24 Jan 2009
Greetings
I am posting a short message to let you all know that I have received the funds for Kongei Primary School's Teachers Housing Project from USA. Last week Mr. Masenga, second headmaster and I went to Lushoto and purchased all the building supplies needed, including such things as metal roofing sheets, re bar, toilets, sinks, cement, nails, and lumber. It took three trips by lorry from town to deliver the items. The doors and windows are being made and will be delivered later.
The community met on Dec 5th to organize the work for when the funds arrived. On January 9th, they began clearing the site. Currently, there are bricks that have been carried to the school grounds and fired on the spot. They villagers build a kiln out of the bricks to be fired, leaving 2 holes at the bottom to build fires and then use mud to seal the spaces between the bricks on the outermost layer.
Women have started carrying granite stones to the school from places in the community where granite in mined. A lorry has delivered sand collected from the river bottom.
On last Thursday, I visited the home where more bricks are being made. This is a place 1 km from the school where the soil is best for making bricks. Also, early Thursday, many people arrived with jembes (hoes) to level the site. Next week the master builder will arrive from Tanga to begin construction.
Thank you all for your generosity to help make this possible. With the extra funds received beyond the initial proposal, we are able to complete a septic system for two other houses already built but with out toilets. It is our hope that we may have enough funds for electricity to be added. We will access as things go.
It may take a while but I will add pictures when the internet connection allows.
Remember to double click on the picture above and it will take you to my album of pictures of the events happening with the building of the house and two septic tanks.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Friday, January 9, 2009
December 2008
December 2008
Merry Christmas!
We wish we could be with you this holiday, sharing hugs and laughs and good food.
One year has passed and still it does not seem like Christmas is here. Some things I will not get used to. I miss the change of seasons, the lakes and the snow.
Yesterday I washed clothes, hung them to dry in the hot sun. I was careful to hang my underpants on the line between two other lines with towels and shirts so that they are hidden from the view of neighbors passing by. That is the accepted rule in Tanzania.
John is fixing the latch on the bathroom door and putting a new plug on the electrical cord for our 2-burner hot plate. Having electricity is nice, but the last two days it has been out and this is not nice—back to candles, kerosene lanterns and charcoal stoves.
My garden is reaching a stage of harvest again. Soon I can pick cow peas, carrots, okra, sweet potatoes and leeks. Already I have gotten 9 huge Brandywine tomatoes from one plant. I have a "pet" that got into my garden today—one of our young school cows. She broke free from her rope and was feasting on my fresh cow pea plants. The leaves are some of the best tasting greens! I pulled her back to her feeding spot, retied her tether, and brought her a bucket of water. She was very happy, nudged me and accepted a pat on her nose and scratching behind the ears.
Two friends, Becky and Joan from Minnesota came to visit for two weeks, just leaving a few days ago. I met them at the Kilimanjaro airport when they arrived and we all flew to Kigali, the capitol of Rwanda. We were driven by a guide to the National Park (2 hours) to see gorilla. For two days we trekked into the forest finding a family of 12 - 20 gorillas, then sitting for an hour watching them. I will never forget sitting 6 feet from a giant silverback male and watching the 3 year old children playing "ring-around-the- silverback daddy" and beating their chests in play. One young gorilla came running towards me just as we arrived and grabbed my pant leg. He looked at me as if to say, "You're finally here! Come play!" In a family group there is only one silver back male that is the leader and father, then there can be 5-10 females (or more) and each mom has one or more children. The gorillas live to about 45 years. One group we watched had a one month old child that clung to her mother's chest as mom walked and climbed to the tree top into a nest.
Before we left Rwanda, we visited the Genocide Museum and talked at length with our guides about how the people are moving through the process to recover from 1 million people killed over 3 months. Their stories are hard and remarkable at the same time. They talked of the establishment of levels crimes and then levels of consequences, but that all that killed must do community service to rebuild the country. Also, there is a ceremony/gathering that happens once a year where people who have killed choose to stand and tell the people what happened, who they killed and what happened to the bodies of those killed. The guides talked about how difficult this is but how healing it is for everyone.
We had another 8 days together back in Tanzania bird-watching and living in glorified camping style at our site. It is always hard for me to say goodbye. We look forward to coming home for Christmas next year.
We will spend Christmas with four other volunteers and three Sisters from our village, at Amani Forest Preserve. There is a parish at Amani that has housing for volunteers from all over the world. There are beautiful trails through the tropical forest seeing chameleons, tree frogs, African violets, exotic birds and butterflies as well as Collobus and Blue monkeys.
I have enjoyed going to the Catholic Church and occasionally the Lutheran services available when school is in session. We have also been invited to celebrate important Muslim holidays with our neighbors. All services are in Kiswahili, so I understand very little. I can sing the songs but I cannot understand the sermons. When school is in session every Tuesday morning (6am) there is a Mass in English. But this Christmas, I will bring my English hymnal with us to Amani and sing Christmas carols together.
