Habarini Rafiki Zangu, (Hello my Friends)
Alright let's see if I can fill everyone in on all the happenings of the past few weeks in the 35 minutes I have left here at the internet cafe in Morogoro.
Well let me start off by letting you know that we've reached the midway point of our training. It's gone by quite fast and not without many ups and downs along the way. We've taken our midterm oral and written exam. Of course I passed with flying colors on both and am obviously awesome and arrogant beyond belief. (This is a bit of the American sarcasm Tanzanians don't understand and I miss using oh so much!)
We've began our internship teaching at the schools were we've been learning kiswahili and observing how the Tanzanian school system functions. After the few lessons I've taught I immediately respect my high school teachers so much more than I ever did before. Teaching is not easy and it doesn't help matters when your students don't really understand english since this is their first year being taught in english! Have no fear though I will persevere and in due time I will emerge from the ash as a furious phoenix and teach like no one has ever taught before! Or more than likely, I think I'll become a descent teacher, it's just going to take time. Plus I've got two years to get my act together, so like my kiswahili polepole (slowly) is the pace.
This past weekend we went on safari! There's a national park a little over an hour away from Morogoro called Mikumi National Park and we had a great time and snapped some killer photos. We spent two days in the park and stayed in some hotels just outside of Mikumi. The first day we showed up in the afternoon and were lucky enough to see some lions muching away on an impala carcus near the water hole where the hippo was chillin. We saw a good deal of zebras, water buffalo, elephants, a few monkeys, and giraffes. It was really a fun trip. Of course in the evening before the second day at the park some people decided to have a few drinks and get a little crazy. But certainly not me, I don't drink or live by the motto "Just because you're smart doesn't mean you can't act stupid". (Alright my last little quip of american sarcasm for my own benefit)
Those are the few major happenings and shenanaigans that have gone down these past few weeks. But I still have 10 minutes so I'll break down a typical day in the life of JQ-Money here in Tanzania. First, I usually wake up around 5 or 5:30, that's when my host mama and sisters wake up to start sweeping and continue with the never ending battle against the wind and dust. I don't actually get up until around 6:30 and take a nice cold bucket shower in the (choo) shower/toilet. I enjoy some awkward silence with my host father at the table, after we've exhausted my limited swahili, and enjoy some instant coffee with either a hard boiled egg, some rice and beans from the past evening, or maybe some bread. Then I wait for my fellow trainee Paul and we walk to school. We learn kiswahili for most of the day or now it's mixed with our internship teaching. We go to lunch at a house not too far from school and enjoy some rice, beans and spinach but sometimes they mix it up and we get spinach, beans and rice. I'm just kidding, sort of.
I'll fill you all in with the rest next time. Take it easy!
-Jastin
Sounds like so much fun to go on a Safari! Also, I'm loving that you put bits and pieces of sawahili in your posts. We get to learn words along with you. By the end of the two years, it'll be all sawahili.
ReplyDeleteBe well Cous. :D