Today is Sunday and it is packed full of sessions. I have to be honest, we are right at the end of orientation and these sessions are killing us. I know were not ready to say goodbye to everyone but we definitely could do without a day full of more sessions. I would love one day to sleep in but breakfast is at 7 so we have to be up, the first session was at 8 and it was on Teaching with audio/visual aids. I learned that visuals contribute to 90% of learning and provides triggers for memory. After this session Kim gave us info about each of our moves on Wednesday (so soon!!). For Emily and I, Kim will drive us to the bus station, which is about 15 min. away from here at 8:15am and the bus shouldddd be there at 8:30am. Now if it shows up at that time we won’ know. Kim says the bus could be an hour late sometimes we will just have to wait and see. Our luggage will go on the bottom of the bus and our backpacks will go above our seats. Our bus ride is 16 hours long and it will be jam packed! She said sometimes there are chickens under your feet, babies on your lap. There are always people sitting in the aisles, rice sacks in aisle, buckets of water, etc. Be flexible!! I am so anxious for this bus ride! We will arrive in Mwanza around midnight and the district will pick us up and take us to a hotel. Then in the morning they will drive us 4 hours or longer depending on traffic to Bariadi. They will drop us off at our house and maybe even take us each to our school and introduce us to our headmaster. She said it just depends on what they want to do!

            After taking in all this info we filled out our immigration forms to become a resident in Tanzania for a year. That was fun! Then we had a session on setting up our classroom. Mainly this session was for us to realize that we will have extremely limited resources to set up our classroom but that is not what the students are going to remember. They are going to remember the qualities about you as a teacher not the physical things you hang on a wall to decorate with. We had tea break and lunch in between sessions and then we had our last session on community projects. World Teach encourages each volunteer to interact with their community and assess their needs, then try to come up with a community project that could help them in some way. This could be with your school, with your community, etc. People fundraise back in the states for this. She gave us many examples of this and encouraged us once we get settled in our villages to start thinking of ways we can help out.

            When we got a bit of a break I tackled doing laundry for the first time while I have been here. Oh my gosh was it a work out or what! It took me 2-3 hours and I only washed maybe 8 things plus lots of undies. We all bought bars of soap because the powder soap sticks in your clothes and make your clothes really hard and crispy. SO the bar soap you really have to scrub each item pretty good to get it clean. I hung all of them up to dry and they were almost dry before I went to sleep and then I woke up this morning to realize that it had rained all night. Typical that this would happen! So back to drying all day today!

            For dinner Kim took all of us to this Italian restaurant in town because it’s almost our last dinner together. She told us not to expect much because it is Italian food in Africa! Haha. Surprisingly, it was delicious! A Greek guy owns the restaurant and somehow finds cheese and everything to use for ingredients! I got spaghetti Bolognese. Tonight was one of the first nights that I REALLY missed home. I was sitting at dinner just really wishing I could be at dinner with my family. I don’t know if the dinner conversation wasn’t great that made me feel that way, or it was the good food that made me feel that way, but I was so sad at dinner! I missed my comforts of laughter and love the way I know when I eat with my family, not the feeling I was having with the group of people I was with. But I got through it and I fought back the tears! I keep reminding myself to be strong and this is only the beginning. Little things I do throughout my day remind me of my family so much but I have to remember this is all apart of a bigger plan. I have to keep faith in knowing that. I need to maintain my Christ centered confidence and cling to His promises for my life.

It's the weekend! We had an entire day off after Swahili this morning. We had breakfast at 7 then went to Swahili at 8-10. We had Africa's wonderful chai and then caught a ride into town. That was interesting using public transport. We walked down the long dirt road from the seminary and just stood out on the side of the road until the bus came. We all couldn't fit into one so we had to split up. Shana, Chelsea, Forrest and I all took one together and had to stand up (they are so tiny yet they fit so many people). The people were teaching us Swahili because we told them we were learning. They were so sweet. We got off at the closest stop and walked the rest of the way into town. I bought Airtel money to put into my Airtel money account so I don't run out of credit and I went to the supermarket to buy snacks for my 18 hour bus ride to Bariadi on Wednesday! It is so soon, I am not ready to say good bye to my new friends. I bought homemade peanut butter, bread, and banana chips. Hopefully that will hold me over! I also got a pack of peanut m&ms which I was so excited about because we haven't found any chocolate!! We found a really cool spot to eat lunch in town called oasis. It was a hotel but my friend at the Swahili school told me about it. We all got Indian food and sat outside. There was such a beautiful view of the mountains which I loved. 

On the way home we each took a piki piki (motorcycle). It was so funnn! I found a guy with a helmet and hopped on behind him and we took off. We went on the back roads and it was gorgeouss. (Highlight of my day!!) When I got back home I took a nap until dinner. I was running a low grade fever so I think I just need some rest! Dinner was not the best so Shana and I just had one giant mango! My favorite fruit! Hope everyone had a wonderful day! 

Today was the last day of teaching at Nyurungu Secondary School. We played a giant review game of jeopardy from everything the students had learned this week! They loved it. We incorporated math and science so the students could pick a subject and a value of difficulty for their team to answer. I was so sad that today was the last day teaching with the kids! I am going to miss them so much. I gave them my phone number and one girl, Prisca has called and called wanting to teach me Swahili! She is so sweet. Last night, I got pretty sick. I was up half the night and could not stop getting sick. I was a trooper though and went to school! I got sick at school which was not fun but we just told the students to go on break. I skipped Swahili to nap and went to dinner feeling pretty queasy. Before dinner we had a session on how to teach with limited resources. Kim gave us two minutes to run to our room and get as many things as we could grab. She paired us up into teams and then called out different lesson topics and we had to create a lesson with only the objects we had as a team. It was so fun! You really can teach so many topics with such random things. 

That night I slept through the night so it was much better. Shana and I attempted to watch lion king before bed but we both made it for about 10 minutes and fell asleep. The life of a teacher haha. I will write tomorrow! 

This was my class experiment with decomposition and organic/inorganic matter! I got creative using the bottom half of large water bottles as beakers. We have been observing them each day! The students loved this activity and it got them up and going outside to the garden. 

