Some Highlights from Term 1

I found these pictures on my camera from the first term and thought I'd share before I started on Cairo.

Miss Fano's class goes on a field trip to the Central Market. We wanted them to experience a real market to help them get a feel for how our Egyptian Market should be.

Masks for Halloween! We created them and then wrote a story about who they were and what they did.

Reading buddies with Reception kids.

We found a whole bunch of these plants growing behind our row of houses. (If you don't know what it is, ask a friend) We're pretty sure the builders planted these during construction.

My class creating a bar graph with their bodies. The x-axis was their favorite subject. I think English won. I'm leaning out of my classroom window to take this picture.

My utterly insane class after one of the kid's birthday celebrations in class. The birthday boy is the one with the mile-wide grin.

Another whole class picture and me. This time during WackyTacky Day. My favorite is the little boy with the orange briefs on his head.

All of Year 3 at our Ancient Egyptian Market. It went over really well and the kids had a blast.

Afterwards, the headmaster sent out this email to the faculty. Score for Year 3!!

Dear St. Cons community,

I want to publicly recognize Mrs Talley, Mrs.Fano and Mr Patrick and the 3rd grade student class for the excellent themed project on Egyptian market. 3rd graders dressed in full Egyptian regalia set up a mock Egyptian market, sold more than a dozen different foods, spoke about Egyptian script, coinage, counting system, cloth, political and social organization (the speech by the Pharoah was amazing). Rich multidimensional, interdisciplinary, cooperative, project and performance based activities such as these are models for the kinds of experiences that enduringly affect the way our students understand and make sense out of knowledge. Congratulations to the 3rd graders.

As we move forward at St. Cons in continuing our innovative leadership in international education I hope to see more themed project and performance based, particularly at the primary level.

(This one's for Mom) Look a rainbow!

Get ready for Cairo!

Last Few Weeks of Term

After Thanksgiving we only had a few weeks left of school, but they were the Hell weeks. I had parent teacher conferences (which went well but I stressed about beforehand) then writing up report cars (a stressful way under-organized and busy work intensive two weeklong clusterf**k) and Year 3’s Egyptian Market Day (stressful to set up and run (especially for Lisa) but eventually really gratifying) and getting everything together for the beginning of next term (done, thank goodness.)

Friendsgiving

For Thanksgiving, a whole bunch of the American teachers decided to get together and celebrate a friendsgiving. Maureen conceived this idea and her and Juliette really pulled It together. They did most of the cooking for it but other people brought dishes or lent pans. My contribution was pumpkin placesetings with everyone’s names on them.

Ww originally set up everything outside of Juliette and Sean’s place but then it started to rain so we moved everything up onto their porch. We had a whole bunch of food and it was all great. I was really, really grateful to be spending Thanksgiving with my friends (my Tanzanian family) when I couldn’t be with my family back in Virginia.

Duty Weekend

Kelly and I switched to have duty weekend together and we decided to take over Saturday and let the other two teachers on duty take over Sunday. (Although this was not exactly kosher with upper management. It gave all four of us a day to recoup from the workweeks on either side of the weekend.)

In the morning we facilitated games in the field for the kids. Surprisingly the secondary students were super competitive and they all wanted to play. We did the three legged race, egg and spoon race, dizzy lizzy bat race, wheelbarrow race, balloon neck race (super hilarious to watch) and the overall crown pleaser was the balloon toss. The whole morning went surprisingly smooth with only a few interruptions when the secondary students stole a few eggs and smashed them on each other and when the kids went ape-shit crazy over the water balloons. At the end of thegames we had a primary team winner (they got water guns) and a secondary team winner (later that week we took them to Coffee Lodge during prep time after dinner. The group of kids we took to Coffee Lodge were utterly hilarious. I really enjoyed taking them there.)

After field games we had lunch and afterwards Kelly and I set up an ice cream bar for the kids with chocolate, vanilla and strawberry ice cream and a whole bunch of candies and chocolate syrup and cherries.

After ice cream, Kelly set up some games in the field, like baseball, football (aka soccer) and frisbee. I set up some art projects outside the hall. We made some salt playdough with colored paints, and stress balls with rice and balloons. Sports and arts and crafts lasted a long time; the kids really loved both activities.

We took a break for a bit for the kids to go the computer lab and hang out and then after dinner Kelly set u p a movie in the hall and I sat in the tv room with the secondary kids and watched a movie (I vetoed a few before they started because some of the movies were definitely not appropriate. The kids were discussing them in Kiswahili because they know I don’t speak it, but I DO know the word for prostitute. And that was definitely exchanged a few times in referenece to one movie they were discussing. That one was quickly vetoed. Buuuut then the power went out halfway through the movie and it started to rain. So we sent the kids back to the dorm and headed to bed, FINALLY.

