Kihaya, Poor test results, A visit

I wrote awhile back about my attempts to pick up the tribal language of Bukoba- Kihaya. Under the assumption that knowing the local mother tongue will somehow work to my advantage, I've slowly picked up enough Kihaya to properly greet people and talk about the weather. As this comprises roughly ninety-five percent of all conversations taking place in Tanzania, I'm sitting pretty. Today I caught a cab-share (really, that is glamourizing the whole business a bit; it was a decrepit post-taxi miraculously carrying seven others) from Ihungo to town. When I did the contortionist trick of taking up as little room as physically possible (as I did when I shared the bed with Jacques), I was able to slam the door closed on myself. Some pain. In an unexplained good mood while sharing the back seat of this cab with four others, I decided to wheeze out a few Kihaya greetings. Again, my theory of this language's utility was correct, and within five minutes some of the ladies were asking if I am married. (To be honest, this isn't that uncommon; some of the women in the Corps tell me that they are asked to marry total strangers on a weekly basis.) When we reached town, I paid the driver with a 2000 shilling bill, expecting change. For some reason, we were surrounded by a large number of Tanzanian men who seemed to have nothing better to do that watch me pay for my cab ride. As soon as I'd handed the driver the bill, several of the men told the driver, in Swahili, that he shouldn't give me any change. The driver and I started laughing simultaneously, and then the driver told one of the guys to guard his tongue, as "the mzungu knows even Kihaya." You're damn right. After a short exchange where he gave me most of my change and I gave him the evil eye, I was on my way having paid the proper fare. When I thanked the driver in Kihaya, the whole crowd of layabouts gasped. Gratifying... I guess all I'm trying to say is that learning Kihaya has paid off, more than just in this example. The facilitation of dealing with people in their own language here has inspired me to try picking up useful phrases whenever and wherever I may travel.

For news from school, my form six students began their national examinations yesterday. This is what they've spent the last two years studying for, and their performance will determine their fates. The examinations take a full two weeks, and are designed to rigorously test a student's ability to memorize obscure facts. I have a number of complaints against the system of examinations here, and the examinations themselves, but I'll save those for another day. The first of two physics tests was held yesterday, and I can't tell you how my heart dropped when I saw my students leaving the exam room with sad, sad faces. Not a single one of the students who I talked to yesterday told me he thought he performed well; all of them said the test was "so so difficult". Crap. Granted, I only talked to students who hadn't attended my class in months (extreme "senioritis"). Granted, the results aren't out, and perhaps some kids did quite well. But for even one of my boys to fail makes me feel that I have failed as a teacher. I can only hope that they performed better than they think they did. I'm still finding my groove as a teacher, and these students were my guinea pigs of a fashion, but I put forth a staggering amount of effort over the last year trying to prepare them to succeed on this test. I hate to see them fail...

Switching topics again, with only this tenuous segue, my mom and step-dad will be arriving here soon! They'll be flying in next weekend, and spending the following three weeks exploring Tanzania and learning about how I live here. I am truly excited to have my first visitors from the States. As much as my words might give you picture of my life here, I can really only paint the broad strokes, and with their visit, my parents will get to see all the minor details. We are planning on going on a safari in the Serengeti, among other things. If I don't update for awhile, its because my guests and I are off challenging the wilderness and taming the wild beasts. Peace...

Or am I just grumpy...?

Since my last post, life here has been pleasantly tranquil as I settle back into routine. Due to my relative physical inactivity, I thought I might take some time to write a few thoughts and views I’ve garnered about my situation and the society I find myself a part of.

Where to start...? Two days ago, I was riding my bike (helmet on, of course) on one of the bumpy dirt roads, coming home from visiting an older British husband and wife who recently arrived. En route, I came across another teacher from my school, and we leisurely rode alongside one another, talking and dodging the various vehicles hurtling past us. As this was Sunday, and as Tanzanians are quite open about their respective religions, he asked me where I’d prayed that morning. How to answer…? Did I pray that morning? Probably not. But with the frequency of religious questioning I get here (No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!), I’ve slowly developed "substitutes" for what they call praying, attending church, even having a set major religion. If I’m asked whether I prayed, I try to recall any action I’d taken which had a similar impact on my day as a prayer might. Perhaps this could be me crossing my fingers that I don’t burn the rice, or hoping that the internet café will have a signal when I go. Any thoughts which are somehow analogous to the act of praying, while not being a de facto prayer. My own personal religion, I suppose... In any case, having these substitutes has allowed me to avoid an intimidating number of awkward conversations about religion with people whom I’ve just met for the first time, or that I don’t want to offend. (As a side note- is this openness of religion a common factor among the former missionary colonies? When I’m asked my religion, people automatically assume I’m Christian, and so they instead inquire as to whether I’m an Adventist, Evangelist, Episcopalian, you name your branch... It seems logical that the influence of the missionaries carries impacts beyond the numbers (Tanzania is forty percent Christian), that their intrusions sowed the corn which we current ex-patriates are being forced to eat, even if we don’t like corn because it sticks between our teeth. Maybe another day I’ll write a little diatribe about the effect of both the missionaries and the colonists...)