Today was Practicum! It went very well! I was sooo nervous at first just because I wanted to do really well. I taught on soil composition. We discussed the three types of soil and how they become acidic and basic. I also taught on the basic nutrients in plants and how the lack of nutrients in plants effect the soil. We did fill in the blank on flip chart paper (big poster board size) and I said things like "I am a soil. Water cannot pass through me. Who am I?" And I had students come up and fill in the blanks. I did the same thing for nutrients as well. When I got through the material I had them use their creativity to draw a loamy soil which has three different components. Then I said draw a plant from your soil and label the nutrients that are essential to plant growth and soil fertility. These kids were so creative!! I was so excited that they worked so hard on their drawings. When they were finished they presented their pictures and explained to us why they labeled certain things. 

After the lesson Kim debriefed with me and had lots of positive things to say! I was so excited to hear that! She said I have a wonderful teacher presence and awesome organisation. She said my lesson was wonderful and I had great use of the board. The only suggestion she gave me was to slow down sometimes when I explain things. Since I am a native English speaker I have to remember to slow down my words. Other than that I got only positive feed back! 

After class we danced with our students to one Tanzanian song that they all love! Then we headed home for lunch. I took a nap for an hour before Swahili. Swahili was two and a half hours today!! Super long. We did drills outside where we practiced speaking with a teacher and they asked us questions, etc. I liked that a lot, it was very helpful to me. I definitely learn by doing and practicing. 

After Swahili we had tea and had a session on critical thinking. We learned about blooms taxonomy, which is a pyramid that categorizes the levels of questions. We looked at two of our lesson plans from this week and had to see where they fell on the pyramid for the type of questioning we have been doing with our students. All of mine fell under comprehension and application which are in the middle of the pyramid. The highest level of questioning is evaluation and synthesis. Examples are designing and debating. We had to rewrite one of our lessons incorporating a higher level of questioning. This was a really useful session. Because a lot of my students are struggling on such lower levels of the pyramid and I feel like I'm really challenging them, but the thing is there are much higher levels that I need to assess so it's hard to find that happy medium. 

After session we had dinner and then lesson planned for tomorrow, the last day of our teaching week! (The next time I teach will be at my site! That is so exciting!) I decided that since tomorrow is Friday we would have a review day of all the material we covered this week. It will also be a good way to close out the week. Emily and I made jeopardy with math and chemistry. We incorporated all of the topics that we have taught this week by making them different categories. Hopefully they will understand how to play the game! We will have to explain it to them a few times. I will let you know how it goes! La la salama. 

Yesterday was day 3 of teaching! I woke up, had breakfast and headed to school to teach about acids and bases. We discussed what makes something an acid, and what makes something a base, cations and anions, and polyatomic ions. Lots of chemistry today! I knew they had learned a little bit about acids so I was interested to see what they could remember. It's so crazy how the students only memorize here, they truly lack critical thinking skills. For example, they could tell me what an ion was, but then if I had them wrote ions of certain compounds they couldn't do it. So we had to go back to the definition and I would say well if you know what an ion is then you should be able to do this problem. You see? So I had to go back and really teach them how to work problems applying there knowledge. I know they learned a lot from this because we did lots of practice problems!! We talked about pH as well and used that as an indicator for our acids and bases. After my lesson we came back to the house and had lunch. Then I had an hour until Swahili class.

In class we learned verbs today! We did one on one drills with teachers at the school where we practiced having conversation with the language we had learned so far. After class, time had gone by so quickly that we had tea and then our second session on listening later that afternoon. That was very interesting! We were encouraged to bring in interesting podcasts students can listen to about health issues and science. They can write about it and create a discussion. After session we had dinner and then it was on to lesson planning. 

I was very nervous about my lesson because I knew I was getting observed tomorrow. The head country director on site with us is coming to evaluate my teaching tomorrow so I want to do a really engaging lesson. I am going to teach on soil composition. We will see how it goes! Wish me luck, I am off to bed! 

Today was round 2 of teaching and it went well! We woke up had breakfast and headed to school. I taught first today and the kids were sooo unresponsive at first. I said guys why aren’t you talking. They said, “Madaam it is morning.” I was like okay everybody up. I said if I let you dance do you promise to talk? And they all started laughing and said “YES madam!” So I turned on a Kesha song and we all danced together! They LOVED it! I settled them down and we started our lesson. I taught them about organic and inorganic waste. I cut six water big water bottles in half and used those as my beakers. This morning before I left I gathered a leaf, a napkin, a half of a mango, bread, a coin, and plastic. I taught them that anything from a plant or animal is organic and will decompose and anything that is not from a plant or animal is inorganic and will not decompose. Then we went to the garden of the school and after placing each item in our “beakers” we filled them up with soil and watered them. I sat them in the window so they could get sunshine throughout the week and we are going to observe what happens! I had the class make predictions and on what objects they thought would decompose and why. After school we came home and had lunch. I took an hour nap before Swahili. In Swahili class, we learned about verbs and subject prefixes. We had tea after class and he gave us homework to do tonight! L

            We still have some more sessions to get through this week before we head off to our sites for the next year (next Wednesday!!). After tea we did a session on how to teach speaking. This was so cool. She had us pair up, and gave us a picture that were very similar but had some minor differences. We had to speak in a different language to figure them out without showing each other the differences. Abby and I spoke in French and it was very difficult! We only could find two differences. Another group had to speak in Swahili another group in Spanish and another group got to speak in English. There were all together 12 differences, the people speaking in Swahili found 1 difference, the people speaking in Spanish found no differences, and the people speaking in English found only 7. So it was very difficult. This was supposed to show us how are students feel when we are teaching because English is not there first language and it is very hard to put things into words when you are struggling with the language. We also went over some other activities or games you could do with your students that are good practice to get them speaking: debates, skits, presentations, chain sentences, etc. We had dinner after our session and then spent a 2-3 hours lesson planning for the next day. Once I get used to it it shouldn’t take me that long but I want to try and make my lessons as engaging and fun as possible and that really is challenging with Chemistry/Biology. I know if I try to do that every single night I will run myself into the ground. I decided that I am going to teach about acids and bases tomorrow. Ions/polyatomic ions have them work problems on the board, etc. So we will see how it goes! La la salama (good night!).

