Sports Day at HOPAC

Today was  High School sports day at HOPAC. It was one of those days that made me feel at home in that it reminded me of home. I think school sports day near the end of the school year is a Universal idea, though there are differences. It was similar to the sports days that I myself went to, and it wasn't. The biggest thing was the barefeet. Everything was done barefoot. sprinting, long jump, javelin, long distance running... you name it - barefoot. The school has a large grass field and the lanes of the track were drawn out in white powder / chalk around the perimeter of the field. In the centre of the field were the discus, javelin and shot put. If you are immediately thinking HAZARD, you are more perceptive than me. I was in charge of monitoring and measuring out the javelin and discus throws. I clearly underestimated the abilities of the grade 9 boys (and did not think to watch for runners rounding the corner) when a hard rubber discus was launched into the middle of a pack of runners. One boy (at least near the back of the pack) took a hit to the shoulder, but carried on valiantly. Apparently the trick is to wait for the runners to pass by. Rookie mistake. At least it wasn't the javelin. Anyways, the sun was blazing.. I think it jumped up at least 10 degrees in the past two days. Here is a few pictures of the day..

About to Race. No gun, just two pieces of wood to clap together to start it off.

Brave students running past the end of my javelin pit (diagonal white line extending to the track is my pit)

Alex (green shirt) is one of the UFV students who is interning at HOPAC

Senior Boys preparing for Javelin. Mike (Red shirt) is the other UFV intern at HOPAC

Best seat in the house

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Isaiah throwing the Javelin. (He also played 'Rolf" in the musical)

Don't be fooled by my killer form. I am Hopeless. There is no javelin in my future. I proceeded to somehow hit myself in the back of the head before launching it all of 3 feet.

Mobile Library and Banako Rural School

For over a month (it is hard to believe that I can say that now) I have been visiting a local rural school called Banako as part of the community service outreach projects that Haven of Peace Academy staff and students are participating in. On Thursday afternoons, a handful of teachers and about 40 students from grades 6-8 pile into two school buses, and we set off on the bumpiest and wildest school bus ride I have ever been on. The first time we drove out to Banako we actually lost the back fender of the bus, and the rains had washed giant holes into the dirt roads. Also, in Tanzania it is not the BACK of the bus that is the cool place to sit, but the very front, as there are backwards seats right against the windshield where you can sit and see everyone and everything (except the giant dips in the road coming up.)

The purpose of the weekly trips to Banako is to bring books to the rural school, as they do not have any books of thier own. It is like a weekly trip to the library, only the library comes to the students, but unfortunately the students are not able to keep the books at the end of the visit (and they are bashfully unloaded from desks at the end of the afternoon, sometimes 10 or 12 books hidden in one desk. It always amazes me, it must have been a jigsaw puzzle to make them all fit.) The hope is that eventually HOPAC will have enough materials to set up a permanent library at Banako, but for now it is a system on wheels. The students from HOPAC spend a few hours reading with the children, and teaching them about books (last week was about finding the title on a cover of a book, as well as the names and purpose of the author and illustrator. This may seem basic (and I believe is even in our kindergarten curriculum) but for children who have not been exposed to books as part of the learning process, or in any capacity, this is quite a challening feat.
We arrive at the 5-room school (with a student population of nearly 500 students and only 5 teachers) with arm loads of pencils and paper, a few color coded rubbermaid bins of picture books, easy readers and intermediate books, and ofcourse stickers for at the end of the lesson. I have never seen children get so excited about stickers (or even the sticky paper outline that surrounds each sticker. It makes me wish that I kept my sticker collection from my childhood to hand out. All of those stickers stored nicely in a photo album seems like such a waste compared to the creative uses and places they can find for just one sticker.

