Another exciting event recently! Ali is a neighbor and youth Leader/teacher at the mosque in our village. He started a youth group to teach life skills and disease prevention (HIV/AIDS) after attending our workshop for Primary teachers. He asked me for a contribution of some seeds, then explained that he was teaching permaulture and bio-intensive gardening to his youth group. John got a few pictures to document this and I shared these at the new volunteer training I was doing with Peter Jensen ( Agriculture specialist who taught Ali these methods at Kongei Primary gardens) this week in Morogoro.

17 September 2009

By Randee Edmundson, PCV TZ

Rose’s Garden

I talked with Rose at Nice’s office, an NGO – For Youth Development and Controlling AIDS in Lushoto. I was there to see what she would want to do at her garden when Peter Jensen returned – one year after developing her bio-intensive garden next to her house. Peter is an agricultural specialist working in several East African countries and specifically all over Tanzania to improve the nutrition of people. Peter wanted to come back to Rose’s garden. He seemed to feel hope that things could improve for her family with the garden and he enjoyed working with Rose, her children and her friends.

Rose, this day was not feeling well. She explained that her legs were swelling, she had a cold and her energy was low. As we talked, she told me of the problems with the garden. There is not enough water to sustain growth to get much food; she cannot get water carried up the mountain for basic needs of cooking, drinking, and washing. She is discouraged and tired. I listen. I tell her Peter does not have to come next week. I said I could come after the rains start and we can prepare the beds. To this idea she replied adamantly, “No, I want Peter to come. But, I do not want to have all the friends and people. I just want my family and a few close friends.” I offered to provide lunch for people. She again replied, “No, I want to make tea and lunch for Peter and you and family. I can do this, I want do this.”

So we made a plan. She assured me that her children and neighbors could get the buckets of water and manure needed brought to the house. Peter and I would bring the charcoal pieces we wanted to try adding this time to capture more water and also drinking water for people while they worked.

It is a privilege to know Rose. She has a strength one can sense. I remember sitting in her living room for the first time last year with Nice. I had come to talk to her about the garden she wanted to make by her house. I had arranged for Peter to come teach us bio-intensive gardening methods by developing her garden the first time. Sitting with her, I read the greeting cards from birthdays past displayed on her coffee table. She showed me her family picture album, explaining who was who at different events. Her husband on their wedding day, her children when they were small held by her mother and husband. I had heard parts of her family story months earlier at the Girls’ Leadership Workshop where she was the guest speaker on “living with HIV/AIDS”. But this time I heard new pieces of her story as we viewed the pictures. They married, they had three children, a girl, a boy and then the youngest girl named Upendo (love). Then he got sick and was diagnosed with AIDS. He died and she then got tested. She, too, was infected with HIV. When we first met she was taking medications. In Tanzania, you cannot get medications until the disease has progressed -- so the medications can give you enough years to maybe raise your children.

Talking to her you know she loves her children and she loved her husband. She is a woman that is determined to have a normal life – with the years she has left. She is physically and mentally strong, she is able, she is determined to provide for her children together with them so that they are equally independent and strong, relying on each other. And did I mention...Rose has the most beautiful smile.

Last year, when Peter came to develop a garden with Rose and her children together with friends and neighbors, some who are also living with HIV/AIDS, we learned how to prepare a small garden close to her house that can grow more food in a small space. Nutrition is so important to the success rate of using medications to reduce the HIV viral load and to extend your life with AIDS. These bio-intensive gardening methods help by providing highly nutritious vegetables and fruits near the house when the person living with AIDS and their family has less energy and less money to manage. And many times, without a spouse because of death or stigma. In addition, Tanzania is having increasing length of the dry season and even drought due to global climate change. These methods can also capture more water and hold it when the rains finally do come. Rose’s first garden was two beds each one meter by three meters. We planted local beans, spinach, and orange sweet potatoes. We also planted a small perennial garden including a papaya tree, lemon grass, aloe vera and a highly nutritious edible green that is a ground cover as well.

What is really important to know is that the soil by her house was very poor before preparing the first beds. This is because her house and all the houses around Lushoto are in the Usambara Mountains such that when a house is built a wedge is cut out of the mountain to make a flat level platform, removing any top soil and leaving only deep subsoil around the house. In preparing the garden, Peter found the soil rock hard and lacking nutrients and fiber. It could not absorb water, but instead, water ran off the land down the mountain. For those first beds we used the double-digging method to break-up the hard subsoil layer as deep as possible, we made the beds flat like a table top and added manure to the bottom layer and to the top – one bucket per meter length. This was our way of capturing rain when it fell on the flat tops and catching any of the water running down from above, dropping into the deep beds of light loamy soil.

Coming back a year later, Peter wondered, “Did it work in these impossible poor soil conditions?”, “How did Rose and her children manage, with health and school and work challenges, to sustain the garden in a year when the area was experiencing the lowest water levels in the lifetime of the people of Lushoto?”

Peter returned on a Thursday morning in September 2009 to find three more beds prepared by the family next to her house and a series of shorter beds terraced next to the path as you walk down the mountain to the main town of Lushoto from her house.

People arrived soon after Peter and I. Rose’s oldest daughter was preparing food for the lunch meal and also, tea with lemon grass for a mid-morning tea break. Peter began digging one of the beds that was laying dormant, waiting for the rains before planting again. He was amazed! The digging was easy and the soil was a dark rich brown with lots of tiny roots making the soil light and also it was sticky showing that water was being held. This difference was clear. Double-digging and adding manure allowed the plant roots to grow deep and break-up the hard subsoil. The water was able to sink and stay, giving the bacteria moisture to continue to move down, breaking up and enriching the soil- lower and lower. Peter was so excited that at the end of the day he collected soil samples to take to Dar es Salaam for testing, comparing it to the hard orange subsoil next to the garden beds.

By the end of the morning, we had re-dug and prepared three beds and reshaped two more beds that were already planted with spinach. Peter worked on the lower beds to shape the trenches between beds directing the water to go from bed to bed when the rains come. Rose dug and planted seeds, her son dug and added manure, Upendo added charcoal and mixed the manure into the beds and the eldest daughter put lunch on the table for all to eat and rest and talk after the work was finished.

The energy and ease with which the family worked together was visible. I knew today was different from the day we first talked about lack of water, the difficulties with her health and with managing alone in hard times. Rose could see the rich deep soil and the confirmation from Peter that her work to build and maintain the garden for a year had changed the land, her home and the home of her children in a sustainable way. This garden has brought a renewed sense of control and accomplishment for the family. For Rose, when hope comes, you can see it in the way she kindly takes the jembe from your hands, enjoying the swing and the sinking into the deep soil that brings nourishment to her family. She has hope for more nutritious food this year and enough food in the future in a small, manageable space next to their home.

Seeing her children carry on the good lessons learned brought a broad smile to her face as Peter took a family photo to document the day.

Here are a few photos from the celebration to open the new teacher housing and the Standard 7 Graduation. This event was the first ever graduation ceremony at Kongei Primary School!

The story to come!

Here is a journal excerpt from a friend who visited us in Tanzania. Enjoy!

Notes on my trip to Tanzania - June 5 - 19, 2009 -- Edie Pierce-Thomas

Flying to Tanzania is not your usual flight. I have flown 13 hour non-stop flights but three flights with two being 8 or 9 hours each can take something out of you. fortunately I slept whenever my body would allow and so arriving in TZ left me fresh and ready to go. I experienced no jet lag going - or coming home! John and Randee were waiting for me at the airport when I arrived. They even had a driver waiting - his name was Eddie! Though I didn't feel jet lagged, I enjoyed catching up briefly with Randee before going to sleep that first night.

On Sunday we went to visit their friend Peter whose lives in a large gated house that is very comfortable. He and his wife work for the US there and the house is provided. Quite a contrast to what I saw later!

Monday we flew to Kigoma. Looking out the window of the Precision Air plane I could see the dessert as we flew over but not much more in terms of terrain or wildlife. Kigoma sits on the coast of Lake Tanganyika and we found rooms in a very nice hotel up on the hill overlooking the bay. there was a gazebo that was the perfect night spot to watch the sunset over the water. One needs to be prepared, however, for Tanzania’s time. We ordered dinner about 6 PM and ate about 8:30 PM. It was tasty and the gazebo was a pleasant place to sit and the weather was beautiful such that it was a nice way to pass the time as we waited.

In the morning the manager of the hotel was also our 'taxi' and our boat handler. For a $150 he accompanied us to Gombe Stream National Park three hours by water north of Kigoma. The boat was relatively small but it felt special to have three men taking just the three of us up the lake.

We arrived around 10:30am or so. We paid our park, guide and room fees; put down our luggage and took off by 11:15am with our guide to go look for the chimpanzees. As we left camp, we walked past Jane Goodall's first house she had when she came here in the 1960s. It was built sometime in the 1970s. Before that she and her people were in tents. We soon came upon her current house. Since she is currently in the UK, researchers are staying in that house. Guests often stay in the first house as well.

It was about an hour hike straight up the overgrown green mountain when we came upon the F family. We first saw Tarzan, a small female - not sure why her name was Tarzan when she was part of the F family, but she was up in a tree eating a fruit that she would suck out the inside and then throw the remains down. We soon found several others taking a mid-day nap. There was Froto (Flo's grandson and Fifi's son) and several others of the F family. There were about 11 chimps around. They all looked slightly different. Some had white faces, some had black. Some had gray hair and others did not. While the relaxed they would spread their legs and arms all over the branches and trunks of the trees. Sometimes it did not look particularly comfortable, but apparently they were. They would lean their heads back. If there was another chimp around they would encourage some nit-picking. At one point there were at least four lined up each one nit-picking the one in front. Tarzan, the one who had been in the tree eating her fruit, swung along the branches and came down to the ground where the others were. There was one chimp with a newborn clinging to her chest.

After an hour or more of watching and hanging out with the chimps, we headed back to camp. It was humid enough and wearing long pants and all, Randee and I immediately got into our swimming suits when we got back and went swimming in Lake Tanganyika. The water was so clear and refreshing. We could see the fish and the bottom with no difficulty. Randee had rented a snorkel and mask and fins, so I just used her goggles and I could see well. I just had to remember to come up to breath! It was great to just relax a little.

It was very peaceful, no noise except the slopping of the water and the insects. We read and had coffee and tea and watched the baboons walking around camp. Being here reminded me of being at Ghandi's ashram last year - simple, open and where he/she works on their life mission.

When it was time for bed, Randee had to show me how to use the mosquito netting that hung over the bed. I had never actually seen one let alone use one. It is a bit cumbersome and it takes up more space from the bed then one would think it would. ...all part of the adventure.

I slept well and woke about at 6:30am to the sounds of what I thought was a thunderstorm. Fortunately it turned out to just be the wind. After breakfast we took off on our next Safari. We hiked up and soon found the G family - Gremlin, the mother; her two children, Gimlee and Gaia and Gaia's 6 day old baby. A professor and one of his grad students were there. He told us that Gaia is not a very good mother. Her babies are not strong but worse, her mother, Gremlin, as taken 4 of her babies (twins last year) and they have all died. This 6 day old baby appears to be weak. He told us that a baby should be able to grab and hold on to its mother by day 3 or 4 and this baby at 6 days needs to be supported by Gaia.

Gimlee, the toddler (between 3 and 5 years old) is curious about people and came up to me THREE times. Each time I walked away as I had been instructed to so avoid chimp/human exchange of germs. Each time he followed me until he gave up. The third time he showed his frustration with me as he swung his right arm in disgust. But it was soon forgotten when he noticed John's boot which he promptly knelt down to and licked. He was very entertaining! However, the grad student told us later how Gimlee is very interested in humans and they are trying to get him to ignore them more.

Soon after, the family of chimps headed up the path. We slowly followed behind and stopped along the way when they did. We reached Jane's Peak. This is where Jane Goodall sat in her initial days with a powerful telescope or binoculars and looked and listened to learn where the various groups of chimps were. We also looked and listened and with Randee's binoculars we saw the Red Colombus Monkey. Their tails must be 7 feet long! They jump from tree to tree and look like they are flying. Amazing! So we watched the G family and enjoyed the view of the mountains, monkeys and the lake. After a bit the G family disappeared and we soon left to hike to Kgombe waterfall. This is where Jane reportedly sat for an entire week waiting for the chimps to come to her out of their own curiosity. It apparently worked since as they say, the rest is history. We hung out at the falls for a while. John took a nap and Randee and I took pictures.

We then ventured to the feeding station where Jane and her researchers at one time fed the chimps bananas through a storage box they could pull-up on with a rope from a distance inside a shed when the chimps approached. They stopped feeding them in this manner around 2004 but will use it to give medicine via bananas if they have to. While at the feeding station, Randee and our guide did a little bird watching while John and I just took a break. Suddenly we looked up the path and were startled to see the T family. The T family appeared equally startled. What a wonderful surprise for us! We followed the three of them as they went down to the creek to drink and as they went into t he brush. Soon they climbed so high into the trees we lost track of them. They were Tonga, Tom and Tambora. It was so unexpected and an exciting extra perk!

That evening as I read comments in the guest book, some spoke of their wonderful visit to the park even though they were not fortunate to see any chimps. And we saw three families! What a treat.

Thursday we got up early to catch the public boat taxi back to Kigoma (for only about $3 each). This is a very large and deep boat with basically an empty hull. We sat along the edges and squished together. The hull carried the luggage and baskets of the people and only a few people chose to sit down there on the bottom. At one point John counted the number of people on the boat and counted 76. It could have easily have held 100. Most of the passengers were locals many with baskets to take to market and others going up and down the lake shore for various reasons. We rode back with our fellow Gombe Stream guests, two German doctors. They met in medical school which they attended in Ulm -where Volker and I lived. They knew Grimmelfingen and Kuhberg!