Today was such a GREAT first day as a TEACHER in AFRICA!! We woke up bright and early at 5:45am, had breakfast at 6:30am and headed to our schools at 7am. I was teaching Form 4 Chemistry. I wore my blazer today and my glasses so I was feeling just like a teacher! When we got to the school, the building was the only thing around. There were no windows in any of the classrooms, no electricity, lots of problems as the headmaster would keep telling us. The main problem we noticed is that the kids had no water. The headmaster admitted this was their largest problem. They did have a garden though, they were growing many different types of vegetables that they were going to use for the students and sell for revenue. They also were growing trees that would eventually grow and provide shade for the students.  I was impressed with their efforts.

            I was shocked at how they treated my friend Shana for being black. In Africa I am beginning to realize that they think that all Americans are white. They treated Shana as if she was not good enough to teach.

When the headmaster met us he introduced himself to me, Emily and Forrest but he completely skipped over Shana. It was as if she didn't even exist. He looked at Kim and said I thought 4 volunteers were coming and Kim said we have 4 volunteers this is Shana our 4th volunteer. He looked so confused, and said but she's Negro. My face was so hot I was so confused how could there be oppression amongst his own people? Kim said she is an American, in America we have African Americans. He looked confused again but shook her hand. Shana just took a big swallow and nodded. We headed into the teachers lounge, which is an empty room with no chairs or windows and met the academic master. He asked us to sign the log book so he could set the schedule for the morning. He brought us chairs where we could sit and once again he wouldn't pass the log book to Shana. Shana spoke up and said, "Excuse me sir I will be teaching as well" and he looked so shocked. He said "But you are the same color as me." As if she wasn't good enough to teach? Shana and I talked later that night and it has really been brought to our attention that many people here believe that only white people come from America. Even though Obama is our president he is only half black. And even Shana pointed this out that the majority of major American films they see with black people in them are about oppression or slavery. They never see African Americans in films that are educated, successful and traveling, so they didn't understand that. They didn't know any better to act that way towards her she said. I was so proud of her for how strong she was and for keeping her head held high.

After the students started to arrive at school they unlocked the classrooms and I was able to settle in. I had a 90 minute block which for my very first time teaching I was nervous I was going to run out of material to talk about and have extra time. There were a lot fewer Form 4 students then Form 2 students because many students had not passed there Form 2 exams. Therefore they could not move on to higher levels. I had so many insecurities. Will the students like me? Will the material be challenging enough? What if they already know what I am teaching? What if they are extremely disruptive? Tons of these thoughts were running through my head. None of those things happened, I was extremely flexible and everything went according to plan. The students really loved me! I brought in different types of leaves from outside and we learned about quantitative and qualitative analysis. I had the students get in pairs and use their five senses to describe the leaves and then I had them use their rulers to measure the length and width of each leaf. We talked about our results as a class and then we had a discussion about how we use qualitative and quantitative analysis outside of the classroom. Two students came up and read some of the things they wrote down and I gave them pipis (candy). I was so proud of them for their courage! Students here do not have the courage like students in the US to stand up in front of the class so I was very proud! After school we took the bus back to where we were staying and debriefed on our lessons. We had lunch and then we had a break until we walked over to the language school for our first Swahili lesson. Chuma the director was our teacher. He gave us a binder full of worksheets and homework. Every day this week we will get a 2 hour Swahili lesson at the language school. Today we did noun agreements and went over more in depth greetings. The language school is so nice! It is in the middle of the forest almost and people come from all over to learn Swahili. I really enjoyed the class and the teacher is great. Tea time where we are staying is every day at 4. So after our lesson we went and had tea, which is my absolute favorite here. We had 2 hours to lesson plan after tea before dinner. Shana and I walked to the dukanis (shops) and bought pipis for our class. Then we came back and just hung out instead of lesson planning we did that after dinner! Dinner was delicious we had an African pizza! It had lots of vegetables on top. After dinner we came to the common area and lesson planned for the next day, that’s when I realized what my new life was going to be like! Lesson planning every day! Haha. I think tomorrow I am going to teach a lesson on organic and inorganic waste, and have my class do a little experiment! So we will see how it goes I will let you guys know! Good night J

This morning we woke up and headed off to Morogoro! We were all packed so we had an early breakfast, said goodbye to Dar and packed up the bus. It was a four hour drive to Morogoro and the roads were relatively paved so it wasn’t too bad but there were tons of unpaved sections and potholes so lots of swerving. When we got to the seminary school where we were staying it was absolutely gorgeous! Mountains surrounding us, trees everywhere and it had such a cool breeze compared to Morogoro! We got a tour of the grounds and then got our room assignments. I was so pumped because Shana and Emily and I got a triple together!! We have our own bathroom, which is nice; the water is cold or SCALDING like close to boiling. So there really is no happy medium. Shana and I took the bunks and Emily took the single. We unpacked a little and then had lunch. The food here is SO good. It was rice and beef and fresh pineapple. After lunch we took a walk and just wandered around. Shana and I walked pretty far. We found this house with a little farm and they had baby pigs!! They were the cutest things!! All bundled up together sleeping. We just kept walking for a long time until we wanted to head back. We had tea at 4, which I loved, and then more lesson planning until dinner! I decided my first lesson was going to be on quantitative and qualitative analysis. I collected leaves from outside (all different kinds) and used those as my teaching aids, having the kids use there five sense to describe the leaves (qualitative) and have them measure the leaves (quantitative). I had each step of the lesson plan all laid out. I was pretty nervous to teach but all my friends were being really supportive. That night after dinner we debriefed on what the morning was going to look like and some tips on teaching then headed to bed for a long day tomorrow.

