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Pemba Blog 2011: Weeks 3 & 4

Welcome back! We hope that things are well in the UK. We’ve been very busy in schools since our last blog, helping out with English Grammar, Literature, Civics, Mathematics, Geography, Biology and Physics! Our project co-ordinator, Ursula, has visited us in schools to see how well the project is going, participate in lessons, and take lots of photos also.

Unfortunately we’ve been without Ursula for a few days because she had to visit Unguja to collect our work permits. During this time we visited the North of the island with Fidel Castro School to a beach near Ngezi forest called Vumawimbi. Much like Misali Island it boasts clear blue sea and white sand. Nearby there is a viewing tower where on a good day you can see all the way over to Mombasa, Kenya. We hope to visit the North of the Island again with Ursula to go there.

Ursula returned to find that we had a whole new family living with us! The head teacher from one of the schools we are working in has now moved in with his family due to renovations on their home. So, we now have a very busy household and lots of children to speak Swahili English (Swenglish) with. We have also had the opportunity to help with the cooking – making chapattis and preparing herbs and spices.

Other work that we have been doing when not in schools includes: working in Sober House, a rehabilitation centre for young men and assisting in Chake Chake library with a man called Mohammed who runs English classes for both Primary and Secondary school-aged children.

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Sober House is in Mkoroshoni and here we are teaching basic English language skills to a group of 12 men aged between 22 and 40 who are recovering from alcohol and drug addictions. They follow a strict programme, learning many new skills, and recovered addicts volunteer their time to help others. English language is an important new skill for them to learn and our privilege to be helping them out.

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Our work in the library is an effective non-formal way of helping children and young people to practise their English speaking skills and Mohammed is a very hard-working dedicated librarian-come-teacher. He also runs a weekend school in Mkoroshoni, which we have been invited to attend when we next have a free weekend.

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However, coming up this weekend is the ‘mid-project review’ when we from Tenteleni will meet with our EdLITE partners for project evaluation workshops, some leisure time and of course lots of Tenteleni icebreakers! We are looking forward to being all together again and will report back on our activities very soon.

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Beth and Romina

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October 14, 2011 at 4:48 pm | Projects, Tanzania | No comment

Pemba Blog 2011: Weeks 1 & 2

Karibu! What an action packed two weeks it has been! We volunteers, Beth and Romina, arrived in Chake Chake to find our starved PC, Ursula, who had struggled to find food here during Ramadan. Luckily for us it was Eid and we soon found our favourite eateries for lunch (consisting of buns and tea) and dinner (kebab, egg and chips).

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Training started promptly on Sunday and we met our EdLITE partners: Mohammed, Haji, Mussa and Mzee who are all currently working in the four schools we are placed in – Shamiani, Connecting Continents, Wawi and Fidel Castro, respectively. Training week was a hit with all involved; we got to know one another, played lots of games and famous Tenteleni icebreakers, and even managed to fit in a visit to the Pemba museum, which our EdLITE partners were almost more excited about than us!

Our first week in schools started off a little disrupted due to a ferry disaster in Unguja but soon we were into the swing of school life in Pemba, welcomed by all teachers, students, community members and even the village sheikha, who attended two of the Working Together workshops. Romina has also had the chance to work in a Primary School, teaching them some English nursery rhymes and Beth has been involved with afterschool Biology food testing practicals.

In our free time we took a boat trip over to Misali Island – paradise in every sense of the word, apart from a couple of snake encounters. Here we had the opportunity to go snorkelling and see lots of corals and little fishes, which as a biologist I should probably be more accurate in naming. We have also visited Wesha beach resort for well needed rest and some western home comforts such as burgers, pizzas, and even a flushing toilet! However, we are very much enjoying Shamba living – each day fetching water from the well with support from many children and villagers who are amused at our “muzungu” (White Person) method of hugging the buckets as opposed to carrying them on our heads, which for the record is EXTREMELY
difficult!

For now, it is “wazungu bye bye” (White People Bye Bye) from Pemba as we must prepare for our 5:30am wake up and cycle to school. “Usiku mwema” Good Night!

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Beth and Romina

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September 26, 2011 at 10:04 am | Projects, Tanzania | No comment

Pemba Blog 2011: A Project Coordinator Perspective

Ramadan, Eid, Cows Beaches and Shamba Life

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Twenty-one hours, three stop-overs (Doha, Nairobi and Dar es Salaam) and an audiobook (When God was a Rabbit) later, I finally completed my journey from London Heathrow to Pemba Island ‘International’ airport, which turned out to be little more than a hut with a glorified bit of tarmac in front of it. As the small six-seater plane made it through the clouds and the island came into view I had my first taste of what the next three months would hold – palm trees, blue sea, white beaches and lots of tin huts.

