Welcome to my Africa Travel Blog

It was an eventful one yesterday. I woke up really well. I remember jolting out of bed, narrowly beating my alarm to the punch, and being fully ready for the day in a matter of seconds. It was a good thing that I was moving quickly; at 6:30 (right around when I’m normally slipping into my boots) Lucas was in a rush to drive Abby and I to school. This did mean I skipped breakfast, but it was okay because school has porridge every morning as a backup. I know I’ve been talking about the treacherous roads recently, yesterday morning it finally happened. We got stuck.

There have been some times where we’ve gotten a tire spun down into the mud, and it seemed like we might be stationary for a couple minutes, but it never seemed like something a bit of pushing and drive-reverse rocking couldn’t handle. This time when we started sledding back down the hill towards a little ditch, I knew it wasn’t our typical sticky situation.

Some reinforcements were called in for transporting the kids and in the process of waiting, our bus had been successfully removed from the ditch, then managed to slide further down the hill and get stuck once more. A large crowd has gathered and they were all helping to try and get the bus out of the mud. But the effort was fruitless; it was later in the day that a safari cruiser had to come and tow the bus out. I didn’t go on the afternoon route, but I heard from Abby that they got stuck again—different spot, I hope—less serious though.

I was very busy at school yesterday. My only downtime was the hour long period between my arrival and my first lesson. I started with English and did some review of exam material because class 7 has a government proctored exam today; the city is sending an “invigilator” (whatever that is) to proctor exams all day long. After break I went to music where we got busy. Ezekia and I have decided that we were a bit wishful with the guitarists, so we lessened the difficulty of their song contributions. Most of the kids have no hope for mastering fingering, plucking, strumming, and rhythm. We’ve settled on having them strum one chord with the beat of various songs. I’m hoping a couple kids stand out and can change between chords in a song, but from what I’ve seen it might take a while.

After lunch, while in music (which lasts every lesson from 9:30 to 3:30 on Tuesdays), Pius told me I had to cover a lesson for him because he was having meetings with some misbehaving students. I had previously told him I was busy with music, so I was upset at his lack of consideration. It was fine, though, I just had to give English a few assignments to do and I spent the rest of lesson where with my protégés.

After normal school hours ended I was planning on teaching English lessons—first remedial period with one class 7 stream, second remedial period with the other. And Pius and I had talked about this; he seemed to understand the plan. When it hit 3:30, Pius gathered both streams into one room, interrupting my plan of teaching a lesson and another teacher’s lesson time as well. Don’t get me wrong, Pius’ teaching style is great, the kids love him, and he’s a good teacher overall. His planning and time management are not at the same level as his teaching.

I went on a new bus route with remedial. A teacher was sick so I had to take his spot helping manage the kids. It had been a while since going on remedial route and I had forgot how late we get home. I was pretty tired once getting back to the house; I helped Jovin and Rebecca with some homework, ate some dinner, then went to sleep.

The roads are becoming impassable. In this picture I took yesterday morning you can see a small stream. One day ago, it wasn’t there. It seems like the flash rains and rivers/floods accompanying them are no longer flashes. We’ve reached rainy season and with it muddy season. Yesterday, the route was majorly altered.

At school I taught some English lessons, graded the English homework they had from over the weekend and finally got started with the Riveting Results program. Prior to yesterday, every RR session was a mess; us teachers never had a plan, the computers weren’t set up correctly, and the kids hadn’t settled into the idea of using devices for school work. Finally, yesterday, we started on assignments and got some work done with the kids! However, there are still some hurdles we’re going to have to manage, but progress is progress and now we just have to keep the pace up.

After RR, it was going home time (for the kids, that is). The afternoon route went smoothly; the roads had dried out enough to where we could drive most of them. The only hiccup was when our bus battery needed a good ol’ fashioned push start and someone decided to make it an exercise by keeping the kiddos inside the bus.

The school is putting down gravel so as to keep the grounds from being muddy pools of water. Maybe today I’ll help in spreading it out.