Today we only had two sessions!! It was such a short day! A man named Jean from Brazil who teaches at a University here in Dar came to speak to us today. He did both of our sessions on Introduction to New Material and Giving Instructions and Checking for Understanding. We talked about how important it is to check for understanding in a way that is not requiring students to answer just with a yes or no because they will always say yes. If you ask -Do you understand? They will always say yes. If you ask-Are there any questions? They will always say no. So you have to come up with ways to check their understanding in other ways. Ask them specific questions like can someone tell me what the function of this is or the answer to this question is and if they cant answer then you know they are not getting the material. He also stressed how important it is to contextualize when you are introducing new material. Basically meaning use stuff they can relate to! If you were going to teach them a new type of multiplication, cut the back of some juice boxes which have the caloric and nutritional information on it and have them get in groups to work out a problem using the numbers on the back of their juice box. So when they have juice outside of the classroom maybe they will think about and practice math! Before sessions were over Kim told us what we would be teaching for practicum in Morogoro. I got Form 4!! The hardest level of chemistry, so I am super nervous!! We just get to pick anything in the syllabus to cover each day and teach a 90 minute lesson on. Kim will sit in and critique me so that is what makes me nervous and plus this stuff is super advanced. Half of this chemistry stuff I didn’t cover until college. I know for a fact it wasn’t covered in high school. So I will be working away on my first lesson plan tonight!

After session we went to Subway to grab lunch. We were so excited thinking there was a Subway in Africa. Boy were we wrong!!! There meat was not even the slightest thing close to meat. I have never seen anything like it!! Wow I can’t even describe what was behind that glass but it was a horror story. I got some variation of chicken so if I get sick on the way to Morogoro tomorrow I definitely know what it will be from! Hey but at least they had cookies!

I came back to the YWCA and packed up all my stuff for Morogoro, and then we walked to the beach for a little while. That night a few of my friends and I went to an Ethiopian restaurant for dinner. Supposedly the Ethiopian food here is amazing because we are so close to Ethiopia! By the way that is my #1 place I want to visit while I am here. Maybe that is what I will ask for for my birthday since flights are pretty expensive. We were all pretty tired but decided we would get a taxi to go. When we got to this restaurant we were blown away!!!! It was so cool!!! We were all sitting around this massive sourdough Injera bread in a circle on little stools with colorful cushions. There were palm trees and upside down umbrellas hung every where and out door lighting and incense and ancient proverbs written in English and Ethiopian and you could look up and see the stars! It was definitely my kind of place! They came around with this huge metal tea pot to rinse your hands before bringing you your food. I got chickpea something and a side of yogurt, we all kind of just guessed and they dump all the little parts of your meal onto the massive circle. Then they pass out rolls of Injera bread and you use that to scoop up your food. Everyone is sharing their food on this massive circle of fluffy sourdough bread though! It is SO cool and it was SO good! They give you hot towels after to clean your hands too. It was such a fun eating experience!

After dinner we came home me lying across three people in the back of taxi who had no shocks in their car so we were bouncing up and down so much haha! It has been a pretty great day.

Today was such an informative day!! One of my favorites so far! Some Peace Corps volunteers came and did sessions today and it was wonderful! Each of them have extended for 1 year so this is their third year in service, they go back home in September. I can’t imagine being away from home for 2 whole years and then extending for a year longer. But in their defense they are doing such neat stuff. The difference between the Peace Corps and World Teach is that they are placed alone where as we are paired with a roommate. I’m sure that isolation has to be very difficult at times. The volunteers ran sessions on teaching large multilevel classes and classroom management. They had us write down our biggest concerns when teaching. My group put lots of things but our two main ones were time management, (how to really get through the five steps of the lesson plan in the 40-minute block time period), and gaining respect and authority without using the stick. Will the students take us seriously if they know we will not use the stick? It used to be that the only legal thing to administer was 3-4 sticks to the hand per student, and the teacher giving the sticks could not be of the same sex of the student. But not since 65% of the country has failed their National Exams the country has lifted this restriction and now there are no restrictions on corporal punishments in school so it can get really out of hand. They now believe that an increase in corporal punishment will help to increase grades. I thought some good ideas of punishment instead of the stick was to have the student stand in the corner, or do a good jar/bad jar so if they do something bad they have to put their name in the bad jar and at the end of the day you will draw one name out of each jar. You will give a reward to the student from the good jar and give a punishment of some sort of cleaning to the student of the bad jar. They also suggested just walking out of the classroom if the class is out of hand and won’t listen. They said this is very effective because they will all get very quiet and want you to come back.

They also stressed how important it is to establish rules in the classroom. I can’t decide how exactly I am going to do this. One of the volunteers said she spent the first week going over rules because it takes a while for all the students to finally get to school they all kind of just trickle in the first week. But another volunteer said he just demonstrated his rules of his classroom as he went along throughout the year. I am so used to being given a syllabus and knowing what is expected of me. I could do that I would just have to go into town and make copies for each student. I will have to decide in a few weeks.

They pointed out that it is also a good idea to have some extra supplies on hand like some exercise notebooks (this is what they write in each day) and pencils in case your students need some. I am also going to give them a pretest the first week so I can gauge where they are at in there curriculum and what I need to review or what I can skip over because they already know. None of the volunteers after 3 years have ever finished the syllabi even with extra sessions on the weekend so that is encouraging just because it is so overwhelming.

They also discussed how much we take for granted test taking skills and how we should incorporate teaching the students this as much as we can before the National Exam because they struggle with this so much. They said they never try on something they do not know they will always leave it blank. But they do not realize or cannot get it in their head that they are not penalized for guessing. They also use a lot of words twice for matching sections, they do not realize that once you use one word you cannot use it again you cross it out. So the more we teach them how to do these things or make our tests like this it will help them. Also, never let them turn tests or quizzes in with blank answers, make them write something in even if it’s guessing. This will reinforce never to leave an answer blank.

It was really interesting to hear how much information these students are not getting from grade to grade. I learned that for a teacher to teach secondary school she has to pass secondary school with all D’s. For a teacher to teach primary school she has to pass secondary school with all F’s. This is no joke. These educators are teaching students.