These large taxi boats are painted a teal blue with stripes on the outside. It was very colorful and very large. One of the guide books say they are safer than the smaller boat we took up the lake. The boat made several stops at the small villages along the lake as we travelled back to Kigoma. It was amazing to me how close to the shore they could get this humongous boat! When we finally arrived back at Kigoma, the wind pushed the boat sideways and they were having trouble getting as close to shore as they wanted. People were rushing to get off anyway. I was confused. John had gotten off, Randee was waiting and people were pushing to try to get pass me. Not sure what was happening, I decided I would take off my shoes and get out - I didn't mind walking in foot of water - it was clear, fresh and warm. Unfortunately, between my boots having shifted to one side of my backpack and the awkward ladder type contraption I lost my balance and ended up in the water on my butt! Boy did everyone think that was funny! Everyone on shore and in the boat were laughing - not helping me mind you - just laughing. Randee told me after we both were on shore that the Tanzanians always enjoy a good laugh when someone falls - it wasn't just that it was me - but that I fell! OK. I was a little concerned that everything in my backpack was wet and that the back of my white capris were now quite dirty, but when we finally arrived back to our hotel, I was pleased to learn that my backpack kept everything nice and dry! My capris are washable.

On our way back to the hotel, we stopped in town to have breakfast. John bought us 'street coffee' - coffee from a guy on the street that has the kettle attached to a tray of hot coals and a bucket full of little demitasses. It is strong stuff. We ate some fried pastries from a little shop. One had a hardboiled egg in the center of a potato based pastry. Very nice.

We walked up to our hotel deciding to stay at the same place as on our way out since we liked it so well. after settling and washing clothes, and checking my pack for wetness, we walked back to town to 'shop'. On the walk back I found a 10 Tshcillingi piece!! (That's less than 10 cents) However, I even find money in Africa - how cool is that! John took off on his own and Randee and I went shopping for a Kitange. I decided I would look for one to make a tablecloth and napkins. I found one for that and also another piece for capris and a top. And if there is enough left over, perhaps a bag.

The market is very close together - about 3 feet for the walking lane and the 'dukas' are all along on both sides. In some places there wasn't much light since the make-shift roofing in places overlapped . At a craft duka, Randee found a lovely beaded necklace.

The next day we flew back to Dar Es Salaam. We stayed with their Peace Corp friend, Peter. We walked to the local grocery store that catered to the Ex-Pats and when I walked in I saw a very European grocery market. The prices were also rather European. But if you are craving something from 'home' that was the place to get it.

On Saturday, June 13, 2009, we took a bus from Dar to almost Lushoto where we got off the bus and their neighbor, Ali met us to take our packs. Somehow mine did not make it onto his bike, but Asha, a young woman that cleans and waters the garden for Randee and John, also met us and though she was quite petite, she carried my backpack up the 5 K hike back to their place. Since I had a little intestine distress going on, I was happy to let her do that and pay her all of about $1.00 to do so. I walked slow as a result of my ailment and had to stop sometimes. Once Randee and Asha had to cover me with their Kitanges during one of my more distressful stops! I didn't feel like eating that evening. But I got 9 hours of sleep and I started to feel better.

Since the next day was Sunday we had thought of attending church but it seemed church was not being held locally that day and so we saw that as a sign to take it easy! We did yoga and laundry and visited with another teacher that had stopped by. John decided to bike to Lushoto. Randee and I walked up and saw the primary school and the house she had raised the money to help get built for teachers’ quarters. They wanted to have us for lunch and dinner while I was there to honor me as a donor. The house looked great and they assured us it would be complete by the time I left for home.

We stopped at the little duka in the village to buy sodas. I had them and as we stepped down a slippery, damp stone step, I slipped and I heard breaking glass. Oh, broken soda bottles with soda in them! But fortunately, only one broke - it could have been worse! According to Randee and John, to break things there is just part of daily life.

Monday we all biked to Soni. We planned to see the waterfalls and buy fresh roasted and locally grown coffee from a German priest by the name of Father Rudolf Lorenz or Attanis. John continued up the mountain to the next village to get port wine and macadamia nuts from some Brothers.

The biking is not the easiest. It is true cross country. The roads are rocky, and sometimes muddy, and there are ruts. The road turns and winds around. The view is spectacular! Green and mountainous 360 degrees. There are people walking between villages and they all greet us and Randee speaks with them - she says it is part of her job. Midway we went through two villages - Luwandai which was at a peak and had more wonderful views and Mshizii.

At Soni I bought two kilograms of coffee beans to bring home from the priest's coffee farm. The priest wasn't there when we stopped on our way to Soni so we continued on. We looked at Kangas and I found one I liked but it had a stain. It seemed many had flaws and we decided it was best to wait until we went to Lushoto. Randee and I had lunch at a sidewalk cafe (my language) that looked over the waterfalls. We had “chipsi mayai” which is scrambled eggs with French fries cooked into them. It was good - surprisingly.

On our way back to her place, Randee bought potatoes and carrots. Back at her house we 'showered' which means dumping water from a bucket over you, washing, and then dumping more water over you. It felt good after all the biking and getting sticky. We then got dressed in African attire to go to dinner at the vice-Principal's house - Ruben Masenga. I borrowed a dress from Randee and John took pictures of us in our local attire. At Masenga's house we watched the end of the Brazil-Egypt soccer game in the Fifa Confederate cup and saw the News where we learned of the Iran election debacle. Masenga's young sister cooked dinner for us - fresh chicken from their coop; a bean called soya but different from soy beans; a tomato basedsauce and fresh avocado. She also made fresh homemade passion fruit and avocado juice - it was the best juice I had ever drunk! Masenga escorted the three of us home in the dark. It had been a wonderful day.

Next - Lushoto. The biking was hard work going to Lushoto since it was 15 kilometers uphill on a rocky, bumpy, dirt road for the first 5 K and then the next 10 K were tar--- it was awful. It was gradual but constant. It took us about 1 1/2 hours to make it to the Montessori school where Randee wanted to buy cheese and jam. We then checked out the 'gift shop' (they also have a hostel) and I found the same kanga I had seen in Soni but it was in better condition and so I got it along with a dress for myself and a couple of little necklaces. Randee decided to have the exact same dress made for her sister-in-law and bought a shirt - for whom - not sure...

Trekking further on to Lushoto we stopped at a stationary store that also had some statues. I bought one for Volker or Oma and a wooden knife with a hippo on the end for Vida. Later I realized it was really a letter opener, but since she collects knives I decided to keep calling it a knife.

We ate at one of their favorite Lushoto eating spots and had ocean fish -with the scales, head and fins and all and I did OK with it. It also tasted good. We then went shopping in their market. I bought a Pashmina wool and silk shawl; a very intense purple kikoi ( later I learned it is really a man's fringed sarong but it will most likely be a shawl for m. I also bought a painting done with a knife instead of brushes of Massai women. I also bought a scarf for Rozi, banana gum for Philip, a little Chai spice and a little tea. It rained and it got heavier and heavier as the day went on so when we decided to go back to Randee's it was a constant shower. The ride down the hill was fun though wet. The last 5 K were now not only rocky and bumpy but also muddy and slightly uphill. It was nice to get back and bathe and have some tea and get into dry clothes.

I showed John my purchases and after supper Randee and I went through all of her clothes she had purchased over time and discussed options of things to do with them all. John gave me his graduation shirt for Volker - lots of embroidery and sort of a purple tie-dyed material.

On Thursday we took the bus to Moshi - a longer ride than I expected. We stayed at the Backpacker's Hotel instead of the YMCA and it was in the center of the city. We found a restaurant that had a balcony and from there we got a look at Kilimanjaro. It came out albeit briefly - but it came out! We shopped a little more - I bought Erika and myself bags made from Kangas. The market was definitely a market of a bigger town and the people were unrelenting, but we made a few good finds.

I took it easy Friday morning and did a few more errands and had lunch at the same place and we got another glimpse of the mountain. John found a place that sold Tanzanite which my friend wanted me to buy for her. I negotiated with the shop owner and think I came away with a pretty good deal. Bargaining helps when you really have no money left and so, are truly limited to how much you can spend! After that Randee escorted me by bus to the road to the airport. There we rented a motor-rickshaw (at least that is what we called them in India) to take us the little ways down to the airport and her back to the bus stop.

It was an adventure and an experience I won't forget. I don't know if I will ever have the opportunity to go back to anywhere in Africa. I hope so. I know Volker thinks he would like to do the Peace Corp when we retire but after my visit I am not sure I can imagine 2 + years of it- I know I would get used to it - but not sure I would want to.

The flights home were generally uneventful but the last leg from Houston to Indianapolis was the most difficult - I was antsy and tired and just could not get comfortable. It was great to see Volker waiting for me when I walked out of the airport in Indy!

Thanks Randee and John for an awesome time and thanks Volker for holding down the fort while I went on my adventure.

Mambo,

I got the chance to add a few more Photos as I am in Tanga helping with the new Peace Corps trainees arrival.

Tanga in on the ocean, beautiful cool breezes and fast Internet!

Here is a photo of a mama quite eager to show you that the women carry the granite stones in this village for new house construction/septic systems.

The men make bricks.

Also, look back and you will see I was able to get the fashion photos loaded and the final paint job on the new teacher house.

The teachers have moved in. I begged to show up with a bucket of water and cleaning supplies to help them prepare the new house to move in, but that would not allow it. I told them that my mama always showed up to help someone clean before moving into a new house. Pole, they said. I could come after, to celebrate together.

Here are a few pictures. The house is finished as well as two septic tanks for the new and old housing units! There will be two teachers and their familes that will move in this week!

Rehema is a bright, gregarious and organized young woman. Her talents are in leadership such as building trusting relationships, ability to see the big picture, and creative use of resources is strong. People rely on her and choose her to be “in charge” of a project.

I got to know Rehema when she asked me to lead the music club. The teacher that was their leader left the school two years prior and they have been on their own since. She and her friends wanted to learn how to play the recorders that the school had stashed away. Her dream was to have the band (recorders and drums) play the national anthem and the school song at graduation. Well, since then they have played the national anthem and this year will play both the national anthem, school song and Simple Gifts which was at Obama’s inauguration ceremony!

Last year’s graduation performances required auditions. The band made it in, but Rehema’s true love, African Fashion Designs, did not. I was shocked when she told me that her fashion show was not approved. Rehema had 8 classmates model outfits she designed from kangas and kitenges. She sews the outfits on the model and finishes the look with headdresses and shoes to make it work. The models were very professional in their presentation and “walk”. They even had music! Good music!

Looking back, I guess it is too much for an all girls catholic boarding school to allow sophisticated African women’s’ fashion into the graduation ceremonies, but I also did not forget that this young woman was talented. I did not forget when Rehema told me her dream was to be a fashion designer. She told me she wants to show the world the sophistication and beauty of African fashion.

So, when I suggested to her that I could take pictures of her fashions and make a CD that she could use as she wished to share her designs—sort of a portfolio of her work to date­ she did not turn me down.

After the Form IV Mock Exams in May, she and her fellow classmates had three weeks free. I was teaching during the day, so we planned time for photo shoots after classes and before the daylight dimmed. One day I brought kangas, kitenges and Massai blankets from my closet for her to use. She lined up three models and got needle and thread from the school tailor. In the backroom of the biology lab she dressed her models while I showed a movie, Akeeleh and the Bee, from my laptop to 30-40 other Form IV students.

The models are almost as amazing as Rehema when it comes to posing for shots. Rehema directed the shoot, but the young women were talented, striking a pose, holding it and looking natural for every shot! When I downloaded them at home I was amazed I did not have one bad picture.

The next day, they met to create the designs in the biology lab while I was vigilating exams. Then a second shoot. Now we had an audience of Form II students that called themselves “helpers”, moving plants to add to the settings and clearing the little village children from the background when needed. Rehema talked about having a web page of her designs and we talked about writing her story to accompany her design photos.

My time volunteering here is short and what will have long term outcomes only God knows. But this fun adventure, helping Rehema make a digital portfolio of her early fashion designs, may be something I hadn’t imagined as part of my service.

UPDATE: Kongei Primary Teacher Housing Project

Part I

February/March 09

Kongei Primary School is my favorite place to go. Walking up the long hill to the first terrace, on the right is the outdoor kitchen with two or three huge pots cooking on tripod stones with wood fires – when there is food available to cook. Beyond the kitchen is the school garden that we made together last September which has expanded to 12 long matutas 1 meter by 6 meters.

Then, walking up to the second terrace, I can hear the lower grades reciting numbers , letters or vowels, or singing songs to assist the memory of some concept pronunciation of new words. “Simama kaa, simama kaa. Ruka ruka ruka, simama kaa.” (Stand and sit, stand and sit, jump jump jump, stand and sit).

I enter the 1st grade class and the students stand proudly to say their school motto and speak one of the first English phrases they have learned, “Good morning Madame. How are you?” Every time I visit, we do something together. One day I explained where in the world I come from, using the cover of a pencil box with a world map drawn.

Yesterday, I came ready to teach them “Head, shoulders, knees and toes.” Their teacher, Sr. Alma had learned it the week before from me and asked me to come teach her class. The students’ favorite thing was when Sr. Alma tried to sing it alone after they had tried. When she made a mistake, all of us laughed together. This kind of excitement for learning and the appreciation of making mistakes is a breath of fresh air after working all week at the secondary school where the relationship between students and teachers is often more formal and for many teachers, distant.

For John and me, the students are free to be more casual. We are visitors to their culture. Both the secondary and primary students touch my hair, pinch my skin and run their hands up and down my arms to feel the tiny hairs - much like a baby exploring a new person when held while drinking their bottle. I might be focused on teaching one student when I realize another little hand touching my hair from behind or pinching the soft skin hanging from my upper arms.

Finally, I walk up to the third terrace where the upper grades and the Headmistress’s office are contained. The students look too big for the desks as they are scrunched into the small space between bench and desk top. Standard 7 students are 13-15 years old and emotionally ready to go off on their own. Most will not go on to secondary school because of the cost of school fees, but instead work on their own fields, get married, and start a family.

One Friday morning, I walked to the primary school to take pictures of community members (parents of students) digging the foundation for the new house for teachers. The lumber, cement, iron sheets for the roof and other hardware supplies were delivered by lorry and stacked by students in the store and the back of classrooms. The stones were quarried and carried by community women to the site. The bricks have been molded in a nearby village home, carried to the school and fired. One morning I had the privilege of watching a man build the line of fires inside the stacked bricks (a kiln made of the bricks to be fired) and then, find him in the evening stoking the fires where he remained all night. The following morning, the cracks between the bricks were chinked and smoke billowed from all sides as the bricks cooled.

