The Madness Resumes!

Hello once again to my fellow TEP loyalists and friends! This past week has been a bustle of activity for Eileen and myself, and began last Thursday with our first visit to Olof Bethsida Girls’ Secondary School and Orphanage since arriving in Tanzania. Obviously, since this is my first trip to Tanzania, this was my first experience with Olof, and at a first glance the school is impressive to say the least. After a beautifully scenic drive out to the school, we were welcomed into the hide-away school grounds. The layout of the grounds is very visually appealing, with garden plots tended by students, and large school buildings and dormitories fixed with a water catch system. The piping system leads to a huge underground water tank that holds something like 200,000 liters of water! It was so large that I almost convinced myself there was no way it could be a water tank and felt silly asking, but it turns out it was just that. And look at me now, getting so excited over a water tank when prior to two months ago my father would have tried earnestly to share his enthusiasm with me, and I would not have given it a thought!

Putting aside this marvel of a water catch system, what we really went to Olof for was to get a look at the library, and scope out their chicken coups. Our super sleuth-work led to success-super sleuth being that we asked one of the matrons to show us the grounds and she willingly complied, sorry Carmon Sandiego! The Olof library is a beautiful room with a number of bookshelves filled with the books donated by TEP last year, and equipped with a number of very nice ceiling fans. The chicken coup at Olof was good for us to look at, however they were uncertain of the costs of construction, as it was a few years ago and was a project of one of their volunteers and not of Olof itself. It was clear that the girls who live at Olof are still extremely hard working both inside and outside of the classroom, however Eileen was able to enlighten me to the truth that while the school is a very good place, there are still a great many problems it faces. For example, it is far too often that the girls go without meals. It seems that many days, all the girls eat is a bit of bread and tea in the morning, and no, “please sir I want some more” doesn’t work at this orphanage either. Beautiful grounds and buildings may look nice, but it doesn’t mean a whole lot if the girls can’t concentrate due to hunger. Clearly there are still goals to be met and the need for donors help is stronger than ever.

Eileen and I then spent the last few days of break writing up lesson plans, working out the details for the chicken coup project, and talking to Eve and Ana about ELA Nursery School and Daycare. This last project has probably been the most confusing to trying to navigate. After weeks of inquiring, we were finally able to get some answers regarding the status of ELA. As we were aware, Eve, Ana, and their brothers were the original owners of the property on which ELA is built, but ELA became an important project to Bibi during her life, so it was she who really drove the nursery school and daycare forward. After Bibi’s death, Frida, the old teacher who ran the school, no longer felt comfortable continuing her work with ELA, and instead decided to go back to school and continue her training. It is the hope of Eve and Ana to have ELA again becoming a functioning nursery school and daycare, so in trying to bring this to realization, they rented the property out to another woman who was going to run the school. Unfortunately, while this woman has paid rent for the use of ELA through August, she has not, at this point, started ELA back up. We are still hoping for such success, and to support ELA in its goal to provide a safe and educational haven for the young children of Bunju A.

Raising a future (the chicken coup project) is to be underway shortly, with us buying the first batch of chickens within the next few weeks. After talking to Babu we are probably going to purchase something in the neighborhood of 400 chicks that we will raise for 4-5 weeks and then sell to market as broiler chickens. Outside of the initial purchasing costs we must pay for medication for each chick and then obviously we will need to feed and water them for the weeks they are in our care. Luckily Billo and Eve raised three different batches of chicks for their private investment earlier this year so we have a good idea about how much the entire operation will cost us. As I am in Tanzania for only five more weeks I know I won’t be here to see the completion of things with this first group of FANAKA/TEP chicks, but as Eileen is here a full month longer than I, she will be able to oversee the entire progress with this group from purchase through sale.

Other than these endeavors, Eileen and I spent our last weekend relaxing before school started again. This was a very good thing because the craziness started up as soon as we returned to FANAKA on Monday. Since the last day of classes was midterm examinations, and the students took their examinations together in the dinning hall, all of the desks were still locked up in this building when we arrived for classes on Monday. This meant that before any classes could begin, the students needed to go move the desks from the assembly/dinning hall back into their classrooms. Of course this sounds completely simple, but required Eileen and I to turn into sheep dogs, herding the students around the yard between the dinning hall and the classrooms and trying to keep them from wondering off, and reminding them that “yes you need to work until ALL of the desks are moved back into the classrooms because ALL of the students need a place to sit in class.” In the meantime, teachers wondered onto the grounds whenever they decided to grace us with their presence and it was finally decided that classes were going to begin after the mid-morning break was over at 11AM. During this time students continued to slowly move the desks and chairs back into the classrooms, cleaned the outside environment and cleaned the bathrooms (these last two tasks are apart of the students’ responsibilities, but took a very long time to complete because they had not been done in over a week because of midterm break).

The rest of the day was your basic chaotic mess. Most classes did not convening because most of the teachers did not show up, and those classes that were held were only semi-successful as only about half the student body came to school that day. Tuesday was much more of a normalized day, with the daily routine back in full swing and classes beginning as close to on time as they did before midterms. More students came to school on Tuesday than on Monday, and it looked as though the majority of the student body found their way back to school by Wednesday. I don’t hold out much hope for the rest of the week though, because Thursday is a national holiday to honor the first vice president from Zanzibar, so school is canceled, and I was told that this means many students will likely stay home Friday as well. So overall, the first week back from break was a pretty big crapshoot, but apparently it is commonplace for both students and teachers wonder back sporadically within a week or so of the day classes’ resume, so no one other than I was surprised by this. Now, this should mean that everyone is back in class by next Monday, but of course this will not be the case as many students had to leave school this week because they have not paid their school fees. Unfortunately, even at FANAKA’s low fees many students still have trouble coming up with the money to pay for their schooling, and it is now catching up with them. I hope the majority of them are able to the necessary fees within a few days so they are able to get back in class before missing too much.

Overall, midterm break came at the perfect time and allowed Eileen and I to accomplish some postponed goals as well as get a bit of relaxation time, and the first week back at FANAKA was as unpredictable as ever. Everyone in our family here is doing well except for the occasional battle with malaria as that lovely time of year is just beginning! Well I think that is all I have for you this week. Our love and greetings to all of you stateside, enjoy the beginning of spring, and go to your nearest corner store and pick up a packet of Easter egg shaped Snickers and think of me while you munch away at them. For whatever reason I find the Easter egg shaped Snickers to be one of the most delightful candies in the world, and far superior to your typical Snickers bar. I’m hoping my mother will remember to buy me a package this moth and have it waiting on my desk when I return home in May, otherwise I will have to wait another year for this scrumptious treat. Peace out homeslices, tune in next week for what I’m sure will be a much more entertaining update from my counterpart, and until then keep on truck’n.

Love,
Kristina