We went to lunch at the local spot we have been to near the hotel where our sessions are. I got eggs and mango avocado juice! After lunch we came back and had a Swahili lesson. Then the Peace Corps volunteers came back and we broke up into two groups one English and one Math/Science. They showed us different interactive games we could do with the students to teach them theories of math and science. They had some really creative math games, which I wrote down in case I teach math. I loveddd the Biology examples. They gave one for when you are teaching the parts of the cell. They said I could pass out large pieces of flip chart (poster size paper) to each group of students (maybe groups of 7) and have them go around the school and outside and find different items to construct a cell. Give them glue sticks and have them make their cell and write the functions of each part, then each group will present their cell to the class. You could also do the same activity for a neuron. For chemistry they lit a candle and showed us some neat things we could do with heat. I get a little nervous just because I am going to be having to do labs with these science classes. So they were talking about how I will have to get my students to bring me lots of dead animals and pump them with formaldehyde so my students can dissect them.!! Uhhh just a tad bit nervous about that. Stuff like that that I will just have to pick up on and these students will be relying on me to know how to do it like the back of my hand.

After sessions a few of us went to this little food court area on the main street downtown Dar. I got Indian food, vegetable curry and naan! We came back and hung out and went to bed.

            Today we went to the Ministry of Education to have our sessions. It was very neat to see and check out. Our first session was with Angela she teaches Grammar at the British Council and has been is Dar for 3 years. These sessions today weren’t too helpful for me just because I am Math/Science so I won’t be teaching grammar too much. She spoke about how to teach grammar and reviewed grammar with us.

            For lunch we went to the National Museum and had a nice lunch outside. I had pilau (brown rice) and vegetable soup. Ali met us there and did a talk on rural living. She talked about all the little supplies we will need to pick up once we get to our towns. Buckets, buckets, buckets!!! Two buckets for dish washing, two buckets for hand washing, one bucket for bathing, one cup for bathing or a pitcher for rinsing your hair, a bucket for cleaning your toilet, a giant reserve bucket or three to save your water for when you will run out, 2-3 buckets to wash clothes. SO many buckets! She taught us how to catch rainwater and how it feels like a spa bath to the water we will be bathing with. She taught us how to wash our clothes, one bucket with water and soap (she talked about how Tanzanians use so much soap that it stays in there clothes, so if you ever get someone to wash your clothes soap will probably be left in them.) and the other two buckets for rinsing. You want to do two separate rinses to make sure you get all the soap out. She said the locals have such a good hand technique down that you can try to learn that but mostly all your neighbours will make fun of you for how you wash your clothes and they will always tell you to use more soap. J She taught us how to clean our bathroom, and to use bleach when doing that. She said if our squatter gets drain just get a stick and go to town pushing around trying to unclog it. She said no matter how much you clean your house you will always feel like it is dirty. When we dry our underwear we should always throw a kanga (the tribal wrap) over them because it is taboo for anyone in the town to see them. Never throw away any plastic bottles or anything valuable to others that can be reused like that, just go sit them outside and within an hour or two they will magically be gone. There is no where to throw away your trash so you have to the put it in the dirt pit and the people in the village will do a collective burning when it gets full. You can NEVER throw away your feminine products because people will go through your trash and Ali said she learned the hard way on this one. She said one day she looked out the window and there were little boys holding up her used products by the string trying to figure out what they were and she was MORTIFIED! So you have to burn those yourself. She always emphasised never letting yourself get too low on water, always make sure your reserve is full and always going to the doctor when you think you are sick.

            After lunch we had a Swahili lesson with Natalie, which is really helping. After that we walked to the bookstore for people to buy textbooks and the old practice review packets of old National Exams for their students and also for us so we can incorporate the questions in their tests. I couldn’t buy anything yet for my students because my headmaster doesn’t know what I will be teaching yet. She doesn’t know what teachers she will be getting for next term yet. When teachers are stationed here not as volunteers just as regular teachers in Tanzania the government places them, they don’t get to choose their placement. So my school may get 3 History teachers and one Physics teacher when they already had plenty of History teachers and really needed an English teacher and a Biology teacher but this is what they have to work with. This is just another reason why the teachers barely try with these students because they didn’t choose to be so far from their families or be in the region that they are in. Anywayssss so until my headmaster knows what she is working then she can tell me what she needs me to teach. I hope its Biology, but I will be happy with anything! Instead of buying textbooks I bought two Swahili books, which are beginner Swahili books to help me learn more. I have had two incidences so far where in conversations I can only get so far with them then they just got off talking and I say I don’t know, little Swahili and they get angry and say you should know more Swahili, how long have you been here? And I reply one week today, and they say yes you should know more! I am like goodness give me a break! So the people here really expect you to know their language!

            For dinner Emily, Shana, Forrest and I went up to the rooftop of the hotel near us and got some food and watched the World Cup. It was lots of fun!

Today was an early day! We left by 7am to head to the US Embassy in Dar. When we got there it was an intense check in process: only 2-3 people in at a time, scanning your bags and checking them, leaving them with the security people the entire visit. Absolutely no cameras were allowed. We had an escort take us into the meeting room where the ambassador would enter and greet us. We had these official badges and were told that when he enters we were to stand. He was the nicest guy! He spoke with us for a while standing up then he pulled up a chair and sat down making it real informal trying to help us feel comfortable to talk with him. He went around making us introduce ourselves and tell what school we were teaching at, what we were teaching, and if and where we had traveled in Africa. He told us this would be the best experience of our lives. He was a lawyer b practice but took a break during law school and moved to Nigeria for 2 years and planted beans innovating a new source of protein for the people in that specific village. He loves Africa and he knows we will too and he knows this wont be the last time we are here. He wants us to come back to have a debriefing with him at the end of our service to talk to him about our time here.

After his speech, the U.S. Embassy doctor spoke to us about health in Tanzania. He talked a lot about Malaria and Dengue since it is on the rise. He suggested just like Kim that we get the at home malaria tests for ourselves at home. Dengue fever has no treatment. You just have to let it run its course and know that if you get it once that okay but if you get it twice you could die from it, haha that’s casual. Malaria mimicks everything. He said you could think you have the flu, run a fever, have aches, pains, chills, have digestive issues, and with dengue its more your bones hurt and you have bad migraines, real bad pian behind the eyes. With both of these diseases they are obviously contracted by the bite of a certain mosquito and I thought this was interesting you can not take any ibuprofen. He said only Tylenol! For some reason ibuprofen could be really harmful since the mosquito parasites attack your liver.