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Pemba is a small island (only 67km long) about 80km north-east of Zanzibar (Unguja). In Arabic it is known as ‘El Huthera’ (Green), which actually describes the island perfectly as it is almost jungle-like everywhere apart from the towns and sea. The population is under 400,000; so in such a community visitors, especially ‘wazungu’ (white people), stick out like a sore thumb. But the most predominant aspect of Pemban life which immediately stands out is the friendly nature of the people. Everywhere you go people will greet you warmly, and even try out some English on you and let my practice my (shaky) Swahili. Everyone is very willing to help, whether you want to find a cold drink, try a local dish or just have a wander round town, so I have already made plenty of friends in Chake Chake, the main town.

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When I first arrived on Pemba the holy month of Ramadan was still being observed, meaning that during daylight hours all adults and children above the age of 7 fast, only eating a small meal at 6.30pm after the sun sets, and a main meal in the middle of the night. Pemba is predominantly Muslim country, the only Christians seem to be those who have emigrated from the mainland, which meant that getting any food during Ramadan was near impossible, apart from at market stalls late at night. For the first few days I survived on egg and chips and oranges I managed to scavenge from the market – all I can say is Pemba should advertise itself as a new extreme diet boot camp during Ramadan.

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The festivities that came after Ramadan more than made up for a few days of going hungry though. I was invited to spend the day with Nassor, one of my local colleagues from our partner organization EdLITE [http://www.edlitezanzibar.org]. The day was a fantastic rapid introduction to Pemba culture and lifestyle. First we had breakfast at Nassor’s home, including some special Eid cakes and chai, which tasted delicious after so long without a proper meal. Then Nassor took me on a tour of all his relatives’ houses, as is tradition on the first day of Eid (sort of like relative visiting in the UK, apart from here most live within walking distance). I seemed to meet most of the population of Gombani village, as well as a few of the surrounding areas, and at each house I was given more special Eid cake, chai or juice, which was all delicious. By the time we reached the final house I was stuffed, only to be greeted with an invitation to join them for lunch, which consisted of a mountain of rice. By the time I left I felt like I had put on a couple of kilos during the morning, but also that I had begun to understand a little more of Pemban and Muslim culture.

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The next day Nassor had a completely new adventure in store for me, which was great as all the schools and offices were still closed to celebrate Eid. We drove out to a small rural village in the south of the island, where an income-generating project involving cows has been set up. One of the cows had given birth, but was then unable to stand up. So I joined the group of men who had a plan to get the cow back on its feet. After a short trek through a forest of coconut, banana and clove trees we reached an area where three cows were tied up, one certainly looking worse for wear. The men began to dig holes in the ground to drive in some wooden poles, watched by all of the village children. After about two hours work in the hot sun (I was sweating and I was only sitting down), the men had built a small wooden three-sided structure and began to drag the cow up the hill and squished it inside. Apparently this was going to help it stand. I have no idea whether it worked or not, but the poor cow looked like it needed some water and to see a vet, not to be hauled about and poked with sticks. Nevertheless it was interesting to see life in the rural village and explore some more of the island; just the view of the jungle and hills was worth the trip.

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On Saturday the volunteers, Beth and Romina, arrived in Pemba, which was quite a relief as I had been roaming Chake Chake alone (or with newly acquired Pemban friends) for the past week. Muzungus are pretty rare in Pemba, so when I did see one I had the tendency to jump upon them and quiz them about what they were doing on ‘my’ island. One turned out to be a newly arrived peace corps volunteer, while another was a M&E guy from UNDP, both of whom were equally surprised to see another foreigner. So when the volunteers arrived we made quite a spectacle snaking through the small streets of the town. I felt rather like a mother duck with my brood of volunteers following on behind. The very next day we started our training programme with the four local volunteers, Mohammed, Mzee, Haji and Mussa. It was a great feeling to finally have the project underway, and soon the small room was filled with hysterics as we taught them ‘Old McDonald had a farm…’ and exchanged ideas on culture. The local volunteers were particularly interested and confused by what they called ‘courtship rituals’ in the UK, just as we were equally bemused by the Muslim tradition of men having up to four wives. While they were bemused about the fact you might date someone for years before getting married (and might not actually want to ever get married), we were equally confused about how a husband managed to spread himself between four wives. Apparently he can keep some kind of diary system or something…

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One of the biggest challenges of living in Pemba is the language barrier as few people speak English well, and my KiSwahili is still limited to greetings, introductions and finding food. This challenge manifested itself when we ran out of toilet paper in our hotel. First we asked the receptionist in English, then we found our phrase book and thought we had it solved (karatazi ya chooni). However he returned with the paperwork concerning our room instead. Due to the desperation of the situation I then attempted to act out toilet paper in some kind of bizarre charade , while also repeating the phrase in Swahili, with the poor receptionist guy looking more and more confused. Then in a last ditch attempt I tried drawing a picture, but my artist skills are pretty limited. Thank goodness for Mummy packing an emergency supply of tissues!