Through all of this teaching and lesson planning, I’m now starting to see one of the most important differences between levels of education. In lower education settings, it’s the role of the teacher to seek out students who struggle; in higher education it’s the role of struggling students to seek out the teacher. This statement is pretty obvious, higher education is independent learning. But, the implications of this weren’t very obvious to me before: teaching elementary, middle, and high school is arguably more demanding than teaching a college course.

Yesterday I was able to sleep until 8:30 (two and a half hours later than I usually do). I wasn’t intending to sleep this late, but I snoozed my regular alarm and slept through the ringing of my other one for 30 minutes. I must have been pretty tired if this was the case. I felt a bit groggy waking, as happens when my sleep cycle gets a bit messed up, but I think I needed the extra few hours

Most of the morning I was doing some lesson planning. I’m feeling like a bit of a failure because the kids aren’t improving much with their tenses and that’s what we’ve been focusing on. However, I’ve only had the chance to do one full lesson; the other teaching sessions have been exam review or something Pius instructed me to do. I’m hoping today I get to finally get cracking on some true lessons. Jovin and I played our rainy-day adaptation of football. We use two opposing doorways as goals and it requires some technical skill moves. He beat me good yesterday: 12-10.

Some safari guests of Lucas’ came to the house for lunch. It’s clear to see why Lucas has been so successful when he interacts with his guests; It’s such a special experience to be welcomed into your guides home after a multiple week safari, and I think this intimate meal is a unique feature of Lucas’ company. This group had begun their safari in Kenya, went down to Serengeti, and then moved through many of the parks in Tanzania.

At two in the afternoon I was supposed to be picked up to leave for a friends’ university music performance. It wasn’t until 2:30 I was told that my ride was busy in town and wouldn’t be able to take me. Thankfully I had told everyone the performance was an hour early than the true start time because I think I’ve finally figured out how to get people to be on time!

The concert was great. I went with two of my friends and a third met us there. Ezekia, the one who met us there, was performing a few songs at the end of the concert as part of the choir. I’m bummed I missed last weekends performance because he did many songs compared to yesterday’s.

I got home pretty late last night—around 8:30—and went straight to dinner. I was pretty tired, so I went to bed soon after finishing. I’m excited to be going back to school today, I’m hoping we can get a lot done in English and music this week.

School on a Saturday. Back home I would be appalled, but here I’m excited whenever the day comes that I get to ride the bus to Hope. Yesterday was one of those days. I woke up with a lot of energy which was nice—I had been feeling drained from all of the marking. Whenever weekend remedial comes around, I know that I’ll get to be in the classroom with the kids for English because there are no conflicts like marking, exams, or other classes. In the morning the school bus was very late, so Jovin and Rebecca were packed into a friends’ car and I was left to walk. Along my walk I found some interesting creatures and it seems like it must be the rain that’s bringing all these animals out.

At school I was very productive. Yesterday I did review of the English exam that they took during the week and we got into some good debates about grammar and tense rules. I’m learning a lot by doing all this English teaching and it’s interesting to see how much I’ve taken for granted living with the language my whole life. I see why people say it’s very difficult to learn. I had some free time in between lessons to catch up on some marking of the notes which was time well spent.

I got home around 4:00 yesterday which is unheard of. Normal school days keep me busy until 5:30 or later if I’m going on the bus route. It was sunny for a bit, but a storm rolled in last night and has been pounding down with rain and thunder up until now. This picture doesn’t do the storm justice. One important thing to realize is how abrupt the weather changes. It was bright, sunny, and hot one minute, the next there was a grey fog darkening the sky, wind blowing clothes off the clothesline, and rain slanting in sideways.

Today seems like it should turn out pretty exciting. I was able to sleep in, and woke in a kind of panic when I saw it was light out; it felt like I was late for something even though I have nothing to do for the next couple hours.

Guess what I did yesterday. More marking! The morning stated off great, for breakfast we had chapati—one of my favorites. It’s this sort of pancake/flatbread that’s really good with a bit of peanut butter. Again, I went with the route alone; Abby is still stuck at home helping with the baby.