A typical 2 hour lesson looks like this: the class of 100 is divided into smaller groups of 6 or 7 students, and one HOPAC student (and or teacher) sits with each group, explaining the lesson in a mix of English and Swahili as best as possible, and then having students fill out their sheet. My favorite part is after the mini lesson. Free Read time. Students are able to pick books from the bins that are brought, and spend an hour reading, or just looking at the pictures, and learning new words in English (and me trying to learn the same words in Swahili).  All the books are donated to the mobile library project from all around the world (Netherlands, the U.S, Tanzania as well as other countries) and include many of my favorites, Little Critter series, Spot, Dick and Jane, all of the Disney classics, and even the Very Hungry Caterpillar. Part of what I am doing at HOPAC is inputting all of these books into a computer system (and color coded bin system) for the mobile library. It is encouraging as there are boxes and boxes of donated books, but the process is slow and steady to get them all sorted. I even enjoy the tedious inputting of books into the system, as Joel can probably tell you, I am a nerd when it comes to organizing and classifying things. I love order. :)

An interesting conversation arose as I was sorting and inputting books today.  I was commenting to one of the teachers that helps run the project that they must have had a huge donation of books from a little girl who LOVES bunnies. Almost every other story was about bunnies, and infact a lot of the books are about pets. Cats, Dogs, horses.. you name it. She was saying how it is interesting the conversations that can arise from those particular stories. The children cannot fathom why anyone would keep an animal as a pet. The first thought is, "is it edible, and how do I catch it?" (I happened to be holding a book of Clifford the BIG red dog at the moment, and thinking what a feast Clifford would make.) It is a challenge for most of those children to get enough food in the day, and the thought of keeping an animal around as a pet (and having to provide food, shelter and care for this pet) is absurd to them. It got me thinking about other books that we have in our Western culture, and how those would be percieved by the kids reading them at the Banako school. It is funny how something like a charitbale donation can turn into a puzzling (and possibly even sometimes offensive) gesture. I began to think of all the books I had sorted to do with Christmas, and though there were a few of the Christmas story, there were many with pictures of Santa Clause, piles of presents and stuffed stockings hanging over a lit fireplace in a plush house. Other books on Halloween can spark interesting conversation, when to us it is simply a fun holiday (with excess of candy and costumes), but in Tanzania which is a country where of whichcraft and supersticion are very real and present, books about ghosts and witches are unnerving and even taboo. I even ran into this at HOPAC during the final performance of the musical when I was helping a child put on her goat masked. I joked with her that she should keep the mask and dress as a Goat for Halloween. She turned to me with big eyes (partially hidden behind the googly goat eyes) and whispered that they don't celebrate "All Hallows Eve".

I am learning that as guests in Tanzania, and as Westerners here to provide "aid" it is so important to always be aware of the culture within which we are living. It is so easy to believe that our ways are right, our ideas are best, and that everything else is backwards. Though i cannot say that I have thought this way or arrived with this mindset, I can see how even the slightest ignorance of local customs and traditions can make it seem as if we do think this way, and instead of actually providing help, it can be easy to instead do harm. I think there is a fine balance to mission work, aid relief, or whatever it may be, but it has to look more like two people walking side by side, instead of one infront trying to lead the other. Cherie (Joel's professor) was speaking about this, saying that even in offering gifts or money it is important not to do it in a way that we are handing it down, but instead handing it across to the people (whether paying for taxi, buying something in the market or local shop). Even better would be the gesture of offering up the money to the hand recieving it.

IT'S SHOW TIME!

So, it is finally the weekend of the musical. Before arriving in Africa I had been emailing back and forth with the teachers at HOPAC involved in the production to arrange costumes.. Thanks to FVHCS, LCS, value village and my MOM :) I compiled almost all of what they needed.. Agnes has been wonderful on this end to do the rest. (see below.. thank God fod Agnes. She has even offered her guest room and tv for the 3 am canucks games)..  3 months ago I remember thinking, "wow.. when it is the weekend of the musical we will have already been in Tanzania for one month."... well, here it is.. it is SHOW TIME, and we have already been here for one month. Time is flying., It has been such a joy after 2 months of emailing from Canada to finally meet the teachers, students, parents, school gardeners and groundskeepers and even headmaster involved in the play. It is entirely a whole community event, I suppose even a global event as myself and another student from the UFV are helping with costumes and lighting.

The play they are doing is called "A Few of My Favorite Things"which they wrote based on both the movie "The Sound of Music" as well as the real life story of the Von Trapp Family singers.. the movie is actually QUITE different from the real story.. They proceeds are going towards paying for a playground that they built at the school.

