2/17/14-2/22/14

2/17/14 

• started looking up flights this weekend. gotta get the next big thing planned. 
• madame difficult is back. she is studying ancient greek philosophers and then she wants to compare them to tazanian philospohers like nyerere. she conned two of the youngest, newest teachers into sitting by her and helping her. i learned that she wants to study for her masters but has not recieved permission from the district yet. she decided to begin anyways and that is why she has not been at school. well that changed last week when she got a call from mahumi and was told to return immediately or the disrtict would terminate her. they are obviously very unhappy. but apparently its all good because she just asked them to forgive her. 
• the crazy district board dude came into the staff room today. his hands were wet every time we shook hands and he smelled just as bad as when amber and i met him. 
• apparently we are getting lunch today around 1. i think because there is a district meeting today at the school. 
• students always check their uniforms before coming into the staff room. i would too if i knew it would save me from a few beatings each time
• students also always have to ask permission before coming into the room. i am terrified to give them permission thought because i dont want to get them in trouble.  
• had to show a few serengeti pics to some of the teachers today 
• so the teachers are frequently eating these little red balls in a plastic bags. they suck the coating off and then spit the seed back out. well today eva gave me a few today to try. they are pretty interesting. apparently they are the nuts of the baobab tree. madame haule makes them. she coats them in sugar and red food coloring. 

• madame difficult wins the tacky christmas sweater today. haha its not really tacky at all its just a little funny. its blue with little white snowflakes on it 
• eva also showed me today that people here dont actually want to drink oil or have oil with a side of chapati. she folded it up like normal and then gave it a squeeze and made a little ‘ah’ noise and said something about oil. 
• 2 students came in the staff room and asked me to borrow my sudoku book. the teachers are always surprise/ amused by my sudoku and crossword puzzles. apparently simba was telling his class something about number bingo and used my sudoku as an example. 
• daniella called simba a european or mzungu because he wanted to go home this afternoon and not wait for the food for lunch. she was calling him this because he cared about the time and also being on time.
• teachers are still telling me i need more clothes. madame difficult wants to see my kitange so i will have to wear it tomorrow. 
• pretty good spread of food but not hungry at all. the meat actually had some meat on it so thats always a plus. 
• i think its closer to 6 km to school. 

2/18/14 

• i brought the laptop today so i could type up the previous two posts. i knew i wouldnt have time or want to do it after school during the week. i didnt even get too many weird stares or comments from the teachers or students. quite the successful day getting the blogs up! 
• i got to walk home again. madame eva, difficult, and i set out. eva and difficult split ways making me choose ways. i went with madame difficult because i usually walk with madame eva. naturally, this innocent choice had me going down back streets and in no time we were sitting in her sister’s living room. it was very nice. her sister is a lawyer and was rocking quite the hair do and make up. i got to meet and play with her grandson. i practiced my little bit of swahili with him. we took a few pictures and he loved looking at them. we got drinks (2 cold bottles of water for me) and a plate of food a little later. again, i wasnt too hungry since we dont do lunch here so i put down some ugali, cabbage, and nyama (meat). meat - real, distinguishable meat- two days in a row. so probably an hour and a half later i finally got to begin the rest of my trek. overall, many people here are nice and welcoming. i usually enjoy greeting so many people and rejecting the multiple offers for me to ride on the back of their bicycle or boda boda. but there are some days when i do get pretty frustrated on my way home. people are always staring at me, which is fine. but if you are going to stare at me, then can you please at least respond to my attempt to talk to you in your language? 
• similarly, i will respond to many different words/ names. but there are also 3 things that i will definitely not respond to. the first of these is njoo (come) with the hand motion. njoo is one of my absolute least favorite words here. the second word i will not respond to is wewe (you). this is my other least favorite word. and by saying least favorite.... i mean i hate it. this is totally harsh and mean but anyone that says wewe njoo with the hand motion has a better chance of getting their hand cut off than me coming to them. whew! i feel better just getting that out. oh and the last one doesnt happen very often at all but i do occasionally get kissing noises or noises that they use to move the cattle around. definitely not going to turn my head for that.  
• we finished the lion king tonight at dinner. such a good movie and so fun to watch after being in the serengeti. fun fact - maybe. so when we were in the serengeti we were getting attacked by a ton of huge flies. then jonathon showed us these pieced of blue and black fabric hung up in trees every now and then. they are covered in poison so when the fly hits it, it will die. anyways back to the movie. i dont remember who but simba, timon, and pumba were talking at one point about the stars in the sky. one of them said that they thought that the stars were fireflies that flew up into the sky and got stuck. then someone else said they thought it was balls of burning gas. anyways, i am wondering if they got the fireflies idea from the flies flying into the pieces of blue fabric all around the serengeti. maybe its a stretch or a coincidence but i thought it was pretty cool. 

