We have now really settled into a routine and life here seems to be completely 'normal' now.
Weekday routine - Mama gets up at 5.30 to start heating/carrying water for indoors. Large ex-cement containers, probably holds 5 gallons. I can just about lift one when it's half empty, Mama and the girls carry them full about 50 metres. (Mama is just a polite way of referrring to any older lady, I get it quite a lot myself. Baba is an older man.) Our alarm goes off at 6 and we get up straight away. Quick wash and breakfast. This is balck tea, fruit, sliced bread and Marmite which I brought with me and have since managed to find in Tz. All the fruit is wonderful, we usually have oranges, mangoes and bananas for breakfast. The oranges are actually green outside, with very tough membranes, so you don't peel and eat them like at home, you suck a quarter orange and try to extract as much juice as possible. A bit messy and noisy. Tea and coffee always come with boiling milk as none of it is pasteurised, so we are developing a taste for tea without milk. I set off for school at about 6.50 as I like to be able to admire the scenery and get my breath back before I start work at 8. Martin quite often does some computer work at home for a while and then walks about 500m to the Hope Trust / Osotwa office for more computer work, teaching, advice sessions etc. We pass dozens of people on the way to work and are never more than a few metres from houses, kiosks or farms, although they might not be very reminiscent of home. Almost everyone makes some sort of greeting, unfortunately in any one of about 4 languages. KiSwahili is either 'Hujambo' to which I have to reply 'Sijambo', or, if they are being particularly polite, it will be Shikamoo, to which I have to reply Marahaba. In essence Shikamoo means something like, ‘I know I am only a worthless speck of dust before your great age and wisdom, but please don’t ignore me.’ The reply is roughly ‘Yes, I agree that you are only a worthless speck of dust before my great age and wisdom, but I will deign to notice you.’ The local language is Maasai. The greeting here follow a clear pattern: a) Habari b) Mzuri a) Ta Kwenya b) Eeko a) Soobeye b) Ebba (sorry, written phonetically). I think it means, How are you, fine, where are you going, work, where have you come from, home. A lot of people like to practice their English, so there are a lot of ‘Good Mornings’ and the there are the minority of children who say ‘Give me my money’ or ‘give me my pen’ as a first greeting. As far as I can find out, no-one has ever given them money or pens when demanded, but they keep trying. Most of the children are very friendly and no-one takes a refusal badly. There are also some tribal greetings but I just smile a lot for those as my head will explode if I have to retain any more information.
Martin’s days vary, some are office based and others are walking round the area to visit prospective candidates for grants or people who have already had money and are trying to make a go of running some sort of small business. Many of the ideas are carbon copies of things that already go on and they are giving themselves unnecessary competition. There have been some good and successful ideas – one lady was given enough money to buy a treadle sewing machine and is now making a profit an employs two other people. Two other ladies travel to Dar Es Salaam (10 hours by bus) to buy clothes which are unobtainable here. They can then sell them at a profit and save enough to go back to buy more. It is difficult to think of ideas which are not already in place. Many of the people in the area are subsistence farmers and so have no cash to spend on anything, so selling is a precarious occupation.
I only have 3 or 4 English lessons per day but because of the ghastly ‘system’ there is often more marking than teaching. The children get quite freaked out if you say you don’t want their books in and they must be marked in red or it’s not proper marking. The exercise books are horrible, very thin paper, and the children often cover them in newspaper, so that makes it even grubbier to mark 200 books in one go. The other staff set an exercise on the board and then leg it back to the staffroom to catch up on previous marking. It is the only way they can cope with the system; they can have 8 lessons in one day, they rarely have any free lessons and have to leave school premises at 2, so there is no alternative. Depending on the day, I usually get home at about 1pm and then have a couple of hours to myself. Washing takes quite a while – Martin leaves things in soak before he goes out and I get them washed and hanging outside. We only do some of our own washing – the bulk we leave for the weekend and then we pay one of the daughters to do most of it for us. At 2000 Tsh (80p) we think it’s a bargain and she is pleased to be making some money. Cold water washing and wringing out is not much fun.
At 4pm on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday we have our TEFL English classes. Jane (a young teacher from London) and I share the largest group which varies from 40 to 60. Martin has an advanced group of about 10. Considering none of us has ever done TEFL before, we seem to be attracting a good crowd. They would like two hours every day, but without any resources it’s a struggle to keep up. I have introduced Bingo to Tanzania and we use the dice that I brought with me. Most of the students had never seen dice before and had to check that they all had the same numbers on. Bingo went down well. I was especially glad as I had spent about four hours making 51 ‘cards’. Only 51 because I was fed up with it by then.
After English, we come home, wait for some hot water and then have our ‘shower’. This is a strip wash in our clothes washing bowl. We then relax for a bit while Mama prepares supper. This is usually cooked outside and then kept hot in very large Thermos flasks until everybody is home / ready to eat. We can’t wait beyond 7.30, but they often eat at 9.45 and then go straight to bed. The usual food is vegetable stew (they sometimes eat an extra dish of goat bones as well) with rice, pasta, Irish potatoes or chappatis followed by fresh fruit (usually mangoes, bananas, oranges and avocados, which are wonderful) and tea. It’s perfectly pleasant and healthy but we do look forward to a change at the weekends.
