Telephone Talk

The Dilemma

In a recent workshop our primary teachers spent some time role playing telephone conversations.  We set up scenarios and let them go to it.  It was all great fun with much English conversation and laughter .

Everybody's Talking

Under the Same Sky

The day before yesterday, our secondary school teachers were discussing the challenges that they face in their schools and I was struck by how similar their problems are to the challenges facing Canadian teachers. They talked about truancy, troublesome student behaviour, the lack of learning materials, not enough books and that many of their students simply don't like to study. They even brought up the problem of parents not supporting teachers.

Teachers discussing school problems

The challenges that they face are of course different in scale. Compared to Canadian students Tanzanian kids are very well behaved and Canadian teachers have a whole lot more resources than Tanzanian ones.

Still, I was reminded of the days when I taught George Orwell's, Nineteen Eighty Four. There is a passage in that book that talks about the sky being the same for everyone and that all over the world, whether it be Eastasia or Eurasia or here, people are ignorant of one another's existence and are held apart by lies and hatred but that they are almost the same people.

Michael and Mindy painting a world map on the wall of Kiteto Secondary School

Trying to make the whole world their students' oyster

The discussion brought Orwell's passage home to me. Our similarities far out weight our differences.

The sky over the Main Street in Kibaya

Zanzibar Break

We just returned from a two week trip to Zanzibar taken during the end-of -term school holidays. All of the volunteers involved in improving English in the secondary schools of Tanzania met for a couple of days in Zanzibar Town and then Debra and I headed to the beach for some sun and sand.

Tessa (and friend), Debra, Juanito and Peter

Trying to Improve English

We rented a really cool beach hut, made from palm fronds, on Kendwa Beach on the northern tip of Zanzibar Island. It had a bathroom and hot shower and was right on the sand. Such luxury for a couple of scruffy volunteers.

This cool beach hut is made completely from palm leaves

The seven days were spent reading, lounging around, walking on the beach and swimming in the beautiful turquoise water. The sand, formed from coral, was snow white with the consistency of sugar and the water was warm.

Fishing boats on Kwenda Beach

As Frank Sinatra would say, 'it's nice to go travellin' but it's so, so nice to come home.'