New Years will be back at our site. Our night watchman, Twaha, has invited us to his family home for dinner. Probably rice cooked in coconut milk, local spinach, beans and tea. We expect New Year's Eve will be drumming and dancing, and church bells heard from all the hills around us as usual. Greetings to all of you and we hope you are well and content with each day.
We send our love and, of course, we think of you always. We send our prayers for a joyous celebration with family and friends this holiday. John and Randee
Merry Christmas!
We wish we could be with you this holiday, sharing hugs and laughs and good food.
One year has passed and still it does not seem like Christmas is here. Some things I will not get used to. I miss the change of seasons, the lakes and the snow.
Yesterday I washed clothes, hung them to dry in the hot sun. I was careful to hang my underpants on the line between two other lines with towels and shirts so that they are hidden from the view of neighbors passing by. That is the accepted rule in Tanzania.
John is fixing the latch on the bathroom door and putting a new plug on the electrical cord for our 2-burner hot plate. Having electricity is nice, but the last two days it has been out and this is not nice—back to candles, kerosene lanterns and charcoal stoves.
My garden is reaching a stage of harvest again. Soon I can pick cow peas, carrots, okra, sweet potatoes and leeks. Already I have gotten 9 huge Brandywine tomatoes from one plant. I have a "pet" that got into my garden today—one of our young school cows. She broke free from her rope and was feasting on my fresh cow pea plants. The leaves are some of the best tasting greens! I pulled her back to her feeding spot, retied her tether, and brought her a bucket of water. She was very happy, nudged me and accepted a pat on her nose and scratching behind the ears.
Two friends, Becky and Joan from Minnesota came to visit for two weeks, just leaving a few days ago. I met them at the Kilimanjaro airport when they arrived and we all flew to Kigali, the capitol of Rwanda. We were driven by a guide to the National Park (2 hours) to see gorilla. For two days we trekked into the forest finding a family of 12 - 20 gorillas, then sitting for an hour watching them. I will never forget sitting 6 feet from a giant silverback male and watching the 3 year old children playing "ring-around-the- silverback daddy" and beating their chests in play. One young gorilla came running towards me just as we arrived and grabbed my pant leg. He looked at me as if to say, "You're finally here! Come play!" In a family group there is only one silver back male that is the leader and father, then there can be 5-10 females (or more) and each mom has one or more children. The gorillas live to about 45 years. One group we watched had a one month old child that clung to her mother's chest as mom walked and climbed to the tree top into a nest.
Before we left Rwanda, we visited the Genocide Museum and talked at length with our guides about how the people are moving through the process to recover from 1 million people killed over 3 months. Their stories are hard and remarkable at the same time. They talked of the establishment of levels crimes and then levels of consequences, but that all that killed must do community service to rebuild the country. Also, there is a ceremony/gathering that happens once a year where people who have killed choose to stand and tell the people what happened, who they killed and what happened to the bodies of those killed. The guides talked about how difficult this is but how healing it is for everyone.
We had another 8 days together back in Tanzania bird-watching and living in glorified camping style at our site. It is always hard for me to say goodbye. We look forward to coming home for Christmas next year.
We will spend Christmas with four other volunteers and three Sisters from our village, at Amani Forest Preserve. There is a parish at Amani that has housing for volunteers from all over the world. There are beautiful trails through the tropical forest seeing chameleons, tree frogs, African violets, exotic birds and butterflies as well as Collobus and Blue monkeys.
I have enjoyed going to the Catholic Church and occasionally the Lutheran services available when school is in session. We have also been invited to celebrate important Muslim holidays with our neighbors. All services are in Kiswahili, so I understand very little. I can sing the songs but I cannot understand the sermons. When school is in session every Tuesday morning (6am) there is a Mass in English. But this Christmas, I will bring my English hymnal with us to Amani and sing Christmas carols together.
New Years will be back at our site. Our night watchman, Twaha, has invited us to his family home for dinner. Probably rice cooked in coconut milk, local spinach, beans and tea. We expect New Year's Eve will be drumming and dancing, and church bells heard from all the hills around us as usual. Greetings to all of you and we hope you are well and content with each day.
We send our love and, of course, we think of you always. We send our prayers for a joyous celebration with family and friends this holiday. John and Randee
Monday, December 22, 2008
Reflections on our first year
- December 20, 2008
Reflections on our first year
Work and play has been a whirlwind since September. We are told by the volunteers who have just completed their 2 years of service that the 2nd and final year will go even faster.
For this BLOG entry, I am telling you the things we have been working on with all the different kinds of support from people at home and here.
SCIENCE TEACHING STRATIGIES
(many of these came from Saint Paul Public School Teachers!)
· The use of notebook organizational strategies in Form I. When we started revision for the annual exam, the students could see for themselves the topics covered and the pages in their notes that were helpful.
