3/8/14 - 3/15/14

3/8/14

typical saturday. lots of quality time with the kindle and internet was having a good day so i got to research more of the fun stuff for my spring break trip. good internet also meant that i could facetime! so i got to talk to some peeps from home. kristi and wendy. patti and mia. jenn and courtney. time went by quickly and it was just a pretty great day. 

3/9/14 

chilled in the morning while feeding my hungry monster. a banana a pb and 2 chapati. i laid out in the sun for while. so hot yet relaxing…. on my rocky, unlevel, concrete courtyard. amber joined me and we were loving it. we had to jump in the pool (aka shower) to cool down occasionally. nick interrupted the party when he got home and told us that we probably wanted to put some clothes on since two of his friends from school were only a few minutes away. no need to add fuel to the fire. the mission of the day for them was slaughtering a chicken and cooking up a good meal. well, lets just say it was interesting. nick cut the head off, then they put it in hot water to get the feathers out, and then went to town cutting it up. with our very limited resources at the house, it was interesting. our weight lifting rock was the butchers block and dish-washing tub was used for the gutting and cutting ceremony. anyways, i didn't participate too much but i did steal a few pictures here and there. 

instead, i actually left the boys to do their thing for a while. i went out for some exercise. i had been toying with the possibility of running for a while so i had decided that today was the day. so for the first time, i wore my tennis shoes outside of the house. man o man, i was looking some kind of good. so, i was wearing my big georgia soccer t shirt, my capris with a skirt over them, and my tennis shoes. i walked to my secluded palm tree area and then lost the skirt and ran for 20-25 minutes in big circles. This spectator sport was successfully kept to a minimum as i think i only drew the attention of 2 kids. I let them watch for a lap before i yelled for them to go away. the knees were killing me. only walking has probably been very good for me. if i didn't have to watch every step for thorns, holes, or cow presents, it would have been a beautiful run. anyways, it felt good to run but i dont think its really worth it. i am already too much of a spectacle just walking. I explored a little more of the area behind our house and found a pretty wide river. lots of mothers and children in the area, washing clothes and taking baths. pretty neat. anyways, i eventually returned and knocked out mum pushups before joining everyone at the table. by then, the boys had finished the meal. fried chicken. ugali. and greens (kale i think). i wasn't going to eat their food that they had worked so hard on but the teachers wouldn't keep inviting me to eat. so i grabbed a lid to a pot and had some ugali and veggies. the chicken looked decent but very tough. 

after spending what i thought was enough time with them, i went back to the room and got to talk to katie for a long time. i got the tour of the nursery-to-be so i could visualize where everything was going. and we, of course, talked about our baby BOY!!! she said just yesterday she started to feel him kick/move around. so exciting!! I got off with her in time to take a quick shower before my next phone date with craig, kathy, and tanner. 

dinner was the mission for amber and i today. a new, different dinner! we decided to make a hash. so we cooked some potatoes, added some veggies, and then put some eggs on top. good and most importantly different. 

3/10/14

busy, busy cleaning day for the students. mahumi called me last night and said that we were leaving at 07:00 am this morning because the district commissioner was visiting monday. so naturally, the students were doing some serious work. holes in the concrete in the staff room had been patched up the day before. someone was working on nailing the ceiling back up in the staff room when i got there. obviously, mahumi was pulling out all the stops to make a good impression. 

and then of course, i got to hear about the african incumbents all day from sebastian and the other teachers. they ended up never coming but that didn't stop them from talking. ‘they are here to treat us workers as slaves. they do not know where we live. they do not know what we eat. let us meet our rights in heaven. sebastian was talking about being fired and he said ‘me i am not afraid. i have nothing to lose.’ it really is so sad. part of it is the attitude. but the reality of being a teacher here is also so sad. so many problems. and just generally looked down on. 

lots of talk about caning students or using the stick today. i told them that i wanted to be hit and all the teachers found it hilarious. i told them that i have never been hit and i want to know what it feels like. they couldn't believe 1) that i had never been hit and 2) that i wanted to be hit. sebastian acted like he was going to hit me but then he refused to. he said he would do it before i leave. anyways, i do actually want to get hit. but it just kinda makes me mad that they refuse to hit me. they hit tons of students (and enjoy it) everyday. but yet they treat me so differently. i just want them to see students as people, too. 

