School Days, School Days

School opened. Which means neither of the two things you're probably thinking it means. No, not all of the students have arrived, and no, not a single teacher has started teaching (except me). But it does mean that I am one happy Peace Corps volunteer, because the school is alive and noisy with activity, and for three hours a night, I can walk 70 meters to school and sit under an electric lightbulb run by a generator.

About two-thirds of our students have come back to campus; the others will be more than a week late, probably because they have not finished all of the farmwork that needs to be done. (Nearly all of my students, despite studying at one of the best secondary schools in the country and despite the fact that they will probably finish secondary school at all - a rarity and a huge accomplishment - will not continue on to post-secondary education of any kind. Instead, they will return to the farm.) Teachers have not started teaching mostly out of laziness, I think. Two classrooms are not yet completely constructed, so we are left with two fewer classrooms than actual classes. (Here, the students remain in one room all day while we teachers come and go.) That makes classes even larger than usual (90+ students in one classroom instead of the normal 50-60 students), and therefore more difficult to teach. Plus, the teachers don't want to reteach the material to latecomers as they arrive at school. I don't really want to reteach material several times, either, but I don't think I would manage to finish the nationally-regulated syllabus by the end of the school year unless I started more or less on time. And the school's opening was already delayed one week due to the (still unfinished) construction.

On the homefront, I am the laughing stock of my row of teachers' houses on account of my gardening laziness. I have hoed two beds while each of them has at least 200 plus a farm. I have yet to plant seeds because I am afraid they will get washed away by the nightly monsoons, and I haven't bought or collected manure to mix in with the clay soil (which is incredibly hard and heavy to hoe and apparently lacking nutrients). I guess my thumbs just aren't so green. I think I'll get some students to help me, because I have no idea what I'm doing. I do know, though, that thanks to a thoughtful aunt as well as the US and Tanzanian postal services, I now have in my possession 1.5 pounds of Miracle Grow. My Tanzanian neighbors are going to be blown away by my miracle vegetables.

I've realized in writing this that I've displayed a propensity to include many parenthetical comments...not sure why. Maybe writing about this culture lends itself to many explanatory and/or amused asides. That's all for now. Hope everyone is doing well in their respective countries!

A Real Conversation (with a Tanzanian Woman Carrying a Baby) on the Road, While Waiting for My Bus to Town (Rough Literal Translation)

Tanzanian Woman: Hello!
Me: Hello.
Tanzanian Woman: How is the morning?
Me: Good. How is yours?
Tanzanian Woman: Peaceful. How is work?
Me: Good. Is your baby healthy?
Tanzanian Woman: Yes, she is completely healthy. How is your home?
Me: Completely clean.
Tanzanian Woman: Where are you going now?
Me: Only to town.
Tanzanian Woman: Why are you carrying water? Is it for drinking?
Me: Yes, it is for drinking.
Tanzanian Woman: So are you going on a long journey?
Me: No, only to town.
Tanzanian Woman: So why are you carrying water?
Me: It is good for your health to drink water.
Tanzanian Woman: (laughs hysterically at my funny joke) No, you are going all the way back to Europe.
Me: No, I am going only to town. And I am not from Europe.
Tanzanian Woman: Oh, where are you from?
Me: America.
Tanzanian Woman: (puzzled look) Can I go back to Europe with you?
Me: I am going only town. And I am not from Europe.
Tanzanian Woman: (more puzzled look) Oh, well I'm afraid of airplanes anyway.
Me: Oh, sorry.
Tanzanian Woman: Aren't you afraid to go in airplanes? They fly!
Me: No.
Tanzanian Woman: You aren't?
Me: No.
Tanzanian Woman: Why not?
Me: They are completely safe.
Tanzanian Woman: You are afraid.
Me: I am not afraid.
Tanzanian Woman: They can crash.
Me: Where I come from, in America, there are so many cars on the roads that it is actually safer to fly in a plane than to drive a car.
Tanzanian Woman: Really?
Me: Really.
Tanzanian Woman: You must be afraid to fly. Planes go so high.
Me: I am not afraid. In fact, one time I jumped out of an airplane.
Tanzanian Woman: While it was on the ground.
Me: No, when it was very high.
Tanzanian Woman: You what?
Me: I jumped out of the airplane. I was inside, but I went outside.
Tanzanian Woman: But the airplane was on the ground.
Me: No, it was very high. It was in the sky.
Tanzanian Woman: (gasps) And you arrived safely on the ground?
Me: Yes.
Tanzanian Woman: It's not possible.
Me: I had a parachute. (Here, my translation may have been wrong. My dictionary says that the Kiswahili word for "parachute" is "parachuti," but that might be an author's joke that he made to trick dumb Americans who don't know that there is no real Kiswahili word for "parachute," so who really knows?)
Tanzanian Woman: (blank look)
Me: Do you know what a parachute is?
Tanzanian Woman: (shakes head no)
Me: It's like an umbrella...only bigger.
Tanzanian Woman: They have those in Europe?
Me: Yes, they do. But I used it in America, where I'm from.

(Bus comes to take me into town, where many people have seen parachutes on TV and some have even flown in airplanes.)