It's Kili Run Time

“So when Persia was dust, all cried,
‘To Acropolis.’
Run Pheidippides, one race more!
The meed is thy due”. . .   Robert Browning

The Mountain

The moment we heard about the Kilimanjaro Marathon I knew there was only one way to respond.  We had to go.

After all, madmen athletics aside, what better way to channel the angst of Harry, the failed writer in Ernest Hemingway’s short story, The Snows of Kilimanjaro?  Harry died from an infected thorn wound while on safari, hallucinating like a Grateful Dead sound man and dreaming of The Snows.   As a Hemingway fan I just had to see The Mountain for myself.

Tessa, our neighbour and VSO colleague, had the wheels—a ten year old Toyota Hilux four by four with a two litre turbo diesel, suffering from a dodgy cooling system and wonky battery connection.  Would it make the trip over some of the roughest roads in east Africa?  Anybody’s guess.    

We piled our Africa bags into the box of the Hilux.  Six of us crammed into the cab - Mr. Aloyse (Tessa's Man Friday), Mindy and Michael (the young Peace Corps couple), Tessa, Debra and myself - and set off to Moshi and The Snows, across miles and miles of bloody Africa.

Michael in the Box with the Africa Bags

Mindy, Debbie and Mr. Aloyse.



A day and a half later, hours and hours of bloody Africa with its stunning scenery, we arrived in Moshi and to our digs at the Honey Badger Lodge at the very base of, and with a good view of, the fabled mountain.

There we met up with the other VSO volunteers including Ishwar, fellow Canadian and chief organizer of VSO Team Ishwar.  Little did we know that Ishwar had spent two months training secretly in Dubai while raising just short of $5,000 in donations for Tanzanian education.  We were shocked and awed to learn that he planned to run THE FULL MARATHON.

Ishwar was focused like a radar beam.  The very day before his FULL MARATHON he was pounding the keys of his I Book hard enough to wake Steve Jobs from the dead putting the bite on every contact in his address book to raise even more money for Tanzania.

Remembering what happened to the first marathon runner, Pheidippides, I decided on a regimen of light training around the pool.  If you will remember from your high school history, Pheidippides dropped dead from exhaustion at the end of his run from over training.  No way was I going to risk that fate and so I registered for the five kilometre Fun Run.  But I had every intention of doing the FULL FUN RUN.

Training with The VSO Babes

It was not to be.  It was a case of AWA (Africa Wins Again).  The VSO bus got mired in mud and we fun runners spent the morning hauling it out with the Hilux.  In between we cheered on VSO Team Ishwar while slaking our thirsts with cold Kilis.  For a very short time I led a pack of Kenyan runners, not for my own glory of course but to make VSO proud.

Run Kenyans Run

FULL MARATHON MAN, Ishwar and Jean, the VSO country director finished the grueling race in just over four hours.  Several others volunteers, Margaret, Fran and Liesbeth finished the half marathon.  Mindy and Michael also completed the half.  Post Marathon, it was our job, as failed fun runners, to pile on the compliments, ooh and ahh over their medals and free tee-shirts, listen to their blow by blow descriptions of every kilometre and to help them bask in their well- earned glory.

 Ishwar and Jean, Marathon Men 

We left the next day, bound for Kibaya.  Half way home we were halted by ten buses mired in mud and blocking the dirt road.  The Hilux got stuck, up to its axels in clingy clay and had to be pushed out by Tanzanian bus passengers waiting by the side of the road.

 Mired in the African Mud

They surrounded the bus demanding money, pointing and yelling.  For a moment I feared I would lose my Timex as Fran had lost her mobile phone earlier, snatched from her hand through the window of the Hilux, while she was texting.

We got home before dark after several stops to cool down the Hilux and to re-connect the battery cable. We were dusty, tired but in great spirits.

 Bush Repairs



Mingling Activites in Our Teachers' English Workshops

The Problem--Which Six of Ten to Save From Nuclear Death?

First the teachers talked about which six of the ten they would save from nuclear annihilation by allowing them into the bomb shelter.  Then they mingled with their colleagues trying to convince the others that their choices were right.

One Teacher even Brought her Son

Our second workshop was so well attended that some of the teachers moved outside for discussion.

Interestingly enough no one chose to save the politician.  I guess Tanzanians have a lot in common with Canadians.

Discussing Interesting Africans

 Teachers were given the task of discussing the lives of ten famous Africans.  In small groups they decided which four of the ten people given were the most interesting and then justified their choices.

After lively discussions, in English of course, each group presented their choices to the whole class.

The purpose of the activity was to build the teachers' confidence in speaking English and to give them an example of an activity that encourages student participation

We Are Promised Two Grants from the Tanzanian Development Trust

We got good news that two of our grant applications have been approved.  One of them is for the creation of a model classroom in a local primary school.  We will use the money to refurbish a classroom.  We plan on painting, getting local workmen to make two tables and a bookshelf.  There will be an area near the teacher's desk for small group work and study.  We will also have the funds to provide a bulletin borard,  a portable white board and three comfortable reading chairs.

This is what the classroom looks like now

Henry, a primary school teacher, with a few of his pupils outside the classroom

Our second grant is to publish a book of our lesson plan activites.  It will focus on the best activities developed in the workshops with our primary school teachers.  The book will be given to the teachers before we leave Tanzania.