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At the end of the week we were invited to a head teacher’s house for lunch, and afterwards to a debate at one of the secondary schools. After lunch the teacher gave me a tour of the local area on the back of his moped, which was an adrenaline pumping experience as he was talking on the phone, while negotiating chickens, children and pot holes, while also gesticulating to me all the local points of interest. At the debate we were introduced as special guests and I was asked to be in charge of scoring the students’ grammar. If only they’d know how limited my knowledge of English grammar actually is…

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Finally it was the weekend and we could enjoy a day out of Chake Chake. We took a boat trip to Misali Island, about 1 hour and a half by boat from Pemba. We spent the morning exploring the island’s beaches and chasing crabs around the beach, and the afternoon snorkelling along the coral reef surrounding the island, which was fantastic. I have no idea what any of the fish were called, but they looked so beautiful and colourful I could have stayed there all day. Unfortunately the sun had other ideas and I had to escape into the shade before I became a lobster.

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On Sunday we moved from Chake Chake to our home for the next ten weeks, in a small village called Vitongoji, about 10km from Chake Chake. There is not much in the village apart from a few tomato sellers, a primary school and lots of small children. We went to collect water in the evening, but all of the nearby taps were off, so we had to go about 10 minutes away to the well. By the time we got there we had a huge band of small children following us. When it came to carrying the heavy buckets of water back to the house Beth and me attempted to carry them on our heads, which drew whooping, clapping and singing from the children. After a couple of minutes we had to stop though – my head has still not adapted to African living.

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We were supposed to start the project in the schools today, but unfortunately there has been a disaster in Pemba, so today was declared a national day of mourning. In the early hours of Saturday a ship sailing between Unguja and Pemba sank, taking with it about 200 or so of the 800 passengers on board, most of whom were Pembans returning home [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14864400]. Such a great loss of life has really affected the small community here, with almost everyone knowing someone who was on the boat.

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So that’s the news from my first two weeks in Pemba island and my new homeland. I’m sure the next few months will hold numerous adventures and excitements – and I’ll be sure to let you know!

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Ursula Hankinson

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“Adventures with my rucsac”

http://adventureswithmyrucsac.blogspot.com/2011/09/ramadan-eid-cows-beaches-and-shamba.html

September 13, 2011 at 8:37 pm | Projects, Tanzania | No comment

Zanzibar Unguja Blog 2010: Weeks 1 & 2

Week 1

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Hamjambo! Mimi ninakaa Zanzibar, sisi tunafurahi sana, na Jumatatu mimi nitakwenda Skuli Fukuchani.

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Hello everybody! I am in Zanzibar, we are very happy, and I am going to Fukuchani School on Monday.

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I’m Stephen, and in this year’s Team Tenteleni there is Patrick in the Fukuchani placement with me, Laura and Haia in Kiboje, Nadia, Steph and Project Coordinator Sarah who will stay in the capital, Stone Town, and Mahaz in Mfeneseni and Ruben in Mahonda with their Shiriki volunteers, Nassor and Salum.  This blog is naturally based on my personal diary, but I’ll try to write about what some of the others get up to as well.

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Writing to you from an internet café after the training week together in town, we’re alive, healthy, and have been slightly mosquito bitten and slightly sunburnt on the ferry.  Steph is a bit of a mosquito magnet though.  I’m also enjoying myself out here. We’ve learned a fair amount of Swahili from Mr Farouk (useful for haggling and not getting ripped off), had to cope with irregular water and electricity supplies, and learned a lot about Zanzibari culture and the work we can do as part of Tenteleni. We’ve met our Shiriki volunteers from the Edlite project, Salum and Nassor, who are eager to teach us and learn from us.  Salum is Ruben’s placement partner, while Nassor will work with Mahaz.

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I’ve been on Stone Town quests, been to the fish market at sunrise, 6am (or 4am in the UK), and made dinner for 11 volunteers on a shoestring budget. And yes, I saw the rain fall in Africa… rather heavily!

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I’ve also visited where the town volunteers will be working, Forodhani Children’s Home and Vikokotoni School. The kids from the home are utterly fearless and just want to have fun with us.

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I’m looking forward to next week, when we split up into our individual placements! But I’ll miss the support of the rest of the team during the week, I think.  I’m already thinking up ideas for assisting the teaching of maths and science.

