A Day in the Life (Part One)

-Wake up!!! (Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays 5:00 a.m., other days about 5:45)

-Boil water for shower/breakfast.

-Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays (if it’s not raining) I run with Laura, about 3 miles in the dark.  Other people are out running at this time, too, though so it is pretty safe.

-6:00-6:45- Shower, eat, get ready for school.

*A note on the bucket shower:  I say this only because it confused me...  This may have been very clear to everyone else.  I thought a bucket shower entailed some sort of rigging system where there is a hole or many holes in the bottom of a bucket that you hoist over your head.  Wrong.  It’s a bucket with water in it.  You use some small container to pour the water over yourself.  Duh?  I think my imagination got the best of me. 

-6:45-7:00 Walk to the bus.  We walk by a primary school on the way, and the kids love to practice their English “good morning’s” on us.

-7:30 arrive at school, wander about, greet kids and teachers.

-7:50 “Parade”  This is kind of an assembly where the kids stand in lines and respond to commands such as “attention!” “at ease,” “about turn,” etc.  This is usually followed by the national anthem (I almost have it down), maybe a song in English, and morning prayer.  Then the kids march off to class (singing “marching, marching, marching like a soldier…” they love it?).  At first I found this very odd, but now it is one of my favorite parts of the day!

-8:00-12:20- Classes.  This is the time when I rotate between the four “English Medium” classes.  Lately I’ve started to go to only two classes per day to try to develop some continuity in the classroom and have time to do something a little more meaningful.  Every day is different and I’m still not quite sure what I should be doing, but I’m trying.

Typical classroom activities include singing songs (If you’re happy and you know it, 5 little monkeys- Molly they LOVE this one!!! Thanks!, twinkle twinkle, etc), writing the alphabet and numbers etc.  I also do a lot of grading, which mostly involves checking if things are written correctly, e.g. is that capital letter Q acceptable?  I’m pretty much a hard ass.  The first grade kids do a lot of copying from the blackboard.  For a lot of them, I’m pretty sure school is just a drawing activity.  I’m trying to figure out ways to get them to actually understand what they are doing.  Suggestions in all areas here are MORE than welcome! 

Honestly, school is really, really hard for me.  I’m going to go into more depth in another post to try to explain it. 

This is getting long so I will continue with the PM hours another day!  And by they way, to tell time here, subtract 6 hours… For example, 12:00 p.m.  is really 6:00 (or saa sita in Swahili).  7:00 a.m. is 1:00 (saa moja asubuhi... the first hour of daylight).  It definitely makes sense if you think about it because the days here are pretty much always the same length, but needless to say it is a little confusing to ask someone the time. 

xoxoHB

I Wore Tights?

It was a little chilly; I was wearing a longer dress; I decided to wear tights. No big deal, right?  Wrong. I noticed we were getting a little more attention than we usually do on our walk to the bus stop in the morning.  Cristina and I were both looking at each other trying to see what might be drawing the stares.  We racked our brains, but thought nothing of my tights. 

I didn’t find out until I got to school and talked to my friend Nanja that my wearing black tights happened to be confusing and HILARIOUS. Why are her legs black?  What is that?  Are those socks?  She is very dark today.  Half African?  Children, adults, and everyone in between gave me a second look that day.

I’m not sure if I’ll wear tights again, but if I do, at least I will be in on the joke.

Kilimanjaro Half Marathon

For the past two years, Christina Baladi, Alicia Ranney and I have been participating in the Kaiser Half Marathon in SF.  We had a blast running our hearts out and then proceeding to Kerry and Chris’s to gorge ourselves “all-American” style at their Superbowl party.  Needless to say, I missed it this year! 

However, I did have a replacement activity to console me.  When I thought I would be headed to Moshi, I read the blogs of the current volunteers and saw their pictures from the Kilimanjaro Marathon held in town.  Obviously, I thought it was the coolest thing ever and couldn’t wait to participate.  Luckily, a little re-location to Dodoma wasn’t able to stop me… 

Cristina, Laura, and I did it!  We traveled to Moshi for the Kilimanjaro Half Marathon where we were warmly welcomed by Moryah, Andy, and Liz, or as I like to call them, my surrogate community.  We had 100% participation in the event, with Andy running a FULL marathon.  I still can’t believe it.  Everyone did great, with Cristina and Laura both completing their first half marathons!  What a way to do it.

Rain clouds obstructed the views of Madam Kili during the race, but honestly, I was thankful.  The race was exactly half up, and half down.  Literally.  (j-sway… it was kind of like our extreme hiking experience…)  I’m not sure I would have made it in the African sun.  One of the greatest parts of the out-and-back course was seeing the lead pack coming down the hill as I was on my way up.  INCREDIBLE!  I don’t know how they do it, but the runners are so graceful and make one of the most challenging feats look simply effortless.  I gave a few extra fist pumps and “tuende dada!” cheers to the lead ladies as they held their own with the men in front.

The event organization was not the greatest, so I never found out my time, but I think it is for the best.  It certainly wasn’t my fastest, but I felt so accomplished, and maybe even a little bit cool, having just crossed the finish line.

After the race I ate a bunch of mangoes from the trees in the Moshi house’s yard and lazed about nursing a decent blister.  I wore my medal the whole time, of course.  After a little rest, we headed back to the stadium for a beer (Kilimanjaro!  For the picture, really.  Not my fave beer here.)  There was live music playing, and there were lots of people enjoying the festivities. 

When we got back to the house we chowed down on a “chips mayai” (this french fry omelet delicacy best enjoyed with chili sauce and ketchup).  Then the Moshi folk shared the secret of their favorite treat:  CHOCOLATE MICE.  I’m not really sure why it is in the shape of a mouse, but I do know that it was delicious.  I might compare it a brownie, sort of, with the taste of a ho-ho. 

Exhausted, we set off to bed.  Thinking in advance, I popped a couple Tylenol PM, so sleeping in a tent on the floor and getting eating by some bug that snuck in didn’t phase me.  Cristina was not so lucky.  Though both of our legs were riddled with bites, at least I slept through it. 

The next day we set off for the 12 hour bus ride home to Dodoma.  Definitely not the best way to recover after running thirteen miles the previous day.  The three of us were walking pretty funny, but we survived.  During the bus ride I had my first glimpse of a wild animal.  I SAW MONKEYS!!!!!! They were just sitting there on the side of the road.  It felt a liiiiittle surreal. 

Overall, the weekend was a much needed respite from my normal day-to-day here, and an absolutely great time.  

P.S. The T-shirt for the half marathon says "If you can't run it, drink it."  The full marathon tee says "If you can't climb it run it."  Love it.