So when this teacher asked me where I’d prayed, I thought about my day, and decided that I’d "prayed" for the morning rain to stop so that I could visit this British couple. Therefore, I told him that I’d done my praying at home (I'm not trying to be sacriligous, just practical). He stopped his bike, looking stunned, and proceeded to tell me that it is simply not possible to pray at one’s own home. According to this teacher, prayer and worship is invalid unless demonstrated in church, surrounded by other believers. This started a long discussion, near-argument, in which I cited the holiness of various monks who removed themselves from society strictly to have a closer commune with God. I wasn’t willing to agree with him that its more valid to pray in church than at home (doesn’t the Bible say the opposite, in fact?), and he was intractable in his ideas that those who pray alone are "not serious" about their religion. As an aside, its my understanding that, as Tanzanians have developed such a community-based society, they extend this social customs to their religions. Everyone prays together, no one differentiates himself from the mass (oooh double meaning!).

I mention this because it is a single facet to this Hope Diamond of an issue that has been bringing me down lately- the lack of acceptance and even tolerance that a large number of the citizens here show to outside ideas. Likely, in my own cultural arrogance, I assume my own views are superlative (as most people tend to do), and thus immediately denigrate a society in which these views are scoffed at. I suppose the frustrating factor for me in this is rationality; I’d like to believe that, via some degree of introspection, I’ve analyzed the lion’s share of my American tendencies. Whether or not I’ve been successful is moot, for what bothers me is that the counter-arguments I hear when in discussion have generally not been rationalized to any degree whatsoever; the ideas are parroted without any reasoning behind them.

An example of this was at a tea break meeting some months ago, in which another teacher and I were engaged in a discussion of media bias. This teacher informed me that, as an American, all of my typical sources of information had a pro-American bias and that I wasn’t receiving any true news about, among other things, the Iraq war. She extrapolated to say that I, and most Americans, am largely in the dark about our country’s international activities, for all we see and hear is filtered through a media which pays homage to its government. I agree that it isn’t possible to learn the reality of an event by studying only one news source, and that to understand exactly what is happening it behooves us to swallow the bitter pill that is "the other side of the story". However, when I asked her why she thought this was so, having never been to America herself, she said she knew it was true because she saw it on a Tanzanian television channel (one which has a distinctly anti-American bent). Irony, anyone? So again, I summoned the almighty forces of reason to my side, explaining that her country has its own respective media bias, therefore the truth of things is not quite so concrete as she stated them. Again with the immutable stance… She was impervious to even my highest caliber rationality-tipped bullets, and in the end I gave up and went home, frustrated.

Is it prideful of me to try and promulgate my viewpoints in these discussions? Or to assume that they will be listened to? In that last example, you can imagine how maddening it was to hear her blindly avowing her faith to her television channel, while completely dismissing ours. How to explain the fact that studies have shown that developing countries tend to have some of the strongest media biases? I suppose it’s maybe not my place to make that explanation. I suppose it is arrogant to try and force my ideas to be heard and rationalized. But at the same time, as a sometimes introspective and thoughtful person, I find it difficult to consent to the reality that most of the people I engage in discussion here are only reciting what they’ve been told they should believe, without knowing the reasoning behind that belief structure. Can television and hearsay (here, the two most common forms of information transmission) truly give profound insight into the world around us, especially with any amount of veracity? It seems to me that these methods of propagation will only foster ignorance and degradation of information, which will result (and already has resulted) in people believing things without knowing why. This happens all over the world, I’m just frustrated that I see it so prevalently here. When one seeks to adapt to a culture, one requires a certain amount of open-mindedness, and to have that be met with indigenous close-mindedness can be difficult...

I’d like to write more, but I don’t want to turn this post into a sounding board of my various societal concerns. On another note, I’d like to give my proper respects (props, that is) to my Aunt Misty. Turns out she’s signing up for the Corps. I think that’s awesome, and I hope she gets a placement that she’ll enjoy. Cheers to you, Aunt Misty.