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Week 2

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Hamjambo!  Salaam aleikhum!  Jina langu ni Stephen, mimi ni mwingereza.  Ninakaa hapa Zanzibar wiki tisa.

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That was how I introduced myself to each of the six classes at school.  It has 260 children, in the equivalent of two Year 8 and Year 9 classes, and one each of Year 10 and Year 11.  We’re having fun trying to get everyone to pronounce Stephen and Patrick correctly.  Everywhere we go, children follow, with cries of ‘Mzungu’.  They’re quite excited to see us.

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I’ve just finished my first week of living in the shamba of Fukuchani, and am back in Stone Town for the weekend.  I managed to pay an extra Tsh 1000 than necessary for the first dala-dala trip for both Patrick and me; at least I now know how much it should cost.  It was only an extra 25p each, but such is the value of things in Zanzibar.  The dala-dala is the public transport in Zanzibar; it’s a bit like a converted mini-truck that squeezes on more people in than you could imagine, and occasionally you carry things like sacks of rice, other people’s babies, or chickens.  Larger belongings get strapped onto the roof, fairly insecurely.  There’s always room for more, even when it doesn’t seem physically possible.

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My host is Mr Khamis, who hosted the volunteers two years ago, and the teachers in general like to reminisce about the past volunteers.  He lives towards the top of what seems to be the only hill in Zanzibar; the walk is steep and – thanks to the regular showers – muddy and slippery too.  However, the views from the top are stunning, and we can see all the way to nearby Tumbatu Island.  There are also natural caves and pools, and giant baobab trees.

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Mr Khamis and his wife look after ten children, nine of whom are girls, and the boy is the youngest.  I’ve just about managed to learn all their names!  The neighbouring children all come and visit in the evening too; some of the older ones are keen to teach me more Swahili nouns.  Now that I have got to know them all a little bit, I play games and sing songs to the little ones, and would like to help teach English to the older ones.

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I’m very happy in the relatively basic conditions – I’ve experienced the outhouse squat toilet and bucket shower, communal eating, and sharing a small living area, but Patrick and I have our own beds!  We have mosquito nets to stop us getting bitten too much, but getting up at 6am every morning means that the mosquitoes merely wait for me to use the shower.  Since it is the season, we are inundated with oranges, and I think I’m eating about five a day, but we also eat things like papayas and lots of fish, and drink spiced tea.  I’ve tried the ‘dreaded’ ugali, or thick maize porridge; it’s really not too bad!  Patrick and some of the others of the Zanzibar team do not agree… We eat dinner by lantern light, as it quickly goes dark by 7pm, and go to sleep at about 9pm.  My clothes get completely covered in dirt, but I don’t care – I love it here!

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Stephen Fawcett

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August 16, 2010 at 2:00 pm | Projects, Tanzania | No comment

Zanzibar Unguja Blog 2010: Weeks 3 & 4

Week 3

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The first thing we discovered upon returning to the flat in Stone Town last week was that there had been a sighting of the pet rat in the flat during the week.  The three girls remaining in the town placement insist that this did not cause them to jump up onto the chairs, well, not for more than half an hour anyway.  There is a competitive streak emerging between the different placements, mainly about whose oranges are the best.

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My shamba family kindly wash my clothes for me.  The weather has improved, though not without a torrential shower that soaked my clothes that had been drying for two days.  I told the students that this was more like England than Zanzibar!  We even decided to go to the beach in the rain one day in the blind optimism that it would stop, which it did, eventually.

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I had my first insect bite, which gave me a nasty reaction; it caused my knuckle to swell up painfully.  My caring family decided to smear some kerosene on it, which may or may not be the reason why it calmed down.  I’ve learned the names of all the different sisters and the brother now, and I think I also know which one is which too.  We’ve been translating kangas – huge sheets of cloth with Swahili proverbs on them, and worn by women.  Some of the phrases are profound, while some seem perplexing.

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I’ve had my first week of teaching, I’m always alongside the actual teacher and we do the lesson together.  I help with chemistry, maths, and physics.  Physics is currently my favourite, we have a very small class as it is optional in Form III, but the children ask me some really good questions on the topic, and the teacher working with me understands the science I’m explaining and engages with the students about it.  I’ve even had to draw upon knowledge from my degree in order to fully satisfy them, but I haven’t confused them yet.  With Patrick, I’m also teaching everyone computer skills, one double-period class a day, so altogether I now have twenty 40-minute periods a week, which I’m happy with.  It seems that the biggest hurdle with computers is instructing everyone in the use of the mouse, and the concept of left clicking, or ‘kubonyeza kushoto’.

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Week 4

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As much as being here in Zanzibar with Tenteleni is a fantastic experience, there are inevitably some high and some low moments.