they said you must use the stick/ cane because african people are not civilized. european people came over to civilize but found africa was rich in resources and they needed them so they left without civilizing them. they left them half way. 

sebastian is very thankful for caning. because he was a very poor student. he was very stubborn and would talk back to teachers. he would go to the market instead of school and lie about it. but he was canned and that is why he improved. (by the way this, and lots of other stuff  like the paragraph above, is just exactly what they say. i don't distinguish it too much but i surely hope you can tell the difference.) 

i asked about the laughing that i have seen students do around the beatings. they are either laughing at other students as they get hit or even after they get hit. none of the teachers knew what i was talking about. i thought it was so sad that they haven't even recognized that. sebastian said that they must not be getting hit by teachers that really knew how to hit. he gave example of people that know how to hit hard and cause pain so that they would not be laughing. however, i have still seen students laugh after getting hit by these people. my opinion is that the laughing is just a protective mechanism for their emotions that just get ripped out day after day after day. i know they are so used to it but i also know it hurts. so i think it is just a way to try to avoid what is really happening or hide what they are thinking. it may also be a way to show a teacher that they are on their side? 

luchonga (the newer english teacher that transferred from another school, sits by my in the staff room) said that the students would not take me serious if i did not hit them. to a certain extent i know that is definitely true. i am sure the students talk more to each other or while i am talking than in any other class. but i also know that if i let them know that that is not okay, with actions or word and without the stick, they will respect me enough not to talk. its about respecting me as a person and not just the stick in my hand. anyways, i am supposed to me TOD soon so we shall see. he said that students will show up late and not work hard because i am always smiling. not every going to change that. in fact, thats a compliment as i see it. but even this morning, while greeting a teacher, he said i see you are happy. your face is shinning. 

on sunday, i also researched a tiny bit about female circumcisions or female genital mutilation. i just needed to know a little since luchonga is having me read a book about it that they are reading in the form 3 english class. just gross. guess i am glad he is bringing up and discussing a relevant issue. he said it is not practice by the sukuma tribe and despite action by the government it is still practice in some areas, even musoma which is relatively close to us. 

walked home and it was the best walk home ever. every day i walk this one way, all these kids come running out toward me. well today i was prepared. i got my camera out and started videoing. two of them ran right to me and grabbed my hands. and we walked for a while and then there were about 8 kids that were all around me. they were rubbing my arms. playing with my watching. just so stinking adorable. anyways, i have so awesome video and some cute pictures to share. i also found an ear of corn. it is always hit or miss because the people that sell corn are constantly walking around with the bucket on their head. but there is no one place to go to get it. anyways, i had passed nick before i found one and asked him to keep his eyes out. well i ate my corn on the way home and he got home later with another ear for me. thought i was going to keep it for the next day but food security and availability hit me and i demolished both of them. happily. i ate some of the beans for dinner and called it a night. and i was actually full! thinking i had eaten was too much, i started thinking about what i had eaten. a banana with pb before school. 1 chapati at school. 2 ears of corn. some beans. hahaha ohhh how things have changed! again, its all relative. 

got to talk to both mom and dad later tonight. love using the handy dandy nokia to talk to dad. good to know it does something other than talk to mahumi or play snake. 

3/11/14 

still actually full from last night when i woke up but no worries i still ate my banana and was ready from chai break when that came around. 

had a good first period with steam b. doing a little review for the midterm exams. taught about polynomial operations for a while. then i got kicked out by simba at about 9. he said the students needed time to prepare for their ‘program’. i had no idea what that program was but i soon found out. we had visitors at the school that day. researchers that were sponsored by the world bank and they had exams that they were going to give to form 3. well then we were told that we needed to stay to talk to the researchers. that was supposed to be a 12. 3 came and we still hadn't been able to talk to anyone. i started walking around. after school let out at 2. i found a rock and kicked it around for a while. so bored. luckily, i did find/take a deck of cards from another teacher and played card games all day. waiting more than 6 hours to talk to someone you don't even know or why. long day. i played games by myself. i taught some teachers how to play blackjack. but the biggest hit was trying to teach them how to shuffle the cards. wow! mind blown. anyways, around 3:15 i started talking to someone. i tried to understand the purpose of these tests/ research but i cant tell you what they were trying to do. all i know is that the students have to take an incredibly long test and the researchers ask the headmaster and the english, kiswhaili, and mathematics teachers questions. today was the first day but they were trying to use an online survey system which was pretty advanced. we definitely had our issue but i admire them trying. i got through question 17 of 73 when edward told me that it was time to go. so after waiting all day, and after just sitting down with him, i just got up and left. yolito. 

