Lady Gaga and the Back-Up Dancers

Week three is behind us and we have lots of news to cover. Final examinations are over and the students are not the only ones who are thankful for that! Friday, after we proctored the last exam, Cassie, Eileen and I decided that since the kids had been working so hard they deserved a little treat. We performed a “skit” which involved me singing and playing guitar, accompanied by my two backup dancers. We performed “Baby” by Justin Bieber and “Bad Romance” by Lady Gaga. Of course, the kids loved it and have not stopped asking us to sing those songs ever since.

The weekend flew by and included a lot of work on typing up documents for needs assessments of the three schools, budgets, and working on the documentary. We also got final estimates on the cost of building shelves, desks and chairs in the library at Fanaka. Then for fun Bilo, Bibi’s son, took us to Bagamoyo on Sunday to see the coast. It was very beautiful and interesting to learn about the history of the city. We all enjoyed splashing our feet in the warm Indian Ocean, collecting shells, and searching for crustacean organisms in the low-tide pools (ok maybe the last one was just me).

Monday marked the start of the holiday term in which students from form II and form IV come to Fanaka for a half-day of review classes in order to prepare themselves for their national exams in September. I am teaching both forms of biology classes and Eileen and Cassie are teaching forms of the English classes. It’s very exciting to be teaching about a subject I am so passionate about, but overtime I have come to realize that it is truly a challenge to teach complex concepts to a group of teenagers, especially because English is not their first language. I admire how hard they work in order to grasp these concepts because I know it was hard enough for me to understand, even with the advantage of learning it in my native tongue.

We also had a staff meeting at Fanaka to discuss the major problems that the school was facing and how the Tanzanian Education Project’s programs could fix them. Also included in the discussion were various administrative problems affecting the school. We set up three committees to address them in an organized fashion. In each committee we have a volunteer representative and we have meetings set for next week.

The discipline committee, represented by Cassie, aims to reform the current discipline policies that are clearly not working at Fanaka. We are all brainstorming new systems to implement at the school that will be effective and simple so that the staff will continue to follow them after we are gone. The academic committee, represented by Eileen, aims to reform the problems with the current time table, reinforce the rules of speaking English only on the campus, and possibly setting up a system of positive reinforcement for students in order to encourage them to do better. The last committee is the sports and clubs committee, which I am representing. Our goal is to get a budget for fixing the soccer and volleyball fields, implementing new clubs, and addressing any other needs that the school has in this sector which hopefully will raise enrollment and make the school more money.

We all taught our first real lessons on Tuesday. Mine was form II biology and it was very exhilarating! The students told me they needed help with understanding the role of carbohydrates so we went into amino acids, proteins, lipids and all that good stuff. Giving them real-life examples and analogies to make them understand is very rewarding.

We will continue to teach our lessons for the rest of this month and hopefully do a good job of preparing these students for their national exams. The new term starts July 5^th so we are also hoping to have all administrative problems reformed by then!

Unfortunately, the sea container arrival date has been pushed back again to June 19^th because of the strike in South Africa.

Plans for next week include continuing the construction of the library at Fanaka, starting reconstruction of library space at ELA, visiting Olof, visiting nearby schools in order to see how they make their library and disciplinary systems work, committee meetings, and holding the normal classes.

Thanks for reading!

-Teresa

Star Wars Garb Meets Traditional Tanzanian Dress

Greetings, dedicated followers! This week, I (Eileen Moeller) will be your faithful correspondent. Last week, Cassie Parkhurst, the founder of The Tanzanian Education Project, gave you the run-down of how our travels went and the happenings of our first few days in Tanzania. Cassie, myself, and our colleague Teresa O’Neill will be switching off every week as far as who updates the blog. So, this week, you get to see our adventures in Tanzania through my (Eileen’s) eyes, and next week, you will be updated by our very own Irish lass, Teresa.

We have been in Bunja A, Tanzania, for a little over a week now. In the past week, we have visited Dar es Salaam, laid out plans for the libraries at both ELA Nursery School and Fanaka Memorial Secondary School, supervised exams, had the Fanaka school bus assessed, visited the students at ELA again, and made many new friends among both the faculty and students at Fanaka. I cannot express how much I am enjoying my first trip to Tanzania. Bibi and Babu (our adoptive Grandmother and Grandfather) are wonderful hosts, and treat us like queens.

Last Friday was our first full day at Fanaka. Half of last week, and all this week, students are taking their final exams before a one-month holiday during the month of June. The students work very hard, and all three of us (Cassie, Teresa and I) usually spend some time with individual students after exams helping with English, Biology, Math or Civics. We have also been able to split up teaching loads in the past week, and we will start teaching when classes resume the first week of July.

I, thankfully, will have an opportunity to put my Liberal Arts degree to use, as I will be teaching English to Form II, III and IV students (similar to sophomore, junior and senior in high school) and probably start a drama club-- friends and family, please take a moment to appreciate this full use of an otherwise useless degree, because once I leave this country, it will probably never happen again...

Teresa will be teaching Biology for Form II, III and Mathematics for Form III, and Cassie will be teaching English for Form I students, as most of her time will be spent doing administrative and planning for Fanaka and The Tanzanian Education Project. We are all anxious to begin teaching, but in the meantime, we will be planning further and building the libraries in Fanaka and ELA nursery school during the holiday. We will also plan out the library for Olof Bethsaida Secondary School and Orphanage, but have not yet been able to visit the school, as it is still rainy and the roads are too muddy.

In other news, we have received more word on the sea container! The news is both good and bad, in that we learned there was a strike in South Africa, so the container had not actually yet reached the port in Dar, so we are not accumulating fees. However, now we have to wait until June 10 to get our books. Though we are frustrated that those valuable supplies which were so generously donated will take a bit longer to get into the hands of students, we are grateful our budget hasn’t taken any more hits.

For those who may be interested as to why, I, Eileen Moeller (Spyleen to some close friends) decided to join Cassie on this grand adventure, please allow me a moment to enlighten you. As a concerned activist and aspiring world-saver, I have for a few years been looking for a volunteer opportunity where any money I spent would only go towards my travel and lodging, and to those I would be assisting. With many volunteer placement programs, the bulk of the money paid to the organization stays in the United States, which doesn’t benefit any needy parties. When Cassie came back from her first trip to Tanzania and began TEP, I was taken in by her enthusiasm, and amazed by how close and concerned about this family and these schools she became in just a few months.

After asking many questions, and making my family worry a lot (ha), I finally bought my ticket to Tanzania. I will be here for three months, and I already know after a week and a half among this fantastic family and at these schools that three months will be much too short a time. I am already in the process of making plans to come back early next year, hopefully for six months or so. There is much work to be done, but Bibi, Babu and their family are enthusiastic and incredibly grateful for our help, and anxious to start the many projects that ELA and Fanaka need so deperately. I can’t even imagine how much more dedicated I will feel to TEP after visiting Olof (hopefully later this week).

Plans for this week: Finish drawing up ground plans for the three libraries (etched out by yours truly), finalize pricing and construction with carpenter, locate building supplies for the libraries, finalize all paperwork for the arrival of the shipping container and continue working on the budgets for ELA and Fanaka.

With that, I wish all of our friends, family and other concerned parties well in the coming week, and I hope you are all enjoying your summers. May the Force be with you.

PS: It turns out Kongas (traditional skirts/dresses worn by most African women) look really great with Star Wars t-shirts. :)

Pictures From Our First Few Weeks

Teresa and Eileen Working On Puzzles With The Students.
Teresa and Eileen Playing With The Students, Enjoying The Sun.
One of the Smiling Faces That Makes all of our Hard Work Worth It.