Weeki Kumi na Moja (Week Eleven)

Monday morning I was still feeling pretty tired (choka) and icky from the Malaria so I took it easy for the first part of the morning (asubuhi). Later on in the morning Ashley and I headed off to the yogurt kitchen to see the Mamas and to see if there was anything (kitu chochote) that they needed. Later Ashley and I came home for lunch. We ate tomatoes (nyanya) and avocado (parachichi) with lentils (dengu) and balsamic vinegar (siki)…one of our frequent favorites! After lunch I worked on finishing the packaging label (kitambulisho) by adding the suggestions from the Mamas. Later on in the afternoon (mchana) Ashley and I headed to Tilapia Hotel to use the internet to send project emails. We were supposed to have our weekly meeting (mkutano) in the morning but we had to cancel it because Alex unfortunately had to attend the funeral (mazishi) of one of his colleagues. I really can’t believe the number of funerals that I have had to go to here and all the ones I have heard about. They are definitely way more frequent than at home. It’s quite depressing to compare and contrast the causes of death and the amount of people who die here from preventable causes. For me, thinking about these differences really clarifies the quite obvious inequities (kutokuwana sawa) between the ‘Western World’ and a country such as Tanzania in health care, food availability and safety standards.
After plunkin around on the internet for a while, Ashley and I returned home to do some organizing (mpanga) and household chores (kazi ya chosha)…it was that time of the week again where we had to wash our underwear using laundry soap (sabuni) and a bucket (ndoo)! So much fun…NOT…lol!

On Tuesday I stayed home and worked on the membership card documentation system. Later in the morning Ashley and I headed to the kitchen to see the Mamas. Most of the Mamas were at the kitchen when we arrived so we all sat down (kaa) and chatted for a while. We had some very funny conversations (mazungumzo) with the Mamas as Ashley and the Mama’s retold the story (hadithi) of when the thieves (mwizi) stole their packaging in Kenya. We sat and chatted for about an hour (saa moja) and near the end (mwisho) of our conversation I realized just how much mine and Ashley’s Swahili had improved…We were able to carry out a full hour long conversation all in Swahili! It was awesome! Ashley has seemed to catch on pretty quickly with the Swahili, she almost knows as much as I do. I think that she is a very fast learner when it comes to languages and I think it helps that she knows a bit of Arabic because many Swahili words are derived from that language (lugha). We headed back home later on in the afternoon. The malaria still seemed to be dragging me down so I had to rest (pumzika) a little bit. In the evening Pendo’s (our housekeeper) son Hassan came over for some computer lessons (msomo ya Computa). I spent a long while with him teaching him how to use Mircosoft Word. We started with just the basics like centering, bold, italics, underlying, using tabs etc. While I was teaching Hassan, I tried to remember (kumbuka) the first time that I used Microsoft Word or a program like it…it really was so long ago that I literally could not remember. It made me really realize how sometimes I take the many skills (ustandi) I have learned and the open access that I have had to many forms of technology for granted.

On Wednesday I was feeling quite dizzy and blah. When you have malaria it is not the best idea to be walking all over the place in the blistering heat so I decided to stay home and work on some documents (hati) for our master plan. Later in the afternoon I felt a bit better so I headed out to buy a bulk load of stationary supplies for the Buswelu Elementary School that we would be visiting the next day. I had about 200, 000TSH (~$180.00 CAN) to spend on these supplies (vifaa). Since items are so cheap to buy here I was able to purchase about 400 notebooks, 50 pens, 50 pencils and some sharpeners with the fundraised money. What a deal! Since there were so many supplies I had to take a couple of trips to the stationary stores in town. By the end of the day I was pooped!

