26 Feb: Throwing Down

I woke up early because Im the superimportant TOD. I was to give some announcements at morning assembly. Again, dont really have any. It seems like assembly s similar to the Festivus "Airing of Grievances," where people just lay into students telling them what they could or should do better. After teaching a Form III course (great, interactive) and a form II (bland, whispers, blank stares), I have realized theres not much else I can do when teaching Form II. Ive done everything I feel I can, from over pronouncing everything I say, to writing everything I say on the board, begging them to interrupt when they cant understand me, and spending time in the office with Brayn every night after dinner. Still nothing seems to get through. Maybe Kessler was right, I should have brought stickers.

At afternoon assembly, I decided to join in on the railing of students. Almost 15 minutes was wasted while students filed into the Form III course after morning assembly. Also, the head prefect Amani had ratted out some students, as he is often asked to do, who had broken other rules, so we had them all fetch water for the trees that were planted the previous day. Being TOD, I have to stick around the school after classes, which is a little frustrating since we still have some exploring to do. Brayn and I excused ourselves from a staff meeting which was being conducted pretty much entirely in Kiswahili. We went to watch (supervise) some students playing netball and soccer (football), and somehow ended up goofing around playing 2 on 2 basketball (just backboards, no nets) with a couple students. We quit when we lost the sunlight.

After dinner we had some great conversation about the Tanzanian economy, whats wrong and how can it be made better. As it turns out, its a lot easier to talk about whats wrong. Theres a lot to say, from the high cost of electricity which keeps industry down, to corruption in high ranking officials, to an entire generation which should be the bulk of the workforce not having any education. There is also a mass exodus of those individuals with any real skill that might be of value to an industrialized nation, who will allow only these skilled workers to immigrate.

Tonight is the world premiere of our photo montage, which will hopefully be on youtube very soon.

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