New addition to the family!

Hello to all of our wonderful family, friends, and TEP followers, Eileen and I have some extremely happy news to share with you. Last Saturday (March 5th) a new face joined the Kahatono family! Billo and Eve had a baby boy! Heri (pronounced like Harry) Baijuki Kahatano was born in the afternoon and weighed 3.3kg. While this was obviously a joyful occasion, it did have us quite worried for a few hours. After some time in labor, it was decided that Eve would need to undergo a C-section. What neither Eileen nor I realized (until Babu told us) is that C-sections are not the common, simple procedure that they typically are in the United States. In fact, one out of every two women who undergo this procedure in Tanzania die. Needless to say, once we heard this bit of information neither of us were so at ease, but thankfully the operation went off well and both Eve and the baby came through in full health! What is amazing is that because of this immersion lifestyle, I can (at times) forget that I am in a Third-World country. However there is no forgetting it when you are told that something like a C-section (which is generally safe in the U.S. today) kills 50% of the women who undergo it.

Due to the operation, we were not able to see Eve or the baby on Saturday when we went to the hospital with Babu. We were told that Heri was perfectly healthy, and we saw a glimpse of Eve as she was wheeled from the Operating Room into the recovery area (although she was very pale and appeared to be in a great deal of pain) but that was all. Billo asked that we come back on Sunday, which we did, along with Babu, Babu’s sister, Baba Policia and his wife May (both of whom I met that afternoon and are very nice people!) and we were all able to see Eve and Heri. I am extremely happy to report that both Eve and Heri looked very good and as the week as progressed there has been no evidence of complications. Babu’s sister (whom you may remember has been staying at our house in Bunju) was taken to stay with Billo and Eve to help them with the baby and help teach Eve how to be a new mom. This, I think, is an amazing thing that could be implemented more often in the United States. Both Eileen and I studied Women’s and Gender Studies at WSU, therefore giving us many opportunities to discuss women’s health in the United States and abroad, and while our medical care is so advanced in the United States, many new mothers have huge difficulties because they are often left alone with their new baby as soon as they return from the hospital. With recovering from something as physically strenuous as childbirth, plus the new additive of a BABY, I fully support this Tanzanian practice of caring for new mothers for a bit after a birth. This is a very common practice in other developing nations as well, and it believed by many people to reduce the effects of PPD, which is uncommonly high in developed countries like the US.

Yes, things are going very well in our family life here, but I cannot say the same has been true at school. New struggles (both in and out the classroom) are becoming evident to me with each passing day. As far as in the classroom goes, I am becoming much more attuned to what my students’ strengths and weaknesses are. While group work is becoming increasingly common in the United States, it seems as though it is still a very foreign concept in the Tanzanian school. Due to the limitation of books and supplies, I have, on several occasions, assigned the students to work in groups of two or three and share whatever is needed for the assignment. For example, there are only two Form One English books at school, so if I want them to practice English reading and comprehension, I must write out a passage for them on paper, and then use the blackboard to write out the related questions. To save time and paper (and because some students need the assistance of their classmates) I have had them do this in partners and I write out half the number of passages. The first time I did this, I was rewarded with 20 blank stares, as if I had asked them to write a 10-page essay on A Tale of Two Cites. After some confused babbling, they seemed to understand the point of the assignment, but still do not seem to grasp that they are to work together (verses them using the passage one at a time and doing the questions separately, or one person doing all of it and the other copying the work). But I plan to continue with this style for reading/comprehension and hope that they will continue to progress as term moves on.

It is also quite clear that their creative skills are not encouraged in class very often. As Form One students they will not be taking their national exams until the end of next year (at the conclusion of Form Two) I decided I might as well try to get them to learn English in a variety of ways, some of which will allow them to use more creative processes like art or plays. The other day I had them practice their speech by drawing pictures (using colors and paper I brought to class) of FANAKA and their families and then explaining them in English to the rest of the class. While this may sound familiar to those of us who took a language class in middle school or high school, it is clearly something these students have not had a lot of opportunity with. Creative skills are also lacking in the most fundamental areas like creating sentences. Many students struggle with this concept. However, it is not just the creative skills of the students that are lacking. It is at times like these that I realize my extreme limitations as an instructor. I would not categorize myself as a very creative person and I have not been formally trained as a teacher, but with the poor quality and extremely low quantity of supplies available creativity is an important aspect if you don’t want the students completely hate class. So as limited as my skills are, I am trying.

