Education

I was recently asked if Vai has a good grasp of English.
Vai has been in New Zealand for seven years and her story will appear one of these days.

To answer the question about her her ability to speak English, I relate it first to my experience, because I spent seven years in Tanzania speaking Swahili.
A linguistic expert told me that you are fluent in a language if you can hold a conversation for two minutes. I was able to conduct an environmental seminar for two or three hours, talk to a mechanic about a vehicle, organize water projects, talk to builders to build schools or houses or water tanks, even negotiate prices from general shopping to large item building/plumbing materials.
But if I was to join a conversation about say, politics or web design; I would be inept. Learning a language you get used to the vocabulary used in your field and it takes a longer time to pick up other words.

The other thing is that the vowel sounds I am used to are different to those of Swahili. Swahili vowel sounds are the same as Maori and probably more languages use those sounds.
I remember very early on Joshia used the botanical name Grevillea robusta, a name that I knew well, but did not recognize it because of the different sound. This is accent and took me just a short while to become used to it.

Because I worked with rural government schools and helped (financially) several young people through secondary school, as well as coaching three Makumira Secondary School students, I do have some knowledge of education in Tanzania. I do not want to be disparaging but some of what I say here will be surprising to some.

First it is important to understand that with slight seasonal variation darkness settles in at 7:00pm and daylight 7:00am. Most rural Tanzanian homes do not have electricity and many cannot afford artificial light - candles and kerosene. This means kids are unable to read at night or do their school homework. This puts rural students at a severe disadvantage.

There has been a shortage of school teachers and 'pressure cooker' schemes put less well trained teachers into the workforce. The more remote areas are places less desirable to live, therefore more difficult to recruit quality teachers. And then the desirable areas are well endowed with teachers.
The example of Makumira Primary School, close to the Theological College - now University - where wives of lecturers become teachers. The Mratibu education coordinator of the area has the power of reporting on teachers and recommends which teachers should be moved to other schools. Some Mratibu become very well dressed and put on weight!

English is taught as a subject in primary schools and in secondary schools teach all subjects in English (except Kiswahili) which is why the pass rate is low and private schools have better outcomes.

Primary school teachers pass on poor English to students, the commonest is adding a vowel - i or e - to most nouns. In the class situation primary and secondary teachers write the lesson on the blackboard making errors in tabulation (copying from a text book) and the student then copy those errors and (because usually through time pressures) they make their own errors of tabulation. Oh and it often happens that students copy from other student's books, there are more errors of tabulation.
Upendo was struggling with Agriculture, so I translated her whole book back into Swahili! For me, the Agriculture subject is bread and butter so was easy, but her exercise book was so full of errors that makes it no surprise that students fail.

There is a national examination at the end of primary school - Std VII - the passing of which means a seat in a government secondary school. Students are asked to nominate their preferred school - some have better reputations than others and some are distant, have hostels and other benefits and cost some families a great amount of money!
Upendo had her identity (seat in secondary school) stolen, and some sell their seat to a richer person who does not want their seat for whatever reason.
Those failing are able to gain a place in a private school, with higher fees, and the more affluent are able to find a place in the very good private schools allowing lower passed students a place in the government schools.
In the past there have not been enough places in government schools for all the students who qualify, and the place is given to the higher achiever.
As time goes on, all of these things are improving because of funding injections from various sources.

Ntuwe Primary School

There is a dirt road that goes from the King'ori village market area way down to The Maasai market area at Kolila which is on the main at the junction of the road into the airport. Between the Maasai market area and the other part of the (Meru) Kolila is a gravel pit that the Japanese established for various roading projects.

I tried to buy some gravel off them at one stage. There was fairly strict security and it was a bit of negotiation to get through to speak to one of the Japanese supervisors. He could not speak English or Kiswahili and I could not speak Japanese so I resorted to drawing pictures on my pad that I wanted to buy three truckloads of gravel. He was prepared to sell it, but the price was way higher than I could purchase from my usual spot in Arusha. Actually I was trying to get them to donate it because it was for a school building project but they were not interested in helping out in that way.

