I’ve gotten a few questions so here’s my attempt to answer
most…a rundown of my typical day. It's Sunday here and everything is closed besides a few food stores and the internet cafe so I have some time.
I get up around 6:30 AM, although I’m usually awake by 5:30
when the roosters wake and the mosque about a ½ mile away begins the morning
call to prayer. I’m getting used to both
sounds and don’t wake up until my alarm goes off sometimes, or maybe I’m just
exhausted. Get up, get dressed and ready
to leave. I’ve only worn pants twice so
far because no women wear pants here, only long skirts. Breakfast consists of a quick cup of hot tea
and a slice of toast. At 7 AM, I walk
out of my village to the main road, about 15 minutes give or take depending on
how muddy it is and how many holes and puddles, there are to dodge. The roads are a challenge here, especially if
it rains at all during the night. I
catch the 1st dalla dalla to town, sometimes I’m lucky and actually
get a seat but most of the time there’s about 20 people crammed on the
equivalent of an extended mini van. The
other day I missed my stop because there were so many people and I was hunched
over with my face in my lap and the driver didn’t stop where I asked him
to. There are no set stops, it just goes
in a certain direction depending on the color and you bang onto the wall or
ceiling and yell “shoo sha” when you want to get off. The stop closest to my house is “shoo sha
Pepsi” because there’s a Pepsi sign tacked to the wall of a shop at the
corner. Okay.. hop off the first dalla
dalla after a 15 minute ride to the center of the city and get on the second
for about 20 minutes until my stop called Arusha Teachers College. Then walk about 2.5km down a dirt road into
the village of Moivaro where my school is located. Along the way there are tons of kids playing
that don’t go to school, a few people selling vegetables but it’s a very lush
area with lots of banana trees, coffee plants and its really pretty and much
more peaceful than where I live. There
is so much pollution from the dalla dalla’s and you’re covered in dirt and dust
the minute you walk out the door.
Classes start around 8:15ish. My
school is an English speaking school for the most part but its still hard to
understand the kids sometimes, especially the smaller ones. The kids share books and its hard for them to
learn and really absorb the information.
I feel like 90% of the time is spent memorizing and repeating. I tried playing a Wheel of Fortune type game
with them on the blackboard and they were having fun guessing letters but they
were having a lot of difficulty, even when there was just one letter left to
guess. The teachers here are more
aggressive with discipline also. The
kids get yelled at a lot more and are expected to sit quite or “sleep” while we
grade their papers during class, teachers don’t bring any work home! I’ve also seen a few kids get a pinch when
they’re bad. Around 10:40 AM we get a
break, the cooks bring us tea and the kids get porridge to drink. It just looks like extra runny cream of
wheat. Then two more hours of
class. I was teaching the Level 6 kids
about measurements the other day and they were good at remembering the
information but it’s a challenge to explain examples, such as what a
thermometer is when they’ve never seen one before and there are no physical
materials to work with, no hands on at all and I’m in a private, good
school. At 1 PM, we have lunch which is
some combination of rice (plain, white), beans, sometimes some sort of chopped
up spinach and once a week it seems there’s some kind of meat thrown in the
rice. I always dump mine in the boys
bowls, after seeing cows and chickens graze on the side of the dirty roads
eating garbage there’s no way I’m eating that.
Lunch and break is from 1-2 PM, then we have one more hour in my class
that’s used to copy homework questions from the books and read before the day
is over. Sometimes I cram into the
school bus (pink painted short bus) with about 40 kids sitting all over the
place, on the floors, each other’s laps and catch a ride to the main road where
I start the dalla dalla process all over again.
We usually walk a decent portion of the way home and stop at the
internet café or Shoprite (Western style grocery store that’s expensive, even
in tsh) for toilet paper (I carry it around with me because most places don’t
have any, they don’t even have it at school and I’m assuming that means most
people don’t use it or maybe everyone secretly carries around rolls of toilet
paper, haven’t figured that one out).
The walk home is always crowded and busy because everyone is trying to
sell something or just hanging out. I
believe the unemployment rate is around 67% although I have no clue how it
would actually be measured. There are
women sitting alongside the roads in the dirt selling all sorts of fruit and
vegetables, really cheap. You always
have to haggle unless you want to pay about double, sometimes triple the actual
price. Avocados are about 200 tsh
(Tanzanian shillings) which is about 15 cents each. We get pineapples for the equivalent of 75
cents each. There are people selling
large piles of shoes and clothing, nothing new, donated from some Western
country, usually the U.S. I’ve only seen
one new clothing shop so far which was a Woolworth by the Shoprite. There are kids running all over and you can
tell which ones go to school and which ones don’t because they are usually
barefoot, super dirty and in rags that are falling apart. It’s really sad. The people and kids that live in our village
never really seem to leave and sit outside their houses all day cooking corn,
rice and hanging out. There are cows,
chickens and goats just walking down the street all the time. This one lady usually holds up her baby in
the air when I walk by and yells “baby” and smiles at me. I’m not sure if she’s trying to sell me her
baby or what. Usually get home around 6
PM before dark because its not safe to be out after dark as muggings and theft
is common. When we go out at night we
usually call one of the cabs who’s info was provided by our program, also the
only places you ever see police are walking around the outside of banks. At night we have dinner which is always a
starch with either some random vegetables in a sauce or meat. Rice, mashed potatoes, noodles, sometimes we
get some fruit. The food is really plain
and I’m getting bored already. Should
have brought some soy sauce or something!
There aren’t really any restaurants by our village, we did go to a pizza
place that took about an hour to get to which was really good and I have the
feeling I’ll be trekking an hour again soon!
After dinner is showers and TV time.
The TV is super small, fuzzy and old.
Showering is a whole other process.
First you have to fill up a bucket with water, then pour it into a big
metal witch cauldron type thing outside and wait about 25 minutes for it to get
hot, then pour some back into the original bucket and fill the rest with cool
water and go into the shower room which is just a tiled room with a drain. The rest of the time is spent dumping water
over your head and shampooing, soaping up and rinsing. I’m used to the process but looking forward
to the convenience of a real shower whenever I meet one in the future! We watch TV with Mama Zubeyda and her daughter
who’s 15 and home from school break.
They are very well off compared to most families. She has two other daughters who are away at
school, her husband passed away about 3 years ago. We’re usually in bed covered by mosquito
netting by 10 PM or so, I can’t remember getting this much sleep although I’m
always exhausted from so much walking and the kids all day long. It’s kind of strange thinking about the fact
that for a majority of the people here their days revolve around completing
tasks necessary to live. Waking up on a
mat on the floor, going to the market to buy flour, maize, rice and beans, that
most people have never seen a TV and have probably never eaten a pizza. That being said, everyone seems to be happy,
never in a rush to get anywhere, everyone greets you for the most part with a “mambo”
which is kind of slang or “what’s up, how are you”, the response is “poa” or “cool.” They really appreciate any Swahili but people
always want to work on their English.
Everyone knows “good morning” and that’s what they say anytime of day so
I find myself replying “good morning” at 5 in the evening. Beginning to recognize people in the streets,
especially a lady that tries selling me corn everyday because she wears eye
makeup with painted on eyebrows. The
only woman I’ve seen wearing makeup here.
A few funny observations:
I love seeing all the American t-shirts, especially the few people I’ve
seen wearing “kiss me, I’m Irish” shirts.
A woman I was talking to the other day got very confused
when she was asking about my hair. She
thought all white people have blond hair and we dyed it different colors. Guess it makes sense because everyone here
has the same black hair.
That basically sums it up…please feel free to email me or
ask any questions, I love hearing from everyone! Kwaheri, Catherine
