Ok so I have been neglecting my blog as per usual, but this time I actually have stories to tell. Hmm where to start...
For my birthday I went to the saba saba (7-7) mnada (market) and spent the week grading exams. I then became old and did something painful to my back/leg that won me a trip to Dar. I'm still not sure what I did and what went wrong but whatever I am slowly recovering.
When I got back I learned that CBG field trip to the Ngorongoro crater, shifting sands, and dupye gorge. After a day of trying to get permission to go to something that I already had permission for and planned to do I went.
I showed up at 5:45am ready to leave at 6. Um...no one was there. At last (around 6:20)the two land rovers come. From school to town wasn't bad...the kids were squished in the car but I had my own seat. Then we got to town and the mkuu (headmaster) magically appeared and took my seat. So I got the joy of doing the crater Tanzanian style and sat on top of another teacher and the corner of the wooden console. To add insult to injury now not only did my left side hurt from before but now my right side hurt in a different way.
We went to the gorge of dupye (spelling) where the first hominid fossils were found. Then we went to the shifting sands. Over years this sand made from a volcano keep moving as the shifting sands. It is super fun to play in and watch move. The students loved taking pictures and playing in it as did I. We then went to a hill to eat lunch consisting of bread, muffins, and soda. After lunch we crammed back into the car and headed toward the crater. The crater: going down the crater is like driving down the side of a mountain. It's super steep and winding and with an overloaded car with 20 people I sometimes wondered if the car would tip over or make it down and then back up okay.
I saw awesome scenery and animals including lions (male and female), ostriches, a bird i've never seen, zebras, baboons, elephants, camels (so cool), twiga (giraffes), a warthog, and wildebeests. The rest stop in the crater had zebras surrounding it which the students successfully scared away.
then we were running out of time because the gates closed at six and we had to go back up the crater and then back down the other side. so we carefully rushed up the side of the winding narrow road of the crater and then rushed back down the curvy green side to head to town and eat chipsi mayai. By the end of the day I had a great time, minus the pain. I got some awesome pictures but my memory card got a virus and hid all my photos, but alas I finally got it fixed and some photos are up and sent.
Back at school my students are preparing for the mock national exam and finals. Who knows what will happen in September but will try to update.
Baadaye
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Dead Birds and Goat Lungs
Wow, so I'm a horrible blog updater. In my defense I don't have electricity at site so appreciate what you do get.
Ok so I went to IST in Morogoro and had good times there with friends. It was my working vacation since A-level is out during march. Anyway I got back to my house to find a dead bird on my floor and my bench moved in my courtyard. So I called Utouh (another teacher) to tell him that someone broke into my courtyard and there was a dead bird on my floor. He came over and cleaned up the dead bird and mopped floor hardcore! He also found the kid that hopped my courtyard wall and found out that they were playing futbol and kicked the ball into my courtyard and he was the one who retrieved it.
So then I went to town to research dissections for school and came back to another dead bird in the house which Utouh kindly cleaned up again but no mopping this time...bummer.
I got new students (had to wait a week for them to show up). Most of the boys (form 6) returned and I have ~70 form 5 who are all female. Form 6 was learning about the respiratory system so for class I went to the butcher and requested the lungs and trachea. I got a straw from the papaya tree and let them blow the lungs up, deflate them, and dissect them. Afterwards they chopped it up and asked if they could eat them. I said karibu but cook them first. Utouh ended up eating them.
So bird story not yet over because I was at home trying to eat dinner and a bird came in. I opened my door to try and encourage it to fly out and then it went into my kitchen. (these birds are stupid they fly around and hit the walls and they can actually stand sideways on my walls as well. How do I get this bird out? Wait there are now 2 birds! Crap. So I sprayed mosquito repellent....didn't work as I had hoped. Finally got the one out of the kitchen and shut the door. Then I proceeded to chase the birds with a stick because they were on my rafters to try and get them out. I went outside with my light to try and lure them out...shouting at them didn't work either. They kept going towards the door and then veering to the wall. I called my neighbor who wasn't at school for bird chasing advice and he just laughed and told me to catch it for dinner. After one of the birds sat on my shoulder and more chasing I finally got them out. Then I took my only two hand towels and plugged the holes where they were getting through. Bird problem solved.
Anyway, I've been busy teaching (20 periods a week) form 5 and 6. I'm trying to get form 6 caught up in bio from last year and now I'm going to start helping teach them chemistry at night to help them finish that syllabus.
We have two lab technicians who are training at my school so I'm helping them as well. Things have been hectic and teaching is a lot of work, but i hope the students are getting something out of my classes.
Made a birthday cake for my neighbor's niece yesterday and get to go to the birthday party today to enjoy it.
Oh and it's cold season now and need to figure out how to stay warm in a skirt.