· Lots of designing little experiments together to develop problem solving skills. Once students got the idea of guessing and forming a hypothesis, they were more willing to talk in class, saying, “madame, I will try. I think...” It has been a revelation to students that the facts they must memorize for National Exams were discovered by the investigative process they were doing.
· Scavenger hunts to discover things in their environment pertaining to topics.
· With all the colored pencils donated by many of you folks, students were highly motivated to draw biology diagrams required in the notebooks.
· Teaching students how to write an essay on biology topics, then small group practice on writing different essays together.
· Form I prepared short lessons and short notes (by lab group) on Form I Biology topics and taught these to Form II for their revision of Form I topics before the regional exam.
· Preparing study guides for each new topic was very helpful to keep students working between classes, copying short notes, looking up and defining new vocabulary, drawing diagrams, and answering g summary questions. Also, sharing vocabulary words with the English teacher.
· Giving a pre-test before each topic which students completed in small groups in class proved to be highly motivating and useful to me and the students to know what they needed to learn and what they knew.
· Getting live or fresh specimens from the community for dissection was of high interest and allowed the school community to get involved with the teaching of students. The school cook got the fish, the night watchman went to the village to get the cow heart, lungs and trachea on the day we needed it so it would not spoil. The sisters got to eat it after! Eggs for osmosis were gotten from the school hens and many food supplies from the cook. The school tailor hemmed the rice bags to use for instructional posters.
· Having students work in small groups to take practice NECTA EXAMS allowed me to correct only 12 exams per class and let them pool their knowledge.
· Having small groups prepare lessons with requirements of visual aids and participation then rotate the small groups to teach another small group really facilitated more questions and discussions because they were small little classes with in a class. This also really helped the students struggling with English. They could talk in Kiswahili when needed for deeper understanding.
· Small groups constructing models of different kinds of cells out of play dough and scraps of material and things I saved from my house (foil from Nido cans, bottle caps, rope, cardboard, etc.). The challenge of seeing cells as 3-D is huge and this really helped.
· Doing a little Yoga and singing songs with students as a way to re-energize before class starts.
Some outcomes:
· Students at Kongei Secondary School have said to me, “I will always be able to say that I know these things because I was able to build the human body model, dissect the cow heart and see the anatomy movies. I can tell my family and my future children.” “Nobody has ever shown us these ways to protect ourselves from HIV.” “We have tried, really tried.”
· The Form II Biology students performed 57% higher on their regional exam than the last Form II class. Kongei students told me that one of my students earned the highest score in the district on the Biology Mock Exam.
· Form I Biology students all were able to write a good essay question answer on their annual exam and many were able to correctly answer questions about a scientific experiment and then analyze experimental data on their annual exam. The Form I overall exam scores demonstrated very good results.
· With the help of John Olson, St.Paul Public Schools, I have completed an inventory of the chemicals at Kongei and prepared a folder with Chemical Safety Data Sheets for every chemical after a science department meeting generated interest in having this safety resource.
· A science teacher from Gare Secondary School and I have been able to share lesson plans and teaching aids to teach biology and chemistry. We have agreed to work together again next year.
· The teacher from Gare and met with the headmaster at Gare and together wrote a proposal for a basic science lab.
· Katy Lee, PCV at Ubiri Secondary School and I worked together to teach 15 of her students how to conduct the experiments to test for food nutrients. These lab experiments are part of the Form II Biology syllabus and are part of the Form IV NECTA Exam. I met a student last week on the road and she asked if I could return next term to teach them more of the practical exam skills they will need.
SCIENCE CLUB
· The eight students that constructed a display for the library including a 3-D torso model and accompanying instructional poster received recognition at graduation. We had five groups of 15 students watch and discuss the collection of human anatomy DVD’s produced through the Body Worlds exhibit author.
MUSIC CLUB
With the help of my cousin, Dianna, donating Instruction books and music, the music club students have learned how to read music and performed the national anthem at graduation. Since graduation and the purchase of additional flutes, the club grew from 7 to 16 students. Form III drummers have started teaching Form I students how to play to replace them when they leave at the end of next year.
COMPUTER SKILLS
· A biology teacher at Kongei worked with me to enter his grades on an excel spread sheet to calculate the final grades for the year.
· A physics teacher used my computer to type his own annual exams. Next term he plans to use the new computers that have arrived at the school.
Permaculture/ Life Skills
· Student Peer leadership group had 5 Sunday seminars to learn about HIV/AIDS and develop life skills to have more choices and strategies to use in daily living. Next term they will be teaching their peers.
· Kongei Primary School garden is growing well. and they have added another 6 matutas of carrots and kunde. They have sold mchicha from their garden to the community. After completing the garden,
· The Kongei Primary second master reported that parents were coming to see the garden because their child had encouraged them to build a garden like it at their home. Also, he has a garden near the road going to the school that he and his son have constructed using the bio-intensive methods learned from the school garden.