Waterfall Hike

On Monday, we had off school so we decided to do a hike up Mt. Meru to one of the many waterfalls. I got the name of a guide from one of the other teachers and he and his friends offered to take us for 10,000 shillings or $6. So morning of, me, Victoria and Kelly woke up suuuper early, Jimmy came and picked us up to take us to Sakina Supermarket to meet with the guides. Turns out there were two guides who crammed themselves in Jimmy’s little cab. We drove through the rural towns at the foot of the mountains over ruts and up some steep inclines. We paid another 10,000 shillings to go up the mountain and then began to hike. Jimmy had never done this climb so he decided to climb too. (he looked pretty funny hiking in his dressy jeans and ducklike shoes)

As we walked through a few of the smaller towns, a pack of children took up following us giggling and laughing. I couldn’t take pictures of them because then they start to ask for money. The views are absolutely beautiful of the hills and the trees. I was surprised to find pine trees on the mountain.

I had been taking pictures up until we walked through a corn field and the guide told me to put the camera down for a few minutes. We came out of the cornfield and ran into a groupf of three men dressed in rag-tag camo clothing with guns cooking breakfast in a open space. We walked up and the guide plopped down and started chatting up the camo guides. I pulled out my camera to snap a picture and the guards told me that I was definitely not allowed to take pictures. I put away the camera without asking questions but Kelly, of course, decided to question the gun wielding dudes. They said they were guarding a water pipeline just in case, “terrorists come to poison the water line and kill all of Arusha.” Because that is the ultimate aim of all terrorists. Kill off Arusha, riiiiight. We decided they were probably guarding their pot fields. (Later we did find out that they were, in fact, guarding the waterline but I’m pretty sure the terrorist part was them glorifying themselves.)

We then headed down an extremely steep dirt ravine, almost fell a few times, and reached the rocky creek at the bottom. We then walked for a bit over the rocks, boulders and finally through a narrow rock canyon that opened up into a massively high waterfall with a pool at the bottom. We climbed up some boulders to play in the spray of the falls.

We then climbed down to scale some more boulders so we could drink our bottle of wine that we dragged all the way out there. We then headed back out the creek bed and up the ravine wall. Up was significantly harder than down and by the time we made up to the top we were all breathing heavily and basically collapsed in a heap. The hike back to the car was uneventful and we drove back home tired but happy.

Fabrics in Arusha

Being me, I've been looking around for fabrics and ultimately a sewing machine. The sewing machines are awesome here: they are all the old treadle sewing machines built into the tables. I'm dying to get one and Jimmy, our taxi cab driver, says he's going to help me out.

I haven't been to any of the fabric shops here yet, but I know they have them.

I have been to buy kanga and kitenge's though. They are the traditional types of East African fabrics and you see them mostly as dresses on the Tanzanian women.

Kangas are 1 meter long and tend to be of cheaper fabric with less design on them. I am generally unimpressed with them.

Kitenges are 6 meters long and come in absolutely beautiful patterns. I’ve bought a few kitenge and plan on making pillows and maybe a cat bed for our house. The green/brown one and the brown stump pattern are for couch cushions. (Once I manage to find the pillow guy on the street. The easiest way to buy pillows here is to spot the pillow guy, a man with a shit-ton of pillows on his back, and lean out your car and call him over. "kaka!" which means brother. You can get a pillow stuffed with foam chunks from him for 4,000 shillings. Like $2.50.)

The purple and turquoise patterns are going in my room.

And the crazy patterned one is for floor pillows for my classroom.

Tisa!

Kelly and I had been talking about getting a cat from practically day one. And a few weeks ago Becca came home from Matumba, the second hand market (this place is great; you can usually buy dresses and skirts for 2,000 or 3,000 shillings; roughly $1.50 or 2 dollars) But anyway…Becca came home from Matumba one day and said her and Juliette met a man who was selling kittens. I think it was the next day or two days later that Kelly and I made up an excuse to go to Matumba and look for the kitten man. When we found him, he had three kittens that he was selling. Two were tiny and white and grey and one was bigger with a grey almost tabby appearance. She was three months old and could go home that day while the other kittens were only a month old and had to stay with the mother cat for another month.

(I love her eyes. They change color depending on the background. The other day when I was wearing a green dress, her eyes matched exactly. And right now she's curled up beside me on the couch and they are a golden brown like the wooden furniture.)