Once at school my fellow markers and I got right to ticking, slashing, and then scoring. I had a bit more energy than the previous days, so it wasn’t such a depressing chore. It was still boring—my only reprieve being the two 30 minute breaks for breakfast and lunch. I was a bit bummed that I didn’t get to join in sports and games, but it was worth it to see the mountain of papers slowly dissolve. By the end of the day (around 3:30), the final paper was marked and graded.

After spending three days with the marking panel, I have no complaints other than the fact they all enjoy to eat these sardines as a snack. Every day they had a little box of daaga and would share it, forcing me to take a tiny bit. I didn’t want to be rude (and I’m not sure I had any say in the matter), so I took a small bit each time to “try”. It took me the first day of seeing the sardines to know I wouldn’t like it, later this was confirmed each time I took a bite. Whats unfortunate is that I know three nice cats who would have enjoyed the sardines that were wasted on my unappreciative palate.

The rest of the day was good. I made a lesson plan that I may or may not be teaching today—I never quite know with any certainty what I am walking into when I show up to school. I had to clean up the mess the flying insects had made; they had detached their bodies from their wings which were all over the place (I’m not quite sure where the actual insects have gone, but out of sight out of mind). I went to sleep a bit later than usual, but I’m feeling fine this morning even after waking up early for a rare walk with Lucas.

Yesterday I went on the morning route without Abby. The baby at home is requiring everyone to pitch in a bit extra. It’s funny—being at a school in a different country exposes many of the differences between the US education system and here, but every once in a while something like waiting for a bus to pick me up will bring back a flood of memories from my time in high school, middle or even elementary school.

At school there were more exams all day, so I was stuck marking again. It takes a lot of will power to sit still for hours on end, comparing one letter to another, then adding up every check you see on the page. Unfortunately I will be doing the same thing today, missing music and maybe missing out on sports and games.

During one of the periods between exams there was an all-staff meeting. It was in Swahili and I was told to wait outside and manage the kids to make sure they were ready for their next test. When Pius told me this, I genuinely laughed because there are 800 kids and half of them were in the hallways running around and screaming; the other half were like little monkey climbing all over the classroom desks and chairs. The meeting took awhile and after 5 minutes of hopeless wandering among chaotic kids I decided to go back to marking.

The day ended early again; no remedial due to the exams. And luckily, we didn’t have any bus fiasco yesterday. I got home around 5:00 and was hoping to take a nap because I was feeling very hollow in the head from the mindless marking. To my unexpected relief I ended up helping out with washing some clothes and shoes; the physically intensive African style of clothes washing helped to perk me up and put me in a good mood. I’m not sure why—the washing machine was working—but I was told to wash the clothes by standing over a plastic basin of soapy water and vigorously rub the cloth of one clothing item against itself till dust and stains were gone. Then for the shoes; the same soapy basin but using a brush to get all the dirt out of the grooves. One interesting thing is that they wash their shoes as frequently as their clothing—pretty much every wear unless they still look sparkling clean.

After eating a delicious dinner around 8:30 I went to bed. We had chips (french fries) and bbq chicken. The chicken isn’t exactly the same as the bbq I’m used too, it’s a much chewier and less seasoned version, but it’s still delicious. The french fries are exactly what you’d expect.

This morning when I woke up I followed my normal routine. I jump right out of bed and flick on my main bedroom light; I hurry into the bathroom to brush my teeth; I stretched for a little while listening to some news; I got dressed and left to have breakfast before going to school. When I stepped outside, I was met with this horror. These little bugs are the official mark that rainy season has started. I’m not sure if they’re ants (they look like flying ants but behave like dumb locust-moth hybrids) but I’ve been told they come from “anthills”. When the true rain starts to fall—not just a sprinkle but an honest downpour—it floods the underground home of these insects and sends them flying into the sky. Like moths, they are drawn to light—in swarms. There were a couple that had gotten into my room while I was getting ready, and an intermittent one or two that trickled under my doorframe from outside, but I realized quickly they were coming toward the brightness, so I turned on a light outside, trying to distract them from invading my room. I’m hoping that they either die or migrate soon, because I don’t want to have to get ready in the dark every morning, but that’s what I’ll do if I have to.

