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so my parents are getting into dar today. then i will be meeting them in arusha tomorrow. we will be doing a safari in the serengetti/ngorogoro crater. then hitting the village for a bit. then zanzibar!! woo.
anyways lets see. new stuff going on...last week i was proctoring form 1 and their terminal examinations. aka end of the semester exams. that was annoying. tanzanians or maybe its form one and theyre new, but they are the worst cheaters ever. it reminds me of my brother forging a signature, messing up, and using white out to cover his tracks. its that bad. but then its me. and if i turn a kid in for cheating they get beat. i dont like that. i dont want to do that. so i didnt. i talked a little bit and yelled a little bit. so that toned down the cheating a little. mostly it was just boring. i able to grade my form 1 exams. there were no As. 3 Bs. 13 Cs. 7 Ds. and 52 Fs. which is actually pretty good. from last years national exams there were 2 Bs. 4 Cs. 3 Ds. and 107 Fs. so you know. i dont feel great. but they celebrate 40%. so ehh. my headmaster asked me why i thought tanzanian students did poorly. i told him it was because they were taught in 'english' by teachers who do not know english. well i didnt say that second part because thats rude. and i also cited the lack of text books. and materials. i dont know. math is our schools worst subject though. and i guess this years form 1 b is especially lacking.
a large tractor came to the village last week to fix the roads. basically it thundered threw the village for a couple days widening a few of the paths in the village. and creating a lot of dust. its still dusty. the teachers make jokes on the walk to school saying they are 'bathing in dust'
also last friday was the start of the video showings. i was annoyed because the doctor asked me for 2 litres of petrol. but whatever. and he thinks that it is going to be always available through me. we need to have a talk. but it went well. the head nurse was not present. but the doctor himself gave a little talk about AIDS and went over the basics. then we watched this movie called 'tuvunje ukimya' which is a real life film about health care workers in tanzania living with HIV/AIDS. they werent that excited about that. oh i should mention that there were about 200+ people crammed into a very small space. if you have seen my backyard. about half that space. maybe less. and it was mostly school children as the primary school got let out. but there were a good 40 adults. and then a good 25 or so teenage boys. the first movie was only about a 1/2 hour. so we watched a second one. 'nawaachieni' this was a movie about a girl who's husband is a driver. and his route is mwanza-dar. and each stop along the way he has a different woman. and he gets AIDS and dies. and his sister comes to the wife's home and kicks her out and turns her kids into slaves (this is all very probable/realistic). and so the girl comes home to her parents. and they care for her. i think she too ends up dying. i didnt stay for the end. i tried to get up and leave stealthily but that is quite impossible when you trip over the cord connecting the generator to the television. i am a klutz. but my neighbor mariam said almost everybody was crying at the end. it was so good. so thats nice. i guess that was a successful showing.
i gave the doctor more petrol a couple days ago to show another film today. i am slightly confused as i saw him in town today with me. and you dont usually get back to the village until 5 and the video is supposed to start at 4. but who am i to question.
mariam and i baked mini cupcakes over the weekend too. she gets really excited about that type of thing. i really like her. she is always the one in charge of my chickens/dog when i leave. i asked her to sweep up the yard for me and i tried to give her a little money and she wouldnt accept it saying that she didnt want to get used to the money and stuff. and thats really smart of her i guess. and i give her other things. like shoes and clothes. she was ecstatic when i gave her a pair of jeans. they have not fit me for quite a few months. so i figured they deserved a good home.
on sunday i went to the lake with my student friend yohanna. his older brother is also a teacher at the school. and i just found out he has a sister who i took with me to town for our women's day celebration. it was a nice walk. and we had some of the local fruits. i really like this berry called 'suna' its yellowish and i guess baboons eat a lot of it. its sweet like honeysuckle. theres also this other fruit called 'furu' that look like grapes but they are sweet and the inside is the texture of velvet. i dont like those.
this past week at school has been the administration of mock exams for form 2 and 4. these are administered nationwide and there is a specific time table. so these students had to bring in a half kilo of beans and money the week beforehand. and there would be a morning test starting at 8 to 11. then a 3 hour break. with lunch. then an afternoon test 2-5. long days really. and i hate proctoring exams. if students need anything they tap-tap their desk. or if a paper falls or a pen falls onto the floor they tap-tap their desk. or if they need paper tap-tap. i swear i would give a kid a piece of paper circle around the room sit down. for ten seconds. then tap-tap. god.
and i was supervising form 2. and there was one girl blatantly talking in the back. and one girl showing her exam to her neighbor. and i hated doing it but i had to make an example. so when the headmaster came in i told him. and he took the two of them out and hit them with a switch. on the palm. i really wonder sometimes how much it hurts. some students react and others its like you hit them with a feather. maybe one day ill ask a teacher to hit me. just to see. i was also excited on the form 2 civics test there was a true false question 'barack obama is the first black president of the USA' thats exciting.
overall though im thrilled to be out of the testing environment. it is very tiring just sitting. and one time the headmasters wife (who is also a teacher) made me stay behind with her to restaple 37 different tests. i had stapled my groups test booklet in front of the answer sheet and she had done the opposite. so for 'uniformitys' sake we had to undo her tests and restaple.
ruka (dog) is getting to be pretty big. i had to go to the mill to grind more corn up to make him ugali. that was a long line. i guess everyone is harvesting right now. and really noisy. i went with the doctors daughter. i wanted to punch ruka though. he bit through my usb cord for my ipod. so now i cant charge it. i hope i can find a new cord in arusha.
i went to visit my family yesterday to let them know i would be traveling. i guess my baba is pretty sick. i had no idea he was at the hospital. he had just gotten home when i stopped by. and i really dont understand this part of tanzanian culture. sitting with the sick. my mama ushered me inside to greet my baba. he was there with my eldest brother and another old man. he could barely sit up straight. much less talk. so i rushed in and out. mama said he had a fever. malaria. everything is malaria. i hope he gets better though.
i guess that is all for now...
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Yumi
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finally on their way
one box of books is finally on the way, second one I'll send out in a couple weeks when I'm back in town. They aren't text books but I'll try for more of those. Hope you guys have a fun time, I'm really sad I missed this trip. I can't wait to see the pics and here all the stories.