Perhaps two thirds the way up the road from Kolila is Ntuwe Primary School. We were not looking for another school to work with because were were actually over committed with many other small projects going on as well as my basic assignment.
The reason we went there was in response to a request from the Bishop (the Hon.) to research the food shortage in the Meru area. I have written about this in an early blog World Food Shortage? dated 6/6/08.
I will repeat some of it here in a precis form:
A woman from the Christmas Parish in the Meru part of Kolila hung herself because she could not bear to watch her children starve. In response to this the Bishop asked me to carry out a survey to ascertain the level of hunger within the DME. He chose me because I travelled around the area more that anyone else at the time - and I could fund it easily within my assignment.
I had been used to doing random sampling in forests to gather data and I used the same technique to sample schools.
I drafted a questionnaire and interviewed 35 pupils from each school in an even range of age groups with every second pupil a different sex to the previous pupil and I interviewed them - with Loti on their own in the cab of my truck. I sampled 20 of the schools over the whole area I worked [at the time].
This was a distressing thing for me as it turned out. First I found that 20% of the pupils over the whole area were missing school either because they had not the energy to walk to school, or they were looking after siblings while their parents went to distant parts looking for food - begging or from relatives.
I was shocked that I did recognize that there was a problem as I had been around these schools and was totally oblivious of the problem. Some children were even collapsing in class!
As the kids sat with me in the truck, the ginger tint in their hair and the dry skin around their mouths is a give away. Otherwise, is was difficult to tell they were hungry - certainly they were not emancipated like those you see on television.
On the day of the interview, none had anything for breakfast. On average they ate once every three days, and that meal was most usually a banana mixed in warm water and the ration was half a glass. Some of the kids would go for five days without food!
All told me of the pain in their stomachs and there were many painful stories of their families.

If you understand the problem from the picture I have painted here, think of the problems in the current drought of East Africa - to become emancipated like that, conditions are just so bad.
Anyone experiencing what I had found would try to do something about the situation, and I tried hard. Tanzania breweries provided a tonne of maize starch which I immediately distributed but for political reasons the government would not acknowledge there was a food shortage other aid agencies would not or could not provide funds.
One aid agency actually used my report and their NZ branch gave NZD100 000 but our schools saw not a penny of that! In the end MFAT (NZ) gave me an emergency grant of NZD10 000.
With that money we provided food (maize and beans) to fourteen schools using a method Loti and I developed to avoid any misuse of those funds.
It has to be recognised that corruption easily creeps in when aid is provided and it is very difficult to stamp out. There is much to say about this - but I leave it there.

Of the fourteen schools to receive food, Ntuwe was one of them.

We were aware of the whispers when we were carrying out the interviews that this mzungu might be able to bring food. I was very careful to point out that I would try to find help. but that my mission was one of finding out the scope of the problem.
Ntuwe is on in the green belt on Mt Meru, and looking at the vegetation, my first thought was that there should be no hunger there. But the kids told their story and I could see for myself that indeed there was a problem.

One tonne of maize starch between fourteen schools is not much and some families tried to make ugali rather than uji, the thin thinner porridge, sometime without success because they were unfamiliar with such a fine flour but it gave each child the first solid food they had taken for some time.
There was then the delay of us finding funds to provide more food and meantime, I was searching for a way to utilize spent grain from the brewery. I had an almost endless supply of the stuff offered to me, but the human stomach does not have the enzymes to utilize it. I searched for ways to do this and failed.

I had been able to purchase maize and beans from Mama Lilian, who had become a friend and neighbor at Sanawari (she was a friend of Mama Baraka). Mama Lilian was a dealer in bulk maize and beans and as her contribution to our project, she delivered the free to our house at Makumira.
My nursery workers and Mags measured out the family packs of food for the next days deliveries and I ferried it out daily to the schools involved. This was a fair way of delivering the food and on site we had some considerable organization to do to hand out the packs.
Polygamy or even broken relationships is something we had to deal with in many villages, so what we did was ask the oldest child in each household to stand in a row, them all other children 'living behind the same door' line up behind them. This way the food was distributed evenly.
Now some of the teachers had children at school, and the fact was that teachers were paid monthly and able to buy food, so did not need the assistance. This was somewhat difficult to manage so their kids recieved the food. Then occasionally a teacher would decide that he/she should also receive food. Usually they too would receive a parcel.
In some villages there were elderly lone people and sometimes handicapped, if they turned up and requested food, they too were given a parcel.

We managed, with the help of the teaching staff to carry out the food deliveries in an orderly fashion and at Ntuwe Primary School the kids were very happy with their parcels.

We were the only agency to supply food in the area at that time and I guess the school wanted to somehow reciprocate by supporting our environmental project. Therefore they asked if we could carry out a seminar and planting programme.