While these issues can be frustrating at times, they are nothing compared to the frustrations I am having outside of class with other teachers. It is very difficult, because I know the majority of teachers truly care about the students and FANAKA, there are some major issues. I can sum up the problems in one word: discipline. This concept applies to many areas, but first and foremost is most of the teachers lack self-discipline. Classes are forty minutes long, and teachers will wonder in 10-15 minutes after the period is supposed to begin, and at times they may not show up at all! When this happens, the students end up having a “free period” which often means they do nothing. It is a complete lack of respect for the students’ time as well as a lack of respect for FANAKA and it is VERY frustrating for me some days. Another discipline problem we are having is that many teachers do not believe in our discipline routine, so they do not follow it. This makes consistency with the students an impossibility, which is good for no one, and then the teachers wonder why the students don’t follow rules well. It is as though some of the teachers expect perfect discipline from the students (who are children) but do not believe they (the adults) need to set the example. Of course, when the teachers do try to follow the discipline routine, they are (at times) undermined by the administration, who will not uphold the punishments assigned to misbehaving students. This is understandably frustrating for the teachers, but still not an excuse to forego discipline all together. When Eileen and I tried to address these issues at a staff meeting last week, only four other teachers showed up and neither our Headmistress nor Second Headmaster showed up (even though it was mandatory).

The problem is that FANAKA has very few trained educators, and our Headmistress and Second Headmaster are both administrators and fulltime teachers (which is obviously problematic as both administration and teaching are full-time jobs on their own!). Also, we do not have the ability to force our current teachers to behave better because we do not have the money to hire better ones, so the current ones have near complete job security and little personal incentive to improve because we cannot pay them more if they do. It is easy to sit back as an outsider and say that as educators they should want to do better, should want the students to succeed, and should want FANAKA to succeed, but the reality of it is these teachers are scraping by the same as FANAKA is, and they are concerned about their own lives and the lives of their families. We all just need more support.

Although the negatives can be easy to dwell on, there are some definite improvements. As you may remember, last year Eileen, Cassie, and Teresa were able build a library out of the large number of books donated to TEP by our wonderful sponsors. I am happy to report that the library is being utilized quite well by students from all Forms! Many students can be found flipping through books during their free study periods. Eileen has also been able to utilize the library books a great deal with some of her Form Two and Three students. She will go through the shelves and pick out books she believes will compliment a specific students English reading ability and then have that student read them outside of class and discuss them with her. She has been able to have students read wonderful fiction books like Alice In Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, The Giver, Fantastic Mr. Fox, and even Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone! I would love to do something like this with my students, however most of their English skills are not quite advanced enough at this point (maybe a little later in the semester though!).

I am also very happy to be getting to know the FANAKA students better as time passes on. Teaching only Form One made this a bit difficult at first because I only spent significant time during school with those 20 students (many of whom have less than advanced English skills which makes them less inclined to speak to me outside of class, plus the additional fact that they are the youngest group of students so most of them are quieter anyway) but they are finally coming along. I have also gotten to spend more time with the boarding students lately and played football with some of the boys Tuesday, and on Friday Eileen and I helped prepare the field for girls’ netball (sort of like basketball) and watched the girls play netball later that afternoon-although I don’t doubt that very soon I will be playing with them, as they tried to insist on it yesterday even though I didn’t know how the game is played!

The Hydrate to Educate project is also coming along wonderfully! The gutters on the assembly/dinning hall are up and operational, and the construction of our largest tank is complete! This means that we are fully able to begin collecting rainwater-which is wonderful since we got our first real cloudburst early this morning! We also ordered two additional water-storage tanks and these will be added to the boys’ and girls’ dormitories just as soon as the buildings are fit with gutters. This is currently underway on the girls’ dorm, and then after the gutters are installed there we will move onto the boys’ dorm, and then just wait for the rain. And the most unbelievable thing of all is that we are actually on budget!!! As far as a construction project goes, this would be amazing in any country! The progress of Hydrate to Educate is also allowing us to put more focus on the possibility of beginning the chicken coup project at FANAKA, which would obviously be wonderful to get started on.

So all in all, school is stressful, the family is good, and Tanzania is, well hot, but still beautiful as ever! It is a comfort to know that you are all back home supporting TEP and us, and so as always we thank you. Enjoy that snow Midwest, only a little while longer until you are in the warmth of summer yourselves! See you next week!