· Our neighborhood shamba worker and night watchman participated in the two workshops with Peter and asked to go together to bring the composting methods, perma-culture and bio-intensive garden methods to two other primary schools in the area (Chumbageni and Mchizi). We have gone twice to Chumbageni primary school. The head teacher instructed the students to start a compost pile at home. We have been asked to return in January and help them construct a demonstration garden.
· When I returned to Chumbageni Primary to take the HIV/AIDS and Life Skills books, three teachers told me they needed a teacher seminar to learn more about HIV/AIDS and how to teach their students. The teachers came from Mchizi and Chumbageni Primary Schools. Kongei Primary and their teachers are also interested in a HIV/AIDS Teacher Seminar. We discussed the possibility to have a seminar in February hosted by Kongei Primary.
· I was invited by a primary student to help her and her friends to construct a garden next to her grandparents’ home where she lives. We completed one bed together with her friends and the second will be constructed with her uncle.
· I have started nursery beds at my site for “guild” plants that are hard to find here and seeds for popular vegetables (papaya, aloe, lemon grass, avocado, mchicha, Brandywine tomatoes, vitungu kitamu rangi ya carroti).
· My counterpart has expanded the garden by my house, adding beds of cabbage that he has transplanted to another area to raise for profit. He has requested to add more beds of his favorite vegetables. This has brought more local people into my garden to help, learning the techniques of bio-intensive gardening.
· In Lushoto two women’s groups developed a gardens at homes. In January, they have asked for help to develop a garden at the primary school in Lushoto where one is a teacher.
PCPP Funding for Teacher Housing at Kongei Primary School
Kongei Primary School has successfully written a Partnership Grant proposal for teacher housing. With ALL your donations and support, the funds have been raised and on December 3, 2008 we had a meeting with the leadership team to start the process to build teacher housing and septic tank. The school committee met on December 5th and has planned for the site preparation to begin in January.
Mathematics and Technology
John has been teaching Form III and IV Mathematics. Here is a brief summary of his work. Go to his BLOG for more details: johntanzania.blogspot.com
· The math students have made huge gains in their exam scores through his teaching (77% improvement). The Math scores in Tanzania in general are extremely low and so it is difficult to convince students that it is possible to succeed in math.
· Some of the strategies he is using are: spiraling homework assignments so students would have constant review, building math skills and confidence; approach new material from a problem-solving perspective; and having students’ working in groups to discover solutions and strategies.
· He has designed a one week Math Camp the week before January term begins for Form VI students that are struggling with Math.
· With 10 rebuilt computers that arrived from Demark, John hopes to make more progress in teaching computer skills to teachers and students. His efforts so far have been limited to one computer and one afternoon a week available to show teachers tools for calculating grades. He has also used his own computer as a visual aid in the classroom. The new computer resource can significantly change his ability to facilitate learning and enthusiasm for technology tools.
LANGUAGE
· John works diligently every night to practice Kiswahili. His vocabulary is huge, often impressing teachers because he knows words they have never heard before.
· He has been teaching English to different village folks that ask him.
Sharing English Story Books and other things with Neighborhood Children
· With all the different children’s’ books you have donated, neighborhood children, 3 years to 12 years old come weekly to “check out” a new book to read.
· The Banana Word tiles are very popular. Children come to our house and spend an hour or more making words and practice their English.
· The calendars you have sent are great, too. We have neighbors stop by to use our calendar! The MN scenes give us a chance to talk about home and comparisons to Tanzania weather and landscapes.
· Family pictures, especially of the grandchildren doing things in America are special to people here. The children love to see the school work that Kelsey and Kole have done!
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Developing Gardens at Two Sites
On September 2, Peter Jensen, Katherine, another PCV, and I drove from Dar es Salaam to our house in Lushoto. Katherine and I had spent the weekend at Bagamoyo Beach Hotel, swimming, eating fresh fish, and celebrating the service of three year volunteers now returning to USA. Katherine and I spent Sunday and Monday at Peter’s house, having pizza while watching Frasier with his family, having breakfast and dinner conversations at the dining room table (and bare feet on carpeted floors) as the girls went off to school and Elise was getting ready for work. These family conversations, playing with the family dog and guinea pigs and helping with their garden was truly a time we both missed being home with our own families.
Peter Jensen has been working in Tanzania for 8 years, working with people all over Tanzania as well as training Peace Corps Volunteers about ways to grow more food in small spaces. His work with the Peace Corps is especially for People and families living with HIV/AIDS. The biointensive gardening and permaculture methods are a way for these folks to be able to have very productive gardens close to home and that take minimal energy to maintain. He was making his second visit to our area to develop a demonstration garden for our primary school , working with the students, teachers and community adults—learning by doing and working together to meld what Peter knows works and what the community knows works in their area with their cultural priorities and preferences for food and planting.
