Learning the lay of the land

Day 4 and I've just taken what I consider to be a big step by going on my own to an Internet cafe so that I can fill you in on my discoveries since I arrived on Saturday night May 29th. No, I haven't yet seen any of the beautiful animals that you see on my main blog photo, but that will come in due time! I'm currently volunteering as a teacher with an NGO called Give A Heart To Africa (www.giveahearttoafrica.org) in Moshi, Tanzania, right in the foothills of Kilimanjaro mountain. I caught my first glimpse of Africa's tallest mountain by surprise, on Sunday, when Monika, the head of the NGO, was taking me on a walk through the poorest part of town to meet some of her students. At one point, I looked up, and there it was, in all its snow-capped glory -- truly amazing! I live in a very nice house with Monika and her lovely Tanzanian boyfriend Lusoja. Since I'm currently the only volunteer living there, I have a room and bathroom to myself, which I consider luxury! Every night (or rather morning), I'm woken up between 3-4am by the roosters and/or the call to prayer. As the sun rises, the noises get progressively louder, more and more roosters joint the chorus, as well as other birds (crows I think). Between 6 and 6:30am, Pedro, our Maasai night watchman (no Spanish blood, as far as I can tell, despite his name), starts clanking the pots and pans (well, they sound like pots and pans), taking his shower etc. So, my morning starts quite early and by around 7am I'm starting to prepare for my first class. I started teaching on Monday (nothing like taking the bulls by the horns and jumping right in!). I was VERY nervous. I have two classes, the first from 9-10:30am and the second from 10:30-12pm. On Tuesday's and Wednesday's we offer extra help if the students want to stay--these sessions go from 12:30 until 13:30/14:00. The students are all adults who haven't had the chance to go to secondary school. Priority is given to women, which make up about 80% of the current group. The school is free. I'm just starting to learn all of the students' names. They call me "teacher" -- easy for them! The classes are quite basic. With the slower group, we just finished learning about the present continuous tense (I am learning; He is walking; Are they cooking? etc.) in the affirmative, negative, and interrogative, and have moved on to the imperative. With the other class, we are struggling through prepositions. It was so boring my first day that I couldn't blame the students for yawning and putting their heads on the table (yes, at least one student actually did that!). Since then, however (it's taking us several days to get through all of the prepositions on the list), I am finding more imaginative ways of explaining what the prepositions mean and usually get them laughing. Ima is the translator for my classes and he makes sure that the students understand what I'm saying. Sometimes my charades do not suffice! The past few days, I've been spending most of my afternoons either preparing for my next class or walking to and from town with Monika (it's about a 20-minute walk) so that I can learn where things are and spend time at the immigration office, where they seem to enjoy seeing me because they always ask me to come back with additional information (this is why I'm currently in town at the Internet cafe and why I will have to return tomorrow as well)! Going to the outdoor market is still a bit daunting for me, but I look forward to the time when I will be able to brave it on my own, and maybe even ask for my fruits and veggies in Swahili. It's very frustrating not being able to speak the local language. I'm hoping to start lessons tomorrow with Ndiko, Lusajo's brother. Ndiko is studying and teaching Spanish, and it's incredible how well he speaks for someone who has only been learning the language for the past 5 months, from a fellow Tanzanian! Last night, we celebrated Lusoja's 31st birthday. There were 8 of us for dinner. Ndiko decided to cook us all a special meal: Rice pilau (rice with some special spices), mixed vegetables, a plantain dish with tomatoes and green peppers, and red meat for the men (Monika is also a vegetarian). Monika and I went with Ndiko to the outdoor market to get all of the food. I won't go into the details now of how the meat looked hanging up at the market... Let me just say that when I offered to help Ndiko, he of course told me that I could cut the meat (nice!). I accepted. We had a lot of fun. Herman, the rasta man, helped as well. He's the Tanzanian translator for the business class that Monika teaches. They are all so nice! Stay tuned for the next installment (my time is up, after one power-outage and having to switch computers three times.)

Kwaheri (goodbye),
Victoria





Hotmail: Trusted email with powerful SPAM protection.

Sign up now.