Last weekend we began by visiting one of Martin’s colleagues in Osotwa on Friday afternoon. This is a self-help, self administering local group which tries to promoste local developments and activities. It was Osotwa who asked us to run the adult English lessons, for which some people walk an hour. Ole Daniels is a fervent Maasai who is very keen that the old ways should not be lost, while, at the same time, trying to organise alternative ways of bringing money into the region. He has built what is known as a cultural boma (one of the wattle and daub one room houses which are the main form of accommodation in rural areas). He has built everything himself with help from his family and is now running it as a visitor centre, unfortunately rather a long way from the town. He has organised a group of local women to meet at the boma twice a week to make Maasai jewellery, cook Maasai food etc for any visitors, an opportunity for them to run their group as a collective. We spent the afternoon with them and wandered round the large smallholding, watching goats and chickens and the women demonstrating local skills and techniques. Ole speaks excellent English and spent a month living with friends in Finsbury park so it’s a bit of a contrast with here. The pictures are of the whole group with ole on the far right, and one of the women, Anna, very patiently trying to teach me to do the intricate beadwork on their collars etc. I’m not giving up the day job.
On Saturday we went to Lake Manyara and Tarangire National park to see some of the amazing wildlife and scenery in this area. Manyara is bordered by the Rift valley with vertical escarpments and dramatic scenery. We saw lions on both days, elephants, giraffes, zebra, hippos, wildebeest, water buffalo, impala, baboons, black velvet faced monkeys and wonderful birds. The three in the photos were particularly cooperative.
Martin’s days vary, some are office based and others are walking round the area to visit prospective candidates for grants or people who have already had money and are trying to make a go of running some sort of small business. Many of the ideas are carbon copies of things that already go on and they are giving themselves unnecessary competition. There have been some good and successful ideas – one lady was given enough money to buy a treadle sewing machine and is now making a profit an employs two other people. Two other ladies travel to Dar Es Salaam (10 hours by bus) to buy clothes which are unobtainable here. They can then sell them at a profit and save enough to go back to buy more. It is difficult to think of ideas which are not already in place. Many of the people in the area are subsistence farmers and so have no cash to spend on anything, so selling is a precarious occupation.
I only have 3 or 4 English lessons per day but because of the ghastly ‘system’ there is often more marking than teaching. The children get quite freaked out if you say you don’t want their books in and they must be marked in red or it’s not proper marking. The exercise books are horrible, very thin paper, and the children often cover them in newspaper, so that makes it even grubbier to mark 200 books in one go. The other staff set an exercise on the board and then leg it back to the staffroom to catch up on previous marking. It is the only way they can cope with the system; they can have 8 lessons in one day, they rarely have any free lessons and have to leave school premises at 2, so there is no alternative. Depending on the day, I usually get home at about 1pm and then have a couple of hours to myself. Washing takes quite a while – Martin leaves things in soak before he goes out and I get them washed and hanging outside. We only do some of our own washing – the bulk we leave for the weekend and then we pay one of the daughters to do most of it for us. At 2000 Tsh (80p) we think it’s a bargain and she is pleased to be making some money. Cold water washing and wringing out is not much fun.
At 4pm on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday we have our TEFL English classes. Jane (a young teacher from London) and I share the largest group which varies from 40 to 60. Martin has an advanced group of about 10. Considering none of us has ever done TEFL before, we seem to be attracting a good crowd. They would like two hours every day, but without any resources it’s a struggle to keep up. I have introduced Bingo to Tanzania and we use the dice that I brought with me. Most of the students had never seen dice before and had to check that they all had the same numbers on. Bingo went down well. I was especially glad as I had spent about four hours making 51 ‘cards’. Only 51 because I was fed up with it by then.
After English, we come home, wait for some hot water and then have our ‘shower’. This is a strip wash in our clothes washing bowl. We then relax for a bit while Mama prepares supper. This is usually cooked outside and then kept hot in very large Thermos flasks until everybody is home / ready to eat. We can’t wait beyond 7.30, but they often eat at 9.45 and then go straight to bed. The usual food is vegetable stew (they sometimes eat an extra dish of goat bones as well) with rice, pasta, Irish potatoes or chappatis followed by fresh fruit (usually mangoes, bananas, oranges and avocados, which are wonderful) and tea. It’s perfectly pleasant and healthy but we do look forward to a change at the weekends.
Last weekend we began by visiting one of Martin’s colleagues in Osotwa on Friday afternoon. This is a self-help, self administering local group which tries to promoste local developments and activities. It was Osotwa who asked us to run the adult English lessons, for which some people walk an hour. Ole Daniels is a fervent Maasai who is very keen that the old ways should not be lost, while, at the same time, trying to organise alternative ways of bringing money into the region. He has built what is known as a cultural boma (one of the wattle and daub one room houses which are the main form of accommodation in rural areas). He has built everything himself with help from his family and is now running it as a visitor centre, unfortunately rather a long way from the town. He has organised a group of local women to meet at the boma twice a week to make Maasai jewellery, cook Maasai food etc for any visitors, an opportunity for them to run their group as a collective. We spent the afternoon with them and wandered round the large smallholding, watching goats and chickens and the women demonstrating local skills and techniques. Ole speaks excellent English and spent a month living with friends in Finsbury park so it’s a bit of a contrast with here. The pictures are of the whole group with ole on the far right, and one of the women, Anna, very patiently trying to teach me to do the intricate beadwork on their collars etc. I’m not giving up the day job.
On Saturday we went to Lake Manyara and Tarangire National park to see some of the amazing wildlife and scenery in this area. Manyara is bordered by the Rift valley with vertical escarpments and dramatic scenery. We saw lions on both days, elephants, giraffes, zebra, hippos, wildebeest, water buffalo, impala, baboons, black velvet faced monkeys and wonderful birds. The three in the photos were particularly cooperative.