Hope all is well with everyone, mail is always accepted here (ask my mom or sister for my address if you need it or send me a private message for it).
Ok so I went to IST in Morogoro and had good times there with friends. It was my working vacation since A-level is out during march. Anyway I got back to my house to find a dead bird on my floor and my bench moved in my courtyard. So I called Utouh (another teacher) to tell him that someone broke into my courtyard and there was a dead bird on my floor. He came over and cleaned up the dead bird and mopped floor hardcore! He also found the kid that hopped my courtyard wall and found out that they were playing futbol and kicked the ball into my courtyard and he was the one who retrieved it.
So then I went to town to research dissections for school and came back to another dead bird in the house which Utouh kindly cleaned up again but no mopping this time...bummer.
I got new students (had to wait a week for them to show up). Most of the boys (form 6) returned and I have ~70 form 5 who are all female. Form 6 was learning about the respiratory system so for class I went to the butcher and requested the lungs and trachea. I got a straw from the papaya tree and let them blow the lungs up, deflate them, and dissect them. Afterwards they chopped it up and asked if they could eat them. I said karibu but cook them first. Utouh ended up eating them.
So bird story not yet over because I was at home trying to eat dinner and a bird came in. I opened my door to try and encourage it to fly out and then it went into my kitchen. (these birds are stupid they fly around and hit the walls and they can actually stand sideways on my walls as well. How do I get this bird out? Wait there are now 2 birds! Crap. So I sprayed mosquito repellent....didn't work as I had hoped. Finally got the one out of the kitchen and shut the door. Then I proceeded to chase the birds with a stick because they were on my rafters to try and get them out. I went outside with my light to try and lure them out...shouting at them didn't work either. They kept going towards the door and then veering to the wall. I called my neighbor who wasn't at school for bird chasing advice and he just laughed and told me to catch it for dinner. After one of the birds sat on my shoulder and more chasing I finally got them out. Then I took my only two hand towels and plugged the holes where they were getting through. Bird problem solved.
Anyway, I've been busy teaching (20 periods a week) form 5 and 6. I'm trying to get form 6 caught up in bio from last year and now I'm going to start helping teach them chemistry at night to help them finish that syllabus.
We have two lab technicians who are training at my school so I'm helping them as well. Things have been hectic and teaching is a lot of work, but i hope the students are getting something out of my classes.
Made a birthday cake for my neighbor's niece yesterday and get to go to the birthday party today to enjoy it.
Oh and it's cold season now and need to figure out how to stay warm in a skirt.
Hope all is well with everyone, mail is always accepted here (ask my mom or sister for my address if you need it or send me a private message for it).
Thursday, February 10, 2011
It's Been a While
So I finally beat technology and am able to log into my account.t New problem...my battery is dying so this will probably be short as per usual.
I'm getting ready to give my students there annual exam and then I'm on break because A-level is odd like that, but I don't really care. I finally got mail and now I have more than 2 t-shirts...so stoked, but I cannot wear them this week because of the enormous blisters on my back that I got from sitting outside for three hours when the mkuu called an all school meeting on Monday. (These meetings are all in Kiswahili. One of the teachers wants to do teacher meetings in english only...I said if he did that they wouldn't last 3 hrs long)
What else have I been up to...hmmm...cooking at night takes a while and well I'm having food craving for things I can't have here because they aren't available so I take what I can get. I slayed some bees a few weeks ago and thought I might have to slay a snake. My neighbor got stung by a scorpion the other day. I have identified goat meat and prefer not to buy it with the head staring at me. Things are becoming slightly normal here and I know it will be weird to go back to the states. Really missing dairy and cold weather though.
Yeah, not much new other than teaching and going to town. I'm working on posting pictures on fb so check there for updates. Hopefully I'll have more interesting things to say later.
I'm getting ready to give my students there annual exam and then I'm on break because A-level is odd like that, but I don't really care. I finally got mail and now I have more than 2 t-shirts...so stoked, but I cannot wear them this week because of the enormous blisters on my back that I got from sitting outside for three hours when the mkuu called an all school meeting on Monday. (These meetings are all in Kiswahili. One of the teachers wants to do teacher meetings in english only...I said if he did that they wouldn't last 3 hrs long)
What else have I been up to...hmmm...cooking at night takes a while and well I'm having food craving for things I can't have here because they aren't available so I take what I can get. I slayed some bees a few weeks ago and thought I might have to slay a snake. My neighbor got stung by a scorpion the other day. I have identified goat meat and prefer not to buy it with the head staring at me. Things are becoming slightly normal here and I know it will be weird to go back to the states. Really missing dairy and cold weather though.
Yeah, not much new other than teaching and going to town. I'm working on posting pictures on fb so check there for updates. Hopefully I'll have more interesting things to say later.
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