After the health session, Laura Shayo spoke with us about Testing, Grading, and Assessments in Tanzania. She suggested which I totally agree that we give our students a pretest when we arrive to see how much they know and what we can build on or what we need to go back and review. This assesses the classes level and tells us how fast or how slow we need to lesson plan. I decided from this session it will be best for me to test after each unit I teach, and to do weekly quizzes for review. I also thought it would be smart for me to introduce science vocabulary first and incorporate some of those terms into the weekly quizzes so that helps them practice their English and it betters their understanding of the subject. Middle of the semester we could do a cumulative exam to model what the national exam is going to be like and I can use some practice questions from the nation exam practice tests that I am going to buy from the stationary shop. The first day too I could do a worksheet with columns saying what I know/what I want to know/what I learned and that will be a good thing for me and the students to let me know what I should cover and what they retained from the lesson. Laura reminded us to always test listening, teachers never do this. So play a song and say what do you hear? Or someone saying something and say what did they say? I will have to figure out how I can incorporate this into science. The grading scale is: 75-100 is an A, 50-74 is a B, 40-49 is a C, 30-39 is a D, 20-29 is an E, and 0-19 is an F.

Laura’s next session was on Long Term Planning. This was very helpful because at each of our schools we will have to submit a Scheme of Work, which is a massive chart of columns, which is basically a year layout of all of our lessons. It is definitely just a sketch but the ministry of education requires this and when they come around to do inspections they want to se each teachers scheme of work. She taught us how to go about forming this somewhat overwhelming task by using the textbook and the syllabus.

Once sessions were over we headed to the University of Dar Es Salaam and had lunch on their campus. It was delicious! I had an omelette (mayai) with a fresh avocado on top, and a mango! Once lunch was over we had some free time to wander around before a lesson from a history professor on campus. We learned about the history of Tanzania. Y’all all know how I feel about history so I didn’t enjoy it so much but other people did.

Once we got back home we had dinner at Mambos. One man was acting so crazy on the street screaming asking if anyone had seen these two guys in Muslim hats selling paintings. I mean he was screaming and was SO angry. Finally he is screaming anyone who can find these men right now will get $10,000 USD in cash they tried to kill my friend. He was freakingggg out screaming. So that was interesting to watch, and there was this precious little girl across the street begging the man selling fruit to give her a mango and he kept ignoring her and ignoring her. Ali was the one who pointed it out and she walked over there and bought two mangos from the guy and gave them to the little girl expecting her to give one to the other little boy who was sitting near her begging for food as well. Well she had so much sas and was so fun to watch! She took her long white skirt off made of cotton and laid both mangos on them and wrapped them up. She carried them around for a while and kept daunting her friend with them, like I gotttt mangos and youu didn’t. Ali walked back over there and was explaining to her in Swahili you must share with your friend and we had to hold her down in order for her to give that second mango up! It was too funny. After dinner we walked back and called it a night!

Today we went to Alliance Francaise. This is where they teach French classes in Dar. Kim’s roommate works here so she let us use a room here for the day! It is on the golf course and it is so pretty! We started our first session on the Tanzanian school system and the curriculum. I really did not like this session too much it was a lot of history. The main thing I got out of it was how much they discipline their kids here, which I am going to have a really hard time with. Ali talked about how at one time in her school they broke a desk over a child. And they always have to be on their knees when they get hit or sometimes they do it in front of the entire school. Kim told us if it is too much for us to watch we can go home. I asked if it would be over stepping my bounds to step in and prevent it and she said I would advice not to do that. She kept trying to help us understand that they are doing it to help them they think in their culture that this is a form of love. I just will never understand that but that’s just how my culture differs from theirs and it is definitely legal here. It is going to kill me. Ali said that she tried to comfort a little boy after he got the stick (that’s what they call it) and he was just so confused and it made thing ten times worse. She said teachers will constantly ask you why you don’t give your students the stick and make fun of you for it. Kim really struggles with this too in the ministry of education because they see nothing wrong with it. I also learned that school is from 7:30-2:30pm. They get fed NO lunch so these students are SO hungry. Some leave early to go eat, some get no food at home either so it doesn’t matter either way. It is so sad. Standard 1-7 is Primary School, Form 1-4 is Ordinary Secondary School, Form 5-6 is Advanced Secondary School, then there is University. There are National Exams you have to pass to move on after Standard 7, Form 2, 4, and 5. The one that no one can pass is during Form 4.

The next session was on reading. We learned different ways to enforce reading comprehension, for example through venn diagrams or doing different charts while reading to make sure you’re following while reading and not just reading and not understanding. After session we went to lunch at the best pizza place ever!! I think I just needed a little change of taste in the food and some homemade pizza was just the thing! I got cheese pizza with pineapple and a coke!

After lunch, Natalie (she’s a volunteer) had taken a year of courses in Sahili so is pretty fluent, offered to teach us some Swahili this week before we start our official lessons at the language school next week. She did so well and we learned a lot! After that, we had a session on culture shock and adjustment with Kim. She drew the culture shock graph on the board. It starts with an upward curve in the honey moon phase when everything is new and different, then it slopes down and you experience culture shock, you are confused, you miss home and you are frustrated and irritated. Everyday differences are getting on your nerves. Then the slope goes back up again but even higher so you are at the highest high yet, and you experience adjustment on the surface, then the slope goes back down at the lowest low yet of culture shock, this is when cultural, religious, and relational differences are really getting to you, and you are having a really tough time, then the slope goes back up again and you experience adaptation. Many people are on many different parts of this curve at so many different points of the year but it is always important to be aware of where you are on it and what you are going through. Some people feel like they experience the entire curve multiple times daily.

            After session Shana and I took a Bajaj and met some other volunteers at AK’s this Indian restaurant and had dinner! We got a nice little tour of Dar on the way to AK’s because our Bajaj driver acted as if he knew where AK’s was but in hindsight he had no idea so it took us a while to get there after we asked every random person how to get there along our drive! I had an Indian style chicken pita haha it was interesting and fresh mango juice!

I am really starting to settle into orientation. I am so sorry I have not been posting daily. Our days have been packed full! When I get to my site I will get in my routine and definitely become more regular about posting. Monday we had sessions all day at the hotel conference room near us.

