Meet My New Lads

So the first day I introduced myself to my new form 5 students, I wrote a list of questions on the board. These were "getting to know y'all" questions, as I deftly put it. As I went through them, I thought that some of the answers were pretty interesting, in different ways. These 'kids' are mostly between 18 and 22, and have already had four years of instruction in the English language, if not more. That being said, here are some of their answers.

Question 1: What is your name?
For this one, there was a pretty awesome range. First, there were the cool traditional African names (Magesa Nwizambi, Lameck Cleophas), then there were the names where the parents must've been quite religious (Innocent Charles, Pious Paul, Praygod Bernard Sawe...awesome huh) and last were the hybrids (Colodatus Cosmos, Mgeta Danger). Yes, all of this names are amazing. But my favorite, just for the sound of it, is Shwalb Yusuph. Really just the name Shwalb. Roll it around on your tongue, see how it fits you. I hope I have given you married couples some ideal names for your future little ones...

Question 2: What are your hobbies?
By and large, all the students wrote "playing football" (Davis, this is soccer in countries other than America). But some of the more unique responses were- "Running marathons." I guess this is Africa, they've got some good runners here. "Playing music and reading novels." That's cool. I got one of my basketball players hooked on Harry Potter already. "None outside of school." Pretty fitting, these kids do study a lot more than we did in high school, but its kind of sad too. Here's my favorite- "To understand what is going on." What a wonderful hobby. I can imagine some guy who is always confused, walking around like Mike Hardesty, except when its "hobby time", when he finally understands what is going on (for Hardesty this is in math class).

Question 3: Why do you like physics? (I know, ridiculous question...)
I got a lot of responses centered around future employment. Most wanted to be engineers or doctors (one wrote "doctor of the human heart surgery"). Others maybe forgot their English a little bit- "I want to be a pharmician." and "To understand earoplanes." I'm not sure if he meant "physicist", but another who he wanted to be a physician. I guess that makes logical sense, if he is studying physics... Some clever fella also wrote he enjoys physics because it is "the simplest subject." I wonder if he is either very smart or very sarcastic. Or maybe he doesn't know that I'm about to drop the physics bomb on him. Figuratively, not like Hiroshima...sorry...

Question 4: Why do you dislike physics?
I forgot that Tanzanians don't like voicing complaints when I wrote this question. The result was that 95% of the answers said something like "I like physics only" or "I like to not dislike physics" or were left blank. One said he doesn't dislike it as it will be the "the basis of [his] life". That is a hardcore student. But the most accurate answer is because it is a "headache subject." I really couldn't agree more. Luckily when I was studying it at UW, I had a little headache cure brewed by my friend, Mr. Pabst.

Question 5: Any comments/questions/expectations?
This was the part where their English skills really shone. I'll write a few verbatim.
"I'm great to meet you Robby AKA Masanja." "My coment to you tearch I request you to have more effort, so as to make me perfect in it as you." "Your expecation is not bad is good." "I comment that it is so sweat because does not need speculated answer." Those are not my typos, I double-checked. I suppose its bad that I am highlighting my students' lack of English skills. I doubt I'm helping them with little phrases like "What's crackin" and "Are you illin?... Like a villian." One last request: "Mr. Masanja, I have a comment about getting the one who can tell me more about the world. And I would like you to be with me, in all things, so that I may learn more from you. And if possible, I would like to get more friends from your country. Thank you. The end." Isn't that kind of sweet/cool? If any of you would like to be friends with Mr. Daniel Banyanka, let me know.