Back to school, back to school to prove to students that they are not fools. Most of my students at Kayuki Secondary carry the attitude of that I observed in many of my fellow college students: questioning is bothersome. And that includes answering the teacher’s questions. Anybody, anybody… With this being the first week back from our month long break, I hope that I can start fresh and get these girls using their inner skeptic. It is a real challenge to get any participation at all except from the most outspoken students. First I thought that the main problem was lack of confidence in using English. That’s fine. But since the beginning of the school year in January, I’ve been teaching primarily in Swahili. Notes on the board come out as English but my explanations of diagrams and physical phenomena are in a mish-mash of two languages. There are simply no good words in Swahili for “refraction.” I can do my level-best with “kupinda njia ya mwanga.” But since the students are required to complete grueling exams in English, I should make more of an effort to help them improve.
Note to the Tanzanian Ministry of Education and Peace Corps: send English teachers. We should be assigning teachers to elementary schools to teach English and to teach students that asking questions is a sign of intelligence (especially the kind that is exercisable). Change in education must come from the bottom up. It is unlikely that people change their behavior later in life, therefore, instill the kind of critical thinking skills that are desirable for higher learning when students are young before other behaviors take precedence. Blah blah blah.
In other news, I’m unofficially the official health guru for villagers and school staff. I suppose this development began last February when I bandaged up S. Karapa’s split-open finger and sent her to get stitches at the hospital. In reality, she just went to the nearest dispensary and the smeared her with gentian violent and plaster. I saw her almost a week later with the same damn bandage on looking like it had gone through the digestive system of a ruminant. “Ok,” I said “but you need to change the bandage.” Unfortunately, she was afraid to unwrap the thing because of the pain it would cause. I told her that if she didn’t keep it clean it would cause worse pain that she thought possible. Three house calls later, I was satisfied with the dryness of the wound and stopped seeing her often (it’s a trek into the valley). Since then, there’s been a trickle of people who come specifically to Kayuki Secondary to see me. One such occasion Mama Siri, my house help, brought the son of the local plumber to the school with a small puncture on his left knee. Upon examination, I found that whatever he had landed on had pierced clear through the dermis and there was a small cavity between his skin and patella. Poor little guy, I aspirated with my mono-ject syringe (you know the one you get after your wisdom teeth are removed, I knew there was a reason I brought it) and filtered-boiled water. Unfortunately, butterfly bandages wouldn’t hold because someone had smeared his leg with honey. I can’t decide if this was ingenious on their part or just a pain in the butt. Clean cotton and an ace bandage—which will impress any Tanzanian btw—did the trick nicely although I haven’t done a follow-up.
It starts getting a little more “real” when people start asking you to give them injections. My own personal aspirations aside, it is not at all wise to go about handing out injections for every little annoyance. Therefore I told my TZian twin (he calls me that) that I would get some crystal penicillin but that we should keep it on hand for a real emergency. The fact that his right inguinal lymph node was swollen to high-hell seemed to me a good sign—that the hot compresses were stirring things up and getting fluids moving up to the trunk again. Things are always more complicated with elephantitus don’t ya know. Anyway he’s got to get other things in his life sorted out, especially the drinking.
In other news, I’ve become somewhat apprehensive about a media program at Kayuki. Until students become more proficient at using computers and we do some general upgrades of hardware, running video editing software would present more problems than anything else. Also, I’ve stepped up the course-work form my Physics students and hence increased my own work-load. No worries. Villagers from Bujela, Itura and Ngujubwaje all are interested in learning about permaculture gardening and there is a plan in the works for weekly sessions at a demonstration/research plot out in the boonies. It’ll be hard especially since most people know a lot about farming already. What seems to surprise them is the methods for fertilizing the soil that they are not taking advantage. Kumbe! Actually, I didn’t know that 1 part urine mixed with 5 parts water was somehow as good as commercial urea either.
Well that’s the news from Tukuyu. Say hello to the country for me.
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