I was told the master builder arrived last week, inspected the leveled site and gave instructions for where to dig the foundation trenches. Rueben Masenga, second headmaster, was wearing his gum boots and looking more serious than normal. He told me he has to be there to be sure the workers follow the directions correctly. He also mentioned that the rains have come, and heavy rains can stop work for a day or more. The excitement of receiving the funding for the housing has taken second chair to the worries of building a strong structure and managing on a schedule determined as much by the rains as the workers.

Part II

April 09

On April 4th I was invited to a School Community Committee meeting at Kongei Primary School. This meeting’s agenda included a report of progress on the teacher housing project and a request to consider applying for an environmental Peace Corps Volunteer for next year. Four people from Kongei Primary school including Headmistress, Sr. Shirima, Second Head, Rueben Masenga, and two classroom teachers spoke to the community chairperson, and two community representatives about the housing project’s progress.

· The master builder and his son (also an experienced builder) have worked with the community workers to level the site and lay the foundation. The master builder’s son will take over as the master builder to complete the housing.

· The foundation is completed and the walls are almost completed as of April 4th. The rainy season rains have been late, and this has helped the good progress (the garden has suffered a bit). It is anticipated that the roof rafters will be placed next week followed by iron roofing sheets.

· There were enough bricks provided by the community to allow the builders to make the rooms bigger than originally planned!

· There are not enough stones and sand to complete both septic tanks (one for the new housing and one for the older housing) so the additional stones and sand needed were purchased with part of the donation from Grace University Lutheran Church. The community leaders agreed to bring community women to carry the stones and sand to the building site.

· The older housing unit needs interior ceiling boards installed before the cold season arrives. The community has agreed to find a way to complete this. The funds needed are not yet available but will come from the school community. The school wants to preserve the remaining funds from Grace to assure the completion of the new housing and 2 septic tanks needed.

The Kongei Primary School Community welcomes you for tea and to see their school, the new teacher housing and the garden for yourselves.

The school community is very excited to be working together with their USA partners and so relieved that the rains have waited, allowing them to anticipate completing the new teacher housing on schedule.

I have pictures of the building progress and the gardens. These will be added to my Goggle PICASSO site when I go to Dar later this month where there is high speed internet available.

Thank you from our heats. Happy Easter. Peace

Randee

March 09 in Tanzania

My 56th Birthday in Tanzania

I just had my 56th birthday and realize I came at 54 (below the half way mark) and will return when I am on the other half of 50's. Mostly this is part of the thoughts that come from time to time in my imagining or rehearsing reentry into the USA atmosphere.

It has been a while since I have written, so I will begin with a story much like when I first arrived.

Our Neighborhood

I was biking back from Lushoto on my road near my house. A woman and her kindergarten age daughter were sitting in the ditch picking up kernels of corn, one-by-one. I stopped to help, as I had done before, but this time, it never occurred to me as an unusual practice- saving each kernel like it was a gold nugget. Instead, it occurred to me that this was an opportunity to chat with a mama much like chatting with a neighbor I meet at home in the USA. (Yes, I find that I am clarifying which home I mean these days as both come up often now.)

We talked and picked and sorted out the little stones, returning the kernels to her basket which she carries on her head. I found out that her daughter attends Kongei Primary and remembered me from the carrot feast I celebrating their first harvest of the new school garden. Soon, two young men stopped to join us in the task. They told me they are from the village near Chumbageni Primary school where we have helped with a school garden. They have completed Standard 7 (last grade of primary school) and are working on the family shamba (farm). We talked faming until we finished retrieving the corn. Mama headed to Lushoto to sell her corn. The young men escorted me, riding my bike to my house and invited John and me to come to their village on Saturdays to watch them play soccer.

Peace Corps Comrades

There are four health volunteers and three new education volunteers as well as two education volunteers that came with John and me in the Tanga area. That means that we are family. We keep in touch, sometimes help each other do projects at our sites, and somewhat regularly visit/party together. The parties are for any reason but are for the purpose of sharing time together cooking of meals (with food brought from our areas), discussing books and swapping books, hiking and biking, giving and receiving haircuts, and sleeping where ever one can find room on a mattress. This time with those that can understand best what life is like and those that chose this kind of life—voluntarily – is one of the significant things I know I will miss back home (USA).

The last party was March 28th, my birthday. Our local neighbors stopped by to visit our PCV guests. I really appreciate the discussions that happen because our younger PCV comrades have much better Kiswahili than we do. With their help to translate and with the cross fertilization of PC health volunteers and education volunteers, many ideas that I think about can actually be explored deeply with my Tanzanian comrades of gardens and HIV/AIDS education.

On a bike ride to Soni with Marielle and Sarah, we greeted folks while dodging mud holes and rocks. For Marielle and Sarah, this was a chance to bike in a climate that was cool. They have bikes but it is too hot at their sites to consider this as pleasure. Our job on this tour was to find tambi (local pasta) to make minestrone for dinner and to buy toilet paper, local fruits and veggies and coffee for them to take back to their sites. Then, of course, to “window” shop for kangas and kitenges (material). (There are no windows on shops).

On returning, Marielle was exhausted from struggling to keep her bike in gear. Both Marielle and Sarah had sore butts from little recent riding and because we traveled to three villages and back in search of tambi.

But it was a beautiful ride. It included a rich discussion on theology and the common struggle for productive farming in TZ with Fr. Attanis (where we buy coffee) and greetings from two youth from Kongei Primary boys that remembered fondly the lesson on fish anatomy with Michelle who visited us from St. Paul and taught fish biology for a week.

Kongei Secondary School

This year I am teaching Form II and III – the same students I taught last year. Form IV lost their Biology teacher and currently has a teacher that is very busy with management jobs, so we are meeting off and on to cover material that they are missing and need to pass their exams. Form I does not have a Biology teacher yet so every week I check to see if a teacher has arrived and if not, I teach. Hopefully there will be a new teacher arriving in April after midterm break.

John is teaching Form IV math- the same students he taught last year. Form I does not have a math teacher so he is sharing the two classes with the physics teacher to be sure they are getting math.

The student peer leadership training on Life Skills and HIV/AIDS that started last year has evolved into peer teaching this year. On Wednesdays the peer leaders meet with teachers to prepare the lesson they want to teach. On Sundays, three peer leaders teach one class together. The students have expressed their appreciation and sense of importance in their life both as instructors and as students of their peers. The head nurse of the local health clinic continues to be an important guest consultant for the lessons.

The two new fun things started this year is a new room designated for a Biology and Physics labs and a computer lab. The school received 9 used computers from an NGO in Denmark. John is enjoying setting up this lab and helping teacher and students develop computer skills. My sister sent 10 flash drives and teachers are earning the chance to purchase one when they develop the skills and therefore the need for a flash drive.

The new Biology/Physics lab is yet without enough tables, no chairs and no shelves. BUT it has water and a demo table as well as a blackboard that is smooth! (I have borrowed chairs to use until the new ones are made.) Michelle, a biology teacher and curriculum specialist of MNAQUA from St. Paul, MN brought the materials and know-how to set-up an aquarium in the new lab. She and I worked with a primary school teacher/second headmaster to find the fish and found a welder in Lushoto to make the aquarium glass box supported by a steel bottom and corners. My Form III students had a week of lessons from Michelle on fish adaptations for movement in water and respiration. Every day, they take turns feeding the fish and are learning how to siphon to clean the aquarium. They say, “What will happen when they get big, will we eat them? “Will they reproduce?”, “Why do they eat at the surface?”, “Now I can see how they are breathing. I thought they were drinking.” This year the Science club is making a skeleton model to hang next to the digestion model they made last year. They are also hoping to complete posters to teach about global warming, destruction of the ozone layer and ecology concepts. We are considering a diorama of a Tanzanian savanna…. Mungu akipenda.

Gardens and HIV/AIDS Workshop for Primary Teachers

Gardens

In February, we developed two more school gardens developed in our area, teaching the biointesive gardening and permaculture methods Peace Corps specialist Peter Jensen has given us.

You may remember, last September Peter came and worked with Kongei Primary school to develop a school garden. He and I worked with the school to hire 5 community adults to work with him to teach the students and teachers. Two of those adults are my local friends and have children or nieces and nephews that attend two different primary schools in the area. Both talked to these schools about developing a garden and then asked me to help it to happen. The three of us together with a woman who has been helping me with my personal garden, worked with each school and developed two school gardens - 6 matutas (beds) and 3 guilds (fruit tree with nutritious greens and herbs below). These “home spun” garden initiatives have blossomed into 42 matutas at one school and 20 matutas at the other school. Now that the rainy season has started, the maize, beans, spinach and carrots planted are thriving! Also, Kongei Primary has harvested carrots, spinach and greens, eaten and replanted crops. They have added eight matutas to their school garden.

Kongei Primary headmistress has made about 15 matutas in her personal garden for a family project she has in mind from her yield. The agriculture teacher at one of the other school’s has started elder groups that learned the methods from the students and have started gardens at their homes.

This area is a farming area and the people appreciate the opportunity to learn new methods to try to improve their yields—to have more food, more days for their children. For example, Ali’s wife (one of the adults teaching biointensive gardening methods with me) has invited me to visit her garden to learn how she terraces the steep land in the area. She offers classes on terracing which she learned from a program called Farm Africa. This is a fertile area for learning and developing ways to grow more food.

Primary Teacher’s Workshop on teaching about HIV/AIDS

I visited Chumbageni Primary School in September to deliver books on Nutrition and Caring for PLWHA (People living with HIV/AIDS) and Life Skills (for children of primary and secondary school age) which they had ordered from the PEPFAR office in Dar es Salaam. After greetings and tea, I discussed the content and my personal experience using the books to teach secondary students with the two teachers present. One was from Chumbageni Primary and one was from Mshizi Primary. The woman explained, “We need these books, but first we need to know more about HIV/AIDS for ourselves.” From this conversation grew the plan for a teacher workshop on HIV/AIDS for the three primary schools in our area developing gardens, too.

On March 6th, three interested teachers from each school and two village mosque leaders/teachers met at Kongei Primary School to discuss the facts and myths of HIV/AIDS and to introduce new ways to teach primary students effective life skills and facts about HIV/AIDS pertaining to their lives and their family. Also to provide time to discuss questions of the teachers and possible solutions to needs identified.

The meeting was facilitated by John and me. The instructors included us and Peace Corps Health Volunteers and local Tanzanian presenters from Lushoto and the immediate Kongei community that are trained in teaching Life Skills and HIV/AIDS. After a full day of presentations, group work on lesson designs, panel discussions to answer questions and evaluation needs the decision was to have another meeting. Representatives signed-up to be the next planners.

Since this meeting, the two village teachers have shared stories of classes they have started for youth at their homes on Saturdays. My discussions with them have been about their idea to design a meeting for young men and women of their area that have finished primary school Standard 7 but will not go on to Form I-IV secondary school. These are youth that do not have future formal opportunities to learn about HIV/AIDS and life skills strategies.

Two friends from USA came in December to visit, bringing 2 suitcases of shoes that students from Farnsworth Elementary in St. Paul, MN collected and donated for Kongei Primary Students.

The Kongei students have been on holiday from November 28th until January 14th. I brought the shoes to school last week, and the teachers fitted students who needed shoes most. ALL the shoes were gone, the suitcases empty, and donated to two of the teachers that needed these.

Thank you to Becky and Joan for their long journey and to Cecilia and her students at Farnsworth Elementary!

24 Jan 2009

Greeting

I am posting a short message to let you all know that I have received the funds for Kongei Primary School's Teachers Housing Project from USA. Last week Mr. Masenga, second headmaster and I went to Lushoto and purchased all the building supplies needed, including such things as metal roofing sheets, re bar, toilets, sinks, cement, nails, and lumber. It took three trips by lorry from town to deliver the items. The doors and windows are being made and will be delivered later.

The community met on Dec 5th to organize the work for when the funds arrived. On January 9th, they began clearing the site. Currently, there are bricks that have been carried to the school grounds and fired on the spot. They villagers build a kiln out of the bricks to be fired, leaving 2 holes at the bottom to build fires and then use mud to seal the spaces between the bricks on the outermost layer.

Women have started carrying granite stones to the school from places in the community where granite in mined. A lorry has delivered sand collected from the river bottom.

On last Thursday, I visited the home where more bricks are being made. This is a place 1 km from the school where the soil is best for making bricks. Also, early Thursday, many people arrived with jembes (hoes) to level the site. Next week the master builder will arrive from Tanga to begin construction.

Thank you all for your generosity to help make this possible. With the extra funds recieved beyond the initial proposal, we are able to complete a septic system for two other houses already built but with out toilets. It is our hope that we may have enough funds for electricity to be added. We will access as things go.

It may take a while but I will add pictures when the internet connection allows.

Remember to double click on the picture above and it will take you to my album of pictures of the events happening with the building of the house and two septic tanks.

December 2008

Merry Christmas!

We wish we could be with you this holiday, sharing hugs and laughs and good food.

One year has passed and still it does not seem like Christmas is here. Some things I will not get used to. I miss the change of seasons, the lakes and the snow.

Yesterday I washed clothes, hung them to dry in the hot sun. I was careful to hang my underpants on the line between two other lines with towels and shirts so that they are hidden from the view of neighbors passing by. That is the accepted rule in Tanzania.

John is fixing the latch on the bathroom door and putting a new plug on the electrical cord for our 2-burner hot plate. Having electricity is nice, but the last two days it has been out and this is not nice—back to candles, kerosene lanterns and charcoal stoves.

My garden is reaching a stage of harvest again. Soon I can pick cow peas, carrots, okra, sweet potatoes and leeks. Already I have gotten 9 huge Brandywine tomatoes from one plant. I have a "pet" that got into my garden today—one of our young school cows. She broke free from her rope and was feasting on my fresh cow pea plants. The leaves are some of the best tasting greens! I pulled her back to her feeding spot, retied her tether, and brought her a bucket of water. She was very happy, nudged me and accepted a pat on her nose and scratching behind the ears.