Tonight was the final dress rehearsal, and tomorrow is the first performance. I am completely exhausted, so excited.. and loving every minute of it. Someone sponsored the school to use a theatre in town called "Little Theatre" which is quite neat, though as I quickly learned, big repellant is a must as mosquites swarm you while you sit and watch, there is a resident bat that likes to do circles above the performers, and there, as well as anywhere in Tanzania, the power can go out at ANYTIME for any LENGTH of time. (Generally we are without power for 6-12 hours a day.. and ofcourse it usually goes out right when it gets PITCH black out..)

Anyways, here are a few photos of the final dress rehearsal tonight.. I should have some more professional group shots in a week or two that were taken tonight from a photographer...

Zanzibared.

This past weekend we had the opportunity to go to Zanzibar. I was very excited, mainly for the opportunity to use "Zanzibar" and variations of it in a sentence ie: "Let's go drink some Zanzibeers at the Zanzibar." Needless to say the group was pretty sick of me after roughly 27 minutes. I guess you could say I was Zanzibarred from making anymore hilarious play on words.
The flight from Dar to Zanzibar was only 15 minutes. You might think this is such a short flight that Jennifer wouldn't even have time to be scared. Wrong. We had been flying for all of 7 minutes when the plane seemed to lose all power. Or so we thought. Little did we know we were actually starting our descent after barely reaching our cruising altitude of 5,000 feet. Jennifer was feeling sick before we left for the airport. A sick Jennifer combined with a flying Jennifer does not make for a very fun flight. Luckily Jennifer is tougher (and a little less dramatic) than I am so she was able to put on a brave face and make the most of our time in Zanzibar. I was worried that I was going to get sick from her so I took a lot of the pills that we got from the travel clinic, so I had a REALLY good time.
We stayed in a hostel in the middle of Stone Town. The town is very rich in history (mostly bad history) and the buildings all have so much character. The beaches are also very beautiful. For some reason I was expecting that it would be a very clean, tropical paradise but was quickly reminded that although it is a tropical island, Zanzibar is still part of Tanzania. There was still lots of garbage and people asking for money and selling stuff everywhere we went. The people are extremely persistent and will walk for 15 or 20 minutes beside you just trying to sell something. I felt bad for most of these people as this is how they make a living and a lot of how they are is the result of westerners. The first evening we were there the group went for a tour of Stone Town but Jennifer was not up for it so we just went for a little dinner at Freddie Mercury's bar and then to bed at 7:00pm. The view from the bar was amazing as it was right on the beach. Kids were playing soccer and swimming in the water all along the beach which was fun to watch. After logging close to 12 hours of sleep we were ready for a big day on Saturday. We woke up early and went with the group to Prison Island. We fed the giant (and very old) tortoises and were even lucky enough to see and hear two tortoises acting out the circle of life. Even with those huge shells love still found a way. We went snorkeling after that and saw lots of fish and a school of baby squid. After the boat ride back to the main island we went on a spice tour. The tour was very interesting and we saw what life was like in the country side of Zanzibar. Each time we came across a kind of plant, tree or bush that was a type of spice we were asked to guess what we thought it was based on the smell. Now I like to fancy myself as a bit of a spice connoisseur but it was tough! After a while I just started guessing pepper every time. I was never right.
We saw a lot of amazing sights and it was nice to feel like we had a bit of a "holiday" after everything we have been up to for the past month.