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Last weekend, I got my exam results, and I decided to celebrate with a sweet Zanzibar Pizza.  We saw the Aldabra giant tortoises on Prison Island, just near Stone Town, and I instantly took to feeding them and stroking their necks.  I saw one of the island’s original four, aged 182, with a big dent in his shell.  Tortoises can seem so serene sometimes, like time almost stops still for them.  Life in Zanzibar sometimes feels the same.

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Patrick and I also bought some kangas as gifts for the impending wedding between the headteacher’s daughter and one of the teachers.  I didn’t like the designs of the ones I could half translate, so in the end I bought a blue kanga with black and white flowers and the proverb ‘Nianjema Hairogwi’.  I had absolutely no idea what that meant, but I trusted that it had to be good.  Thanks to my shamba family, it apparently translates as ‘No evil can ever stop intentions from being good’.  I will find a use for that at some point.

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I know enough Swahili to have small conversations with the sisters.  They’re interested to hear what I do at the weekend when I meet up with the other volunteers.  They also asked me to choose my favourite sister; I’ve been around long enough to know that the correct answer was that I liked all of my sisters equally!

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Unfortunately, I contracted a bacterial illness, possibly from drinking something a bit dodgy.  I wanted to stay in Fukuchani for as long as I could, as there was going to be a village ceremony that night to celebrate a prophet’s birthday, and I also didn’t want to miss my physics lesson the next day.  However, my body became so inflamed by teaching and moving around that I had no choice but to return to Stone Town to see the doctor as soon as possible.  With the prescribed medicine, it should be fine within two weeks.

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I’ve been teaching about constellations in physics, and why Pegasus being a flying horse is a perfectly reasonable concept.  I was then asked a question about why the moon appears in different places in the sky, even though it had nothing to do with the day’s lesson.  It’s these intelligent questions that make me smile inside.  I’ve also been contending with a maths textbook whose questions are sometimes poorly written or just wrong, and getting students to pretend to be particles in chemistry, interacting with each other in front of the class.  I don’t know if ideas like that will continue when I’m gone, but I’m at least going to share the benefits of them with the school for the remaining six weeks.

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Stephen Fawcett

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August 16, 2010 at 1:50 pm | Projects, Tanzania | No comment

Zanzibar Unguja Blog 2010: Weeks 5 & 6

Week 5

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It’s the end of Week 5, and we’re already half way through now.  You will be pleased to know that I have made a full recovery since last week, although the erythromycin tablets were fluorescent pink, horrible and nauseating.

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Mahaz, in the Mfeneseni placement, told me that Patrick and I had made an appearance on Zanzibar national television from when the Sunni Madrassa school visited Fukuchani.  Naturally, we were wearing our Tenteleni t-shirts at the time!  Since Fukuchani is the only shamba village without a television, I didn’t get to see myself, which is probably just as well.

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I am the champion of fruit-based ten-pin bowling, being the only one to get a strike.  The pins are some of our empty water bottles and the ball is a balungi, which is like an oversized grapefruit.

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We decided to go to Fumba Beach in the south last weekend, with the dala-dala driving through a shamba, although we probably went to the wrong part as it didn’t really match the descriptions in our travel guides.  The beach was still pleasant enough though, and we bumped into the kids from Forodhani Children’s Home, one of placements of the Stone Town volunteers.  One girl with a particularly creative imagination told me one of those endless stories that just broke off into several tangents, all in Swahili.  I was trying very hard to keep up.  I’ve also found that kangas have several uses, this time doubling up as beach towels for the girls.

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I’ve managed to get all ten computers at Fukuchani School to work at once by the clever use of some extension cables.  I’ve also finally started work on the Tenteleni Fun Day, where we get all the schools from the different placements to get together and compete against each other on a day towards the end of the project.  We’re considering going for a debating competition.  I personally think we should also have a Tenteleni debate to settle the burning issue between the most competitive of the shamba placements: whose oranges are better, Mfeneseni or Kiboje?

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I got asked a couple of physics questions that I couldn’t answer, so I’m currently having to do a bit of research here… but I do like the students asking me all these questions. Some of them are really bright.  I’ve also tried to learn their names as there are only ten in the class, as opposed to the usual 40 to 50.

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This weekend is the mid-project review, so we’re back in town early, and all we have to go by for the secret location is a couple of cryptic clues, so I still don’t know where we’ll be.  So, half way through, is the glass half full or half empty?  As was suggested to me before I left, I hadn’t been counting down the days or even thinking about how long/short the project is.  Although I wouldn’t stay here forever, I don’t want it to end just yet.