Two friends, Becky and Joan from Minnesota came to visit for two weeks, just leaving a few days ago. I met them at the Kilimanjaro airport when they arrived and we all flew to Kigali, the capitol of Rwanda. We were driven by a guide to the National Park (2 hours) to see gorilla. For two days we trekked into the forest finding a family of 12 - 20 gorillas, then sitting for an hour watching them. I will never forget sitting 6 feet from a giant silverback male and watching the 3 year old children playing "ring-around-the- silverback daddy" and beating their chests in play. One young gorilla came running towards me just as we arrived and grabbed my pant leg. He looked at me as if to say, "You're finally here! Come play!" In a family group there is only one silver back male that is the leader and father, then there can be 5-10 females (or more) and each mom has one or more children. The gorillas live to about 45 years. One group we watched had a one month old child that clung to her mother's chest as mom walked and climbed to the tree top into a nest.

Before we left Rwanda, we visited the Genocide Museum and talked at length with our guides about how the people are moving through the process to recover from 1 million people killed over 3 months. Their stories are hard and remarkable at the same time. They talked of the establishment of levels crimes and then levels of consequences, but that all that killed must do community service to rebuild the country. Also, there is a ceremony/gathering that happens once a year where people who have killed choose to stand and tell the people what happened, who they killed and what happened to the bodies of those killed. The guides talked about how difficult this is but how healing it is for everyone.

We had another 8 days together back in Tanzania bird-watching and living in glorified camping style at our site. It is always hard for me to say goodbye. We look forward to coming home for Christmas next year.

We will spend Christmas with four other volunteers and three Sisters from our village, at Amani Forest Preserve. There is a parish at Amani that has housing for volunteers from all over the world. There are beautiful trails through the tropical forest seeing chameleons, tree frogs, African violets, exotic birds and butterflies as well as Collobus and Blue monkeys.

I have enjoyed going to the Catholic Church and occasionally the Lutheran services available when school is in session. We have also been invited to celebrate important Muslim holidays with our neighbors. All services are in Kiswahili, so I understand very little. I can sing the songs but I cannot understand the sermons. When school is in session every Tuesday morning (6am) there is a Mass in English. But this Christmas, I will bring my English hymnal with us to Amani and sing Christmas carols together.

New Years will be back at our site. Our night watchman, Twaha, has invited us to his family home for dinner. Probably rice cooked in coconut milk, local spinach, beans and tea. We expect New Year's Eve will be drumming and dancing, and church bells heard from all the hills around us ­ as usual. Greetings to all of you and we hope you are well and content with each day.

We send our love and, of course, we think of you always. We send our prayers for a joyous celebration with family and friends this holiday. John and Randee

December 20, 2008

Reflections on our first year

Work and play has been a whirlwind since September. We are told by the volunteers who have just completed their 2 years of service that the 2nd and final year will go even faster.

For this BLOG entry, I am telling you the things we have been working on with all the different kinds of support from people at home and here.

SCIENCE TEACHING STRATIGIES

(many of these came from Saint Paul Public School Teachers!)

· The use of notebook organizational strategies in Form I. When we started revision for the annual exam, the students could see for themselves the topics covered and the pages in their notes that were helpful.

· Lots of designing little experiments together to develop problem solving skills. Once students got the idea of guessing and forming a hypothesis, they were more willing to talk in class, saying, “madame, I will try. I think...” It has been a revelation to students that the facts they must memorize for National Exams were discovered by the investigative process they were doing.

· Scavenger hunts to discover things in their environment pertaining to topics.

· With all the colored pencils donated by many of you folks, students were highly motivated to draw biology diagrams required in the notebooks.

· Teaching students how to write an essay on biology topics, then small group practice on writing different essays together.

· Form I prepared short lessons and short notes (by lab group) on Form I Biology topics and taught these to Form II for their revision of Form I topics before the regional exam.

· Preparing study guides for each new topic was very helpful to keep students working between classes, copying short notes, looking up and defining new vocabulary, drawing diagrams, and answering g summary questions. Also, sharing vocabulary words with the English teacher.

· Giving a pre-test before each topic which students completed in small groups in class proved to be highly motivating and useful to me and the students to know what they needed to learn and what they knew.

· Getting live or fresh specimens from the community for dissection was of high interest and allowed the school community to get involved with the teaching of students. The school cook got the fish, the night watchman went to the village to get the cow heart, lungs and trachea on the day we needed it so it would not spoil. The sisters got to eat it after! Eggs for osmosis were gotten from the school hens and many food supplies from the cook. The school tailor hemmed the rice bags to use for instructional posters.

· Having students work in small groups to take practice NECTA EXAMS allowed me to correct only 12 exams per class and let them pool their knowledge.

· Having small groups prepare lessons with requirements of visual aids and participation then rotate the small groups to teach another small group really facilitated more questions and discussions because they were small little classes with in a class. This also really helped the students struggling with English. They could talk in Kiswahili when needed for deeper understanding.

· Small groups constructing models of different kinds of cells out of play dough and scraps of material and things I saved from my house (foil from Nido cans, bottle caps, rope, cardboard, etc.). The challenge of seeing cells as 3-D is huge and this really helped.

· Doing a little Yoga and singing songs with students as a way to re-energize before class starts.

Some outcomes:

· Students at Kongei Secondary School have said to me, “I will always be able to say that I know these things because I was able to build the human body model, dissect the cow heart and see the anatomy movies. I can tell my family and my future children.” “Nobody has ever shown us these ways to protect ourselves from HIV.” “We have tried, really tried.”

· The Form II Biology students performed 57% higher on their regional exam than the last Form II class. Kongei students told me that one of my students earned the highest score in the district on the Biology Mock Exam.

· Form I Biology students all were able to write a good essay question answer on their annual exam and many were able to correctly answer questions about a scientific experiment and then analyze experimental data on their annual exam. The Form I overall exam scores demonstrated very good results.

· With the help of John Olson, St.Paul Public Schools, I have completed an inventory of the chemicals at Kongei and prepared a folder with Chemical Safety Data Sheets for every chemical after a science department meeting generated interest in having this safety resource.

· A science teacher from Gare Secondary School and I have been able to share lesson plans and teaching aids to teach biology and chemistry. We have agreed to work together again next year.

· The teacher from Gare and met with the headmaster at Gare and together wrote a proposal for a basic science lab.

· Katy Lee, PCV at Ubiri Secondary School and I worked together to teach 15 of her students how to conduct the experiments to test for food nutrients. These lab experiments are part of the Form II Biology syllabus and are part of the Form IV NECTA Exam. I met a student last week on the road and she asked if I could return next term to teach them more of the practical exam skills they will need.

SCIENCE CLUB

· The eight students that constructed a display for the library including a 3-D torso model and accompanying instructional poster received recognition at graduation. We had five groups of 15 students watch and discuss the collection of human anatomy DVD’s produced through the Body Worlds exhibit author.

MUSIC CLUB

With the help of my cousin, Dianna, donating Instruction books and music, the music club students have learned how to read music and performed the national anthem at graduation. Since graduation and the purchase of additional flutes, the club grew from 7 to 16 students. Form III drummers have started teaching Form I students how to play to replace them when they leave at the end of next year.

COMPUTER SKILLS

· A biology teacher at Kongei worked with me to enter his grades on an excel spread sheet to calculate the final grades for the year.

· A physics teacher used my computer to type his own annual exams. Next term he plans to use the new computers that have arrived at the school.

Permaculture/ Life Skills

· Student Peer leadership group had 5 Sunday seminars to learn about HIV/AIDS and develop life skills to have more choices and strategies to use in daily living. Next term they will be teaching their peers.

· Kongei Primary School garden is growing well. and they have added another 6 matutas of carrots and kunde. They have sold mchicha from their garden to the community. After completing the garden,

· The Kongei Primary second master reported that parents were coming to see the garden because their child had encouraged them to build a garden like it at their home. Also, he has a garden near the road going to the school that he and his son have constructed using the bio-intensive methods learned from the school garden.

· Our neighborhood shamba worker and night watchman participated in the two workshops with Peter and asked to go together to bring the composting methods, perma-culture and bio-intensive garden methods to two other primary schools in the area (Chumbageni and Mchizi). We have gone twice to Chumbageni primary school. The head teacher instructed the students to start a compost pile at home. We have been asked to return in January and help them construct a demonstration garden.

· When I returned to Chumbageni Primary to take the HIV/AIDS and Life Skills books, three teachers told me they needed a teacher seminar to learn more about HIV/AIDS and how to teach their students. The teachers came from Mchizi and Chumbageni Primary Schools. Kongei Primary and their teachers are also interested in a HIV/AIDS Teacher Seminar. We discussed the possibility to have a seminar in February hosted by Kongei Primary.

· I was invited by a primary student to help her and her friends to construct a garden next to her grandparents’ home where she lives. We completed one bed together with her friends and the second will be constructed with her uncle.

· I have started nursery beds at my site for “guild” plants that are hard to find here and seeds for popular vegetables (papaya, aloe, lemon grass, avocado, mchicha, Brandywine tomatoes, vitungu kitamu rangi ya carroti).

· My counterpart has expanded the garden by my house, adding beds of cabbage that he has transplanted to another area to raise for profit. He has requested to add more beds of his favorite vegetables. This has brought more local people into my garden to help, learning the techniques of bio-intensive gardening.

· In Lushoto two women’s groups developed a gardens at homes. In January, they have asked for help to develop a garden at the primary school in Lushoto where one is a teacher.

PCPP Funding for Teacher Housing at Kongei Primary School

Kongei Primary School has successfully written a Partnership Grant proposal for teacher housing. With ALL your donations and support, the funds have been raised and on December 3, 2008 we had a meeting with the leadership team to start the process to build teacher housing and septic tank. The school committee met on December 5th and has planned for the site preparation to begin in January.

Mathematics and Technology

John has been teaching Form III and IV Mathematics. Here is a brief summary of his work. Go to his BLOG for more details: johntanzania.blogspot.com

· The math students have made huge gains in their exam scores through his teaching (77% improvement). The Math scores in Tanzania in general are extremely low and so it is difficult to convince students that it is possible to succeed in math.

· Some of the strategies he is using are: spiraling homework assignments so students would have constant review, building math skills and confidence; approach new material from a problem-solving perspective; and having students’ working in groups to discover solutions and strategies.

· He has designed a one week Math Camp the week before January term begins for Form VI students that are struggling with Math.

· With 10 rebuilt computers that arrived from Demark, John hopes to make more progress in teaching computer skills to teachers and students. His efforts so far have been limited to one computer and one afternoon a week available to show teachers tools for calculating grades. He has also used his own computer as a visual aid in the classroom. The new computer resource can significantly change his ability to facilitate learning and enthusiasm for technology tools.

LANGUAGE

· John works diligently every night to practice Kiswahili. His vocabulary is huge, often impressing teachers because he knows words they have never heard before.

· He has been teaching English to different village folks that ask him.

Sharing English Story Books and other things with Neighborhood Children

· With all the different children’s’ books you have donated, neighborhood children, 3 years to 12 years old come weekly to “check out” a new book to read.

· The Banana Word tiles are very popular. Children come to our house and spend an hour or more making words and practice their English.

· The calendars you have sent are great, too. We have neighbors stop by to use our calendar! The MN scenes give us a chance to talk about home and comparisons to Tanzania weather and landscapes.

· Family pictures, especially of the grandchildren doing things in America are special to people here. The children love to see the school work that Kelsey and Kole have done!

Making Gardens at Kongei Primary School and Rose’s House

On September 2, Peter Jensen, Katherine, another PCV, and I drove from Dar es Salaam to our house in Lushoto. Katherine and I had spent the weekend at Bagamoyo Beach Hotel, swimming, eating fresh fish, and celebrating the service of three year volunteers now returning to USA. Katherine and I spent Sunday and Monday at Peter’s house, having pizza while watching Frasier with his family, having breakfast and dinner conversations at the dining room table (and bare feet on carpeted floors) as the girls went off to school and Elise was getting ready for work. These family conversations, playing with the family dog and guinea pigs and helping with their garden was truly a time we both missed being home with our own families.

Peter Jensen has been working in Tanzania for 8 years, working with people all over Tanzania as well as training Peace Corps Volunteers about ways to grow more food in small spaces. His work with the Peace Corps is especially for People and families living with HIV/AIDS. The biointensive gardening and permaculture methods are a way for these folks to be able to have very productive gardens close to home and that take minimal energy to maintain. He was making his second visit to our area to develop a demonstration garden for our primary school , working with the students, teachers and community adults—learning by doing and working together to meld what Peter knows works and what the community knows works in their area with their cultural priorities and preferences for food and planting.

Arriving Tuesday afternoon, we met with the school adults to lay out a logistic plan to rotate students during the week to work and learn from the garden. We also had to find out how to bring adults from the community into the work in a proper way. We looked over the school grounds and the school made a decision as to where to put the garden. The school had already brought many buckets of manure and water for the garden.

Wednesday morning started with Peter showing his new movie of Tanzanians from different climates using the gardening methods successfully. The movie also has tutorials and graphics showing the methods we would be using during the week to develop their garden. Excitement was in the air. Students (grades 5, 6, &7), community adults and teachers all watching the movie, (about 200).

The garden started first by sprucing up the guild we had built during the Girls Workshop and constructing the double dug planting beds (6 total in the end!). At 1:30pm we stopped to have a celebratory lunch together with the school leaders. Sister Shirema welcomed Peter into their school family as we began our week together. Another 1.5 hours working in the garden and then Peter and I went to Lushoto to visit Rose.

Rose is a member of a group of women in Lushoto living with HIV/AIDS. She and I met when Nice brought Rose to the Girls Leadership Workshop as a guest speaker. Nice is the program director for an NGO serving women, teaching them computer skills to enable them to find jobs to support their families. Rose participated in the Permaculture demonstration we did at the Girls Workshop and said to me then, “I and my group and the people that really need to know these methods!” At that very moment, Nice, Rose and I started planning how to work together to start making gardens at Rose’s house and teach all the people of the group that wanted to learn.