Many thanks for the support of the Tanzanian Development Trust.

The Little Red Hen

 After a thirty minute walk from our house, we arrived at Kaloleni Primary School just before eight in the morning.  The heat was already starting to turn Kibaya into a furnace.  We went there to teach a forty minute English lesson to a grade five class.  The class teacher, Kidimwa, regularly attends our English workshops and she had invited us to her school.

When we arrived the students, all dressed in identical blue and white school uniforms, were lined up outside the class buildings with their school mates, singing the opening songs.  Several students at the front on the assembly kept time on metal drums.  A dozen or so boys stood by the school water tap ready to fill the plastic buckets.

The duty teacher was beating several boys over their heads, across their backs and on their legs using one of the three flexible sticks she was carrying.  The sticks were three feet long and about a quarter of an inch in diameter. 

From where we were standing we could hear the swish of the stick cutting the air as it came down on the boys.  Swish, swish, swish.  The boys didn't yell, cry or run.  In silence, they simply put their hands over their heads in a half-hearted attempt to ward off the blows raining down on them.

After the opening routine the pupils marched to their classes followed by their teachers.  We followed Kidimwa to her class.

There are 190 students in Kidimwa's class.  190 eleven year olds crammed like sardines into a cement room under a metal roof.  Most do not have desks or chairs but sit on the floor.  The only teaching resource is a blackboard.  There is no electricity in the room.

For Tanzanian pupils English is their third language.  Their mother tongue is their tribal language.  They begin to learn the national language, Swahili, along with English in primary school.  English instruction is only forty minutes a day but all subjects in high school must be taught in English.

 We had decided to read a big format edition of the children's classic, The Little Red Hen given to us by a generous donor.  We began with a short vocabulary lesson.  Words like hen, grain and wheat were unfamiliar.

 

After the vocabulary lesson I started reading the story.  I tried to move around the class so that all of the students could see the pictures.  This proved to be impossible.  There were just too many bodies in too small a space.

As I read the story I asked questions to check for understanding.  Many hands were in the air.  There were so many it was hard to know who to pick.  Questions such as, “Did the duck help the hen grind the wheat?” and “Did the hen share the bread with the pig, the duck and the cat?” were answered by some but misunderstood by many. 

To learn in this environment a student must be highly motivated and it defies logic that so many are.  Kidimwa deserves much credit for this.  Those who are not motivated, quickly drop through the canyon wide cracks. This is a world without special education teachers, behavioral technicians, educational aides, child psychologists and guidance counsellors.  Tanzania is poorer than Haiti.

I didn't ask philosophical questions such as, “Were the duck the pig and the cat good friends to the hen?” or better yet, “Should the hen have shared the bread with her lazy friends.”   These sorts of questions would have been way above the English level of the pupils.  And yet in a few years some of these students, if they pass the standardized exams, will go on to high school where their classes will be held entirely in English.

After class Kidimwa spoke to us about her situation.  She showed us her 'scheme of work' which must follow the government syllabus and which must have the academic inspector’s stamp of approval.  At that moment, the educational bureaucracy in Dar es Salaam that dictates the sylabus, seemed very far removed from Kidimwa’s reality.

According to her scheme of work she must teach sequencing, time telling (in a community where clocks are very rare and the pupils never have watches), the past continuous and the past concurrent among other esoteric verb forms.  Her students must read a book and do a book report for the class (these are kids who have a hard time understanding The Little Red Hen and who have no class readers). 

Kidimwa is a hardworking and dedicated teacher with an infectious smile.  She is twenty eight years old and has three children of her own.  She loves her students and wants the best for them and it shows.  She is doing everything she can to be the best teacher she can be.  Her pupils are so lucky to have her and they know it.

Unfortunately, Kidimwa and her colleagues are shackled to an unrealistic syllabus and for a variety of deep seated cultural reasons, they fear to stray.  That a teacher should use her judgement, find out what the students know and move them ahead from there, is a novel and unconventional idea whose time has not yet come.

Debra Makes Her Own Boursin Cheese

Any kind of cheese is rarer than hen's teeth in Kibaya.  A limited selection of cheese is available in Dar es Salaam and Dodoma and cheese has been sighted in Arusha but here, forget about it.  We are living a very sheltered life where cheese is concerned.

When we were given the gift of a liter and a half of milk by our Masai friend, Debra decided to make her own cheese.

Masai milk has a very high butter fat content and along with blood and meat forms the bulk of the Masai diet.  The milk has a smoky flavour owing to its being boiled over a wood fire to sterilize it.  It is the only fresh milk available in Kibaya.

To make the cheese the milk must first be strained through a fine cotton cloth, boiled and then put into a ceramic or glass bowl. Then it should be covered with a plate and left on the counter until it thickens and separates into curds and whey.  This may take up to thirty hours.

Thirty hours on the counter

Check out those curds

The curd and whey mixture is poured into a sieve lined with thin cotton and allowed to drain overnight in the fridge.

Draining n the fridge overnight

The next morning the curds are mixed with chopped onion, fine herbs, minced garlic and salt to taste.  Ground pepper is sprinkled on the surface of the cheese and then it is allowed to set in the fridge for twelve hours.

Enjoy the cheese spread on toast wedges with a mixed salad and a glass of chilled Tanzanian dry white wine.

Voila, le vrai fromage Boursin.  Bon Apetit