2/19/14 

• im a fan of my later pick up time. i really enjoy my morning time, chilling with amber and my peanut butter. 
• simba is persistent that i help him study or prepare for biostatistics, what he wants to get his masters in. i dont mind helping him during school but outside of school, that a different story. today i helped him with differentiation which was much more advanced and interesting than talking about the mean, median, and mode, what we talked about last time. 
• so, so, so many mosquitos in the staff room. 
• madame joyce is the most western/ least tanzanian in her ways. her greetings are very short and she offers them in passing. she also wears her headphones frequently in the staff room. 
• i really admire how welcoming they are to the new teacher that was transferred her from another school. its like the teachers already knew him. he is in all the conversations and just seems very comfortable. 
• oh and another random yolito, nothing like getting a little excited about the leftover pasta or rice in the morning. leftovers are a rare concept around here. i think we have had leftover meals twice and leftover rice or past just a little more. we eat good. reel good. 

2/20/14 

• ooohhhhh today was definitely a yolito!!!! So, this morning in stream A, there was a student kneeling on the ground where he head in another students lap. I didn’t notice her for a while but the student in the desk would lean over and whisper to the student kneeling every now and then. Then, all the sudden, I turned around and about 10-15 students were starting to stand up and run toward this girl. She was screaming and fighting back. Throwing her arms all over the place. The mob of students quickly got her under control and carried her out of the class. I let the students talk for a minute and calm down. After a few “continue, madame”’s, i began teaching again like nothing had happened. The students that left with her trickled back in and that was that. I finished the period and went to the staff room for break. I checked my phone and got a text from amber, ‘you know its a thursday when a student gets possessed by the devil and shuts the whole school down’. Yep, today was the dreaded thursday- we havent really had a good one since we got here. So anyways, the possessed student at her school was screaming loudly, rhythmically like an alarm. I later found out that the students in her class at her school told her it was time to pray for the student and eventually they too went on with their day. So back to my break in the staff room. About 3 minutes later, micese asked me what i thought about the crazy person i my room. I asked him what happened and if she was okay and he told me that she was a victim, also possessed by the devils. There was no way I was missing out on this opportunity to play 20 questions and learn everything i could about these devils. Ombeni took over the role of explaining this business to me, quite surprised that I didnt have a clue what was going on and everything about the devils, how they attack, and how to get rid of them. He was very patient with me and very informative. My first question was how long is the victim possessed or not calm. He said it usually lasted anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours. Also, the devils can stay in the person for their lifetime but it is normally prayed out of them. Ombeni used to be one of the people that would hold these services to pray the devil out of the victim with lots of other people. Praying the devil out of them is basically being delivered.... what the three of us saw at DEO Alex’s house that night on emmanuel.tv. He said that you must not pray for just a few minutes or hours or days. It must be longer. He is thinking of starting a committee here at biashara for it. Anyways, my next big question was whether it normally attacked women or men. He said of course women! and there are 3 main reasons for that. the first is because spiritually, women are more important than men. At that my teeth about fell out- i guess thats why men treat them like crap here. He explained that it is because of the womb. If the devils stay in the women and then she has a baby then they will be passed on to the baby. So it is critical to pray it it out of them before they have a baby. The second reason is because the devils suck blood. Sometimes the devils cause accidents to get blood but they especially like women because of the mp. do you know mp? menstrual period. The mp is normally 3-4 but there are some who have 7 days. the devil especially likes to attack them for the blood. also normally it is just a drop but sometimes flood. again, the devils will attack them more. the third reason is ornaments. after many more questions, i found out that ornaments are jewelry and make up. the devil likes ornaments and women too like ornaments so the devils use ornaments as a door to pass through to the body. hahaha
• today was a rainy day, pretty much all day long. so that meant that everyone was freezing. i have to give it to them... it was pretty chilly. but it was funny to see all of the students and teachers reactions. the students were all hunched forward, huddled up in their desks. i finally called it quits on teaching a few minutes before the period was over and told them to all get up and move around. i told them to do jumping jacks or anything to warm up. they loved up. i had students running from the front to the back wall of the classroom while other students were shadow boxing. i had students asking for my jacket. i love them. the teachers were all wrapped up in their coats. they had their hoods on and anything they could find to wrap around them. madame eva had her kigoni wrapped around her. micese was standing in the window with the curtain wrapped around him. and boy they were going through the chai. 
• i was able to get some pictures today of students outside. they were form 4 students. hanging out on the rocks, washing the jerseys from yesterdays soccer game, missing school.. nbd. 