Rose was not home as she needed to travel to Moshi Health Clinic, but she left instructions with her children to welcome us and help choose a garden spot at their house. Nice, Peter and I visited her house. It is truly amazing to see a landscape through Peter’s eyes! I had visited Rose’s House a week before to look at garden spots, but through Peter’s eyes, I learned how to look for the information that the soil, erosion and plant life that is their can teach. We left with a plan and Rose’s daughter ready to do her part before we returned to build a garden on Saturday!

Thursday through Friday, the Kongei garden took shape and the community’s ability to teach their children through showing then stepping back and letting them do was awe inspiring. Peter was family as the week progressed, that was clear. Three guilds, three banana trees added, a fresh compost pile started and 6 beds of vegetables planted happened by Friday afternoon. A guild is a Papaya tree, matembele below (nutritious perennial), lemon grass, and aloe vera planted in a group. This is a power packed grouping that is of plants common to every house in Tanzania. The beds planted are 1 meter wide and 6 meters long. There are two beds of carrots, two of kunde (beans), two of an orange sweet potatoe together with a local greens that covers the soil and is harvested once the potatoes come up.

Another important feature of the garden is the holes and shallow trenches to control the flow of water, directing it into the beds and slowing it down as it runs down the mountain side. This garden is a beautiful from the shape, colors, food it will provide and the engineering of structures to maximize the water that flows naturally.

After all cleaned up and the garden site, too, we all gathered to watch the movie again. But, in Tanzanian style, the generator created a electrical surge and the projector became toast. So, the students sang a song they wrote for Peter and we handed out the books on nutrition and life skills in kid language and a carrot to eat. A factor we did not consider when we invited parents to come on Friday was Ramadan. One parent came to look at the garden and then he and the adults working in the garden watched the movie. (Since this day we have heard testimony from a variety of folks that kids have told their parents about the garden and parents have been, now, stopping by to see the garden and have said they want to try one at their house.)

Saturday, Peter and I headed to Lushoto. Rose’s garden began. There were 14 friends of Rose that joined her to make a garden. The Lushoto Community Development Director, the secretary of another local NGO for controlling AIDS, and three teachers from a secondary school came. Peace Corps has 5 new health volunteers in the area and all were there, too, along with another PCV teacher. Then, of course were the children that easily made up another 6 participants.

The garden took shape, the first bed done slowly teaching the methods and building a sense of family between us as we built a garden. After chai, bread and bananas in the welcoming warmth of Rose’s home, we all put to use our knowledge. The women eagerly started another bed. Peter took small groups to construct three guilds in spots where the water runs naturally. Then Peter’s eyes became ours as he showed us where to dig holes to stop the water and where to dig inclined trenches to move the water down each bed. By 1:30 Rose’s Garden was a fact and we walked together with Peter to see other possibilities along the path to the dala dala that took us to Lunch at the Tea Room in Lushoto. Jackie served us all a delicious lunch of greens, beans, rice and meat. NyaKoki, community Development director then lead us to a meeting room where Peter showed his movie, questions were discussed and books and directions on the methods taught, nutrition and life skills were provided. I headed back to my school early, as we had Parent Day going on, but I heard that Peter was able to visit another secondary school of a PCV in the area, seeing the guild they had built and the papaya seedlings begun before taking his rest that evening.

These events of this powerful week are alive. I continue to work in my garden with my neighbors that are teaching me as I teach them--, harvesting potatoes, transplanting leeks, thinning carrots; harvesting g sweet potatoes from my matembele I did not realize were growing. I have reworked two beds by adding my 4 month old compost to the top! It is true, we did not have to double dig again, and they are still deep and loose!

Nice and Rose have told me that we are going to develop a garden at each woman’s house in her group. It is the spirit of a quilting bee I think. The group came to Rose’s house and built a garden, now we will continue the rotation until each woman has a garden. I told them, “I will be there.” Ali and Twaha, two of the adults at the Kongei garden have asked me which day I am free for us to go to another primary school and develop their garden—a school where their neighbors children go and have heard of the Kongei garden. They also ask, “Will you garden like this when you return to America?”

Food. Water. This is one way I know I can participate in this struggle with my neighbors here. We share the knowledge, work, food and spirit of a family.

August has brought 5 new health Peace Corps Volunteers to our area. I welcome these folks, both to provide more resources for the communities and schools we are working with and also, because the volunteer community has been a relief and a pleasure to socialize with on weekends. It is very nice to be able to not only speak English but to speak to folks with life experiences in the western world.

This week we may have one of the new volunteers stay here as their site and house is not yet settled. Then next week Peter Jensen will stay with us while working on developing a demonstration garden at Kongei Primary school and then a Saturday workshop and demonstration garden in Lushoto with a group of People Living With HIV/AIDS (PLWHA). Both the Primary school and the Community Development Office in Lushoto have been very active in supporting this visit from Peter. They are providing lunch for the participants, meeting room space and teaching pamphlets to compliment the reading material Peace Corps provides these participants on nutrition and HIV/AIDS prevention and care. It is all happening without outside funds (other than Peter’s services and travel expensive). This is very heartwarming to me in that it shows me they are very serious about sustaining the work to be done in developing more productive gardens and to learn better nutrition habits, as well as pass their new knowledge on to others interested. We will probably never know the impacts after we leave, but we are told these are hopeful signs.

John and I have started working with another primary school that is a two hour walk from our site. They are a school that was started because Kongei primary is a two hour walk for their young children (pre school – Standard 6 (grade6). Our night watchman and school shamba workers’ children attend this school and they asked us to visit the school and share the permaculture, biointensive gardening and any other resources we can offer their needs. Last Tuesday we met with the faculty, head teachers and community leader to discuss what needs they have. The story is very similar to Kongei Primary. They are in the process of building teacher housing as many of the teachers walk from Lushoto town (2+ hours). They are now short 2 classrooms because they have added a grade level as the kids progress (they started with preschool – Standard 4). So, they want to build a new classroom. There are no government funds coming that they know of in the near future. Then I asked what else do they what to tell us that they have not. A teacher very eloquently explained that of course these building are a priority but it is much more complicated and difficult to say what is a priority when you as a teacher are teaching and your students have not eaten and cannot stay awake nor think clearly to learn. This is very difficult because the school shamba can grow only enough food to last a few weeks after harvest to feed them porridge mid-day, and we know the villagers do not grow enough food, either to feed their families nor to give to the school in the form of foods or money to help build.

I worked with the night watchman (Twaha) to demonstrate double digging garden beds and we planted matembele and lemon grass that I brought from my garden. I will return this week to co-teach composting methods to decrease the amount of fertilizers needed to purchase and to reduce the burning of corn and bean stalks after harvest. This time Twaha and Ali (shamba worker) both want to come to help teach.

At home, my garden is doing great. I now get help from Asha, a woman that has been watering our flowers and sweeping our yard and courtyard as well as mopping once a week. She has developed a beautiful flower garden around our house that is the talk of the neighborhood. It is called “Asha’s Garden”. Now she has started to work with me to double-dig some new beds as I need to thin my carrots and leeks as well as plant some new things. In the next few weeks we will harvest potatoes! I have already had fresh green beans from the seeds Barbara brought with her when she visited.

We still get called Mzungu (European) when we travel by bike from home to Lushoto and back, but slowly it is changing to Johnny and Mama Johnny. I tried to teach them my name “Randee” but “r” is very difficult in Kiswahili and “Johnny” is a very common name. So… I used the cultural pattern of a Mama being called by either one of her children’s’ names for example “Mama Anna” or by her husband’s first name. Now I hear “Mama Johnny” yelled from the top of the mountains when I pass through on the main road. I often cannot see the children, but if I wave or shout a greeting back there are great cheers. Also, now that we have been to another village area of the other primary school, I notice more people (thatI do not know by face) greet me and ask me how Kongei is doing. Slowly we are feeling more like neighbors in a wider circle from our house.

As far as teaching, I am just about finished with the syllabus for the year. It will be one more month to finish and then review for the national exams. It has been very helpful to create a study guide for each unit that includes; vocabulary and questions for them to look up and complete; a pre-test they work on as a lab group; and lab directions and notes to put in their books as I teach the unit. I am able to make one copy for each lab group of 4-6 people. This has really helped save time from writing all the notes on the blackboard and it gives them freedom to work at their own pace to get the notes and complete the independent study work.

One of the most engaging English language lessons I did was giving my students the receipe for Chocolate Chip Cookies and Play dough. Since making them cookies and using homemade playdough for making cell models, they have been bugging me to give them recipes. When I finally did, even the most limited English speakers were coming up to ask questions about meaning and pronunciation of words. The students from the other Forms, now, are asking me for the receipes so they can make playdough for their brothers and sisters when they go home!

Starting this month, we have daily visits from the neighborhood children. They come to look at my bird books and read the children’s’ books of TZ animals that Barb and I got on our travels. Also, the life skills children’s magazines we get from Peace Corps Office are a big hit as these are in Kiswahili and have popular kids themes and characters. There are really good resources for communities from the TZ Peace Corps. The kids like to play ball and wrestle with us, too, of course. We saw a new bird species yesterday in my yard, a Green Wood-Hoopoe.The music club is doing well, learning the National Anthem to play at graduation in October. They now can read and play 8 notes as well as "clap out" measures in 4/4 time. Mostly, we are having lots of fun!

We had 4 fish to use with 100 students to dissect. It was a hit. I also got a cow heart, kidneys and lungs with trachea attached to do disection followed by individuals observing parts. The Science club finished their digestive system model and hung it in the library with an informative poster. Form I made plant and animal cells models from homemade playdough.

-It is August!

Our Girls workshop was such a hit and we had some money left that we had another jam making workshop day to try making orange marmalade. It is Orange season here and so they are real cheap!

While the jam was cooking we had lunch and then demonstrated how to make a Papaya tree guild garden at Kongei Primary with matembele and lemon grass cuttings from my garden.

You can see pictures on my PICASA web page!

July teaching has been fun.

I was able to get 4 live fish from a villager to dissect with the Form II students. They are very excited to be in the lab and use the equipment and touch things.

Form I mounted onion cell slides and used the microscopes last week. They are also, so grateful. This is the fun part of the job, 50 kids grateful to use 6 microscopes or 4 fish then another 50 reuse the same fish!

The students are drawing diagrams of many biology structures and love the colored pencils my sister brought. I always the pencils back at the end of class, every one!

The music club is doing great. They has learned 5 notes as well as how to read 4/4 time, quarter and half notes and rests and name the lines and spaces. They want to play Simple Gifts for graduation and also their national anthem.

I am going to try making “playdough” again to use for cell models. I need cream of Tartar, so someone is going to bring it from Dar.

I made a lung model with a lantern globe, balloon and hose. It worked! Next week I am getting a cow heart and kidney to dissect from our night watchman’s village. In three weeks the dispensary head nurse is coming to show the students how a stethoscope and blood pressure cuff work and answer questions about blood types.

At home, I bought a round bottom clay pot to cook rice and soup. Twaha, our night watchman made a banana leaf ngata to hold the pot on the table or... to carry on my head.

I also made 120 chocolate chip cookies for my Form I students with the chips Barb brought in June. Baking on a lid inside a bigger pot on a charcoal stove!

(Pictures attached)

I will take a break at the end of August for a long week end. Bagamoyo is a town on the beach near Dar. I am going to celebrate a PCV returning to USA. I am looking forward to the beach and some R&R.

Peace,

Randee

Hello from Tanzania!

I hope all is well and you are enjoying your summer in Minnesota! The weather here is actually what I would call cold, especially when I go further up the mountain to Lushoto. In the morning and evenings I can see my breath and at night I use two blankets or my sleeping bag. Still, the days are warm but I am wearing long sleeves and a shawl these days.

I am writing today to ask you to spread the word and encourage friends, family and colleagues to contribute money to my Peace Corps secondary project. Every volunteer is encouraged to discover a community need near our school and help facilitate a solution. The Peace Corps has different kinds of grants which we can submit proposals. After discovering that a pressing need at the elementary school in my village was teacher housing, I worked with the leaders to write a proposal for a partnership grant through the Peace Corps.

The Peace Corps Partnership Grant requires the community to contribute a minimum of 25% of the resources needed and then the American people are asked to contribute the remaining balance. Kongei Elementary School wants to build a teacher housing unit and a septic tank to support this unit. They are contributing 38% ($3,064.00) of the resources needed and are asking for the balance of 62%­ ($4,997.20).

Our proposal is very close to being approved by the Peace Corps Office in Dar es Salaam and they have asked me to start contacting people in America that can be useful in spreading the word and encouraging people to make contributions through the US Peace Corps website under our project title,

“Construction of Teacher Housing at Kongei Elementary School”.

Below is a summary of the project and background information about Kongei Elementary.

The website for contributions will be available in September 2008. We want to start the building process in December 2008. Your help will greatly assist us in accomplishing our goals. This project cannot go ahead without complete funding. Also, the project must be completed before I return to USA in November 2009.

Thank you for considering this opportunity to help me do my work and more important to help Kongei improve student educational performance through supporting teachers.

Peace,

RandeePeace Corps Partnership Proposal

Randee Edmundson, Peace Corps Volunteer

Lushoto, Tanga Region

Tanzania

Community Contribution: $3,064.00 (38%)

The community contribution includes: bricks, stones, sand, hardcore, transportation of materials, skilled labor, and unskilled labor.

USA Partners Contribution: $4,997.20 (62%)

The partnership contribution includes materials for construction and finishing the housing and septic tank. (see attached itemized budget )

Construction of Teacher Housing at Kongei Elementary School

Project Summary

Kongei Elementary government school is very different than a typical American rural public school. The classrooms are very full and have only the very basic facilities, student desks and a blackboard. Learning basic math, science and English are some of the biggest challenges for students and retaining teachers that are able to have time and energy to teach these subjects is one of the reasons for their difficulties. The students and the teachers work very hard, but what they can accomplish is compromised by the fact that most teachers live far from the school, walking up to 2 hours to and from school every day. Attracting new needed teachers is also difficult when there is no teacher housing available near the school.

