Searching for World Wide Web access in Tanzania

First time at computer today. We are at the Monduli teacher’s college in the computer lab. We have been waiting to come here, but the server has been down for ten days because they didn’t pay their bill.

Twelve of us are living in a duplex — eleven women and one man. All are good sports and the weariness of being in such close quarters is alleviated by our cook who prepares delicious meals. He is on loan from a safari company.

There many similarities in the attitude of the staff that I saw in my Zulu High School in 2003. Many want information on graduate schools and hope we can help them (i.e. find “sponsors”). We don’t have partner-teachers as we had expected and we have very small groups. Students were told the night before vacation that they had not passed their tests and would have to come to our Language Village. Many skipped out! Who could blame them!?

After three weeks, some are coming back early and want to join our classes, which is fine with us. I only have 3 “form one” students. They are wonderful and we work with our homerooms every day and rotate the other 10 groups for the remaining four periods. That way we only have to prepare “deeply” for a small number of lessons that we adapt to each group of students. I am having great luck using Maasai folk tales to build English comprehension. I prepare by using culturally relevant materials.

We walked to the market with our students yesterday. A colleague and I took a taxi home with four of our students. It was the first time that three of the girls had been in a car. They didn’t know how to look for the handles to get out.

Quick check in from Tanzania

Barbara’s daughter here. I received this email message today from one of mom’s traveling colleagues:

All team members are well & happy. We just have no email access now except for my iPhone. So on behalf of all, I want to assure you we are fine, and everything is as close to plan as possible. After all, as we say here, “This is Africa!” Please pass our message on to others as needed.

Ready or Not: Tanzania, Here I Come!

Tomorrow is the day I leave for Tanzania. It seemed like just yesterday that I still had three weeks before departure. This has been quite a trip to prepare for. I have had polio update, yellow fever, meningitis vaccines and started malaria meds today. The Visa for Tanzania is in hand and my clothing has all been sprayed with mosquito repellent that supposedly will last through six washings. In addition, we have gathered materials for all of the 60 lessons we are expecting to teach. I am hoping to read the manual for my new camera on the plane as well as the guide book to Tanzania. My travelin’ friend, Jean, who will sit next to me for 18 hours of flight has such a camera manual to read too. She says it guarantees we will sleep well on the plane!

We fly to Amsterdam, where we will meet all twelve of our group, who are coming from around the USA. Bette, the third in our local trio is flying an hour behind us all the way, so she will catch up to us in Amsterdam. If you happen to be in Schipol Airport tomorrow, you will know us by our not-very-discrete laminated name tags, about 4×7″ that have picture of African animals on them. Mine has a huge elephant on it. Makes me feel like a kindergartner on a trip to the zoo. After Amsterdam we fly to Kilimanjaro. We have a day to catch up in the town of Arusha before we begin our four-night safari. Sunday we arrive at the school and Monday, we meet our students and begin our teaching program.

Here is the school’s website. There is also a short video here that includes the girls singing.

A Poem for Jet-Age Travelers

I heard this poem on The Writer’s Almanac this morning. It helps me visualize what I can look forward to after the next few days of constant flurry, crossing things off my lists, adding to the list, consolidating lists, dreaming of lists. Eighteen air hours to Kilimanjaro will afford me lots of time to review my life’s ten million choices! Now to read the directions on how to soak my clothes in mosquito repellent and how to use the new luggage scale.Then off to Silver Sneakers at the YWCA. After I eat a well-balanced breakfast with plenty of potassium and sprinkled with flax seed. Do the Maasai elders eat flax seed?

Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale

by Dan Albergotti

Measure the walls. Count the ribs. Notch the long days.

Look up for blue sky through the spout. Make small fires

with the broken hulls of fishing boats. Practice smoke signals.

Call old friends, and listen for echoes of distant voices.

Organize your calendar. Dream of the beach. Look each way

for the dim glow of light. Work on your reports. Review

each of your life’s ten million choices. Endure moments

of self-loathing. Find the evidence of those before you.

Destroy it. Try to be very quiet, and listen for the sound

of gears and moving water. Listen for the sound of your heart.

Be thankful that you are here, swallowed with all hope,

where you can rest and wait. Be nostalgic. Think of all

the things you did and could have done. Remember

treading water in the center of the still night sea, your toes

pointing again and again down, down into the black depths.

“Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale” by Dan Albergotti from The Boatloads.© BOA Editions, Ltd., 2008. Reprinted on Writer’s Almanac.

A travel poem for you! Treading water as a metaphor for getting ready for the trip, the whale’s belly as a metaphor for jumbo jets. TT

LGBT Families…it’s not over

I am responding to Mombian’s request to blog for LGBT families today!

Most of you who know me are aware that 30 years ago my mixed orientation marriage dissolved when my then-husband came out. Our children were 5 and 8. But my identity as an ally and LGBT family member continues, as long as I have children and grandchildren, and someday perhaps, great grandchildren. It has been important to support my children in their relationship with their father and his partner, and now my grandson, who has always known he has two grandpas in the Midwest.

It is cute when a three year old says, “Gwampa, I called you yesterday and you weren’t home, and so I talked with Gwampa!” But how cute or easy is it for a sixteen year old when his grandpas travel halfway across the country for a visit and attend a picnic with the LaCrosse team? We don’t know. We have tried to make it possible to have a conversation about having a gay grandfather, but all attempts are met with “no problem.”

This is basically what my children told me when they were growing up. Now they are quite a bit more open about challenges they faced that they didn’t want to share with us when they were teens. Perhaps it will be a decade or more before my grandson wants to talk about feelings he may have about his family. In any event, I will continue to let him know the door is open for a conversation.  And I’ll make sure he always knows he has an ally in his Gram.