Kelly and I talked it over and ended up taking the grey tabby kitten that day. We ran to Shoprite real quick to pick up kitty supplies and then went straight back and got her.

We named her Tatica, which in Kiswahili means to complicate or to puzzle; though for short we call her Tisa which is the number 9 in Kiswahili. Cause she’s a cat and has nine lives. Yeah, we’re clever.

She’s a bit of a spaz most of the time but also very loving. She loves to run around like a maniac and attack whatever is near; including bags, feet, chair legs, whatever. But then almost every night she sleeps curled up on top of my side inbetween my hipbone and my ribcage (though she does like to wake me up in the morning by biting my toes)

We've come to find out that she may have a bit of African wildcat in her. The African wildcat is an undomesticated species that grows a bit bigger than domesticated cats and has a rambunctious personality that almost never works out as a pet. Her coat markings match the wildcat's and she's doubled in size since we got her....

Picture of an African wildcat below:

Notice the head markings and stripes on the legs. Carbon copy.

Nairobi Fly

Every couple of years or so (it might have something to do with El Nino) there is a boom of these little beetle creatures called Nairobi flies. They look like red and black striped ants and seem too small to be dangerous, buuuut this is Africa. Nairobi flies, when squished, have acidic guts that actually burn the skin and can cause a lot of pain and make your skin blister up. Kelly accidentally smushed one on her cheek the other day though she wasn’t burned too badly. The secondary PE teacher, Will, on the other hand smushed one near his eye and couldn’t go to work for a few days it was soo bad. (These stupid creatures are really delicate you go to swipe it away and all you do is smear them) The other day Kelly and I killed three that were just hanging out in our bathroom. Not cool.

Tanga/Pangani Trip

One weekend in October, we had off the Friday and the Monday. Most of the girls decided to go to Zanzibar but Kelly and I, in order to save money, decided to go with Lisa and some borders to Tanga/Pangani. Tanga is a coastal town and Pangani is the wild area right on the coast. Because we were going as chaperones we didn’t have to pay for basically anything. The adults on the trip were myself, Kelly, Lisa (who organized it), her husband Mbaraka, and Kelli Bee, the primary science teacher. We took 9 kids, most were the orphans that the school supports. They were super excited because some of them had never seen the beach before.

The trip didn’t start off the best…The school bus was broken and so we shoved all our stuff into one bus and then had to drive to a different area of town to switch to a bigger bus. We werealready running late so that set us back even further. Not to mention we had to stop by the bank and a shop so the kids could get some snacks for the ride. These snacks ended up being the bane of our existence because we had to stop for the kids to pee every five minutes.

The kids were surprisingly good on what turned out to be an 11 hour car ride. They slept a lot and amused each other (when they weren’t calling for a bathroom break.) I read on my kindle for a majority of the ride. Once it got dark we sang some songs and played a fun (read annoying) game that involved counting seconds. They did this for 10 minutes; I kid you not.

The highways in Tanzania are definitely not the American idea of highway. A highway here is just a paved road. It goes through a town literally every 10 minutes and the Tanzanian way of making you slow dowm for pedestrians is to have series of speed humps at intervals of about 20 feet. It is nice to have roads though; once we passed Tanga the paved roads disappear and its dirt for about three hours. As I said before it is the short rainy season so there was mud everywhere. Al some spots the mud was pretty rough and I was dreading the possibility of having to push the bus out (been there, done that). We also went through some massive puddles. At one point the peddle we drove through was so deep that the headlights were completelysubmerged.

We made it to the lodge finally and had our dinner at around midnight before falling into bed. Tinga Tinga Lodge (where we stayed) is made up of a bunch of small bungalows with a couple of beds in each one. The kids were split up by age and sex and usually were sleeping 4 to 5 a room. Myself, Kelly Pierce and Kelly Bee shared a room. And Lisa and her family shared a room.

In the morning, a few of the kids got up bright and early and escaped from their rooms and wandered on to the beach, which is right next to the lodge, unsupervised. They got a talking to at breakfast for that one.

That morning, Me, Kelli, Kelly and Mbaraka headed to Pangani ( a town on the coast next to the Pangani River) to take some kids snorkeling. We load up our six kids and bump down the road to climb onto one of the rickety-est wooden boats I have ever seen. Then we motor out of the river and into the Indian Ocean for about an hour before reaching Maziwe Island, a sandbar island.