Discussing these challenges with the headmistress, second headmaster and teacher of math and sciences, and the school teacher/matron, they have explained to me that the most pressing need is to provide housing at the school site for teachers. Sr. Shirima, Headmistress, Rueben Masenga, Second Headmaster and their teachers know that they can teach more effectively, be more reliable and have more energy for teaching longer hours and teach to more diverse student needs if they could have a house provided near the school. Through this project, they hope to retain the excellent teachers they have and be able to attract new highly-qualified, committed teachers, resulting in a better education for their 1000 students.

What we would do is build a teacher housing unit that can support one teacher family or several single teachers. The unit would have a septic tank and toilet that can support the new housing unit plus an additional unit that can be added on at a later date. Currently there are two teacher housing units that are being completed (by September 2008) by the effort of the community. This housing was left undone when government funding ran out. Pictures at the end of this report show these teacher housing units that are in process now as well as the site for the new unit and septic tank to be built with these funds.

With three teacher housing units completed by May 2009, Kongei would be able to house several of their current teachers that are walking 7-8 kilometers to school and back home every day.

School Background

Kongei Elementary School is in a rural farming village of the Usambara Mountains. This area of Tanzania is the Tanga Region and is located 15 km from the town of Lushoto. I teach at Kongei secondary school that is in the same area but is a private school. The elementary school is a government school. The school opened many years ago as a girls middle school but changed to a primary school and has been growing rapidly ever since. This large growth is due to a change in government policy. Tanzanian elementary school education was not free until 2003. Starting in 2003, the government ruled that all children must attend elementary school and their elementary schooling would be free of charge.

The increase in student population has also meant an increase in need for teachers. Also, the school is not able to offer enough afternoon and evening tutoring for their growing number s of students because teachers need to walk home after day classes.

Currently there are 1000 students, 544 girls and 456 boys. The school has 14 teachers, 10 women and 4 men. As the headmistress has explained to me, in Tanzania the schools are expected to provide housing for teachers, yet, the school has no current housing for teachers.

Without teacher housing near the school, the current teachers can become exhausted from their long commute by foot and transfer to another school given the opportunity for a better housing situation. Also, it is hard to attract new needed teachers to their Kongei without sufficient housing.

Project Evaluation and Monitoring

The project goal is improve student achievement through enabling teachers at Kongei Elementary School to be more effective in their teaching, and enable the administration to be more effective in attracting and retaining highly qualified teachers. In addition, to have teachers available to teach evening tutoring classes to improve student performance.

Objectives:

· Teachers will be able to increase time spent and quality of lesson preparation including one or both of the following:

o develop more teaching aids

o include more diverse teaching strategies.

· The current teachers will not leave Kongei nor will additional teachers needed refuse an offer to be hired due to lack of housing.

· The teachers housed (6) in school housing will offer students additional time for tutoring during the week.

· The percent of students taking the leaving exam (allowing them to enter secondary school) and earning passing scores will stay the same or increase in 2009. (53% in 2008)

Specifically we will compare the following data using current information and data collected June-September 2009:

· The time spent on lesson preparation

· The quality of lesson preparation with regard to teaching aids and diverse teaching strategies

· The number of teachers retained and/or added with reasons related to housing.

· The amounts of time teachers housed spend on tutoring students before or after school hours.

· The percent of students taking the leaving exam and earning passing scores.

Community Change

Rueben Masenga, second headmaster, expressed the following change that he believes possible: People of the community will learn that when you put your minds and physical efforts together around a common goal and invite a broader community beyond your own village, that you can accomplish larger goals and most importantly, it will change the relationship with people across the world in positive ways. We hope that we can be together with people all over the world and one day we can be in one world.

To complete this project, there are community elders, the community leader, the school leadership committee, skilled workers, and professional teachers working together with the young people of the community. The young people will learn the skills of how to lead a community and to cooperate as a community to accomplish large tasks through pooling ideas and both human and natural resources. One outcome of this is growth in the capacity of leadership to define and meet the goals and objectives of the community in the future.

We will conduct a school committee meeting and community meeting after completing the project to gather feedback as to what was accomplished and how this project changed the people of the community. We will document comments which specifically express gains in community organization, knowledge of assets, opportunities to share skills and knowledge with young people, or the lack of these attributes.

Community Need and Beneficiaries

On my first visit to Kongei Elementary school, Sr. Shirima, headmistress and Sr. Alma, teacher and matron, graciously welcomed me, gave me a tour of the school and explained their priorities to improve the education of their 1000 students. Their list included such items as teacher housing, an additional classroom and building for school and community gatherings, and a water well to collect rain water to make getting clear water easier especially during the summer season. On future visits to explore ways to address these needs, teacher housing was always listed as the highest priority. The school committee representatives explained that they had the ability to manage with getting water and even the possibility of getting help from the government with building a classroom but, due to lack of teacher housing, they could not afford to lose their teachers or lose their ability to attract new teachers needed to improve the education and performance of their students.

Direct beneficiaries of this project are the 1000 students, the current and future teachers, and the community. The headmistress and second headmaster explained that the community will benefit because their children will cooperate with learning more because they will have more energized teachers, with more time to prepare lessons that can meet diverse student needs and increase student involvement in learning. Also, teacher housing at the school will increase the number of teachers that can teach afternoon and evening classes. In these ways the teachers are better able to help students pass their exams and continue on to secondary school.

Finishing the existing incomplete teacher housing unit and adding one more unit with these funds will allow housing for 6 teachers, 2 teacher spouses, and three children of teachers. The people directly impacted are these 11 people and the 1000 students at Kongei that will be able to have better lessons and more lessons in the afternoon and evenings.

Kongei Elementary school has shown improvement in student performance since 2003 when they had 30 students taking the leaving exams and only 8 students went on to secondary school. Since 2003, the number of students continuing to secondary school has increased (29 and 17 students in 2006 and 2007). In 2008, there will be 65 students taking the leaving exam (compared to 33 students in 2007) and these students have already shown good scores on their June 2008 terminal exams. In 2009, there are 99 students projected to take the leaving exam.

Kongei students have good performance on the leaving exams. Some, after passing, continue to government secondary schools and others sit for private school exams, doing very well and attending these schools for their secondary education.

Project Timeline

Activity

Time

Proposed dates

Community Meeting

1 week

Weekend of Dec 5, 2008

Preparation of construction site

2 weeks

Jan. 15 – Jan. 30, 2009

Collecting of stones, bricks, and sand

1 week

Jan. 28 – Feb. 3, 2009

Purchase materials

1 week

Feb. 7 – Feb. 14, 2009

Construction of building

4 weeks

Feb. 17 – March 13, 2009

Plastering cement inside and outside

2 weeks

March 16 – March 20, 2009

Installing glass and ceiling board

1 week

March 23 – March 27, 2009

Painting inside and outside

1 week

March 30 – April 3, 2009

Construction of septic tank

2 weeks

April 6 – April 17, 2009

Installing plumbing and stool

3 days

April 21 – April 23, 2009

Plastering toilet and chambers

4 days

April 24 – April 29, 2009

Completion (Allowance for delays)

2 weeks

May 15, 2009

Total

18 weeks

The first week of July John and I helped facilitate a week long Girls Leadership Workshop at a secondary school 10 km from our school. We had 5 secondary students and 10 elementary students participate in a variety of activities and lessons. These included: lessons on adolescence, What is Love?, early pregnancy, HIV/AIDS transmission and prevention, assertiveness and negotiating with boys, food preservation( papaya, apple and pear jam making), nutrition and permaculture gardens, computer skills, Banana tree art card making, and group initiative games for confidence and collaboration.

We had two guest speakers from the area. One was a 26 year old women who had gotten pregnant while in school, telling her personal story, consequences and how she has managed to go back to school at this age. The other was a woman living with HIV/AIDS. The third day we had a panel of all the teachers participating from the four schools (men and women) and the guest speakers. The students had over 25 questions in a question box from all the sessions that the panel addressed. It was a very rich time together. After answering the first set, the students asked us all to leave and compiled another group of questions for us!

This Saturday, we are having a 1 day workshop by popular request after the week workshop. There will be more people from our community who are living with HIV/AIDS, many of the same students bringing their friends, and more teachers that want to learn jam making and permaculture techniques. This time we will make orange marmalade because this is ORANGE SEASON! I will be teaching composting and planting a nutritious "guild" in an opportunistic area where the water naturally runs off the roof or from the water spigot. Our guild will be a papaya tree, lemon grass for tea, and matembele (a dark green plant rich in iron and other vitamins).

Habari za leo?

I know it has been a long time since an update. We have had busy days with writing exams, correcting exams, and writing end of term reports. In addition, we have had bad luck with electricity, such that the days we go to town there is no internet. The computer that we were able to get internet at school sometimes died.

Good to be back to writing a blog update!

Since I wrote last we had Peter Jensen the PC biointensive gardening consultant come to our site. He worked with students, teachers, and school shamba workers to look at the current gardening techniques, consider spots to construct a demonstration garden for the schools and to teach some basic techniques for composting and for planting in beds that are double-dug to allow more food to grow in a smaller area. The reason these are important at our site and for many Tanzanians is that the good soil is at the bottom of the mountain in the valleys but many people plant both the valley and the steep slopes. The steep slope planting further erodes the soil, so there is less food and also a great loss of trees. The idea is to get more food from the low lands and plant trees on the slopes that are better at holding the soil and creating habitat for wildlife, and good for the ecosystem as a whole.

Students built two compost piles by my garden, 1x1x1 meter using brown and green plant material and then cow manure and water. I have turned these piles once after three weeks and already it is starting to look like rich soil.

Peter sculptured four matutas (beds) with water meandering from my sink outlet then around the beds. So, even on the dry days, my garden gets watered. Two village farmers came one day to help me finish double digging these beds, add manure to the lower soil, and plant French beans, potatoes, leeks, carrots, and nasturtium. I added a few smaller matembele mounds around a papaya tree. Last week I had our local carpenter make a garden bench that will seat three-four. When he delivered the bench we all sat and had sodas, enjoying the comfort of the bench (with a back rest!).

Peter is returning in September to work again with the community to build a demonstration garden. The primary school next to the secondary school where we teach can use this garden for students to learn biointensive techniques and to grow more food for school lunches. We have been told by the headmaster that currently they do not grow enough food to feed the student’s lunch everyday and if the school does not feed students, many do not eat a good lunch because families do not have enough food either.

My sister visited our site in May-June. She helped me work with the primary school leaders to draft a proposal for a partnership grant to build teacher housing. I hope to submit this proposal and have it approved by January so that Americans can donate funds for teacher housing. Currently the school has 13 teachers, but many have to travel a long distance to teach and then return home every night. This has really hurt the students learning, as the teachers are stretched beyond reason both physically and mentally.

John and I finished our first school term May 30th. Form I and Form III students went home and will return July 12th. Form II and Form IV students remained at school for three additional weeks to attend classes for further tutoring. These two Forms take the national exams in October which determine if they will be able to continue their education. If they do not pass or pass with low scores, the Form II and IV students have to repeat or find another school. Of course often this means school fees that the family cannot afford. SO… continuing classes and studying during the school holidays is an assumed necessity. Many teachers are hired to continue teaching during holidays.

John and I went on holiday with my sister Barb! We first went to Morgoro to visit our Tanzania family that we lived with during training. This was wonderful as it did seem like returning home to see our family, without having to go to school! After four days we traveled by bus to a beach area by Pangani. We had four days of swimming, snorkeling to see a coral reef, and paddling a kayak up to see the mangrove forest. After 5 days back at site, meeting with two schools to design a girl’s workshop on life skills training, we went on Safari through Tarangire, Lake Manyara and Ngorngoro.

We feel very refreshed and I have a long list of new birds seen which I can boast about!

Got to go! More later….

Randee

We were at a workshop in Moshi on sustainable agriculture with our counterparts (teacher partners from our school). It was a fun day of working outside making a garden with permaculture features to capture and hold the water and then double digging beds for the vegetables you want to grow. John and I and our counterparts are planning weekly sessions at school to teach about HIV/AIDs, safe sex and good nutrition through sustainable farming strategies including permaculture, biointensive gardening through deep, rich beds, hexagon planting closely and companion planting. I love this part of the job. We hope to have the neighboring villages participate in a 2 day program where we show the demonstration site the students will develop and let folks try some of the techniques. We have lots of erosion at our site from the loss of trees and the methods of planting crops on steep hills without terracing or constructing permaculture techniques. The pictures I put on the blog show the people shoveling sand out of the river after a big rain storm. The sand is left behind and all the soil is washed away with the water. The water is so muddy with soil it cannot filtered for drinking as another problem. Lots of water and none to drink! The villagers like it when this happens because they can shovel the sand in pile along the road and sell it for construction such as making cement for buildings and for roads. It really makes me sad to see this when it rains, so I am glad to teach permaculture and biointensive gardening.

Hello Family and Friends:

It has been a long time since I have had time to write. Since school has started in January we have been as busy as teachers at home… but sometimes in different ways.

We just finished midterm exams and the students have gone home for Holiday break. Classes start the week after Easter again. The students take 2 ½ hour exams in every subject. It took 4 days to finish exams. For a student to pass on to the next Form, they must get a score of 30% or better for Form I and II, 20% or better for Form 3 & 4. Eighty percent of their grade is based the final exam. So, practicing taking huge exams is very important. It is also important to take exams to get used to reading and writing in English. Kiswahili is their national language but all secondary education is in English. Accomplishing a 30% score is not easy for this reason. For students here, education is not free and to fail means a lot of money to families and few options to continue your education.

As I have told you, I have three different subjects, Biology Form I, Biology Form II, and Chemistry Form I. The Form I students have two streams meaning 2 classes of 51 students. Form II has two streams of about 45 students. John teaches Form III Mathematics which has three streams of about 35 students.

