I'm Still Alive!

Hey Everybody!

    So computers are a little more difficult to come by here than I would have thought. I finally found an internet cafe in my village a couple of weeks ago, but a busy schedule and few power outages have prevented me from getting to a computer. It has been about a month since my last post, and quite a lot has happened. I'll try to keep this from turning into a full length novel. Okay, so I left off last time when I was staying at the Msimbazi Center in Dar Es Salaam. That first week was full of language, safety, and health sessions. I got to go into the heart of the city, which was a very interesting experience. Overall, it was a nice place. But there was a wide range in the quality of the local buildings. There was an Apple Store, along with some other very nice shops, but the poverty of the area was quite evident. Seeing the Indian Ocean was pretty cool. The rest of my stay in Dar was pretty uneventful.
     Alright, so let's jump to Morogoro. After a four hour bus ride, we arrived in Morogoro. It's in another province west of Dar. The scenery was pretty incredible, full of distant mountains and baobab trees. It's very much different than anywhere I've ever been. First, we came to CCT (Christian Council of Tanzania), a conference center where we do about half of our training. We ate some lunch and then left for our homestays. I'm living in a village called Kihonda. It's a pretty big area, and I'm really enjoying my stay here. I am living with the Mambya family. I couldn't ask for a better experience. My Mama introduces herself as Mama Mattayo when I'm around, which is always pretty funny. She is a dressmaker, so I've gotten a couple of pretty awesome shirts made. My homestay includes Baba Daniel, Mama, dada Gracie, kaka Yolan, Shengazi (Aunt) and Dada (cousin). Gracie just left to go back to school, which is a bit of a bummer because she helped me a lot with Swahili. I think that it is impossible to wake up without your head in the clouds here in Morogoro. We are at the foot of the Uluguru Mountain Range, which basically pops up out of nowhere. It's truly an incredible sight.
    My Swahili abilities are improving a lot. I have progressed from some sort of caveman Swahili (me want food... etc.), into something much more comprehensible. I'm certainly no expert, but my confidence grows every day. I mentioned that half of my training takes place at CCT. The other half is at a Secondary School called Educare. There are 47 volunteers, and we are all split up into CBT's (Community Based Training) which have 6 people in each. At Educare, we do a lot of language training, as well as our internships. Last week, I started teaching. I am teaching Form 1 biology. I'll give a quick breakdown of  TZ education. Every child completes primary school. That is to say that it is required by the government, although this isn't exactly the reality. This lasts until students are 12-13. Then they attend secondary school. Ordinary Level (O level) consists of forms 1-4, and Advanced level (A level) includes forms 5-6. Each student must pass a national exam called the NECTA to be invited into the next form. These exams take place after forms 2, 4, and 6. If you do well of the form 6 NECTA, you might be invited to attend college. If you don't pass a NECTA, even if you are 13 years old, you must go to a private school, or begin work. Okay, so I'm teaching form 1 biology. I have 2 classes with around 45 students in each. I have a chalkboard and a piece of chalk. The students are very well behaved. They're too afraid of corporal punishment to misbehave. (They haven't yet realized that I'm a softie) As volunteers, we try to promote creative thinking, and rely on memorization as little as possible. We play a lot of games to keep students moving and interested. It's difficult to gauge the level of student understanding, but they seem to be doing well. I get to teach STD's to 14 year old's next week, so that should be loads of fun. I forgot to mention one thing about education here. Primary school is taught in Kiswahili. Once a student reaches secondary school, everything switches to English. This is by far the most difficult thing to overcome. The students often don't have English teachers, but the national exams are written completely in English. Despite the challenges, I've enjoyed teaching far more than I ever would have guessed.
    During training, we have to leave at 7 in the morning, and we usually can return home at 5 at night. We do this 6 days a week. On my day off, I wash clothes by hand, clean my room, and go shopping for the week. We get paid about 5 dollars a day, which is more than enough right now. It's been a lot of fun getting to know people in my community. It's fun talking about the differences between America and TZ. Last weekend, we had our first 2 day weekend since arriving. All of us went up to Mikumi National Park on safari. It was beautiful, and I got to see a ton of animals for the first time. I saw elephants, antelope, wildebeest, hippos, giraffe, zebras, and a lot more. It was a great time, and it was really good to get away for a while. It's tough to be on somebody elses schedule at all times. But I'm learning a ton, and having a great time doing it.
   I better run, I've got to do Swahili homework and lesson plans for tomorrow. I know many challenges await me, but for the time being, it seems impossible to be sad here. Know that I'm loving my time here, and I am missing you all very much!

               Matthew