Time for another post.
I don’t have a theme for this post because I don’t really know what to write. So bear with me. I am writing this post not because I have something new and exciting to share but because it has been almost a month since my last one and I know many people enjoy receiving updates on my experiences.
As I think over the past month nothing stands out as being a highlight so I will just type and see what I come up with. This past month at school has gone how you imagine the end of the school year going. Teachers are tired, students are tired, the school seems to be moving at a slower pace. As I write this (November 12th) the Form 4 students (seniors) are taking their biology practical exam. Last week they had written exams for all of the subjects and this week they have practicals for biology, chemistry and physics. At the end of this week they will be done with their secondary education. The exams they are taking will have a large effect on their future. Each students will be given a grade for each subject exam and then an overall division score. There is Division 1, 2, 3, 4 and 0. Division 0 means they they did not pass and therefore are unable to continue their schooling. Divisions 1, 2, 3, and 4 are all passing scores with Division 1 being the best. Their score will determine their eligibility for A-level (which they call high school, similar to a technical degree), college, or university (I still cannot distinguish the difference between college and university here but I know there is a difference and that University is a higher level of schooling than college). The NECTA exam for Form 4 students contains questions on all of the information students learned throughout their four years of secondary education. These exams are a huge deal in Tanzania. All last week and this week we had teachers from other schools hear proctoring the exam as well as a supervisor and two police officers. All this is to make sure there is no cheating.
There is also a NECTA exam for From 2 students. Form two began their exams yesterday and will finish on Friday as there is no practical in Form 2. After Friday both Form 2 and Form 4 will be done for the year and the school will only have the Form 1 and 3 classes for the remaining weeks. The results of the Form 2 NECTA exams will determine their eligibility of continuing on to Form 3 as well as how many subjects they will take. Those who score Division 0 will either have to retake Form 2 or drop out of school. In Form 1 and Form 2 students take 9 subjects: Civics, History, Kiswahili, English, Geography, Biology, Chemistry, Math and Physics. After the Form 2 exam only those who scored well in the science subjects will continue on with Chemistry and Physics and the other students will drop to only 7 subjects. I hope that explanation wasn’t too confusing but I wanted to share a little more about the school system in Tanzania. I have also attached a picture that hopefully will make things more clear.
Aside from teaching I continue to be very involved in FEMA Club and last week I lead a session on HIV/AIDS. I had questions for the students to discuss and then a true/false section with various facts and myths about HIV/AIDS. After our discussion I had a couple videos for them to watch. Students really enjoy watching videos, no matter what the topic is so that was a big hit.
FEMA Club has also recently started construction of a smart area. “Smart” is a term used to describe anything that looks nice. For example a person who is dressed nice, you could say, “you look smart today”. In this case we are creating a sort of memorial garden for FEMA as the FEMA club smart area. I have attached some pictures of other schools’ smart areas as well as the design and pictures of the progress we have made as of now. I will be sure to share photos once the area is complete as well. Part of the construction of the smart area required us to fire bricks that had been made. Daniel, the head of school, a group of students and myself stayed up one evening during the bricks. The students and I all left around midnight to get some sleep but Daniel and the head of school stayed until 4 in the morning keeping the fire stocked.
Another activity FEMA Club took on was planting trees around the school. Daniel wrote a letter to an organization in Lushoto requesting trees to be donated to the school. He wrote the letter thinking we may be given 100 trees and we ended up receiving 4,000! The day the trees were delivered classes were canceled for the afternoon and all students helped in sorting, measuring rows, digging holes and planting trees. I got to plant my very own banana tree just outside my courtyard wall! Unfortunately it will take at least 2 years for it to produce any fruit and I will be gone by then, but it will be there for the volunteer after me.
In addition to planting trees at school I have also started my own garden in my courtyard from seeds that were given to me at my going away party (thank you again!). Gardening has been a nice activity for me to do in the evenings and on weekends outside of school. Last week I was able to eat my first radish from the garden!
On weekends when I’m not at my site I usually travel into Lushoto town and hang out with other volunteers. The weekend before Halloween some volunteers who arrived last year threw a Halloween party. It was a fun mix of volunteers and Tanzanians. Halloween is not celebrated in Tanzania so it was fun to celebrate and share that part of US culture with locals.
Another weekend I traveled to Moshi which is a large town near Mount Kilimanjaro. There I spent the weekend with the volunteers near Moshi. Moshi has a high tourist population being it is located so close to Kilimanjaro and it was hosting its first annual Octoberfest that weekend so we went to check it out. I didn’t know what to expect going in bit it was definitely odd. After living over 3 months with Tanzanians it almost felt weird walking into an event where the majority of people were caucasian. Another thing that felt uncomfortable was that we had spent 3 months of training learning how to be culturally sensitive by watching what we say and what we wear. But at this event, we were surrounded by tourists who had not recieved that same training and being we looked like the tourists there, many people assumed that we were tourists also. It was a weird experience going to an event where in appearance I was in the majority but I actually felt like I fit in less than when I’m surrounded by a group of Tanzanians. After talking with the other volunteers I realized that I wasn’t the only one who felt that way. We all had similar realizations and feelings regarding the event.
Well, I knew if I just started typing I would find things to share. I have never been someone who journals so I wasn’t sure how I’d be able to keep a blog to keep everyone updated but I seem to be figuring it out. If anyone ever has questions or comments I would love to hear from you! My email is calistaholman.64@gmail.com and my WhatsApp number is +255786933890
Finally time for some pictures!