Each stream has their own classroom where all their classes are taught. So, the teachers move each period and the students stay put. It is nice in that they do not carry books and supplies around. Teachers need to transport books and supplies around but, the students willingly assist with carrying things. Their help is almost excessive from the perspective of this American teacher. The students insist on carrying everything for you where ever you go. For science experiments there is a laboratory that seats 48 students (12 lab groups). My Form I students exceed this number so they have lab groups of 5 students and some stand. I am known as the teacher that uses the lab and have even earned the privilege of carrying the lab key. The first month of classes I spent as much time hunting down the key as preparing the lab materials. The academic master had the key locked in his desk and I would have to find him to get the key to his desk to get the lab key.

This opens another conversation about school keys. All rooms and buildings have locks except for the toilets, although I have noticed that during holiday these have padlocks. What is most amazing is that the key to every room/building is available to anyone at any time, including students except for the laboratory, the headmaster’s office and any padlocks that teachers or students put on their personal trunks or desks. I was told that they used to leave the lab “open” but the national inspectors visited and said that the lab key had to be kept from students.

One day John set his watch down on his desk and left. When he returned it was gone. He searched his desk but could not find it. Finally he told another teacher. The teacher was so surprised. She told John that the students would never dream of taking anything from a teacher. She told him to look again in his desk. Sure enough, it was buried in the back of his desk. SO… we have learned that although everything is open it is safe with 400 students watching over us and our things. There have been cases where students take things from each other but teachers are different as we have learned.

Our school is built on the side of a small mountain. This means that every trip is either up to a class or an office …or down. My legs are getting a work out. Especially when I run to get forgotten supplies for a class or when we get electricity. It seems we have electricity about half the time. When there is umeme everyone runs to plug in their cell phones, the office madly makes copies needed and a few of us charge our computers and ipods.

A similar kind of mad-dashing around happens when it rains. I was astonished when my whole class jumped up and ran out the door the first time it rained hard during class. After the herd of students passed, puzzled, I asked a teacher standing under the eaves. She calmly stated that they needed to bring in their clothes so they wouldn’t get wet. The students hang their washed clothes and kangas (a large cloth used to wrap-up in the morning and evening to and from the shower and toilets) outside to dry during the day.

Well, this made sense. Then later in the day, I passed the student dorms. The dorm windows have bars on the outside and shuttered glass windows that close from the inside. I saw that the dorm windows had clothes stuffed between the bars and the glass. Socks and kangas were tied around the bars and shirts and panties were stuffed in-between. I thought a minute, then remembered that the dorms are locked during the day. The clothes were stuffed in the windows, under the eaves, to keep dry in the rain, of course!

The food at school is simple but nutritious. Students eat porridge in the morning (6am) porridge at tea time (10:45am), ugali or rice and beans and cabbage at lunch(1:15pm) and the same or mkande for dinner (6:30pm). Mkande is a thick stew made from cracked corn and beans. If available there will be onions and tomatoes added. Porridge can be made of many things but the school uses mostly corn. The school has a farm that grows corn, beans, sugar cane, cabbage, onions, bananas, and mango. The students get fruit that is in season from the farm and on very special occasions, meat or fish. The school has chickens, goose, turkeys and cows in moderate numbers. The school soil is good because of the manure and composting. Fish is easy and relatively cheap to get. It is dried so all the fish dishes are made from dried fish.

We can make just about all the African dishes because Mama Flora taught us. I had two of the school nuns over for lunch and made vegetable coconut soup and chapatti. They said that because I can cook African food and know how to wrap kangas like an African mama, they were going to give me an African name . It is really nice to have such fresh food. My garden has fresh greens, carrots and fruits such as some kind of apple with lots of seeds (sort of like pomegranate) and papaya. Our neighbors give us bananas for eating and cooking regularly. The local vegetable stand has tomatoes, onions, coconut, fish, and mango regularly. Other stuff we buy in Lushoto. We eat little meat because John doesn’t like fish and meat is hard to keep without refrigeration. We buy pork and goat meat to cook as a treat. When shopping in town, we usually have chicken at a restaurant.

African fashion varies but there are some rules that I have made for myself to help me know how to dress in a culturally appropriate manner and to “fit in”.

Rule I

A dress or skirt below the knee is a must. Longer is better.

Rule II

Wear outfits that have matching top and bottom as well as a matching head wrap. Beads that match and dress sandals are even better. This assures you look “smart”.

What to do if you do not have matching components… go to Rule III.

Rule III

If it doesn’t go with anything, it goes with everything.

Rule IV

If your skirt or shirt has a spot or you have a bad hair day, cover it with a kanga. If you can’t decide which kanga to choose… refer to Rule III.

Other news is that I walked in the Kilimanjaro ½ Marathon on March 3rd. We were in Moshi for a Peace Corps training on HIV/AIDS and permaculture the week before, so I decided to join some other PCV to do the ½ marathon. Most ran but a few of us walked. It was so fun to be with some amazing Tanzanian and Kenyan athletes as well as those just out to do it, just like us. Definitely years at the Birke ski race and coaching made me the loudest cheering fan. Because I was walking, I got to see everybody looping back and I had plenty of energy and breath to cheer. And, I have learned the African women’s celebration call to use, too! (This sound is made with a high pitch “who” while moving your tongue side-to-side, back and forth quickly, between your lips).

We had our first overnight guests. Two PCV’s that had come to run in the marathon followed us home to see the Lushoto area. One was from Iringa, TZ and one from Zambia. Both were environmental volunteers and we had fun learning about the things we could do here at Kongei to encourage the community to make environmental improvements.

It looks like my sister, and brother-in-law will be visiting in June. We have a break in June and start teaching the second week of July through November. Right now we are having BIG rains that come about one a day or every other day. I need my mud boots to get to school and I am learning all the Kiswahili words for mud, slipping, falling, dirty, BIG rains, and weeding the garden. (Last month I was learning to say “watering the garden”--- no more watering! June starts the dry season, so it looks like a two more months of rain.

Palm Sunday was a one hour hike up a steep mountain to the one church having a huge service with special music and of course, palms cut from the surrounding trees. It was worth the hike. On our return the rains made for deep mud and a wait under eaves of a goat barn until we were invited in by the children of the home to wait in warmth. I went with one of the school Sisters, and I was amazed to watch her climb through the mud trails and rain in her white habit. No problem she says.

We hope to get two of the non-working computers at school going and we finally got a modem to try to get internet at site. Don’t hold your breathe. This is Tanzania.

I enjoy just imagining spring in Minnesota. Your days are getting longer, spring green colors. We have the full moon but our days will stay the same.

Peace to all,

Randee

School started mid January. All is going well. I teach Biology to Form I and II and Chemistry to Form I. John is teaching mathematics to Form III. Form I and II is similar to middle school grade students and Form III and IV like high school(9-10). For the first two months, Form I has Language Academy to improve their English. I am enjoying teaching language academy for the Form I as it reminds me of all the kinds of strategies we used for SPPS ELL learners. Also, it is what I went through to learn Kiswahili the last four months. Form I students and I are both “new” to the school so that helps us build a close relationship.

Students live at the school. The get up at 5:00 am and eat porrage and milk tea at 6am. The girls have cleaning jobs until 7:15am such as cleaning the ground and water channels of leaves, bathrooms, classroom floors and blackboards, ect. At 7:30 am all students gather in the main courtyard for Parade, which is a formal gathering for announcments, demontrations of student projects or writings, prayer, and inspection of uniforms. Classes start at 7:45am. There are 9 periods in a day with a 15 min break for tea at 10:45 and 45 min lunch at 1:15. Classes end at 3:30pm. Every Form has some days of 45 minute classes for each subject and some 90 minute classes. Math is always 90 min. after Form II. Every Year the students take Chem, Biology and Physics as well as Math, English, Kiswahili, Civics/History, Agriculture, and Religion. I teach one single period and one double period of Chemistry Form I, Biology Form I and Biology Form II every week. SO that is 18 periods a week of teaching. I also assist with Science Club, Music Club and Library after school.

I have already taught Saturday classes to catch-up on things we could not finish during the week for Form II. I like the option to teach evenings and Saturdays, it seems more relaxed and the students seem to like it too. Last Saturday, I coached my first Music Club session. There was not a plan to have a music club, but people heard me playing my Native American flute at night and when a group of students asked for a music club so that they could learn how to play the flutes in the school store, I was recruited. So, now I am discovering how to teach flute and it is a fun adventure so far!

I have found the resources I brought from my teaching and colleagues in America very valuable, both for teaching science to English Language Learners and for collaborating with my colleagues in creative lesson planning. These are simple things that can make a huge difference for the learner. These first months at site I have already had many opportunities to collaborate with fellow teachers on planning lessons and sharing ideas and resources. The Anatomy Coloring Book, a molecular model building kit, and the Bakken (Minnesota)curriculum for teaching static electricity by building your own equipment to generate static electricity without the use of current electricity have been a hit(Thanks Greg!). Also, the Atlas (vol 1&2) from AAAS has been useful to many of us in planning. The computer sent by MN friends and family has also helped gernerate reproducible documents that students can read and can show the video clips I brought from the SPPS Biology Curriculum on a flash drive. I am having students build life size human anatomy models using their own bodies as “forms” (taken from Ann Oubaha at Jackson ELementary.

In turn, the faculty of Tanzania has shown me how to get local supplies and how to engage fundis(carpenters, plumbers, masons, etc,) to build needed equipment. We have had fun scheming together to use the village people and landscape materials to create teaching tools.

Several Students have asked about wanting an American Pen Pal. Let me know if you know students in your class that are interested.

I have already experienced one of the frustrations of teaching children – anywhere in the world— a few students stealing from each other and bullying when adults are not watching. It has been very helpful to be part of this Tanzanian faculty and learn the way this is handled. The biggest contrast to my American school system experience is that the participation of ALL teaching staff members is required when the matter is discussed, when students come to be questioned and when students “fess-up” to their wrong doings. Although it was terribly sad to be missing teaching time, it was clear how important to the Tanzanian culture to have all the adults contribute to the problem solving equally and for the students to see that they are watched-over and concerned for by all adults. Obviously this can go awry depending on the integrity of the adults and leaders of a school, but for me, this was a positive experience even though frustrating from a teaching standpoint.

The biggest challenge at site is cooking in the dark. At first light I need to be walking to school to get there on time and more often than not, I return home just as it is starting to get dark. Without electricity, cooking by lantern light is a challenge, but it has made for some interesting meals. The month before school started, I had several people over for dinner, trying out all the different dishes that I learned in my host family home. I have had such a great time cooking and learning new dishes from neighbors and colleagues, I can do OK in the dark, but a few meals have ended up on the floor when I missed the jiko (stove).

One of the greatest joys has been expanding the garden outside my house. There is a papaya tree just outside my window where I planted the chaichai(lemon grass) cutting I brought from our CCT PEPFAR training in Morogoro. Then, I discovered the run-off from our roof could drain right to the papaya tree if I dug a little trench with my jembe. I then made two consecutive rings of plant beds around the papaya for planting matembele. This attracted the attention of the school shamba worker and the night watchman. They both offered to help water and this led to expanding the garden to include carrots, matenga, vitunguu, swiss chard, and herbs. After this, the school sisters offered to give me cuttings of flowers to put by our house. A few days later, a student was sent home with me, cuttings in hand, to plant flowers. Devota is still one of my favorite students to greet each day because we have the shared memory of planting flowers and talking together (in my “special Kiswahili “and her “special English”).

It has been fun and helpful to explore as much of the surrounding neighborhoods by riding bicycle. One day we were riding from school to town and met a man that was carrying a sack of corn kernels on his bike. The sack had fallen and corn kernels spilled on the road. He was patiently picking them up, one by one. I felt reverence for this culture to see that these golden kernels were so valued. It reminded me how dependent people are on the food that comes from their village land – especially with the decreasing rainfall. (In contrast, the value of a corn kernel in America is long ago lost due to subsidized farming and overproduction of this monocrop.) I stopped, to greet him and to help with the task at hand. We talked and laughed and enjoyed the time together. It started to rain and we worked a bit faster and eventually every corn kernel was retrieved. Because of this time together, he is another person I so enjoy seeing on the road when traveling to town.

Happy Valentines day!

Randee

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

We are just getting to know our neighbors and colleagues. Last Week we visited our nightwatchman's house. We met all the neighbors that we have been greeting along the road for three weeks as their houses are also along the side of the same Mountain. As you can imagine, we were humbled by their generosity of spirit and food. We were they only ones that were fed ( bananas, cucumbers, a donut type thing, juice and chai with milk. A nephew who spoke English was with us and helped when our Kiswalhili (and Kisamba) language fell short. He told us how important it was that we see their "environment" which I understood by the end included houses, shambas(farms), family structure and how to be a good neighbor. We were escorted to the houses and brought back home, but told that "now we know where they live and they expected us to visit -- and that we can expect visits as well!

School is empty. More teachers will arrive after Xmas. Now I am enjoying the older Sisters at our site, as they are my age and some speak a lot of English and have studied in USA. They are fun and seem to understand us foreigners a bit.

We spent Xmas eve with the Sisters, went to mass at our site church and spent Xmas with the other Peace Corps Volunteers in our region in a Lushoto Hotel with hot showers and the music and celebrating in town.

We are having a good time and looking forward to our work to start.

The Students arrive Jan. 6th and classes start Jan 14th. My Form 1 classes have only English and Math classes the first 8 weeks. I will teach English with Chemistry Themes and start Chemistry syllabus in March. Form 2 Biology will start in January. The syllabus is thematic, EX: Nutrition (plants and animals and Humans), Transport of materials, Environment, etc. Because we have a lab we will be doing "practicals" lab investigations regularly. I will have 45-50 students in my classes. I am glad we will have boarding students so we can work together after class aswell and have a science club to reach students on a more personal level.

I was able to get pictures loaded on this and the previous blog! Check them out!

Pictures of Our site , the school and our house are now on the previous blog.

These pictures are of End of Morogoro Training party , John's 60th Birthday Party, and Mikumi Park Lions.

More updates in January!

We both wish you ALL a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Peace and Good Health to ALL

Onga!

(KiSamba for greetings)

We are now in Lushoto at our new home and school. This in in the Usamba Mts and the local people are Samba. It is very beautiful

and there are lots of fruit out our back door-- also a garden with vegetables to

tend to. Most nights there are folks drumming and singing us to sleep from somewhere across the valley from our house. I am practicing my native american flute in the

evenings, so I wonder what they think when they hear this. Because we are

separated by the valley and can only see each others lights, their

fire and our kerosene lantern.