maybe last friday, a student had come up to me on my way to class and asked me to go to church with him. i get these offers all the time so i kind of brushed him off and had totally forgotten about it. well he asked me again today and i am definitely going this saturday. and im so pumped. he is the sweetest thing ever. he said he has already paired all the money to arrange the car and the food, gotten us a special bible, and told the people at his church. he said madame catherine (the volunteer before me) went with him and just right there he opened up the front zipper of his book bag and whipped out a pristine picture of him and madame catherine and another student. he told me to convince my fellows to go to and that he would come with a car saturday morning at 2. 

i guess now would be a good time to mention swahili time. saa 2 = 8 am. basically you just add  6 hours. its a pretty cool and completely logical time system. since the seasons/ day dont change too much since we are so close to the equator it is basically based on the sun. the sun normally comes up around 6. so 6am is like saa 0. 1 = 7:00 am, saa 2 = 8:00 am etc. then you start over at 6pm. 

got another teacher today. ermalerd. so. many. teachers. mahumi said that make 25 but i think its more. 

‘biashara was posted number 7 of 14 schools who did the form 4 examination last year.’ ‘anything can happen at anytime’. so the district commissioner , dc, was going to visit yesterday because he thought biashara was #14. he was misinformed so he changed his route. anyways, props to form 4. 

so back to the journey home. it continues. so edward, the academic master joined us on the way home. they stopped at crdb bank. mahumi handed me the key and told me to roll up the window if it started to rain. i joked and told them that i was going to drive away and leave them there. it was a good thing i had the key because it started to pour. it was also a good thing someone with corn walked by because i was starving!!! my banana and chapati was gone as it was 4:00. i chowed down and just chilled in the car for nearly an hour before we took edward home and then finally made it back. 

ate some pb when i got back. we had a (not so welcome) visit from john, a teacher at ambers school. and i cooked veggie stew for dinner. 

3/12/14 

its already been a month since moms birthday. wow! guess time may be going more quickly than i thought. that is one thing about being sick thought. it made a whole week fly by… or at least it was a blur. 

a cool, dreary day here. no sun at all. it think its a leftover from the rain yesterday but i think we may have hit the beginning of the rainy season. for now its a welcome change. the farmers really really needed it. 

oh! i just remember something from last week. i thought it was hilarious. so after coming back from being sick all the teachers would ask me how i was feeling. but madame eva would always ask me if i had a hangover. and each day i happily replied that i didn't have a hangover. haha 

similarly, i really do love all the greeting here. i shake hands and exchange long greeting with just about every one of the teachers at the school each morning. we ask each other about our homes, families/fellows, last night, etc. and i say good morning to every single student i pass. so get ‘prepared’ america, lots of greetings are heading your way. 

good walk home today. the sky cleared up. it was still relatively cool and not too sunny. great chat with mom in the afternoon before we fixed cabbage and mchicha for dinner. 

3/13/14

rainy, rainy, rainy morning. it was so loud on our tin roof that i almost didn't hear my alarm this morning. it was pretty nasty out but again, so good for the crops. mahumi picked me up at 7:40 and we definitely needed his ‘professional driving’ as we ‘danced’ on ‘our road’. also covertly got a video of it today. so, about the professional driving, i always tell him that he drives like a professional and he gets the biggest kick out of it. he also calls our rocky/ bumpy journey dancing sometimes. its great. so we made it to school at 8 to find 2!!! teachers there. only 2! seriously, everything just shuts down here when it rains. I didn't have a period (since i hardly ever do :) ) so i knew the students would be free. So, i asked mahumi if i could go teach or if the students would not be prepared. of course, as the headmaster, he told me not to teach, and that they probably would not be prepared. yall, seriously it is hilarious how much you are not expected to work here. mahumi, the second headmaster, and all the other teachers share the same philosophy. they apologize when you have to work. they commend me when i am relaxing/ doing crossword puzzles to pass time. oh what a pain it will be to be expected to work/ not encouraged to relax at work when i get back! haha  (in all actuality, i am excited to stay busy and not be bored!) 