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Week 6

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The mystery location of the Mid Project Review turned out to be Paje, on the east coast of the island.  The beach of Paje itself is one of the most beautiful places in Zanzibar, and we watched the stars in the night-time, and the sunrise in the morning.  However, I can reassure you all that we also did a lot of work.  We assessed the hurdles that we’ve overcome and still have to face.  We looked at what could be improved or changed for the Zanzibar project, and had one-on-one meetings to really personally analyse the project so far.  We also learned to come to terms with the idea that it’s how we’re getting through the project, and not any immediately visible change, that will provide the long-term benefit for the placements.  So altogether we all gained a lot from the weekend.

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We are also compiling a list of the 101 uses of a kanga.  They’re so practical and instructive.  I borrowed one to use as a beach towel, and the message on it was ‘Patience is the key to happiness’.  I think we’re up to about 20 different uses so far.

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It is currently the Zanzibar International Film Festival back in Stone Town, so an old stone fort converted into an outdoor amphitheatre has had a big screen put up in it.  This meant that we had a unique location to watch the World Cup Final, which was major news with the locals, especially since it’s in Africa for the first time.  We’ve also got the Fun Day up and running: we’ve decided to look to move to somewhere outside of Stone Town this year, and change the format to a spelling bee rather than a student debate.

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As part of her grand tour of all the placements, Project Coordinator Sarah came to visit the school on Thursday.  I’ve now decided that it only rains heavily when we either have clothes out drying or when she comes to visit – it was dry every other day this week!

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I’ve learned a new game from my sisters called “nage”. It’s a variation of dodgeball, and it’s a lot of fun.  The idea is that two players throw the ball back and forth, and a third player has to dodge, starting with only one life.  However, that player can also try to catch the ball and then throw it back at the other players to gain lives.  Given that we play it in the dirt and dust at the back of the house, I’m even more filthy than usual this week.  I don’t think I currently have a single clean shirt to wear outside of school now, and all of my trousers are dirty!  Oh well.

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Stephen Fawcett

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August 16, 2010 at 1:20 pm | Projects, Tanzania | No comment

Zanzibar Unguja Blog 2010: Weeks 7 & 8

Week 7

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Last week, we tried a doriani, a fruit that seems to only exist around here.  Sarah warned us that it was the worst thing she’d ever tasted, and the rest of us agreed shortly afterwards!  If there was ever a fruit that did not want to be eaten, this was it.  The outside is spiky and sharp, the inside smells of rotting rubbish, and if you are still brave enough to try it, it tastes of strong garlic.  However, our Zanzibar shiriki volunteers like it, so they ate the vast majority of it.  The empty shell got launched as far away from us as possible, although even then our hands were indelibly stained with the smell, just to remind us of it.

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I got completely drenched waiting for the dala-dala back to Stone Town last week, so I’ve decided to start carrying my raincoat around with me.  It now hasn’t rained once in Fukuchani this week, for a change.  When it rains in Fukuchani, sometimes my clothes are put in the kitchen to help dry from the heat, which due to the smoke leaves them and me smelling a bit like a barbeque.  Currently I’m covered in chalk dust instead, as the claim on the box of chalks that they are dustless does not seem true.  Teachers in Zanzibar are not expected to wipe their own blackboards – the students are.  However, I choose to wipe my own boards and let the students do the classwork.  At least the dust is a sign that I’m working hard!

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Since this year’s Tenteleni Fun Day is a spelling bee, we’re holding tests in each form to select the best students.  It also gave me some material for computing lessons, as I taught the students to learn to type the words into a spreadsheet.  My Form III students like my alternative approach to teaching, and appreciate my limited attempts at Swahili translation too.  This week’s physics lesson finished early, so I talked to the students about myself a little bit.  They asked me about something in English which I didn’t really understand, so I asked them for the Swahili word to look up in my dictionary, which was ‘mchumba’.  I then told them that I didn’t have one, because mchumba means fiancée…

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This weekend’s plan is for the Tenteleni group to come and visit Fukuchani.  I went cockle-picking on the beach with the sisters, and picked some lemons too.  I really like doing things together with the sisters.  We then started to play throw-and-catch with the lemons, creating a relay line from the tree to the basket.  The orange season is starting to come to an end, which is understandably distressing for all the volunteers.

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Some of the students I’ve got to know quite well understand that I’m not going to be around for too much longer.  I was asked when I would return – maybe in about four years time after I’ve started and finished my PhD?  We’re all realising that there isn’t that much time left, but I’m just going to take each day as it comes and enjoy being here right now.  The future can wait!