There is a Kilimanjaro marathon coming up and some of the other Peace Corps Volunteers are participating. I am hoping to go watch and cheer from Marangu Hotel where I stayed two years ago to climb the mountain!

We start teaching in January-- Biology and Chemistry for me, John will teach Math. We have a school with a lot of growing success in national exams over the last 4 years. It is all girls boarding and so we will have time to socailize and have clubs arter the school days. We are told the staff likes to work together and that is

what we have seen so far. We are in paradise!

Our house had a pile of food and basic furniture when we arrived -- the community is very welcoming. I have been cooking ugali, beans, rice and more with all the fresh vegetables available. When it rains, I go out and dig up a little bit more space to plant a few more things we would like handy such as leeks and garlic, matembele and pumpkin.

We have 4 bedrooms and a living area then an open courtyard with a sink that separates this from the kitchen, storage area, toilet, and bathing area. We have water to the house but no electricity. We use kerosene for cooking and lights. We have charcoal stove as a back=up. The school has electricity (a km away) to charge our phone, ipod and computer. We have a solar cell. We visited a Benedictine Mission and one of the Brothers gave us a battery and a flouescent light that works great with our solar collector for light!

Yesterday we hiked to a view point that was incredible. There was a place that made cheese so we bought some for a treat at home. You would like it here. Lots of up and down and beatiful views (but hard on the knees). I rode my bike once.

Not hard to find mountain bike trails. That is all we have!

Mambo!

We just recieved our assignment. We are going to the Tanga region near Lushoto. This is in the Usambara Mountains. We are told this is a beautiful place and is cool to cold, yet not a far ride to get to the Indian Ocean for some days at the beach. We will both be at the same school, a girls boarding school with 360 students. It has a highly committed faculty and the school has a stong reputation for student success. They are in great need of a Math and Biology teacher because a PCV is leaving(Math) and the Biology teacher left a month ago. There is a Science lab with equipment and a well stocked library.

I visited a girls boarding school last weekend near Kili and really enjoyed hanging out with the girls in their dorm area and am told that in boarding schools, projects, like sustainable Gardens and clubs(sports, health and academics) are easier to have work.

We are told we have a house with 4 bedrooms!, running water but no electricity. Yet the school does have electricity for us to use.

There is camping and hiking nearby and we can bike or hike to town for major supplies and such. Andrew is the PCV leaving and has been talking to us about the school and site all day,,, so we are confident of the infomation.

We will be cooking with wood, kerosene or charcoal, and will be warmed by a wood stove at night. It is still warm compared to MN so it should be a great life weather wise. The PCV leaving also said the teachers like to colaborate on teaching and projects so we are very excited!

This is said to be the beauty of Africa.

By the end of Next week we should be heading to site!

Enjoy the winter for me!

Happy Thankgiving and peace to all,

Randee and John

p.s. We are in Dar es Salaam and headed back to Morogoro tomorrow to finish training, have our swearing in ceremony, and say goodbye to our TZ host families. We had a Thanksgiving dinner at the PC directors house on Monday and have enjoyed roaming around Dar after sessions. We ate at a French Bakery this morning as we talked kiSwahili with the agriculture expert for the chamber of commerce and then learned the Kiswahili word for "the tide going out" from a man on the dala dala. Being in view of the Indian Ocean is also very fun. It is the first time I have seen this body of water and it is nice to smell the ocean and look at the ships and waves off shore. We are really enjoying the adventure of learning the language from the people and being in a different place.

Habari za Yako (What is the your news?),

We are very busy each day and have little time to think of anything but learning Kiswahili and preparing our lessons or learning important cultural activities like cooking ugali( a type of corn meal mush) and fish in coconut sauce and of course rice and beans. This all starts with catching a ride on a dala dala to the market, bargining in Kiswahili and paying the price -- after figuring out the money and the amount communicated. Then, at home using the slow cooking electric burner and washing dishes that have piled up all day because there is not water during the day. Then of course boiling water for the next day to drink and taking a bucket bath with cold refreshing water after a hot day. It is a real education and I have a great respect for accomplishing employment and school duties on top of simply living!

Also, our Kaka (brother) arrived home this week unexpectedly from boarding school. He had been sick and was getting worse, so they took him to the hospital and found he has ascaries (worms) which was causing extreme diarrhea and weakness. He is on medication and is getting better each day. It was good to see him this morning in the kitchen getting some uji (porrage made from millet, corn, and rice flour) and a smile on his face. He is worried as he has national exams in two weeks and has missed school. But he is a good student and we hope he can get better and study hard. In Tanzania if you do not pass your exams you cannot go on to higher education. (And, all schools cost money that is very difficult for families to afford.)

Last weekend all the PCT(Peace Corps Trainees) took a vacation trip Saturday and Sunday to visit Mikumi National Park. We went on an afternoon and early morning safari ride to see the wild animals. We say a lion pair (on honeymoon), zebras, elephants, crockadiles, giraffes, impalla, water buffalo, warthogs, Hippopotomi, monkeys and more. I had my birding binoculras and my bird book. I saw many species that I learned three years ago. I saw several violet breasted rollers, fish eagle, egyptian goose, ibis, plovers, superb starlings, and more. I really enjoyed this. It felt like the first time I really got to enjoy the outdoors since we left.

This was our last week of teaching. I have only to write a test and grade projects and my internship teaching is done. We go to shadow another PCV(current Peace Corps Volunteer) at their site, week after next. Then, we get to learn where we will be placed - maybe - the following week.

John had a wonderful birthday party on Wednesday. I am so glad because we really missed being with you all for his 60th party. Mama Flora invited our PCT(Peace Corps Trainee) colleagues, teachers and some neighborhood/church friends (16 people). It is hard to explain but it was like a wedding reception with balloons, flowers, a fancy cake (with candles and Happy Birthday John) and a special table decorated for John and I to sit facing all our guests. Our Mama is a trained chef so the food was fabulous and plenty of it! Everyone sang to him and then they started clinking their glasses ( American custom thown in) to get him to kiss me. I liked that part a lot! Also, Mama brought in a full stereo system for music. We had a fun time visiting with new neighbors and our PC friends.

Siku mjema,

(have a good day)

Randee

I have tried two different ways to save and download pictures on to my blog with no luck. I buy kompyuta minutes at an internet shop and use most of the time just waiting for the things to process. I can burn an hour with out writing much of anything.

So, this week is draging. It is hot and we are not doing much of anything new-- just more Kiswahili. Sunday I went with Mama to the Saba Saba market. It is like an art fair but bigger and people are selling everything from kitchen utensils to cloth, food and tools. Vendors come from far and it is packed. We found material for a dress, a pants out fit, a kitenge wrap and a scarf to wrap my head. These will be my professional dress when on site. John was with and found material with bikes on it for making a shirt. Mama bought the identical material for a pants out fit for her. This week we will visit a tailor to make these. It was a fun day.

Sundays begin with church. Mama is in the choir so we go early (7am). I am learning many of the hymns as I go to practice with her during the week when I can. After church John and I wash clothes in teh yard using the water from a huge cement container that holds water for when the water is off. ( The water is off from 6am till 4pm everyday because it is diverted for livestock uses.) We use two large buckets, one to wash and one to rinse our clothes. They dry fast in the hot sun on the clothes line.

I told you about Tiaga, the dog. I started giving him a dried fish snack every morning on our way to school. Mama cannot understand this. I told her it is a crazy American custom to treat our dogs in the morning.

The dala dala that many have asked about is actually a van, about a 12 passenger van. But, it has seats for about 22. Then more people fit on, squished, if needed. They are quite fun to ride because we are all so close with no hope of being polite to avoid touching or steping on each other-- so everyone just laughs, enjoys the music they have playing and makes it possible for people to get off when needed. Also, cheap rides! Each dala dala is privatly owned. In Morogoro center there is a dala dala stand that has maybe 50 dala dalas moving in and out all the time-- all going in one of about 6 main directions leading to various regions/villages. Each dala dala has a driver and a person that collects the fair as well as solicits riders by hanging out the sliding door window, banging on the side of the van and yelling out the destination/direction it is headed. This behavior happens at the dala dala stand and all along the road as we pass people walking. We(John and I) think it is the perfect job for John. He would get to ride hanging out the side of the van, yelling at people and.. he gets to do math, collecting fairs and giving change. Then, of course, laughing, keeping people happy and being a referee when there are squabbles, too.

I will keep trying to get pictures loaded. You can send letters or email. I am getting emails but maybe not answering all personally as I have such little time at the computer. It may change when we get to post site in December.

Love to all, I miss you,

Randee

Here are pictures of my Tanzanian family, the School where we are practice teaching and studying Kiswahili, and our Lutheran church service on Children's day.

Oh.. and a dala dala (mini van that can carry atleast 30 people at a time I think.

I am having problems loading pictures now. I will try tomorrow.

I took my midterm exam for Kiswahili today. I definitly have what they call survival language ability and maybe a little more. I taught my first Biology class on thursday and enjoy the kids very much!

I cannot wait to get to post! Next Saturday we get to take a trip to a national park to see animals and take a rest.

More later,

RAndee

Mambo!

Habari za Marekani?

We have been with our host family for almost a week and it already feels like home. I am so glad to get home after being in a hot classroom all day and trying to learn Swahili. I feel most successful with my language progress at home with my brother, 2 sisters, Mama and

Baba. Also, when speaking with the students at our school and around town. It is very fun being able to speak well enough to have stangers willing to talk to me.

We have outstanding Kiswahili teachers. It is challenging but very well organized to give me what I need immediately and build a base to , now, start making sebntences of my own as needed.

Our home has four bedrooms, kitchen, dining room, living room and bathroom. We do not have a flush toilet or shower but we do have running water in Morogoro(except between 7am-4pm).It is common for us to take 2 bathes a day because it is hot and it is what everybody does to stay cool and sweet smelling! We have electricity. Our family has many fruit trees (banana, lemon, orange, avacado) and chickens. Yesterday, John and I found a nearly dead rooster from another rooster pecking him. When we got home, our brother told us that we would be having chicken for dinner on Sunday!

John and I have attended ( with our host mama and baba) a Kitchen Pot Party and a Send Off Party.These are for a woman getting married. The Kitchen Pot is for married women only to teach the new bride how to be a good wife. ( A man has a party,also, to learn how to be a good husband.) We have been told by our Kiswahili teacher that John was very lucky to have been invited!) The Send Off is a huge celebration for the woman's family to send her off and the man's family to invite her into their family. Also, the friend spresent gifts. Both have dancing and lots of funny stories along with the serious matters.

I have also met my contact teachers for practice teaching at my school. Our school has a biology lab with sinks and gas at lab tables! We have begun looking at the Syllabus. It will be another week before I actually observe or practice the classroom. I am excited to work here. They whole staff and faculty are very attentive to student needs and enjoy collaborating to make things work for every student.

Times up!

Kwa Heri!

Randee

Salama!

This week we have learned how to construct sentences and how to bargin in the market. We have also started working on lesson design and how to adapt to the Tanzanian schedule and school structure. I asked Babu ( the school elder that brings chai at 10 am everyday and mush more that I am discovering. I asked for supplies I needed for a lesson of my contact teacher. She sent me to Babu to get me a hoe to dig for insects and also mentioned that Babu catches grasshoppers for her when she needs them for classes.

Today, coming into town on the dalla dalla and it actually felt normal. In teh market I bought fruits of the Baobab tree and successfully bargined to get the amount I wanted and at a local price (not the price that is given to wazungu).

Yesterday, I picked up the dress that was made for me by a local tailor. My mama picked out the material for me and helped me decide on a good pattern. John has a matching shirt and black trousers that were made for him. I am starting to feel like I fit in and that dresses fit with me.

The people in our small neighborhood near our school are talking to us more. I got stopped by a woman that wanted to talk about teaching. She is a elementary teacher in a school right in Morogoro. She is very experienced and is the head teacher. It was like talking to one of my colleagues in MN-- but we were talking every other sentence in Kiswahili. People are so patient and so kind to help us.

AT home my youngest (5) dada (sister) Shose loves to ride on my back and twrill until we both get dizzy. She is very strong and loves to run. My other dada is 10 years old. She helps me with my kiswahili and I help her with her science. When I come home hot, she likes to comb my hair and it cools me off. Finally, we have a dog, Tiaga. He is not a pet but he does greet us everyday when we come home and I like this.

Got to go.. times up

Siku mjemi.

Baadaye

Randee

Habari za asubuhi,

Well...I have to start trying. They tell us learning the language is the most important tool to have for our safety and success.

We arrived late last night in Dar es Salaam. It was a beautiful flight where we were able to see the Alps, the Italian coast, and the Saharan desert.

It is warm and rain sprinkles every so often. I feel well cared for and very safe. We are told Tanzania is one of the very best Peace Corps organizations -- long lived and well organized. We got our shots today and met the staff that will be supporting us. Tomorrow we leave for Morogoro and Sunday we meet our host families. Our training will be in groups of 8 (5 different training schools, I think) and most of our learning/teaching will be done by our host families. Once a week we meet all together for large group trainings. Language and culture are at the top. We will also be observing and practice teaching in the schools of Morogoro. I feel confident that we will be prepared. We are also told that HIV/AIDS education will be a big part of our job and is well funded. The PC Staff seem very excited by the quality and size of the educational efforts here.

John and I have a TV in our room for these two nights. It is helpful to watch Tanzanian TV and hear them speak.

Thank you for all your e-notes to me. It is very fun to read these.

Kwaheri!

Map of Africa

Tanzania is in east Africa, sub - Saharan.

We will be training in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Getting ready to leave is a community task. Today, my ski-buddies came to our house and packed our entire kitchen, cleaned cupboards, and cooked dinner. Each week we have had community help to transition out of our jobs, run a garage sale, store our precious items and listen to our ups and downs. The inspiring words and protective prayers from friends and family lead the way.

Sunday is the day we pull away from shore. I can hardly wait!