Today I officially started my internship at Ardhi, though I have been working on it for some time outside of the university already. I will be working with a couple of PhD students. The big project we are working on is trying to map out the informal settlements (slums) that are in the most vulnerable areas. Vulnerability in our case is vulnerability to flooding. Today it rained again for about 15 minutes. In those 15 minutes most of the roads were flooded so you can imagine what it does to poorly constructed homes that are built in flood prone areas. The poorest people get pushed to these flood prone areas where they build homes out of clay, mud and wood. By finding which areas are the most prone to flooding we will hopefully be able to see the effects that climate change (which will bring more tropical storms here) will have on informal settlements. This will allow us, or others who come later on, to try find the most sustainable, durable and affordable building material that can be used to construct these informal homes. Today me and Kihila (PhD student I am working with) were supposed to go downtown to the visit the water, sewage and sanitation company. We were backing out of the parking lot so I asked Kihila where the company was located. He turned to me and told me we had to go to the city centre. Just as he finished saying this we hit a truck. Oops. Kihila said something in Swahili (some things never get lost in translation) then got out of his car and had a yelling match with the other driver. We had to post pone our visit down town as his bumper was about to fall off. I went back to the office and got started on some computer mapping. Kihila came to check up on me a little while later and told me his "car technologist" told him it would be $300 USD to fix his car. He said he could not afford this and I felt so bad. We thought that it would be best to go to the outdoor cafeteria and just eat some goat. That seemed to lift Kihelas spirits and we got back to work. Having never ate goat before I needed a bathroom break after finishing the last bit of meat. The bathrooms are in very poor condition and is just a hole in the ground... with no toilet paper. After coming back to the office Kihila explained that, "You were gone for some time. We only use that bathroom for short calls." It turns out that there is one bathroom that the professors and PhD students have access to that is in a little better condition, and also has toilet paper. By that time it was too late for me. Doing all our laundry by hand is really gonna come back to bite me next week.

Jennifer is at rehearsal for the big musical which is this weekend and I am just surfing the web while we have power. This week the electricity supplier here is doing 16 hour a day power cuts to the region to save some money. Hopefully the power stays on until bed time as trying to sleep with out the fan makes me grumpy/sweaty. Time to go read the Canucks and Sharks game sheet from last night and imagine how the goals may have looked as trying to watch highlights takes hours to load.

Thank the Lord for Agnes

Last week I met Agnes.

Thank the Lord for Agnes.

She is one of the nuns in the school musical, and a mom of 2 HOPAC students, ( her second daughter Amy is also in the play). Aside from getting to know Agnes through the rehearsals for the play (which are now every week day evening 5pm-7pm and Saturday afternoon, which makes for 12 hour days at the school.. I am busier here than i was at home!) I have also been getting to know her as she has been driving me home from the rehearsals.
...side note, she drives a car that is called a "picnic".. it is so cool!...
Agnes started driving me home last week one day when Joel was on his way from a late meeting at the University (only about 4 or 5 km away) when they hit traffic and would be stuck for forty five minutes.. another side note...traffic has a WHOLE new meaning in Dar. a 200 meter stretch can take up to an hour in really bad traffic.. Joel called me to tell me he was going to be late, and when I said everyone was leaving the school grounds and it was pitch black out (nightfall is at 7pm and there is no such thing as street lamps) Joel started getting worried (ok, I did too).. As the crowd was quickly dispersing, and hopping into vehicles I knew I had to ask someone for a ride.. if I was able to get a hold of a taxi I would have had to wait atleast 15 minutes, alone.. in the dark. I was still just getting to know Agnes, and did not know where she lived but I thought I would be bold and ask her for a ride home. She (being one of the worlds most friendly people) said OF COURSE, and it turns out she lives less than a block away from where we are staying. We are pretty much neighbors..

So, with Agnes to the rescue, and me safely in the picnic, we headed home for the evening. Catching a ride with someone (versus taxi) has also made me start to feel at home here, and less of a visitor. I am starting to feel connected, and a sense of community.. I have been enjoying my rides home from the rehearsals with Agnes, and getting to know her. She is a total combination of Joel and I, but packed into a boisterous, friendly and hilarious African woman. She is considering a PHd in Urban and rural planning (already has 2 masters, and they will not let her get a 3rd, so she will  have to do a PHd instead, and she is even considering some of the Universities in Canada that Joel has looked at for his masters.) Her sister in law (also named Agnes) is actually a lecturer at the University here where Joel is doing his internship..
Agnes just completed a language certificate, just for the fun, (in French though, not Spanish).. which is an interest that we share in common.. In her spare time she has decided to open up a wedding dress online store, as good inexpensive dresses are hard to come by here in Dar, and so I told her how I always talk about how fun it would be to run a consignment wedding dress store.. I had to explain consignment though, as I guess that is not something they do here! For wedding dresses anyways... She has also lived in Scotland for many years, (though she was never a Highland dancer..) Needless to say, Anges is someone that Joel and I would both enjoy talking to.

She has invited us over for a traditional Tanzanian meal, which I am looking forward to!

