, etc... It passes the time. Tanzanians...well, I don't really know. Those who don't work (this is many) are usually drinking pombe (locally brewed banana liquor, I hear it tastes awful) by about 8am. As this is a strongly community-based culture, many tend to just socialize in their free time. Also, perhaps the number of little children running around could be explained by the lack of diversions in their society. Hmmm....

What kinds of beer do they have?
Mostly a bunch of different lagers, which all taste the same and have devoted legions supporting them. They have typical African names like "Serengeti," "Safari," and "Kilimanjaro." Nothing special here, they tastes especially awful warm. There is a local beer called "Balimi" which I believe translates to "evil taste, followed by extreme drunkenness." It has a really high alcohol content. Ugh... Thats really it.

Do they have detectives? (this is from Grace)
Yes, they do. In fact, I see them all over the place. But the detectives here all have mechanical arms and legs, and smoke pipes all the time. They are somewhat bumbling, and most of the them have a nemesis named Mr. Claw. I think they made some TV show based on the detectives here.

I'm out of time. Take care and write me.

Life at Ihungo: Redux

I'd like to share with you a bit of my life now that I have had time to "zoea" life at Ihungo. Zoea is a Swahili verb meaning "grow accustomed to/get used to/adjust to." To establish a routine. Well, as it stands now, that routine consists of rising just a little too early every morning, eating a quick breakfast (usually leftovers from the night before. Since I'm now tupperware-owning vegetarian, this is not a huge problem) while my bathing water heats up (I tried the cold water shower for a week. Hated it.) and lastly, proceeding with the day's activities. These range from teaching for several hours straight, on Tuesdays and Fridays, to making the walk down the hill to Bukoba town to buy supplies and go internetting. The hill... Well, Aaron and I are exclusively walking right now, as dala-dalas are unreliable, taxis are expensive, our bicycles are in transit from Dar, and we get sent home for taking motorcycle taxis. The walk into town is fine, a nice half-hour jaunt down the hill, midmorning while the sun is still tame. The elevation change is maybe 1000 feet, more or less. The return trek is what has been trimming off all those carbs I wolfed down at Mama Mipawa's house. We make this round trip walk at least 3 times a week, and nearly without fail we return at around 3pm, when the sun has become unleashed and is bearing down with a fury that belies its 80 degree reading. So coming down here to using this internet is keeping me healthy. Thank you very much. The rest of my days are occupied with lesson preparing, cooking, reading, and hanging with Aaron. As the school year comes into full swing (some students are out, some are preparing for test) my life will shift so that the majority of my time will be teaching and prepping. For now I still enjoy some limited freedom around Ihungo.
The school campus itself is shaped like a big "L", but imagine the horizontal part being roughly 4 times thicker. My house is at the very top point of the L, Aaron's is at the bottom right. Diagonal between us is the soccer field, and some small corn fields. The administration building is at the joint, along with a library. All down the road that I live on are the houses of some other teachers. At the fat horizontal part are the plethora of classrooms, labs, and student buildings. Peppered throughout the campus are all the old mission buildings, such as the church and the priests' houses. If you looked straight down from the bottom of the L, you would be looking at the wonderful view of Bukoba and Lake Victoria, stretching left and right indefinitely. The campus is quite substantial for a Tanzanian secondary school, but after attending UW, every other campus seems minute. In fact, it takes me about 2 minutes to walk from my front door to my classroom.
I attempted to start teaching on Monday. Unfortunately, all the students were a bit lackluster in returning from Christmas break on time. Apparently this is quite common. In my class of 50, only about 15 were present. I told them I would return the next day, but to bring questions about physics concepts that were challenging them. If the class was too empty again, I would answer their question. That was a mistake. I must have forgotten that these students are the top one percent, and they not only demand a lot from themselves, but from their teachers as well. The next day the numbers were up to about 25 or more, still not enough to teach. So I fielded questions. I should have known they would attempt to stump me, find gaps in my knowledge, throw difficult problems at me which the prior teacher could not solve. That is what they did, for nearly two hours. I was being tested on my understanding of physics, on the fly and in many different topics. It was not a hot day, but by the end of it my shirt was stuck to my back, and chalk dust had mingled with my damp face and hands to form a sort of thin white mud. At the end of it all I had managed to answer, or partially answer, a little more than half of their questions. Did I prove myself? I don't know. Some of the more intelligent students seemed unimpressed. Later I told the other physics teacher about my attempt and he was, I dare say, flabbergasted. "Why would you ever let them question you like that? Not one teacher here could answer all the students' questions. If I get a question, I go home, look it up, and answer it the next day. Good grief." He didn't actually say good grief, but he was thinking its Swahili equivalent, I'm sure of it. So I guess I won't try that again. My true lessons start tomorrow, and I hope I will present myself a bit better there. Here's crossing fingers...
Another thing that is ubiquitous at school is the scourge of all American educators- corporal punishment. We received a lot of information about this problem during training, such as its misusage, and strategies or alternatives on how to deal with it. For example, yesterday I was walking to class, looked over behind the teacher's office, and saw the discipline master giving tardy students punishment. Ready to get angry? He was making these kids get down on their haunches, like they were almost crouching. Then, he made them do a pseudo-gallop from this low position, back and forth, again and again. He had a switch and was hitting the students who were falling behind. I watched, jaw agape, for about 10 minutes. It continued the whole time. Bear in mind, these are students who are the cream of the crop, at a school with a sterling reputation. They are all the ages of 18-24, beyond the age in which this sort of punishment will have any effect other than resentment (I think it could be argued that this punishment has no redeeming effects, ever, but I'm no child psychologist). What to do, what to do... Well, I didn't step in. I need to establish myself here first, become credible. I can only engender a change if I earn the respect of others. So that's step one. I'll do what I can, but I'm one man and this is a big problem...
I think I have written too much today, but I don't want to leave you on a down note. One last thing. The other day some kids were dancing near me, so I started dancing back. You know the Charleston, that sweet "dance" where you put your hands on your knees and then criss-cross them back and forth? Well, that was the only dance I felt confident enough to do. They thought it was magic, that my knees were reversing somehow. In the end I more or less ended up teaching them. Let's hope it spreads, so at the next wedding I go to, everyone will be in a circle doing the Charleston. Let's hope.