3rd week blues

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Well, the third week here has started off to be very interesting. The first week everything was new and exciting. By the second week I'd adjusted and was enjoying knowing what's going on. Now that I'm in the third week things are going to hell in a handbasket. Well, maybe not that bad, but it's certainly making me look forward to coming home...which really isn't a bad thing. 😊

On Monday when I arrived at school I was asked to teach a new group of students. I was given a syllabus and asked to discuss hotels. I was so sad to leave my computer students but I am here for the school and well do whatever they require me to do. There are 5 students in the hotel class and for the first hour I was pretty sure none of them could understand English. Luckily, when I started asking them questions (other than "can you understand me") they were able to answer. Well, almost all of them could answer. The focus of my school, and many of the schools here, is tourism. So I just discussed the different types of hotels (motels, lodges, resorts, etc.) as well as 1 star vs. 5 star and things like that. It was fine.

Monday night we went to another volunteer's school for a special evening of entertainment. It is also a vocational school run by a woman who was a home economics teacher for 20 years. When she retired from teaching she decided to put her skills to good use and began training women in her neighborhood to sew so they could begin careers as tailors. All over Moshi you will see women sitting outside with a sewing machine. I'm talking about the old school, foot powered sewing machines. They also hang some fabric nearby and they make clothing. Anyway, we went and the culinary students cooked a yummy dinner for us. Then we enjoyed traditional dancing displays which were awesome. Tommy would have loved the guys who ate fire and spun a wheel on their head that was on fire. I wish I had pictures to share. But that brings me to the bad news...

After the dance show they started playing 90s American dance music (eg. Aqua's Barbie Girl) and all the volunteers danced with the little children. I got a Tanzanian boyfriend at the party. He said he was 14 but looked younger and sat next to me all evening during dinner. He was so polite and spoke wonderful English. So I made sure I get him out on the dance floor for the first dance. While I was dancing my camera disappeared! I had set it on my chair and didn't realize it was gone for about 20 minutes. Once I looked around and asked everyone to check they had the correct camera I told our program officer. He told the people who run the school who made an annoucement. Needless to say the party stopped then and we left. I heard tonight that that some of the student said they saw a kid with something in his hand but they don't know if it was the camera or not but the police are investigating. I don't recall seeing anyone other than small children by my chair and I assumed a child took it. They are so enamored with cameras here that I could really understand that. For me it's just a thing that I can easily replace. Luckily I have my laptop and have been downloading photos as I go so I didn't lose that many. But I have really mixed feelings about the investigation. Tanzanians take their crime very seriously and thiefs are usually dealt with by mob justice (as you can tell if you read my blog about my friend Nick). So no more pictures for the blog. :-(

Tuesday I went to school and was put back with the computer class so we took another trip to the internet cafe. I got 2 news students in my class so I set them up with email and tried to give them a crash course in browsers, links and the www. It's difficult on teachers because many schools accept students at any time so you have to reteach things. Oh well, I do love teaching the students but I don't think I could do it back home. When I walk into a classroom here the students stand and greet me. When we walk to the internet cafe they always want to carry my bad (which is tiny) and they clean my chair off before I sit down. Teachers are very well respected here. Wednesday I split my time between the two groups. The power was out in the classroom so I didn't have anything for the computer students to do... so I taught them how to play hangman. They loved it.

Wednesday afternoon all the volunteers went into Arusha which is about an hour away to go to the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda. It was fascinating. I watched the trial of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and it was insanity. He kept dragging things out to the point even the judges were annoyed with him. The prosecutor asked him to read part of his old testimony and it took 15 minutes of repeating the page # and paragraph for him to finally do it. It's no wonder that this trial has been going for 5 years. Yes, I typed YEARS. This guys (and 3 others) has been on trial forever. If you want more info go to www.ictr.org. I highly recommend it.

I should mention here that we have been in and out of power and internet for the past 4 days. We have a generator at the house but even it has been spotty. So that has made for no internet and cold showers. 😊 So my apologies to anyone who has emailed lately, I'm a little backlogged but will try to catch up tomorrow. Tonight we are all exhausted from the trip to Arusha so it will be early to bed.

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