We are just back from Zanzibar, the whole weekend which I spent very ill - not sure from what. the food? the water? it is always hard to tell.. but it was still a good trip, and I believe Joel is going to blog on that tomorrow..

This is the week of the musical.. it is going to be a busy one, with last minute set construction and dress rehearsals, and I am starting to help out the HOPAC grade 5 students choreograph a worship dance for their "graduation" assembly.. One month ago I was sad to leave BC, as the end of the school year is always such an exciting time to be teaching and working with students, but needless to say I ended up in the thick of the end of the school year activities here.. :) I will bring out camera to the dress rehearsal at the theater on Wednesday and try to take some pictures..

Badai! (Later in Kiswahili)

Kick it.

I veered from the path of familiarity yesterday and bought some "Kick It" beer from the store instead of the usual Kilimanjaros. With a soccer ball for a logo and "Kick It!" as a name, it just made sense. I am happy to report that Kick It! is a great beer.
Today was a relaxing day. After a busy weekend it was nice to have a day where we did not have to be or go anywhere (sorry Oma if you're reading this, I know we should have gone to church).Yesterday while Jen was helping out at HOPAC, I went on an "Investour." Investours was started by a Harvard student in Mexico and was recently started up here in Dar. The person who started it was fed up with the high interest rates which made the pay back of microloans impossible for many people. The basic idea is that a group of people go on a tour of an area where people have little shops or businesses and then decide which place they want to give money (the tour fee) to. The people at Investours identify people who they know need the money and would benefit from a microloan.  

Yesterday we visited a woman with 8 kids who had a little stand where her and a friend sold charcoal. Charcoal is very important here as over 90% of the people living in Tanzania use it to cook. We sat in her little home/shop on plastic buckets and asked her questions through a translator about her business. We then went for lunch in the market. I had some Tanzanian food that I don't know how to spell but it was very good. After lunch we went to visit a lady who sold peanuts and had a little shop where she sold soap, water and other small things. Each of the woman we met made between 5,000 and 10,000 TSH a day (1,500 TSH = $1 Canadian).

It felt very strange in the meetings as the ladies we were talking with both knew that it was up to a group of people from Canada to decide who would get the microloan. Who am I to decide which lady would receive money? They both work so hard every day and have families to support. Each of them was asking for 300,000TSH which they would pay back in 3 months. The program is amazing, however, having to choose a "winner" is very hard and made me want to go back to both of the women and tell them they both get the money. Our group chose the peanut lady as the charcoal lady had already received a loan recently. The person who does not get the loan is given a class by the Investour people on how to improve business, and if the same person is not "chosen" after 2 tours, they automatically receive a loan. It was great to give the peanut lady her money but as I said earlier, it felt strange to be the one to "choose" and decide which person should get the loan. A cool thing is that we are allowed to stay in touch with the person we chose to give the money too through the Investours office. They said we can even skype with the peanut lady in the future if we want. The tour took us to some very poor areas. A lot of people get sad when they see so many people living in poverty. I just get very angry. Poverty can go suck an egg.
It made it very clear, once again, that Africa is going to impact me a lot more than I am going to impact Africa. Going into the trip I had some big ideas and was confident I would solve world hunger, at least in Africa. Move over, Ghandi. Joel is here to save the day! As it turns out I will not be solving world hunger. Not this week anyways. With so many challenges it is hard to know where to even begin to try help. One thing is for sure: Me and Africa are now officially invested in each other.

A Few Pictures of our House

 This is the side guest house (above), where most of our group is staying. It has a kitchen where we can cook communal dinners (Joel and I made some mean tacos last week), and many nice sun decks (see roof deck in photo!) where we have swahili lessons and study sessions in the sun.

This is the building that Joel and I are in. The room on the second floor (left of the house) was our room for the last two weeks, but we just moved into the brand new wing this morning, which is where the picture is taken from. We now have a cieling fan (such a luxury..!) and an A.C unit, though we have not figured out how to work it yet.

 This is where we eat breakfast, lots of natural foods prepared by the passionist fathers and the nuns.

 A delicious traditional Tanzanian meal. Rice, bananas with beans, spinach and tomatoes. mmmm :)