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.