March 28th: Life in Lushoto

March 09 in Tanzania

My 56th Birthday in Tanzania
I just had my 56th birthday and realize I came at 54 (below the half way mark) and will return when I am on the other half of 50's. Mostly this is part of the thoughts that come from time to time in my imagining or rehearsing reentry into the USA atmosphere.

It has been a while since I have written, so I will begin with a story much like when I first arrived.
Our Neighborhood
I was biking back from Lushoto on my road near my house. A woman and her kindergarten age daughter were sitting in the ditch picking up kernels of corn, one-by-one. I stopped to help, as I had done before, but this time, it never occurred to me as an unusual practice- saving each kernel like it was a gold nugget. Instead, it occurred to me that this was an opportunity to chat with a mama much like chatting with a neighbor I meet at home in the USA. (Yes, I find that I am clarifying which home I mean these days as both come up often now.)
We talked and picked and sorted out the little stones, returning the kernels to her basket which she carries on her head. I found out that her daughter attends Kongei Primary and remembered me from the carrot feast I celebrating their first harvest of the new school garden. Soon, two young men stopped to join us in the task. They told me they are from the village near Chumbageni Primary school where we have helped with a school garden. They have completed Standard 7 (last grade of primary school) and are working on the family shamba (farm). We talked faming until we finished retrieving the corn. Mama headed to Lushoto to sell her corn. The young men escorted me, riding my bike to my house and invited John and me to come to their village on Saturdays to watch them play soccer.

Peace Corps Comrades
There are four health volunteers and three new education volunteers as well as two education volunteers that came with John and me in the Tanga area. That means that we are family. We keep in touch, sometimes help each other do projects at our sites, and somewhat regularly visit/party together. The parties are for any reason but are for the purpose of sharing time together cooking of meals (with food brought from our areas), discussing books and swapping books, hiking and biking, giving and receiving haircuts, and sleeping where ever one can find room on a mattress. This time with those that can understand best what life is like and those that chose this kind of life—voluntarily – is one of the significant things I know I will miss back home (USA).
The last party was March 28th, my birthday. Our local neighbors stopped by to visit our PCV guests. I really appreciate the discussions that happen because our younger PCV comrades have much better Kiswahili than we do. With their help to translate and with the cross fertilization of PC health volunteers and education volunteers, many ideas that I think about can actually be explored deeply with my Tanzanian comrades of gardens and HIV/AIDS education.
On a bike ride to Soni with Marielle and Sarah, we greeted folks while dodging mud holes and rocks. For Marielle and Sarah, this was a chance to bike in a climate that was cool. They have bikes but it is too hot at their sites to consider this as pleasure. Our job on this tour was to find tambi (local pasta) to make minestrone for dinner and to buy toilet paper, local fruits and veggies and coffee for them to take back to their sites. Then, of course, to “window” shop for kangas and kitenges (material). (There are no windows on shops).
On returning, Marielle was exhausted from struggling to keep her bike in gear. Both Marielle and Sarah had sore butts from little recent riding and because we traveled to three villages and back in search of tambi.
But it was a beautiful ride. It included a rich discussion on theology and the common struggle for productive farming in TZ with Fr. Attanis (where we buy coffee) and greetings from two youth from Kongei Primary boys that remembered fondly the lesson on fish anatomy with Michelle who visited us from St. Paul and taught fish biology for a week.

Kongei Secondary School
This year I am teaching Form II and III – the same students I taught last year. Form IV lost their Biology teacher and currently has a teacher that is very busy with management jobs, so we are meeting off and on to cover material that they are missing and need to pass their exams. Form I does not have a Biology teacher yet so every week I check to see if a teacher has arrived and if not, I teach. Hopefully there will be a new teacher arriving in April after midterm break.
John is teaching Form IV math- the same students he taught last year. Form I does not have a math teacher so he is sharing the two classes with the physics teacher to be sure they are getting math.
The student peer leadership training on Life Skills and HIV/AIDS that started last year has evolved into peer teaching this year. On Wednesdays the peer leaders meet with teachers to prepare the lesson they want to teach. On Sundays, three peer leaders teach one class together. The students have expressed their appreciation and sense of importance in their life both as instructors and as students of their peers. The head nurse of the local health clinic continues to be an important guest consultant for the lessons.
The two new fun things started this year is a new room designated for a Biology and Physics labs and a computer lab. The school received 9 used computers from an NGO in Denmark. John is enjoying setting up this lab and helping teacher and students develop computer skills. My sister sent 10 flash drives and teachers are earning the chance to purchase one when they develop the skills and therefore the need for a flash drive.