Thankfully, I felt much better on Thursday so Ashley and I headed off to Buswelu Elementary School that is a little ways outside of town to bring the stationary supplies that the Tecumseh Public School Students fundraised for the teachers and students. When we arrived we went to the ‘teachers lounge’ and said hello to all of the teachers. Then we headed off to Leonard Chinyele’s (the headmaster’s) office to greet him and drop off the supplies. I was surprised because Mr. Chinyele actually remembered me from two years before. He greeted us very warmly and we sat down and chatted for a while. Soon after, Hellena, one of the head teachers (mwalinu) came in and greeted us as well. Both Hellena and the Healdmaster were so thankful and pleased that we brought the huge box of school supplies that were donated by the Tecumseh Elementary School in Canada. Leornard and Hellena explained that they were in dire need of such supplies since they were receiving very little funding from the government and their students were unable to purchase notebooks and writing supplies for themselves. We chatted for a while about the school, the students and the teachers. Apparently there are over 1300 students at the small school and only 28 teachers! There is quite a shortage on space, furniture and supplies but the teachers seem to make due with what they have. Leonard explained to us that they have a plan to build another school to house half of the students because they are currently way over capacitated. The only problem is funding….so they will wait until 2010 or 2011 so that they have enough time to come up with the funds. After our long chat we took a tour of the school so that Ashley could see the school for the first time and so that I could see the few changes that have been made at the school. We visited a few classrooms and when we walked in the students greeted us (in sync) saying “Good morning teacher. How are you? I am fine thank you”. Afterwards Ashley and I spoke to them in Swahili a bit, asking them how their studies were going. They seemed a little surprised that the Mzungus could speak Swahili but they seemed to enjoy it. Next, we headed to the Memkwa class building. The Memkwa program is a program that is run by the Tanzanian government to try to get children back in school who have not yet completed their primary studies. These children are between the ages of 11-18 and are encouraged to return to school to finish their primary education. We were told that some children are not able to/ do not finish their studies because they are forced to work at an early age to support themselves or their families or because they do not have the funds for school books and uniforms. Therefore the Tanzanian government has created a special program that sponsors these children to return to school. Just like the regular classes though, the Memkwa classes are quite over capacitated and lack many of the necessary learning and teaching supplies.
After visiting most of the classrooms, Leonard took us to visit one of the retired teachers who lives on the school grounds at Buswelu. He told me that I would probably remember her since she was still working the last time that I visited Buswelu a few years back. As soon as I saw the teacher (I still can’t remember her name) I instantly remembered her. She is a very kind and loving individual although at first glance she appears quite burly and tough. We then returned to the school office to plan our next meeting where we would go and order some desks to be made by the local carpenter for the school. The students at Tecumseh Elementary School in Canada had worked extra hard all year to fundraise a large some of money to be put towards buying desks for Buselweu. We set up our appointment, said goodbye to all of the teachers and students and were off to Mabatini to visit the Mamas.
Ashley and I headed to the kitchen to give the Mamas their new kengas (skirt wraps) that Ashley had purchased for them as compensation for participating in her sensory evaluation study. Since the Mamas were in need of matching uniforms anyways, Ashley decided to buy them all kengas that matched their work t-shirts. The Mamas were so happy to receive their gift and of course they sang and danced to celebrate and to thank Ashley for her generosity. While we were there I handed over a printed copy of the membership cards to the Mamas to see if they approved the writing on the cards and design of the cards. After looking them over the Mamas told me that they were quite pleased with the cards. We stayed at the kitchen for a little while longer and then headed home to have dinner and work on some project documents.

On Friday my friend Elya who was doing work at one of the orphanages in Buswelu decided to join me for the day to see the yogurt project and to see what kind of work I do on a daily basis. I thought that it would be good to expose as many people as possible to our project and it was nice to have her along for some company. Ashley was meeting with Esther to work on her study so it was just Elya and I for the day. Elya and I first visited the Jiko La Jamii (community kitchen) to see the project and to taste some of the yummy yogurt and then we headed off to Mtoni High School to visit the rest of the Mamas who were running the breakfast program. While I was there I was able to chat with some of the Mamas about some project matters. The Mamas were very welcoming and hospitable (as usual) and served us some chai (tea), chapattis and mandazis (donut type things). In the afternoon we headed home to see what Ashley was up to. Later on in the evening Ashley, Elya and I went out for dinner to the delicious Samaki Place and later joined some of our friends at Tilaipa Hotel for so relaxation time.

Elya decided to stay with us for the weekend so that she could run some errands and tour around town a bit. So on Saturday Ashley and I spend a good part of the day showing Elya around and taking her to the market. That evening we (Ashley, Elya and I) were all in the kitchen making dinner together and we heard a knock at the door. It was Teddy, one of the Kivulini Ladies who works downstairs. Teddy was all dressed up in a beautiful dress and was asking us what we were doing. Turns out that that the Kivulini ladies had invited us to a wedding about a month before and we had forgotten about it….whoopsie! Since Ashley and I were in our pajamas we had to quickly get ready and meet the ladies down the street at the hotel. We asked Elya if she wanted to join us but she did not want to come so we threw on our dresses and headed out the door. We were laughing because neither of us had ever had to get ready that fast before for a wedding and we managed to be out the door within fifteen minutes. It was nice because I had an occasion to wear my new African dress that I had purchased.
The wedding was very beautiful and lively. It was really nice to see a local wedding. I really liked how everyone sang and danced the entire time and how the bride, groom and rest of the wedding party danced down the isle. Although it was very neat to see a Tanzanian wedding, it was a little strange because we did not know the couple getting married, we only knew about 3 of the ladies from Kivulini. It was also strange because the MC for the wedding kept mentioning ‘the mzungus’ and Ashley and I were clearly the only Mzungus there. I also was still not feeling 100% from the malaria so we ended up leaving early.

We spent most of Sunday resting and did a little bit of work on the internet.