Arriving Tuesday afternoon, we met with the school adults to lay out a logistic plan to rotate students during the week to work and learn from the garden. We also had to find out how to bring adults from the community into the work in a proper way. We looked over the school grounds and the school made a decision as to where to put the garden. The school had already brought many buckets of manure and water for the garden.
Wednesday morning started with Peter showing his new movie of Tanzanians from different climates using the gardening methods successfully. The movie also has tutorials and graphics showing the methods we would be using during the week to develop their garden. Excitement was in the air. Students (grades 5, 6, &7), community adults and teachers all watching the movie, (about 200).
The garden started first by sprucing up the guild we had built during the Girls Workshop and constructing the double dug planting beds (6 total in the end!). At 1:30pm we stopped to have a celebratory lunch together with the school leaders. Sister Shirema welcomed Peter into their school family as we began our week together. Another 1.5 hours working in the garden and then Peter and I went to Lushoto to visit Rose.
Rose is a member of a group of women in Lushoto living with HIV/AIDS. She and I met when Nice brought Rose to the Girls Leadership Workshop as a guest speaker. Nice is the program director for an NGO serving women, teaching them computer skills to enable them to find jobs to support their families. Rose participated in the Permaculture demonstration we did at the Girls Workshop and said to me then, “I and my group and the people that really need to know these methods!” At that very moment, Nice, Rose and I started planning how to work together to start making gardens at Rose’s house and teach all the people of the group that wanted to learn.
Rose was not home as she needed to travel to Moshi Health Clinic, but she left instructions with her children to welcome us and help choose a garden spot at their house. Nice, Peter and I visited her house. It is truly amazing to see a landscape through Peter’s eyes! I had visited Rose’s House a week before to look at garden spots, but through Peter’s eyes, I learned how to look for the information that the soil, erosion and plant life that is their can teach. We left with a plan and Rose’s daughter ready to do her part before we returned to build a garden on Saturday!
Thursday through Friday, the Kongei garden took shape and the community’s ability to teach their children through showing then stepping back and letting them do was awe inspiring. Peter was family as the week progressed, that was clear. Three guilds, three banana trees added, a fresh compost pile started and 6 beds of vegetables planted happened by Friday afternoon. A guild is a Papaya tree, matembele below (nutritious perennial), lemon grass, and aloe vera planted in a group. This is a power packed grouping that is of plants common to every house in Tanzania. The beds planted are 1 meter wide and 6 meters long. There are two beds of carrots, two of kunde (beans), two of an orange sweet potatoe together with a local greens that covers the soil and is harvested once the potatoes come up.
Another important feature of the garden is the holes and shallow trenches to control the flow of water, directing it into the beds and slowing it down as it runs down the mountain side. This garden is a beautiful from the shape, colors, food it will provide and the engineering of structures to maximize the water that flows naturally.
After all cleaned up and the garden site, too, we all gathered to watch the movie again. But, in Tanzanian style, the generator created a electrical surge and the projector became toast. So, the students sang a song they wrote for Peter and we handed out the books on nutrition and life skills in kid language and a carrot to eat. A factor we did not consider when we invited parents to come on Friday was Ramadan. One parent came to look at the garden and then he and the adults working in the garden watched the movie. (Since this day we have heard testimony from a variety of folks that kids have told their parents about the garden and parents have been, now, stopping by to see the garden and have said they want to try one at their house.)
Saturday, Peter and I headed to Lushoto. Rose’s garden began. There were 14 friends of Rose that joined her to make a garden. The Lushoto Community Development Director, the secretary of another local NGO for controlling AIDS, and three teachers from a secondary school came. Peace Corps has 5 new health volunteers in the area and all were there, too, along with another PCV teacher. Then, of course were the children that easily made up another 6 participants.
The garden took shape, the first bed done slowly teaching the methods and building a sense of family between us as we built a garden. After chai, bread and bananas in the welcoming warmth of Rose’s home, we all put to use our knowledge. The women eagerly started another bed. Peter took small groups to construct three guilds in spots where the water runs naturally. Then Peter’s eyes became ours as he showed us where to dig holes to stop the water and where to dig inclined trenches to move the water down each bed. By 1:30 Rose’s Garden was a fact and we walked together with Peter to see other possibilities along the path to the dala dala that took us to Lunch at the Tea Room in Lushoto. Jackie served us all a delicious lunch of greens, beans, rice and meat. NyaKoki, community Development director then lead us to a meeting room where Peter showed his movie, questions were discussed and books and directions on the methods taught, nutrition and life skills were provided. I headed back to my school early, as we had Parent Day going on, but I heard that Peter was able to visit another secondary school of a PCV in the area, seeing the guild they had built and the papaya seedlings begun before taking his rest that evening.