anyways, luchonga made it to school in a little and he decided it would be okay to go. one problem though…. no chalk. its kept in the academic office and no one was there yet. luchonga, teaching english, said he could go to class without chalk but i couldn't since i teach math. so i decided i would go talk to the form 1s. but then ombeni started walking toward us and was yelling at them to get in the classroom so i quickly nixed that idea. i found a box of chalk back in the staff room and went to stream. we are definitely struggling in there. ombeni just walked in and stared into my class. didn't say anything and left. i assume he was looking for some reason to punish someone for something. who knows… anyways, there was practically a school-wide game of hide-and-seek/ manhunt the whole first period. i had some students come in a grab a desk by the door to seek shelter in my room. they were hiding from ombeni (so they didn't get hit for being late) and trying to work their way to their own classroom. 

so, i dont think i have mentioned this before, but students come up to me, like right in front of me, and mumble something right in the middle of class. half of the time i cant even hear/ understand what they are asking for. but my answer is always yes. if a student comes in the room, they will even be asking to make an announcement, give or get an exercise book, or ask for the duster (eraser). there is no such thing as raising your hand to ask…or waiting for a good time to ask. 

one time a student came in today and she asked for the duster (which we did not have… it was a paper kind of day). anyways, i thought she had asked for a desk. and i had my raincoat and chalk on the desk. so i took it and put it on the ground. obviously, that wasn't what she needed so the desk was still there when i started to try to teach again. the students, as always, were appalled when i put something on the ground. it is normally my books. but they seriously just cant handle it. they will always bring me a chair/ stool/ desk to put them on. today, i tried to tell them that it was okay and kept working on the problem that we were in the middle of. i could tell they were still all looking at my coat on the ground. when a students finally stood up and started walking toward the front of the room, i knew she was coming to pick my coat up so i turned around threw it back on the desk and kept going. all in life was good again. haha they are so sweet. 

super thick, not oily chapati today just in case you were wondering… 

i started reading extremely loud and incredibly close yesterday. quite the interesting book. disclaimer: my expectations of a ‘good’ book have been thrown out the window here. i have enjoyed every single book i have read. and every single one of them have been random free ones that i got for my kindle. anything and everything that passes the time and lets me escape for a little is good in my book (sorry for that)

luchonga asked me ‘madame kassie, am i present of am i absent? i feel as if i am absent. i feeling as if i want to quit.’ so he got his things together and left. lol. i have to give it to him though. he really is a hard worker and all of his periods were done for the day. 

here are two pics of the attendance register. you can check out the names of some of my students 

3/14/14

another rainy morning. i got a call from mahumi at 8 and he was asking me if i had any periods today. he was asking me if i was okay. i am pretty sure he wanted me to ask/ agree with him to stay home today. well i didn't and i told him i had a class the first two periods (class that started at 8). so anyways he said that he needed to leave at 10. so he picked me up and thankfully i got teach some more. again, hardly any teachers were there. we picked up 5 students who were getting shelter from the rain on the way to school and stuffed them in the back of his car. i made it to class where i talked about the mean, median, and mode. then we got into some old form 3 exam questions. one of them led us to using the quadratic equation. of course, i whipped out my song for it and their day = made. they seriously made me sing it 6-8 times. it was awesome. another thing that was awesome is that when i walked in there was this drawing on the board. a quite impressive drawing, if i do say so myself. well, then i asked what it was for and i couldn't contain the laughter. it was for the free masons! i wanted to hear the students view of the free masons but one girl so no madame we cannot talk about that. but i did find out that some of them think that the scouts at the school are free masons. oh the life. so i went back and told mahumi that i could be done for the day (even though i had another period later) and he said that we would wait to take tea and then we would leave. so thats what we did. around 10:45 i was back home and done for the day. started typing up the blog. and i don't even know what else. i do know that we had lentils for dinner and i was great as always. but even better was the sunset that night. it was beautiful. i decided to go out naked (aka shorts and no skirt). amber followed me in her even more naked shorter shorts. we cut through the trees behind the house because it just kept getting better. of course we ran into some tanzanians. amber was trying to hide in the bushes and it was pretty hilarious. of course when the camera came out, the tanzanians had to get their picture taken. then i finally got them to leave and got on with my picture taking. overall, it was just a beautiful, fun little excursion. 