It was utterly gorgeous. The water was an amazing blue and the sand a sparkling white. The kids were super excited; some of them had never been to a beach before. The boat guys unloaded the snorkel stuff and we went for a swim. There was coral all over and lots of fish and bright blue starfish. I really wished I had an underwater camera….. We swam around for a while. I was trying to stay near groups of people in case of a passing shark. (Although I don’t know what shark are indigenous to the area) No worries. Didn’t see any.

Then we went for a little wander across the sandbar. There were tidepools all over; we saw an eel, hundreds of spiny starfish, and some massive seashells.

During the hour trip back to Pangani every single one of the kids fell asleep in the boat. Even though there were waves crashing over the boat, salt spray everywhere and it was none too smooth.

We spent that afternoon at Tinga Tinga lodge, hanging out.

The next morning everybody headed down to the beach next to the lodge. We wandered about exploring a shallow cave, digging in the sand, splashing in tide pools, and playing with a few boogie boards. Kelly Pierce amused herself by persuading one of the boys to pretend to be a mud invader and then filming him chasing down, frightening to death and then “eating’ his victims. (I’ve seen the final cut; it’s going to be a blockbuster) One of everybody’s (me included) favorite activities was standing, back to the waves, and having them crash over us. It really reminded me of family vacations off the coast of Georgia…oh St. Simons Island…

Lisa and Mbaraka actually have a house near Pangani. Mbaraka comes from a town called Kigombe and he still has family there. For lunch we all went to his sister’s house. She lives in the typical Tanzania house; it has no power and no indoor plumbing and the kitchen consists of a hut with cook fires on the ground. She made us the most delicious lunch of octopus tentacles, fish, coconut rice and fruit. It was all really, really good, especially the octopus. The fish, while it looks a bit gruesome, was also pretty tasty.

That afternoon we were going on a historical tour of Pangani which used to be occupied by the Germans and was a center for the African slave trade. One of the things I fand sad here is that the kids have very little knowledge of the slave trade and what it did to their country. A few didn’t even know what a slave is. Kelly P. (as she is a history teacher) gave them a mini lesson on the slave trade directly after everyone ate.

The tour was led by one of the guys from the lodge and ended up being an absolute bust. He really had no clue what he was talking about…Case in point, he took up to the old German Slave Depo and was only able to tell us its name, no dates, no facts, no nothin’. He then took us to the Old Boma ( a building built by a wealthy Omani slave trader that purportedly had slaves buried alive under the foundations in order to make the building strong (I’m still confused about the reasoning behind that) and that was later changed into a German administration building) Once we got there the only thing he could tell us about the building was that it was old and that’s why it was important. I thought Kelly P was going to strange the man right there. Then we went to a graveyard full of German graves. (Why was it important, you ask? According to the guide: (Confused look) because they are old…and German) Ok then. At least I had fun trying to read all of the gravestones.

After this, we headed back to the lodge and relaxed before packing and getting ready to head back to St. Connie’s the next day. It decided to rain overnight, so we had to cross our fingers that we would be able to get the bus out of the lodge and back to Tanga and tarmac. We made it about an hour before hearing from people that all three of the roads to Tanga were closed because of mud. At one point a whole dala dala (cheap public transportation) were yelling at us to turn back. We decided to try our luck and reach this massive hill with a whole line of cars waiting to try to get up it. We waited for an hour and half before it was our turn because there was a massive bus completely stuck in the mud partway up the hill. All the passengers formt he bus got off and had to try and push. Thankfully we made it up successfully the first time.

The rest of the ride was long but fairly uneventful, though we didn’t get back to school until 11pm. Leaving me and the other teacher pretty unprepared for the next day…oh well, it was worth it.

Short Rainy Season

The short rains are upon us. What this means is that it rains mostly at night, but sometimes in the mornings and afternoons too. And everything gets covered with mud. You should see my classroom floors. It’s disgusting. It also means that my shoes get completely covered in muck.

It can create other complications as well; the other night Kelly and I took a cab back from a bar. It dropped us off in front of our house and Kelly went inside and passed out on her bed. I was in the midst of brushing my teeth when I heard a knock on the door. It ws the cab driver; he was stuck in the mud right outside of my house and my neighbors house (who happens to be the principal of primary school) The cab driver and I try for a while; one of us pushing and the other in the car. All that we ended up doing was digging the wheels in……

So I ended up calling Nick and about three askaris (the school guards) came by to help get the cab out. TWO AND A HALF HOURS LATER the stupid car was finally out. . It was 4:30 in the morning and I was completely covered in mud. The wheels spun at one point and splattered mud across my face and entire body. I had also been kneeling in the mud to hold the flashlight under the car for the askaris to dig. It was rough…Thank you rainy season.

Victoria going for a stroll.