These events of this powerful week are alive. I continue to work in my garden with my neighbors that are teaching me as I teach them--, harvesting potatoes, transplanting leeks, thinning carrots; harvesting g sweet potatoes from my matembele I did not realize were growing. I have reworked two beds by adding my 4 month old compost to the top! It is true, we did not have to double dig again, and they are still deep and loose!
Nice and Rose have told me that we are going to develop a garden at each woman’s house in her group. It is the spirit of a quilting bee I think. The group came to Rose’s house and built a garden, now we will continue the rotation until each woman has a garden. I told them, “I will be there.” Ali and Twaha, two of the adults at the Kongei garden have asked me which day I am free for us to go to another primary school and develop their garden—a school where their neighbors children go and have heard of the Kongei garden. They also ask, “Will you garden like this when you return to America?”
Food. Water. This is one way I know I can participate in this struggle with my neighbors here. We share the knowledge, work, food and spirit of a family.
Monday, August 25, 2008
August Happenings in TZ
August has brought 5 new health Peace Corps Volunteers to our area. I welcome these folks, both to provide more resources for the communities and schools we are working with and also, because the volunteer community has been a relief and a pleasure to socialize with on weekends. It is very nice to be able to not only speak English but to speak to folks with life experiences in the western world.
This week we may have one of the new volunteers stay here as their site and house is not yet settled. Then next week Peter Jensen will stay with us while working on developing a demonstration garden at Kongei Primary school and then a Saturday workshop and demonstration garden in Lushoto with a group of People Living With HIV/AIDS (PLWHA). Both the Primary school and the Community Development Office in Lushoto have been very active in supporting this visit from Peter. They are providing lunch for the participants, meeting room space and teaching pamphlets to compliment the reading material Peace Corps provides these participants on nutrition and HIV/AIDS prevention and care. It is all happening without outside funds (other than Peter’s services and travel expensive). This is very heartwarming to me in that it shows me they are very serious about sustaining the work to be done in developing more productive gardens and to learn better nutrition habits, as well as pass their new knowledge on to others interested. We will probably never know the impacts after we leave, but we are told these are hopeful signs.
John and I have started working with another primary school that is a two hour walk from our site. They are a school that was started because Kongei primary is a two hour walk for their young children (pre school – Standard 6 (grade6). Our night watchman and school shamba workers’ children attend this school and they asked us to visit the school and share the permaculture, biointensive gardening and any other resources we can offer their needs. Last Tuesday we met with the faculty, head teachers and community leader to discuss what needs they have. The story is very similar to Kongei Primary. They are in the process of building teacher housing as many of the teachers walk from Lushoto town (2+ hours). They are now short 2 classrooms because they have added a grade level as the kids progress (they started with preschool – Standard 4). So, they want to build a new classroom. There are no government funds coming that they know of in the near future. Then I asked what else do they what to tell us that they have not. A teacher very eloquently explained that of course these building are a priority but it is much more complicated and difficult to say what is a priority when you as a teacher are teaching and your students have not eaten and cannot stay awake nor think clearly to learn. This is very difficult because the school shamba can grow only enough food to last a few weeks after harvest to feed them porridge mid-day, and we know the villagers do not grow enough food, either to feed their families nor to give to the school in the form of foods or money to help build.
I worked with the night watchman (Twaha) to demonstrate double digging garden beds and we planted matembele and lemon grass that I brought from my garden. I will return this week to co-teach composting methods to decrease the amount of fertilizers needed to purchase and to reduce the burning of corn and bean stalks after harvest. This time Twaha and Ali (shamba worker) both want to come to help teach.
At home, my garden is doing great. I now get help from Asha, a woman that has been watering our flowers and sweeping our yard and courtyard as well as mopping once a week. She has developed a beautiful flower garden around our house that is the talk of the neighborhood. It is called “Asha’s Garden”. Now she has started to work with me to double-dig some new beds as I need to thin my carrots and leeks as well as plant some new things. In the next few weeks we will harvest potatoes! I have already had fresh green beans from the seeds Barbara brought with her when she visited.
We still get called Mzungu (European) when we travel by bike from home to Lushoto and back, but slowly it is changing to Johnny and Mama Johnny. I tried to teach them my name “Randee” but “r” is very difficult in Kiswahili and “Johnny” is a very common name. So… I used the cultural pattern of a Mama being called by either one of her children’s’ names for example “Mama Anna” or by her husband’s first name. Now I hear “Mama Johnny” yelled from the top of the mountains when I pass through on the main road. I often cannot see the children, but if I wave or shout a greeting back there are great cheers. Also, now that we have been to another village area of the other primary school, I notice more people (thatI do not know by face) greet me and ask me how Kongei is doing. Slowly we are feeling more like neighbors in a wider circle from our house.
As far as teaching, I am just about finished with the syllabus for the year. It will be one more month to finish and then review for the national exams. It has been very helpful to create a study guide for each unit that includes; vocabulary and questions for them to look up and complete; a pre-test they work on as a lab group; and lab directions and notes to put in their books as I teach the unit. I am able to make one copy for each lab group of 4-6 people. This has really helped save time from writing all the notes on the blackboard and it gives them freedom to work at their own pace to get the notes and complete the independent study work.