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Week 8

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The Tenteleni group visited Fukuchani at the weekend, although due to the infrequent public transport we had to get on two separate dala-dalas.  The one that Sarah and I decided to stay on was comfortable enough, while the one which everyone else got on made them all feel ill!  We gave a brief tour of the school and the ruins before the steep climb up the hill for lunch.  In the house, it felt strange trying to fit all nine of us into the living area, and in something reminiscent of the first couple of weeks all the local children came in to see who these people were, making it even more crowded!  We had a Zanzibari shamba feast, with just about every different thing that we’d had in the previous six weeks on the menu.  I introduced everyone to the sisters, and there was no talk of girlfriends and wives for once!

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I spent my first full Sunday in Fukuchani, intending to try and help around the house.  So in the morning I washed the clothes with the sisters, and I actually washed my own for once.  This was hand washing with powder soap, though the really filthy clothes required a pre-wash using a scourer and hard soap.  While washing, we were also trying to look after some of the little children too.  The little brother is fearless, up to the point that he’ll hurt himself sooner or later…

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So he climbed up a coconut tree without knowing how to get down.  I had to pick him off before he climbed any higher.  When I went to hang my washing up, I heard a cry from one of the sisters for help.  It turned out that he tried to climb up the tree again, fell down, and had cracked open his forehead.  I had to run up and down the hill to get my first aid kit, mop up the bleeding, wrap a bandage, and then secure it as tightly as possible with a kanga.  I’m definitely not trained in first aid, but it did the job, and ‘bandage’ is definitely going up as one of the 101 uses of a kanga.  We then took him to hospital to get some stitches.  I somehow don’t think he’s learned his lesson.

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In the afternoon, the sisters took me to a beautiful rock pool nearby, hidden behind overgrowth.  When the tide is out, the pool is dry, but when the tide is in, it fills up from below.  The pool becomes deep enough to swim in.  To complete a busy day, in the absolute dark of the evening the sisters showed me how to make half-cake, since I wanted to take a recipe home with me.  The other shambas are similarly letting their volunteers make food – I think a Tenteleni recipe book is well on the way!

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We unleashed our spelling tests on everyone, with the top two in each of the four forms getting to go to the Spelling Bee for next week’s Fun Day.  It’s honestly not a fix, but three of the eight winners happened to be our sisters… and a girl who transpired to be a cousin only just missed out too.  I typed up the spelling test results, and the data provided material for learning how to do calculations in Excel.

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Patrick asked the sisters who their favourite teacher was.  Of course, Patrick and I are their favourites, but Patrick insisted that they had to choose one.  Strangely, some didn’t take much pushing to choose me, while one chose Patrick, possibly because he’d been winding her up about whether she was genuinely through to the Spelling Bee or not!  After that conversation, I realised how much I’m actually going to miss the sisters when I leave.

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Stephen Fawcett

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August 16, 2010 at 1:05 pm | Projects, Tanzania | No comment

Zanzibar Unguja Blog 2010: Weeks 9 & 10

Week 9

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We all visited Laura and Haia in the Kiboje placement at the weekend, and ate pilau, the local speciality.  We came up with the idea of a Secret Kanga, like a Secret Santa, but in Zanzibar style we have to buy each other a kanga for the final day.  The girls are already trying to drop hints about what sort of kanga they’re hoping for!

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Back in town, we visited the Sandbank, which turned out to be exactly that, a sand bank off the coast of Stone Town.  We also saw a charity dhow boat race, somehow managing to get ourselves on the media boat to take an excessive number of photos of boats.

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I managed to overcome the language barrier in explaining seismic waves to Form III by demonstrating the wave motion through some role-play, which the students found fun once they got their heads around the idea.

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I thought I’d spend Monday afternoon in the sheltered caves to write my diary.  When Patrick returned to the house before me and said that I was in the caves, this prompted a small expedition of the family to find me and check that I was still alive!

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This week was the Fun Day, and my volunteer extra role was to organise it with Laura.  Fukuchani is as far away from town as a Zanzibar placement gets, making it difficult for me to get anything done physically.  I offered to come into town on Tuesday afternoon, but the girls said that they didn’t need me to come in as they’d already sorted out several things.  Patrick suggested that the girls just didn’t want me in the flat, which they denied!

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Instead, Tuesday gave us the heaviest rain to date, and the semi-uncovered living area of the house got flooded.  The driest place was our rooms!  In the meanwhile, I had to sort out transport from each school to the event location, Kiboje School.  The original host, Vikokotoni School in town, had to withdraw because the students would be doing trial examinations.  I also designed the spelling tests for the day with the power of a spreadsheet, to make them as fair as possible.  Patrick and I worked with Fukuchani’s finalists to prepare them for the test, without giving away which individual set of words they’d have to spell.