The new Biology/Physics lab is yet without enough tables, no chairs and no shelves. BUT it has water and a demo table as well as a blackboard that is smooth! (I have borrowed chairs to use until the new ones are made.) Michelle, a biology teacher and curriculum specialist of MNAQUA from St. Paul, MN brought the materials and know-how to set-up an aquarium in the new lab. She and I worked with a primary school teacher/second headmaster to find the fish and found a welder in Lushoto to make the aquarium glass box supported by a steel bottom and corners. My Form III students had a week of lessons from Michelle on fish adaptations for movement in water and respiration. Every day, they take turns feeding the fish and are learning how to siphon to clean the aquarium. They say, “What will happen when they get big, will we eat them? “Will they reproduce?”, “Why do they eat at the surface?”, “Now I can see how they are breathing. I thought they were drinking.” This year the Science club is making a skeleton model to hang next to the digestion model they made last year. They are also hoping to complete posters to teach about global warming, destruction of the ozone layer and ecology concepts. We are considering a diorama of a Tanzanian savanna…. Mungu akipenda.

Gardens and HIV/AIDS Workshop for Primary Teachers
Gardens
In February, we developed two more school gardens developed in our area, teaching the biointesive gardening and permaculture methods Peace Corps specialist Peter Jensen has given us.

You may remember, last September Peter came and worked with Kongei Primary school to develop a school garden. He and I worked with the school to hire 5 community adults to work with him to teach the students and teachers. Two of those adults are my local friends and have children or nieces and nephews that attend two different primary schools in the area. Both talked to these schools about developing a garden and then asked me to help it to happen. The three of us together with a woman who has been helping me with my personal garden, worked with each school and developed two school gardens - 6 matutas (beds) and 3 guilds (fruit tree with nutritious greens and herbs below). These “home spun” garden initiatives have blossomed into 42 matutas at one school and 20 matutas at the other school. Now that the rainy season has started, the maize, beans, spinach and carrots planted are thriving! Also, Kongei Primary has harvested carrots, spinach and greens, eaten and replanted crops. They have added eight matutas to their school garden.

Kongei Primary headmistress has made about 15 matutas in her personal garden for a family project she has in mind from her yield. The agriculture teacher at one of the other school’s has started elder groups that learned the methods from the students and have started gardens at their homes.
This area is a farming area and the people appreciate the opportunity to learn new methods to try to improve their yields—to have more food, more days for their children. For example, Ali’s wife (one of the adults teaching biointensive gardening methods with me) has invited me to visit her garden to learn how she terraces the steep land in the area. She offers classes on terracing which she learned from a program called Farm Africa. This is a fertile area for learning and developing ways to grow more food.
Primary Teacher’s Workshop on teaching about HIV/AIDS
I visited Chumbageni Primary School in September to deliver books on Nutrition and Caring for PLWHA (People living with HIV/AIDS) and Life Skills (for children of primary and secondary school age) which they had ordered from the PEPFAR office in Dar es Salaam. After greetings and tea, I discussed the content and my personal experience using the books to teach secondary students with the two teachers present. One was from Chumbageni Primary and one was from Mshizi Primary. The woman explained, “We need these books, but first we need to know more about HIV/AIDS for ourselves.” From this conversation grew the plan for a teacher workshop on HIV/AIDS for the three primary schools in our area developing gardens, too.
On March 6th, three interested teachers from each school and two village mosque leaders/teachers met at Kongei Primary School to discuss the facts and myths of HIV/AIDS and to introduce new ways to teach primary students effective life skills and facts about HIV/AIDS pertaining to their lives and their family. Also to provide time to discuss questions of the teachers and possible solutions to needs identified.
The meeting was facilitated by John and me. The instructors included us and Peace Corps Health Volunteers and local Tanzanian presenters from Lushoto and the immediate Kongei community that are trained in teaching Life Skills and HIV/AIDS. After a full day of presentations, group work on lesson designs, panel discussions to answer questions and evaluation needs the decision was to have another meeting. Representatives signed-up to be the next planners.
Since this meeting, the two village teachers have shared stories of classes they have started for youth at their homes on Saturdays. My discussions with them have been about their idea to design a meeting for young men and women of their area that have finished primary school Standard 7 but will not go on to Form I-IV secondary school. These are youth that do not have future formal opportunities to learn about HIV/AIDS and life skills strategies.