School was mighty boring yesterday. End of month exams began (and will finish today) meaning I was stuck marking all day. I was hoping I could sit in and supervise exams; maybe use that time to read or work on some projects—I wasn’t so lucky. The head teacher announced the group of teachers who would be marking and the group who would be supervising, my name was part of the first list. I settled around a table with 6 fellow teachers which we didn’t move from other than for meals and bathroom breaks. I was pretty proud of what only 7 of us accomplished, but it wasn’t enough. We got through half of the exams. Once it reached 3:30, we quickly forgot the announcement the head teacher had made that morning: all exams must be graded on the same day they’re taken.

It was after school when things got exciting. The kids and I sat in the “parking lot” for 30ish minutes with a driverless bus. He eventually arrived with tiny bus, telling us we were going to have to use it (I don’t know why, I’ve stopped asking questions regarding the bus situation). It took 20 minutes to figure out all the kids weren’t going to fit in the bus. We called for backup and Lucas arrived with one of these brand-spanking-new busses he recently got. The kids were very excited and it took a while for them to settle down, but eventually everyone got home.

I got home around 6:00 and went straight to my room. I was planning on reading for a little bit to rest, but at 7:15 I woke up with my book on my chest and a bit of drool on my cheek. When I went on over to the house, I was surprised to find a new addition to the family. A small baby (about 2 years old) is staying with us for a while because her mother—one of Lucas’ friends—broke her leg and can’t take care of a rambunctious child at the moment. I slept very well last night despite the long nap, and I’m ready for a long day of marking.

Yesterday was very productive. Abby and I were on time for the bus route—these days it’s a miracle if we’re only 5 minutes late, so on time is great! At school I was busy with music all day. I never really had a chance to look up; the whole music class was practicing for a performance on Friday so I had to be very involved with the guitar players. Tuesdays are also the days when the older grades have music and it’s more fun with them because they have a little finger dexterity. I got very tired after lunch and felt kind of bad for the kids I was teaching—I wasn’t bringing the same energy I normally do.

School ended promptly yesterday. Normally there’s a slow trickle of one class ending, those kids shuffling to the busses, then another class and another. Yesterday there was a bell rung right at 3:25 and all kids started running out of classes, causing bottle necks at stairways and doorframes. It was a bit chaotic and I wouldn’t recommend it again; the slow trickle is a bit gentler and safer. What added to the rush were the beginning stages of a heavy downpour.

I got home early. There was no remedial yesterday because there are end of month exams today and the teachers wanted to give the kids a break. I went with the bus route and then straight home. I supervised Jovin and Rebecca doing homework; they are some of the most self sufficient kids I know except when it comes to homework. They will sit staring at their paper doing who knows what for hours, not writing a single thing—it’s only once someone is looking over their shoulder or reminding them every 60 seconds to focus that they will crank out any work. Thankfully, I got nearly 2 hours of reading in supervising them. I got to bed around 9:30. Today I will be supervising exams and marking all day.

Yesterday was officially the halfway point of my commitment here at hope school. I’m expecting this next month and change to fly by; whenever I reach a halfway mark, I’ve found that time speeds up—unless it’s something I’m not enjoying and want desperately to end. Over the night it had rained nonstop, with a light drizzle persisting into day break. The roads were quite muddy, leading to difficult driving conditions. Abby and I got picked up from home which was nice—normally we walk to school and meet the bus there, but the rain had killed our motivation. The bus route had to be altered a tad. Some roads provided a challenge and others were decidedly impassable. With the difficult terrain we added 15 minutes to our route time and ended up being pretty late. Unfortunately, most of the busses had similar issues and the start of the school day was quietly postponed.

I was pretty busy at school yesterday. In the morning I spent a little over an hour organizing the computer room for the afternoon session of Riveting Results. Last week’s lessons were scrapped because the A/C and electrician people had left a terrible mess—it wasn’t until yesterday that the cleaners had finally cleared it out. It the commotion of installation and cleaning, the computers were moved all around and the chargers got tied into knots resembling one of my skillful fishing birds nests, so I had to rearrange all of this.