3/15/14 

its the 50% weekend!!! cant believe it but am also so excited that we are 50% done. and still have 50% to go! 

so the plan was to go to church this morning with a student from my school. hes in form 4. cilas adidas, i think. so he told me he would be there at 8 (well he said 2 but i explained that earlier). well, since we are pretty much locals now, we were almost positive he wouldn't be there at 8. he got there with his driver at 10 to pick us (me and amber) and take us to his church. its saturday so that should give you a little clue as to what church we were going to - seventh day adventist. it was just an incredibly neat experience. he stopped along the way to get a bible for us and then chairs for us. the church is very close to my school. we drove up when the sunday ( saturday?) school classes were meeting. it was just so cool. everyone brings their chairs to church and the classes were just groups of people all sitting in a circle all over the place. so many people. you had the different ages with teens, adults, etc. but you also had the little kids meeting. just precious. cilas’ group was very nice. another one of my students was in the group and they were doing it in english. i was quite impressed. they were talking jesus being a teacher and a trainer and about the holy spirit. madame difficult came up to me pretty much as soon as i got there. she was dressed in this fancy uniform. she told me this week that she had a lot going on because she was preaching this week. so i was going to get to see her preach. but we were only with his small group for maybe 5-10 minutes before it was time to go inside. so everyone picked up their chairs and made their way into the building. one of the women in the group asked me if i remembered her. i asked where i met her and she said somewhere that i didn't know of. then i realized she thought i was catherine. we laughed about us and she said ah to us black people, it is hard to tell white people apart. cilas and amber were long gone by then. good thing amber was pretty easy to pick out. so the three of us sat together. it was so much to take in. so many cute children in their nicest clothes. started with a long period of announcements. luckily there were a good many visitors today. students from a school. a pastor from kenya (who was also taking pictures and videos so that gave me an excuse to). they made the groups stand up and then everyone waved. then madame difficult came up to the mic and i knew it was our turn. she made us come to the front of the whole church and introduce ourselves because ‘they want to hear your voices’. so introduce ourselves we did. lots of fun singing. lots of praying and saying ‘amena’. read a few verses out of genesis and ‘luka’. the message was about the creation story which lead to the sabbath and essentially how important it is to observe the sabbath. the world is ending soon and the young generation is bad because they are not observing the sabbath. a little more singing and praying. and then we were out. there was also an afternoon service but we told cilas we thought it was better to not attend the afternoon service. outside, we met and talked to so many people. were mobbed by children. and then the driver took us to cilas’ home. such a great lunch/ afternoon. cilas’ grandmother (maybe??) also came with us. so we walked through his home and waited for some lunch to come. he brought out his laptop to play some music and then put on crazy stupid love. i talked as good as i could with the grandmother. she was too precious. very animated. very happy. i understood maybe 20% of the conversation that we were having but i was giving her the responses she was wanting and so we just kept talking and talking. i loved it. cilas brought out the lunch. rice, beans, chapati, watermelon, and bananas. he told us about his life story and it was simultaneously heart breaking and heart warming. he was abandoned and left in a drain when he was 2 months old. so his family now is the one that found him and decided to take him in. he works very, very hard in school. he said all the teachers know and love him. he is studying to be a news broadcaster like on bbc. his favorite subjects are history, english, and kiswhailli. and he really does work very hard. is so sweet to his mom. he always helps his sisters with the ‘chores’. overall, he is just someone with a huge heart and a great work ethic. he recognizes that education is his way out and is astutely aware of many of the world/ life/ africa problems. so after we finished lunch, we said goodbye to his grandma and the other ladies that were at the house and he walked us somewhere to get a soda. i just didn't want him to spend any more money on us so we politely (or as politely as we could deny food/ drink here) declined. he did want us to go back to church but we promised we would come another time. so the driver finally found us and carried us back to the house. such  great day with someone who is such a great example of gods love. 

the rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing and working out. did stir fried rice for dinner. was actually really hyper tonight. amber’s blaming it on the full moon. but i think we were just excited that we hit the 50% mark. i crawled under the net and read another free book until late in the night.