One of the most engaging English language lessons I did was giving my students the receipe for Chocolate Chip Cookies and Play dough. Since making them cookies and using homemade playdough for making cell models, they have been bugging me to give them recipes. When I finally did, even the most limited English speakers were coming up to ask questions about meaning and pronunciation of words. The students from the other Forms, now, are asking me for the receipes so they can make playdough for their brothers and sisters when they go home!
This week we may have one of the new volunteers stay here as their site and house is not yet settled. Then next week Peter Jensen will stay with us while working on developing a demonstration garden at Kongei Primary school and then a Saturday workshop and demonstration garden in Lushoto with a group of People Living With HIV/AIDS (PLWHA). Both the Primary school and the Community Development Office in Lushoto have been very active in supporting this visit from Peter. They are providing lunch for the participants, meeting room space and teaching pamphlets to compliment the reading material Peace Corps provides these participants on nutrition and HIV/AIDS prevention and care. It is all happening without outside funds (other than Peter’s services and travel expensive). This is very heartwarming to me in that it shows me they are very serious about sustaining the work to be done in developing more productive gardens and to learn better nutrition habits, as well as pass their new knowledge on to others interested. We will probably never know the impacts after we leave, but we are told these are hopeful signs.
John and I have started working with another primary school that is a two hour walk from our site. They are a school that was started because Kongei primary is a two hour walk for their young children (pre school – Standard 6 (grade6). Our night watchman and school shamba workers’ children attend this school and they asked us to visit the school and share the permaculture, biointensive gardening and any other resources we can offer their needs. Last Tuesday we met with the faculty, head teachers and community leader to discuss what needs they have. The story is very similar to Kongei Primary. They are in the process of building teacher housing as many of the teachers walk from Lushoto town (2+ hours). They are now short 2 classrooms because they have added a grade level as the kids progress (they started with preschool – Standard 4). So, they want to build a new classroom. There are no government funds coming that they know of in the near future. Then I asked what else do they what to tell us that they have not. A teacher very eloquently explained that of course these building are a priority but it is much more complicated and difficult to say what is a priority when you as a teacher are teaching and your students have not eaten and cannot stay awake nor think clearly to learn. This is very difficult because the school shamba can grow only enough food to last a few weeks after harvest to feed them porridge mid-day, and we know the villagers do not grow enough food, either to feed their families nor to give to the school in the form of foods or money to help build.
I worked with the night watchman (Twaha) to demonstrate double digging garden beds and we planted matembele and lemon grass that I brought from my garden. I will return this week to co-teach composting methods to decrease the amount of fertilizers needed to purchase and to reduce the burning of corn and bean stalks after harvest. This time Twaha and Ali (shamba worker) both want to come to help teach.
At home, my garden is doing great. I now get help from Asha, a woman that has been watering our flowers and sweeping our yard and courtyard as well as mopping once a week. She has developed a beautiful flower garden around our house that is the talk of the neighborhood. It is called “Asha’s Garden”. Now she has started to work with me to double-dig some new beds as I need to thin my carrots and leeks as well as plant some new things. In the next few weeks we will harvest potatoes! I have already had fresh green beans from the seeds Barbara brought with her when she visited.
We still get called Mzungu (European) when we travel by bike from home to Lushoto and back, but slowly it is changing to Johnny and Mama Johnny. I tried to teach them my name “Randee” but “r” is very difficult in Kiswahili and “Johnny” is a very common name. So… I used the cultural pattern of a Mama being called by either one of her children’s’ names for example “Mama Anna” or by her husband’s first name. Now I hear “Mama Johnny” yelled from the top of the mountains when I pass through on the main road. I often cannot see the children, but if I wave or shout a greeting back there are great cheers. Also, now that we have been to another village area of the other primary school, I notice more people (thatI do not know by face) greet me and ask me how Kongei is doing. Slowly we are feeling more like neighbors in a wider circle from our house.
As far as teaching, I am just about finished with the syllabus for the year. It will be one more month to finish and then review for the national exams. It has been very helpful to create a study guide for each unit that includes; vocabulary and questions for them to look up and complete; a pre-test they work on as a lab group; and lab directions and notes to put in their books as I teach the unit. I am able to make one copy for each lab group of 4-6 people. This has really helped save time from writing all the notes on the blackboard and it gives them freedom to work at their own pace to get the notes and complete the independent study work.
One of the most engaging English language lessons I did was giving my students the receipe for Chocolate Chip Cookies and Play dough. Since making them cookies and using homemade playdough for making cell models, they have been bugging me to give them recipes. When I finally did, even the most limited English speakers were coming up to ask questions about meaning and pronunciation of words. The students from the other Forms, now, are asking me for the receipes so they can make playdough for their brothers and sisters when they go home!