Our first session was on Multiple Intelligences. That was so interesting. We all had some background knowledge on that, students learning in different ways. Some retaining information better in auditory ways or visually. Some kinesthetically, naturalistically, spatially, logically or musically. We took a test and my learning style was kinesthetic (learning by doing) and interpersonal which is social (talking it out). So from these answers I am most likely to teach in these ways so it was important to remember to incorporate other learning styles in my lesson. Our next session was on teaching vocabulary, at first I didn’t think this would be too helpful for me considering I am not teaching English but Ali pointed out how much of a struggle it is for students here in Math and Science to understand the vocabulary. If we cannot teach the vocabulary the students are never going to understand the concepts. For example she gave us the word inaudible. You would break the word down and say in- means not and audible means to hear so inaudible means -to not hear, but what about the word inspect, the students would think in- means not and spect- means to see so it would mean –to not see, but this word is irregular. So the English language has so many examples like this and it is very hard for the students to remember. When they take the National Exam after Form 4 if they do not pass, they can retake form 4 and try a second time to try again but if they fail again that is it they cannot do anything but be a farmer or a shop keeper. If you get a C or D you can be a nurse or a tour guide, but only As and Bs allow them to go to advanced level and continue on to university level. It is very much a privilege here to attend university and it is very much a challenge. Last year nearly the entire country of Africa failed their national exams. The ministry of education even curved the exams and made it where if you make a 21% that is a D, but nobody seems to be able to pass because the RELO the people making the exam is making it SO challenging. Teachers get past exams, world teach volunteers even look at them and say half the time there are 2 right answers for every question and it is just so challenging. The big struggle here is that the students have no critical thinking skills. The teachers only teach by writing notes on the board with no discussion, guided practice, or activities. Many teachers don’t even show up for class or send their notes with a student who has good handwriting to write on the board for the class so they copy in their notebooks. All the students do is strictly memorize. A good example of this was in Vocabulary when Ali said she would teach her students what the word –realize- was but if they saw the word –realized- or –realizing- they had no idea what it was because it wasn’t the exact word –realize- that they had memorized. They don’t have the critical thinking skills to realize that the word just had different endings.

We had lunch at this local spot not too far away. I got chips mayai (eggs with fries in them) and fresh mango juice J. It is Tanzanian manners to wash your hands before you eat and afterwards or everyone eating around you think you are very gross. It is taking some getting used to! They have such good sodas here! The coke is amazing and the fanta, they have this lemon soda which is made from real lemons which I really love! Anddddd yall know I love gingerale and they have this soda caused stony tanga weezy and it is made with real ginger I mean it is so strong!! And soo yummy! I am sure it is perfect to have when you are sick!

After lunch we went to Airtel to buy our phones and modems. Oh my gosh was this such a process I cant even begin to tell you. All eight of us got phones and internet and the guy processed it all on his little flip phone. I was so amazed. They still use sim cards here! So they processed my sim cards got them activated then I had to go to the next shop where they sold lotions and perfumes and buy airtime for my phone and modem. Then I came back and he tested them out. Then I went to another lady to get my phone paid for that she activated that, and then went to a different man to get my modem (its wireless!) and he activated that! My phone allows me to call all throughout Africa to my field director and my other friends in orientation and I can text and stuff. My modem allows me to connect my computer and phone to wifi. Lets cross our fingers and hope it works at my site. This is the coolest part! When I run out of airtime or modem time I buy more time through my phone, I never have to go back to the shop to pay my monthly bill. So no matter how remote my village is I can pay my bill on my phone to get more airtime. And this is not an iphone people this is a dinky phone I mean it still has T9 word! Throw back for ya! Airtel took about 4 hours no lie, after all that we went to Mambos for dinner. Such a cool place!! It is all outside, only plastic chairs and plastic tables but sooo good. You literally get half a chicken to eat with naan! I got lemon flavored chicken it had curry flavor too and I got garlic flavored naan with a fanta. Oh, and we took a bajaaj which is the motorbike thing, me, Ali and Shana! It was a lot of fun and so delicious, one of my favorite dinners yet!

Happy Father’s Day! Today was a great day. It is Sunday! So I woke up and went to church. I found a girl in secondary school outside of our hostel after breakfast and asked her if she was going to church and if I could come, she said yes! The church was Lutheran so lots of praying and kneeling. It was a great service, and in English so I loved that. The preacher talked about how we all are assigned different tasks in our life and God gives us the courage to carry them through. I thought that was very fitting for me! Shana and Bayruve went with me, which I loved. After church some local Tanzanians took us around Dar and taught us how to ride the local buses (they are called the dala dalas). We went to the market and saw all the yummy food and fruit for sale and had chips mayai for lunch. It’s an omelet with french fries in it! Yeah I know weird, but my favorite meal so far! (I picked most of my French fries out). J I got a really cute dress today at the market for $5 but all the girls wear it to lounge in its light purple tye die and really cool! I wanted to get a coconut at the market but they are already starting to raise the prices on me just because I am mzungu (white). She told me 1300tsh and no going down on the price but the local with me said it was supposed to be around 600-800tsh. So that was frustrating. 1600tsh is 1 US dollar.

Oh yeah I absolutely LOVE the tea here, it is absolutely amazing!! I take my tea with milk so it is already mixed for you the way they serve it with chai and it is delicious! We rode into another part of downtown, which was a lot larger and walked around. I was so exhausted by the end of the day with all the walking but it is definitely there way of life here.

When we came back we had an orientation on lesson planning. All lesson plans have five steps and we learned the steps and how to follow them and plan a lesson. We had to teach a lesson we made up in front of the class. I taught one on vocabulary! Afterwards we went to dinner and then had the rest of the night to hang out. Tomorrow is a full day of orientation so another busy day!

I finally am having the chance to sit down and reflect on the past few days of traveling to Tanzania! Wow what a journey. My flights were all so long, the longest I have been on that’s for sure. One ten hour flight then a ten hour layover in Egypt then a nine hour flight to Dar. On the first flight I slept really well because no one was in the middle seat so I got to lay down but the second flight I had an aisle seat and it was awful!! I could not sleep at all and had a very bad migraine.