2/21/14

• today was going to be a great day. fridays are a pretty busy teaching day and then i was going to take my friday afternoon walk home. i was going to search for some oranges or pineapples because i have been struggling the past few days in regard to food. and it was a good day until about 11:00 when two guys from immigration came to the school. i talked to one of the guys last thursday on the way home with mahumi and he wanted to see our documents so i told him i could bring an electronic copy of mine and ambers exemption certificate. well the rest of the talking went through mahumi and it just never happened. i have no way to print here so we decided to wait until kim brought the hard copies when she comes for her site visit on march 10. i thought it was settled and was even there when mahumi called the guy and told him... i thought. anyways back to today. they were talking to madame difficult and then left. she came to tell me what they were talking about and they were wanting to know ‘how many of you there are here’. basically how many mzungus. so the second headmaster came to the staff room and called me in to talk to them. things went downhill quickly and i got beyond mad. they wanted me to have all of my documentation on me. they asked me how far away home was and if i could go get it. then the guy i talked to last week called me a liar because i keep telling them i will come and never do. and on and on and on. so we ended up waiting on the car that brought them to come back. they took me home and talked to amber and i. we settled it by taking pics of our passport and visa and emailing them the pictures and our exemption certificate. the whole thing just really made me upset. The immigration office (so these two guys) have been here for a total of 15 days. 15. they said they needed to make a monthly report of everyone living here. whatever. so we finally got them to leave. i tried to email it to them and couldnt connect to the internet. and then i decided enough was enough and i wasnt going to let them ruin my day. so i threw on my bathing suit and went out to the courtyard and soaked up the african sun for nearly 3 hours. laying on rocky, uneven concrete has never felt better. i came in with some sun and a new attitude. i got the email sent and was good to go. man the sun can work miracles. it can also give you a little sunburn but it is so welcome considering the good it did for me. the rest of the day was good. amber and i did a random workout here and there and wrapped it up with the cupid shuffle (our cardio of course). definitely the highlight of the night. dinner was rice and beans served with the last half of harry potter and the deathly hallows part 1. 
• pictures today came from the stream c class. 

2/22/14 

• saturday morning started off with quite the typical weekend routine of laying in bed for a while and reading a book (another free kindle book of course). when hunger started getting the best of me, i threw on my black skirt, put some money in a ziploc, and was going to head into town. but madame emba (amber) was searching for brownie points this morning because she had bought 2 chapati for me. and she had a extra banana. a very welcome surprise. she also threw in a side of productivity since she was working on a worldteach teacher quality module. so with a chapati, half a banana, and a tub of peanut butter (and a smile and some good itunes), i got to work by her. i knocked out a module and then wanted to get this blog finished up so here i am now. the rest of the day looks like a walk into town for me in hopes of finding some fruit or any other surprises i can find. a lesson plan will probably happen today or tomorrow. and a phone date with the sister better happen soon too! 
• side note about the teacher quality program for worldteach. every volunteer has to submit one module and one lesson plan each month. the modules cover some topic and give us a reading and a case study with some questions. the lesson plans just require you to type up a lesson plan and answer the reflection questions. we email them to someone in the states and grad students from harvard, we think, read them and give us coments.