Katie's First Few Days

Day 1- 

The flights went by super fast. The one to London was smooth. I slept some of the way, watched a few movies and talked to  a few poeple who were sitting around me. The guy that was behind me was actually from Tanzania so he gave me some insight and pointers, which was kind of cool. The layover in London was long, 8 hours, but it went by fast as I was able to access the internet and talk to my parents for one last long period of time. The flight to Dar es Salaam seemed to take forever. I feel asleep, but when I woke up I saw that I still had 6 more hours to go. I watched two movies on that flight so that helped the time go by but still took forever. When I reached Dar, the airport was very small. The customs were not bad at all and were easy to get through. I found my luggage rather easily and Bilo, Babu's son, came and picked me up and he found me right away. When Bilo picked me up we came to Bunju the village I am staying in. The traffic is crazy here , a lot of people. It is very different from the US as we all assumed. There are people everywhere on the sides of the street. The cars can drive anywhere. When I reached Bunju all of the people are very nice, even though it is hard to communicate with them as most of them only speak Swahili. The rest of the day was spend relaxing and catching up with time change.

Day 2- 

On this day I woke up bright and early at 7am. I went up to the school, Fanaka, which is right down the street from where I am staying, at Babu's house. Babu is swahili for grandfather. He treats everyone as his own. At the school I met the teachers and faculty, all very nice. For the rest of the day I went back into town, Dar, to exchange my money to schillings. I then spent the rest of the day hanging around the house with a few of the children that live here. There are 5 children that live in the house along with their parents and Babu's sister. I spent some time with the children. We played soccer, catch, raced, and I even taught them a little bit of english. I also took a shower, which was an experience as a lot of you know its out of a bucket of what you just poor on yourself. Different but not too bad. There is also a toilet but I just have to dump a bucket of water down it to flush. The weather is actually not too bad. It is not nearly as hot as I had expected, or maybe my expectations were very high. My bed is actually pretty comfortable. The food is not bad. They are slowly allowing me to eat more things at each meal as they want to do it slowly so my stomach does not get upset as I am not used to these foods. I have mainly been eating bread, rice, beef, and fruit. They mainly drink tea and coffee. Even though occasionally there will be fruit juice at the table.

Day 3 and 4-

Both of these days have been about the same. I have woken up at 7 am each day and gone to the school, FANAKA. I have just been working with the head master and the second head master to figure out a schedule that I can follow for what I will be doing in the schools. In Tanzania, the schools run different then they do in America, as they call the US. They have primary school, with 8 stages and then they have secondary school with forms 1-4. They then have a national test at the end of form 4. If they pass, they go onto forms 5 and 6 and if they fail they cannot go on to school; except for special occasions. These tests are a big deal and they are constantly talking about examinations in the school.  Next week the students take their regional examinations. The students then have a month break; except form 4 as they need to prepare for national exam in November. After the break, I will be teaching English in Form 1, as the students struggle a lot with english. The schools are supposed to be taught fully in English but the students and teachers struggle a lot with it. I will also be teaching math in form 3. The afternoons have just been spent hanging at the house with the people here. The children are great; even though we cannot communicate well, they are nice and love all the attention they can get. They had a very old soccer ball and I brought an air pump and that seemed to change their lives! They love it! Its amazing how one little thing can make a big difference to them. Makes us think how greedy and selfish some people are in the US. Even the adults thanked me as they were able to play around with the ball too.   

Day 5 and 6-

Well these last few days have been pretty similar. I have been waking up around 630 and leaving the house by 8. School starts at 8 and ends around 2:30. I have been sitting in a few classes each day. I have sat mostly in English and Math as those are the classes I will be teaching when the students come back from break. The classes are taught pretty similarly to those in the US the kids act the same as students in the US, some try, some struggle, some don’t care, and there are the goof offs also. I could pick them out right away. The rest of the time I have been busy typing up the student's exams for next week. Next week is their examination week, like finals week in WI. The teachers here are not good with technology, I know the most about computers in the school right now which is shocking as I thought I did not know much. They are amazed at how fast I can type. I spent some time at the stationary shop that was started by the donations given to The Tanzanian Education Project. The shop is going pretty strong; it is very nice. It is funny looking through books and seeing Beaver Dam and Waupun WI in the covers. I have talked to a few of the students. They are sooo interested in America. They looked through some of my pictures from home and are AMAZED I have my own car. Families here are lucky to have one car as most get around by bus. Another question I am constantly asked is if I am married. This is crazy to think that because I am 20 I should be married according to them as that is when they get married here in Africa. I guess that is another culture difference between the two places.

Day 7 and 8-

My first weekend in Tanzania. It was good and relaxing. Saturday I spent a lot of the day typing away at exams. I got to know the teachers a lot on Saturday as I spent a lot of time with them. They are so curious about America. They ask a lot of questions. They cannot believe the house I live in and the car that I drive. They are really impressed with my computer I have to; as the whole school only has one well working computer and a few that work but not very well. They are also very surprised about the cost of things in America; I had to explain how we make more money but the cost of living in America is much higher than here. I told them minimum wage was 7.25USD and they thought I was crazy! I spent some time with the girls of the school also. They are all so nice. They love trying to teach me African dances and Swahili, I am not good at either of them. The rest of the day was spent relaxing. On Sunday I woke up and went to church. The people I stay with are also Lutheran so that is nice. The church was in complete Swahili so I could not follow but the people and the service was amazing; except that it lasted for 3 and 1/2 hours. There were about 4 different choirs and a visitor gospel singer. The pastor was a very good speaker; kept my attention even though I couldn’t understand what was being said. I could somewhat pick out the Bible verses though. The service had a lot of singing and dancing. Very different from my church in America. I also, yes mom, washed my clothes by hand, with a bucket, I did do it. They were very helpful and showed me exactly how to do it. It actually wasn’t so bad. I also went for a Sunday drive around the town and countryside. We can NEVER complain about bad roads again, they are terrible here , all side roads are dirt and have ALOT of holes. One has to travel very very slowly. The sidetowns are very very sad to see; I thought the homes around me were poor, the ones in the countryside are even worse. We then went to another church were they had a singing service for students. A member of the household is a member of this church. It was neat; there were probably around 75 kids, ages 3- 23 all singing, dancing, etc. The children were up on stage leading the songs. They had AMAZING voices. One 12 year old even did a rap and he was really good!