After computer setup was break; after break was English; after English was more computer setup. I went to break early and hurriedly ate my bread and drank my tea, burning my tongue in the process. I had planned a long lesson of exercises and wanted to get a head start on writing the things on the blank board. I spent the rest of the day jumping between these tasks. After lunch I was teaching English which I had to leave early to jump into riveting results. I went on the bus route home after school which went smoothly. The roads had dried out a little bit during the day and were less problematic.

I went home after this bus route (normally I stay for remedial and the evening route) because I was exhausted. However, upon arriving home, I was told that we—Abby, Edith and I—were going to the new school site to plant crops there. The crop field is about an acre of land, maybe a bit more, and I was nervous for what this activity was to entail. When we got there plans had changed because the tractor that was supposed to come failed to show up. I was sent to join cement carries who were filling the foundation for the wall being built around the property. I enjoyed it; I have been missed physical labor.

The site is moving along swimmingly and I’m anxious to see the progress over the next few months. My body was so sore after only 30 minutes of hauling buckets of cement; I would fill up two buckets halfway with 40ish pounds of cement each, walk 100ish feet to the wall line, dump it in, walk back and repeat. We were at the site for 2ish hours. When we got home at 7:30 I was covered in dried cement, dust, and mud, so decided a shower was needed. I took dinner early and retreated to my room around 8:30 to get a little extra sleep. This morning I woke up a bit sore, but I’m sure I’ll be alright once I get moving. Today is music day!

I would classify yesterday as a productive bummer. I woke up at 5:30 in the morning so as to be ready to leave for church at 6:00. I was told at 6:30 that we weren’t going. It wasn’t until around 8:00 that everybody woke up and started moving. With those few hours I was able to make some calls and got started on the heap of marking I needed to get through. When people got up and breakfast was started, I settled in for a few hours at the dining room/ homework table and was able to finish marking one of the two tests.

For most of the morning it was raining, leaving us stuck inside. At 11 Jovin finally woke up and helped cure my boredom for a little while. Very creative is his mind and it helps me to feel young; we played some carbs and make believe games—his favorite activity. He had homework and I had some lesson plans to get done, so back to boredom I went. My only light at the end of the tunnel was a concert I was going to in the evening. Ezekia is finish up his time at university and has a bunch of exams and performances these coming months and I’m trying to use them as a solid excuse to get out and see parts of Arusha. I worked on my lesson plans for today up until it was time to leave for the concert.

The person who was supposed to drive me to the concert, Mgisha, showed up about 30 minutes late. We got in the car drove down the driveway and turned right back around. Mgisha got a note that he needed to go to Lucas’ mechanic office to work on some of the safari cars. My one exciting event of the day was canceled and I was a little upset. I wasn’t worried because I had another test to finish marking, but I felt bad letting my friend Ezekia down. Next weekend there’s another performance I can go to and make it up to him. The rest of the evening was spent marking and eating dinner and then to sleep.

Yesterday when going to the performance was cancelled, I really needed to find something to do to get out of the house—even if just for a few minutes. I convinced the kids to walk with me to a little shop to get some water (this served another purpose as I was out of bottled water). I was also able to buy some bubble gum. You can buy 1 piece for 50 shillings or 100 pieces for 3000 shillings. I opted for spending just over a dollar on 100 pieces. Each piece cost me 1.2 cents.

It’s starting to get to the point where I’m needing to prepare and plan for my next adventure over here. I’ve just found out I will be going to Hawassa, Ethiopia next with Water for Good (W4G) given that everything works out in the coming months. I’m nearing my halfway point here; I think I’ll be starting with W4G around April 12. It feels like I have a long time until then, but I know it’ll be upon me in no time.

I didn’t take many pictures yesterday—there wasn’t much to take pictures of—only this one here of the house dog in his favorite sleeping spot. I’m excited to be going back to school today; it’s raining really hard right now (normally I’m safe from getting wet in the mornings), making me a bit homesick and I’m more than happy to welcome the craziness of school to distract me.