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The next day, I was surprised to hear that I was needed in town!  Primarily to carry water and buy plastic cups, but also to help set everything up.  How to carry three bottles of 15 litres of water?  I enlisted some manpower and a wheelbarrow!  Laura has become ill, so the rest of us had to help out with a bit extra.  Sarah managed to contact a television company, and we would also have some guests from the Ministry of Education and from our event sponsors, secured by the Stone Town girls.

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On the day, Steph agreed to stay in town to look after Laura, but we would obtain a copy of the TV company’s filming for them.  Filming around here is done by a camcorder, and you would never expect that the one man was the entire crew.  As the remaining organiser, I had to give the introductory speech.  It’s almost inevitable that planning these sorts of events is always going to go down to the last minute, but I ended up writing my speech on the bumpy dala-dala to Kiboje, as did Sarah for her closing speech.

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The event itself went well, thanks to the teamwork and improvisation of all the volunteers.  It was held outdoors in the school grounds, and the rain just about held off.  We settled on just focusing on the Spelling Bee, and two students from each form of the four different placement schools present took it turn to have their tests.

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We ended up with some tie-break situations, one requiring about five extra rounds before eventually ending up with the finalists.  In the end, all four form competitions were won by students from Mfenesini School.  We presented them with their certificates and the winners t-shirts provided by the sponsors, before finishing with a couple of speeches and food.

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Lunch was again Kiboje pilau, and then Sarah showed us her house from when she was a Zanzibar volunteer five years ago, right in the school grounds!

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Week 10

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The final week was a week of goodbyes – Laura’s was the first.

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I decided that in the final week I would teach as much as possible, which meant teaching all morning by myself in some cases, and why not?  I thought that I would teach the oldest students how to make presentations on the computer, by getting them to present about the three years of Tenteleni in Fukuchani.

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I also tried my best to demonstrate the precautions to take for earthquakes and their consequences – in summary, avoid big things that could fall on your head from doing so.  I think the children are now used to my quirky interactive teaching methods, and they enjoy coming out to the front of the class to help me explain the harder concepts through non-verbal communication and overcome the language barrier.  This week, I got the Form III to pretend to be landslides and flooded rivers.

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When I wasn’t teaching, I was evaluating the project, writing up reports for last week’s Fun Day and what I’d done with the school computers, writing out the half-cake recipe for the volunteers, and saying goodbye to everyone.  That involved making up some more speeches with little preparation, and then trying to push my Swahili skills to the limit.  My Swahili is still not fantastic but it’s come a long way, to the point that I was able to deliver the entire speech that I wanted to say to my favourite Form III class and they understood me.  It was a bit emotional.

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The family also decided to make the most of the final week, making a plan of things for us to do.  As with all good plans, this altered as we went along.  We went to the family’s shamba farm to pick fruit and vegetables and swam in the caves.  Ramadan meant we wouldn’t eat in the day, but have a large dinner at 7pm, and then another one at 2.30am while we were still half asleep.  Or at least we wouldn’t have eaten in the day, but one of the sisters decided that Patrick and I wouldn’t be able to stick it out and slipped us some half-cake and oranges to secretly eat in our room.  We couldn’t resist the offer of food in front of us…

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Patrick and I also learned how to grind maize flour with millstones.  Strangely, I was better at it than most of the sisters. We made lots of ‘unga mahindi’.  The other volunteers were surprised to hear that you eat the flour, mixed with sugar and cinnamon, as it is dry.  But I like it, and it tastes better for having helped make it.

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We said goodbye to the family by the side of the road, waiting for our dala-dala, after they had insisted on carrying my holdall down the hill for me.  We didn’t have to wait too long for transport for once, and it had space for our luggage.

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The volunteers gave each other their Secret Kanga, which wasn’t quite such a secret as we had generally worked out who was getting each other’s kanga beforehand.  However, we had all put a lot of thought into what to buy, whether it was the specific colour in mind or the profound message written on it.

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One by one, we started to leave to go off in our separate ways.  With five of us left on Sunday morning, we had Haia’s banana pancakes for our last breakfast together at about 4am, with strawberry jam and condensed milk.  She stayed up for most of the night to make them, leaving her delirious through lack of sleep.  Eventually, it was my turn to leave in the afternoon, choosing a ferry to the mainland before roughing it at the airport for an early morning series of flights.  I delivered my final speech, and said my last goodbyes to Zanzibar, to Sarah and to the rest of the Tenteleni group.

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I think the thing that I will miss the most is the people of the project.  While a country has its own culture, customs, and scenery, it’s the people that I’ve met that will define my memories.  Whether it’s the students of Form III, or the sisters of my homestay family, or the Tenteleni group, working, living and playing with these people is what I have loved being a part of, and they have given me my experience that I will never forget.

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Stephen Fawcett

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August 16, 2010 at 12:45 pm | Projects, Tanzania | No comment