My week at school has just flown by! Now that we're in the middle of geometry my marking takes even longer than usual as I have to measure lines and angles in 70 books each day! I'm doing about 5 hours a day and have RSI in my hand and elbow from it all! The lessons have been going well. I was walking home the other day in the same direction and time as one of the students in my class. He got his maths book out to show me how he's doing. I said that he's doing well as he has mostly ticks and not many crosses. Then he turned to a page where he had crosses and said he doesn't understand. So I invited him in for about an hour of private tuition. He was thrilled with the attention and that he left understanding and with the pencil that I gave him, care of my Mum sent me over with a big box full! Ali, the grandson of my landlord, has been visiting me almost every evening. Normally he just sits on the sofa but recently he's been more talkative. He helped me prepare flashcards on geometry terminology, I didn't really need help but I figured I was preparing them and he could do with the extra practice so that he can remember the terms. Then the other day he appeared with his maths book, he showed me a page where he had some difficulty and I'd written something about how he needs to use a compass so we sat down and practiced using a compass, he was very pleased when I ticked the work and wrote "good" in his book. I told Kate this when I saw her last night, she was well impressed that I now have them voluntarily coming to me for help - they are interested and feel I'm approachable, despite her being told by Ally that I'm "strict"! The girls who I've had trouble with continue to make progress and participate in class so that's really good.
I met Mama Halima this week to talk about the orphans who are in need of help to pay for school fees. We wrote a letter to an ex-volunteer in Alaska who has offered to look into raising funds for the primary school kids. We also talked about how to progress with the secondary school kids. She told me about the people who she visits and helps including one orphaned girl who lived with her a few years ago. She then married a man who was new to Usangi and therefore no one locally knew anything about him. A few years after they were married he became very ill and died. It turned out that he was HIV positive and had lost a previous wife to HIV. He left her 7 months pregnant and HIV positive. She was told not to breastfeed the child, she did not take heed of this advice as she was in denial of her disease and had burned her card from the hospital that all HIV positive patients are given. Mama Halima has recently been visiting her in hospital as she was unable to look after herself. The baby is now 1 year old and is staying with her sister. Unfortunately stories like this are commonplace in Usangi. I told Mama Halima that I think one of the teachers is having affairs with the students. She said that she wants to come to school to talk to the students about HIV, I think she will probably preach abstinence and have little effect but she means well and it might get the girls thinking.
Now I feel like I'm on the countdown to coming home. I have 2 weeks of teaching left, a week of exams, a week of exam marking and end of year report writing and finally a few weeks to chill out and explore a bit of Tanzania before flying home in time for Christmas! And the best thing is that I'm looking forward to every bit of it! I love the teaching so that will be good. Then the exam will hopefully prove the students have understood some of what I've been saying! Then I get to write their reports which will make a nice change for them as all Tanzanian reports for all students, from all teachers apparently say "Could try harder" as this would apply to all students and helps the teachers cos they don't know their students anyway! I've been keeping track of their marks since I started so hope to be able to be a little more constructive than they're used to!
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