Weeks pass

After two weeks of teaching, I’m actually starting to get a rhythm. I wake up at 6:30, teach until either 13:00 or 15:30 (together with others though!), help with homework in the evenings and go sleep at 22:30. So it’s a fairly busy schedule – though less busy than that of the students, who have to do various duties around the base too.

So in the past two weeks time really flew, it feels like just a few days. I’ve gotten a lot of impressions though, and learned a lot about Africa through all the people here at the base.

One thing that impressed me was the number of accidents. In the first two weeks I heard of three cases of malaria, a severe road accident, three more illnesses and three deaths... This about the family or close friends of the ones on the base, and about the students themselves in the cases of malaria. It really seems like a lot to me.

They do have hospitals here in Morogoro, but they’re true businesses – money is king, not the wellbeing of the patients. That in some cases that means false diagnostics, high medicine prizes or even fake medicine. I guess the same goes for the health care centres that are in the countryside. In spite of this the students who had malaria are now nearly fully recovered without having to miss much of the lessons. A few pills really make a huge difference.

As for road accidents, it’s mostly the motorbikes that get into trouble. Of course these are quite popular here, as they can take you anywhere a car can take you for a lower price. I haven’t seen any police on the roads so far though, and driving on the highway without a helmet seems perfectly normal. Besides that there’s people driving after having a few beers, so no, road safety isn’t exactly optimal.

Anyway, back at the base a lot of people went to the conference. In fact, I think everyone who wanted to go somehow got the money, in a lot of cases in the last two days or so. As told two Brittish ladies (or girls? I never know for people in their 20s.) came to teach exactly when the regular teachers were gone. Sounds like there was some divine planning there! They do great at class, especially at pronunciation of course. And they made some fun games to play during class as well.

Next week the regular teachers will be teaching again, minus one... If God wants, Joshua is going to start his study. We’ve become very close friends in the past days, and I’d hate to see him go. We made music together, and talked, went for walks... “Linguistics in Arts”, I think the study’s called. He really wants to go. Today we’ll see whether he’s accepted at a university, whether he actually can. If so, I’ll be the only male teacher left, wonder how that'll go.




Obadiah comes in and starts speaking. "Ah! I still remember after our picnic. We hadah eggs, nuts, banana..."
"And bread, and pork too," Joshua says.
"Yes! That combination..." Obadiah rubs his stomach as he continues. "Ah! It was big problem in ze dormitory." He points at the loo. "It was like... Ras? Tras? That new word... Yes, 'blast'!"

"Teacher, come!"

Yes, I’m a teacher now – an English teacher. I’ve never been in front of class before, but it was the one way I could help here, for now. Apparently I’m doing alright. The students are motivated, if somewhat dazzled by all the tenses, irregular verbs and pronunciation rules. Well, it was quite a refresh for me too. Their own language (Swahili) is a bit like Japanese, strangely, except without all the different characters. Most of their syllables are made of just two letters – one of them being a vowel. Words like “thoughts” and “hundredth” are quite daunting. Besides that, they have huge problems in trying to keep the “r” and “l” apart – sometimes it seems they’re swapping them deliberately.

But a few of them can make lengthy stories in English already, which is great fun to hear. Yesterday they were to tell about how they met their wife / fiancé and their marriage (“When you went on honeymoon, what happen?”). Apparently some tribes don’t go through the stage of “boy- and girlfriend” like we do in Europe. And yes, in by far the most cases the man had to pay the woman’s family, in cows and cash.

We also made them discuss whether women are allowed to wear trousers, as it’s generally not done here. The Bible says that God doesn’t like women to wear men’s clothing and vice versa, and trousers are definitely men’s wear here. The discussion was a bonfire, and a very fun kind of way. It struck me that during the discussion, people were able to find Bible texts like the one on men’s and women’s clothing very rapidly.

Next week three out five teachers will be at a YWAM conference for East Africa, elsewhere in Tanzania. For a while it seemed Joshua and I would be the only ones to teach all week, but fortunately we’re blessed with some reinforcements – actual British reinforcements even, so the lessons should be all the better.

After that, I’ll try and start a computer school with another Tanzanian, who’s actually Joshua’s best friend. There’s nothing but an empty classroom so far, but we’ll see what we can manage. If God wills it we will be making Tanzanian nerds here.

I'm there

After a very long journey, I finally arrived at the Youth With A Mission base here in Morogoro. Actually, it's 10 km away from Morogoro... So it's a bit more in the middle of nowhere than I thought at first still.

Anyway, the very friendly couple Sitini and Sered were waiting for me on the airport, and drove me to the YWAM base. The journey took about four hours, including a small stay at the only highway restaurant that's along that road. This "highway" is one of Africa's main roads: it goes all the way to South Africa, and if you take a turn at THE main roundabout of Tanzania, you can go to Kongo and beyond as well. I guess a peculiar fact is that the road has just one lane for each direction...

I could also have gone by the direct train but that takes about twice as long - while we were averaging 75 km/h on the highway.

When leaving Dar-Es-Salaam, the country's capital and the destination of my final flight, I got a first glimpse of the lives of the people here. Most houses have roofs made out of wave metal sheets, and there were so many people apparently making a living from selling things next to and on the road. There were people living in ruins, even. After seeing all of this, the stories about those Africans charging western people five times as much as other Africans don't sound like a crime so much anymore, at all. It simply makes sense...

I guess the base is a relatively good place to stay. The houses are solid, the gardens are well maintained, there's perfect electricity etc. By Western standards I guess it can be called primitive - there's no internet (except for "the office"), the shower's more like a tap that just happens to be mounted very high and there's no hot water, at all. But at least you can drink it without getting sick... It tastes horrible, but you can drink it.

The people here are very friendly, I got a very warm welcome ("Welcome to Tanzania. Hululululululululu!"). Joshua especially is great - he's sort of looking after me, and sort of showed me around. The English students are very curious and love to practice their English with me.

Last friday, the day after my arrival, I spent most of my time in the English School itself. I may have to teach there as well. There are twelve students (including one muslim, surprisingly - they made him pray for our lunch) and four teachers, excluding me. There is much more interaction with the class than what I'm used to - they have to actually "drill" words there, and the students are constantly asked whether they understood what was being explained and told to make example sentences etc. Even though most students are far in their twenties, the English being tought is pretty basic.

Tomorrow Joshua and I are going to Morogoro. I hope to upload this text there then, as I actually wrote it on my laptop on friday. Weekends are always free, which is fortunate since still have quite some sleep to catch up with - I had to stay in Dubai airport from half past midnight to half past ten, which wasn't fun.

What'll happen in the days therafter I don't know... I might be in front of the class by then. For now I can only take things as they come.

Me too, me too

I'm afraid there's no way around it now: I'll have to start "blogging" too, just as some of my friends who did the same minor as I did. In this "blog" I hope to keep you up to date with how I fare in Tanzania.

As you probably noticed this "blog" will be in English, since I have many friends abroad too. Sorry fellow dutchies, globalisation can suck like that.