How bout that ten hour layover though!! I did not think for once it would work out the way it did. When I got off the plane I just asked if I could go see the pyramids and the airline got me a car, a visa for the day and I was off! My driver spoke no English so I was pretty sketched out at first but then once I got there after about a 40 minute drive the man in his little shop spoke English and we worked out a price. Next thing I know I was on the back of a camel in full (not kidding you) gallop to the pyramids! Haha. Please just imagine that. I am pretty sure my guide was supposed to ride a horse beside me but instead just rode the camel with me it was so cool! I got to go down inside the pyramids, it was a 100 meter climb down and you saw where the king and the queen were buried as mummies J.  There are 9 pyramids. Six for the king and 3 for the queen. Thousands and thousands of slaves built them and then the king had them all killed because he wanted to keep them a secret. (thought that was a neat little fact). After the pyramids I went to my tour guide, Sam’s friends shop and I bought a charm for my necklace that was a pyramid! I seriously cannot add anymore! Next my driver took me the Nile River. It was SO beautiful. Not anything like I imagined, surrounded by beautiful hotels and skyscrapers.

I finally made it back to the airport three hours before my flight just enough time to check in, go through security, and wash my face and brush my teeth, take a sleeping pill and get on my flight to Dar. I was pretty anxious for this flight. Just because I knew once I got off I would be in Tanzania. I was also superrrr exhausted at this point but couldn’t sleep so none of that really helped. I arrived in Dar about 5:30am and got a taxi to the YWCA where I will be staying for the next week. I was the second one to arrive and I didn’t get there until around 7:30am that’s how long traffic took. I forgot just how many people live in Africa J. They were very nice when I arrived and helped me carry my bags to my room. My room is very basic. It has two twin beds each with mosquito nets, a sink in the middle and cubbies at the end of the bed to put your stuff in if you want. I put my stuff down and hurried down to breakfast before it ended. My breakfast consisted of a hardboiled egg and a slice of bread, with a slice of watermelon. I’m glad I practiced eating hardboiled eggs before I left! I went to my room and literally had to unpack my entire bag to find my shampoo and conditioner which I realized oh wait I didn’t pack conditioner so minor down fall but I managed. I got a shower in the communal area in the hallway and it was nice low water pressure and good cold water. Refreshing to say the least. I’m glad I was definitely used to it from my Haiti and Nica trips.

My roommate arrived shortly after and she seems really nice her name is Emily. She is from St. Louis and is going to teach Math at a school about 45 minutes away. (She is the same age as me) Our other roommates is a return volunteer and is a retired teacher named Laurel so we won’t meet her for another two weeks. I chatted with her for a while and then I met our field director Kim who I LOVE. She is so cool! She taught a year in Rwanda and a year in Columbia and then was the field director for Columbia for a year and now for us! She lives in Dar, she used to live in NY and work for a nonprofit in the JP Morgan office and help people find jobs when they got laid off, but when the economy crashed she lost her job so she signed up for world teach!

Emily and I took a nap until 6:30, which was dinner. I met the other teachers at dinner I think there are 9 of us total. One girl, Shawna is went to school in Orangeburg, SC I thought that was a neat commonality! One girl is from Canada. The one guy in our group is from Alaska he is teaching Physics. Another girl is a lawyer and she is super cool! She said she just wasn’t happy at her job so she had enough money saved and quit and wanted to do something abroad for awhile. We are pretty much split half and half, half of us are teach math/science and half of us are teach English so that’s cool.

Everyone seems to be super excited about their placements. I got the most urban placement and I don’t even know if you can consider it urban under American standards. I have a gas stove, which will be wonderful for cooking, but I just have to learn how to cook their food first! Our water is iffy we always have to have some on reserve and most likely will shower out of a bucket, which supposedly there is a proper way to do that which we will learn during orientation haha! Some people requested super rural placements and they were very excited about it. So lots of differences in placements we are literally all over Tanzania to the point that once orientation is over we wont see each other again until mid or end of service conference because we are just WAY to far away.

After dinner we went to the rooftop of a hotel and watched the World Cup. I had a glass of South African wine it made me miss South Africa L. Kim wanted to stay up as late as we could to try to get used to the time zone. A South African man sitting by us heard that we were here to teach secondary school and he paid our entire bill. I thought that was very nice, people get so happy when they hear that you are here to teach their kids. Its like they have so much respect for you. We left around ten and headed back to our hostel to bed down.

I had to figure out had to get my mosquito net fully around my bed! It is such a snug little fit, you have to tuck it in under your mattress and its so hard because you can do three corners of your bed but then you have to climb in and get the fourth corner and it was just a struggle. It felt like a little fort at first but then it would slowly loosen in the night and get closer and closer to me haha. I slept in a long sleeve shirt, pj pants and bug repellent. I just don’t want to take any chances. They are having a bad outbreak right now of Dengue fever, which is what you get from mosquitoes sooo I do not want to get that! Kim is so serious about it too she’s like if you have any holes in your net try to sew them or tape them I’m like uhh I have neither of those things so I slept in long sleeve stuff. She suggested we buy at home malaria tests too before we leave Dar to take to our sites. She said its like a pregnancy test. I did a lot of malaria test in Haiti so I know how to do them! She said its not getting malaria that sucks its treating it that is the awful part so lets cross our fingers I don’t get it!

This morning I woke up for breakfast and we had the start of orientation. Orientation is at the Holiday Inn a block away. It is so nice! We have a conference room with AC. We did ice breakers and talked about teaching expectations at the school and in the classroom, cultural barriers etc. Then we did a talk on safety in Dar. We also went over an evacuation emergency plan just in case something happened but they have never had to implement that in Tanzania. We had lunch at the YWCA then came back to the hotel and finished with another session on expectations as a teacher and the role of a teacher in the classroom. We ended at 4 and headed to a café that Kim recommended. I checked out a super market after that and looked for conditioner but no luck, Kim said she knows a place but it will be kinda expensive. We came back for dinner at the YMCA only rice and sauce tonight! Our canteen was closed, and then I came back to the hotel to type my blog!

Tomorrow is another day packed full of orientation! Miss you guys! I will write again soon.