Starting this month, we have daily visits from the neighborhood children. They come to look at my bird books and read the children’s’ books of TZ animals that Barb and I got on our travels. Also, the life skills children’s magazines we get from Peace Corps Office are a big hit as these are in Kiswahili and have popular kids themes and characters. There are really good resources for communities from the TZ Peace Corps. The kids like to play ball and wrestle with us, too, of course. We saw a new bird species yesterday in my yard, a Green Wood-Hoopoe.
The music club is doing well, learning the National Anthem to play at graduation in October. They now can read and play 8 notes as well as "clap out" measures in 4/4 time. Mostly, we are having lots of fun!
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Dissecting Fish and Building Models
We had 4 fish to use with 100 students to dissect. It was a hit. I also got a cow heart, kidneys and lungs with trachea attached to do disection followed by individuals observing parts. The Science club finished their digestive system model and hung it in the library with an informative poster. Form I made plant and animal cells models from homemade playdough.
Saturday, August 2, 2008
July-August
-It is August!
Our Girls workshop was such a hit and we had some money left that we had another jam making workshop day to try making orange marmalade. It is Orange season here and so they are real cheap!
While the jam was cooking we had lunch and then demonstrated how to make a Papaya tree guild garden at Kongei Primary with matembele and lemon grass cuttings from my garden.
You can see pictures on my PICASA web page!
July teaching has been fun.
I was able to get 4 live fish from a villager to dissect with the Form II students. They are very excited to be in the lab and use the equipment and touch things.
Form I mounted onion cell slides and used the microscopes last week. They are also, so grateful. This is the fun part of the job, 50 kids grateful to use 6 microscopes or 4 fish then another 50 reuse the same fish!
The students are drawing diagrams of many biology structures and love the colored pencils my sister brought. I always the pencils back at the end of class, every one!
The music club is doing great. They has learned 5 notes as well as how to read 4/4 time, quarter and half notes and rests and name the lines and spaces. They want to play Simple Gifts for graduation and also their national anthem.
I am going to try making “playdough” again to use for cell models. I need cream of Tartar, so someone is going to bring it from Dar.
I made a lung model with a lantern globe, balloon and hose. It worked! Next week I am getting a cow heart and kidney to dissect from our night watchman’s village. In three weeks the dispensary head nurse is coming to show the students how a stethoscope and blood pressure cuff work and answer questions about blood types.
At home, I bought a round bottom clay pot to cook rice and soup. Twaha, our night watchman made a banana leaf ngata to hold the pot on the table or... to carry on my head.
I also made 120 chocolate chip cookies for my Form I students with the chips Barb brought in June. Baking on a lid inside a bigger pot on a charcoal stove!
(Pictures attached)
I will take a break at the end of August for a long week end. Bagamoyo is a town on the beach near Dar. I am going to celebrate a PCV returning to USA. I am looking forward to the beach and some R&R.
Peace,
Randee
Our Girls workshop was such a hit and we had some money left that we had another jam making workshop day to try making orange marmalade. It is Orange season here and so they are real cheap!
While the jam was cooking we had lunch and then demonstrated how to make a Papaya tree guild garden at Kongei Primary with matembele and lemon grass cuttings from my garden.
You can see pictures on my PICASA web page!
July teaching has been fun.
I was able to get 4 live fish from a villager to dissect with the Form II students. They are very excited to be in the lab and use the equipment and touch things.
Form I mounted onion cell slides and used the microscopes last week. They are also, so grateful. This is the fun part of the job, 50 kids grateful to use 6 microscopes or 4 fish then another 50 reuse the same fish!
The students are drawing diagrams of many biology structures and love the colored pencils my sister brought. I always the pencils back at the end of class, every one!
The music club is doing great. They has learned 5 notes as well as how to read 4/4 time, quarter and half notes and rests and name the lines and spaces. They want to play Simple Gifts for graduation and also their national anthem.
I am going to try making “playdough” again to use for cell models. I need cream of Tartar, so someone is going to bring it from Dar.
I made a lung model with a lantern globe, balloon and hose. It worked! Next week I am getting a cow heart and kidney to dissect from our night watchman’s village. In three weeks the dispensary head nurse is coming to show the students how a stethoscope and blood pressure cuff work and answer questions about blood types.
At home, I bought a round bottom clay pot to cook rice and soup. Twaha, our night watchman made a banana leaf ngata to hold the pot on the table or... to carry on my head.
I also made 120 chocolate chip cookies for my Form I students with the chips Barb brought in June. Baking on a lid inside a bigger pot on a charcoal stove!
(Pictures attached)
I will take a break at the end of August for a long week end. Bagamoyo is a town on the beach near Dar. I am going to celebrate a PCV returning to USA. I am looking forward to the beach and some R&R.
Peace,
Randee
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