This we did when we found some time and the planting programme was successful as was the distribution of trees to each pupil to take home and plant on their farm. Some of the kids took great pride in their trees.










Unloading the corn starch into out house where we packaged it for the schools.










The packing made a lot of dust and a mess in our house. Corn starch is very fine and powdery.










Nursery workers crowd our house to pack the food for delivery.










A food delivery to hungry kids.










Kids wait for us to arrive with food, in their lines.










We ran a competition for the best school school effort towards the environment as a millennium project and the Ntuwe pupils await news.










Head boy and girl recieve balls as a prize for the equal best in the millenium project.

Lendoiya and Leguruki No.2 Schools

There are two schools to mention as the road passes Nkoasenga, the Momella lakes and drops down into Olkung'wado.

As far as the timeline goes, these two came later, but in real terms our involvement was rather minor - thought we were greatly involved with Lendoiya [spelt also as Lendoiya] as we established a water project starting there and heading all the way to Ilkirimuni.

Leguruki No.2 Primary School, later to be named Noseiya was a brand new school that we notices as we irregularly passed by. One day a woman flagged us down and she was one of the enthusiastic teachers from Leguruki Primary School who had been appointed to this new school.
These new schools start off with school entrants - the youngest pupils, and this woman was an expert with young kids and would not go on to become Head Teacher.
The teachers main reason for stopping us was to source trees to landscape the new school, but she also wanted us to motivate the student - as young as they were - to care for the trees. And I agree that there is no age barrier to caring for trees.

We carried out one short seminar targeted at a very young audience and spent a day there planting in the holes the kids had prepared - some of the parent/committee were there as well.
Our followups did not include a prize-giving but we did call from time to time and saw that the trees were well cared for.

We would never have gone to Lendoiya Primary School because we did not know it existed, as it was tucked down the hill behind the church, which was visible from the road. Mch Nassari encouraged us to go there, no doubt encouraged by his parish members.
Actually, the school wanted three rolls of pipe to provide water to the school toilets, but that would also provide water to the church, as they could put another standpipe and tap there - probably the prime reason to call us there. But the usual theme put to me was that they wanted to plant trees, but they would not survive because there was no water.

I agreed to carry out a seminar at the school and a tree planting programme as well. I had become adept at bargaining for plumbing products around Arusha because this part of my assignment was to carry out water projects, so agreed to supply three rolls of pipe plus the fittings required; but only on condition that the school/church pre dig the trench/furrow.

By the time we carried out the environmental seminar, there was no trench dug, and I could not delay supplying the trees due to time constraints and because as this school was tagged on at the end of the season, I was running short of trees. I knew I could buy some, but the lack of the trench showed to me a lack of motivation.
I decided to supply a token amount of trees, warned the staff prior to our arrival, but still no holes had been dug. I left the trees and called back two weeks later to find that the trees had been planted but were dry. Still no trench had been dug.
It is often the case that people ask for a certain project, expecting the funds, but we never worked that way - it was necessary to carry out the work required on a community basis, materials supplied and signed for in front of many people and the placement supervised as well as possible.
After the appropriate approaches to the village leaders, the trench was dug and we fitted the
pipe - I was unable to supply more trees and the survivals were not up to my usual standard.

I have no pictures of Lendoiya Primary School and just the one at Leguruki No.2.










The first entrants to Leguruki No.2 Primary School.










The Momella lake where we tried to creep up close to see the flamingos - which was more difficult might be expected.

I Get Stitches

Amani had asked me if I would be her chauffeur on her wedding day, or in other words, have me drive our Landrover to ferry her and her bridesmaids to the church and then back to her parent's house for the wedding feast. Of course I wouldn’t refuse her because she was one of my nursery workers and her parents lived in the house closest to us across the creek. But for vehicle access we had to go right out to the main road to Kilala and up past the famous Dik Dik Lodge.

Amani's flower girls and helpers came over to clean the Landrover and to decorate it with purple Bougainvillea flowers. Cleaning vehicles is not recognised as a female task, but these young women did a good job. To keep it clean, I travelled slowly and I didn’t want to dislodge the flowers they had beautifully hung around the outside of the vehicle. We had a goat in the back, which was to our wedding gift and we had our visitors, who also had invited.

The wedding was a typical Meru wedding with singing and some dancing with everyone but the bridal couple looking joyful. Couples usually look forlorn to show that they are not happy about leaving home. But it was a good day and everything went well. We lined up with the gift-givers, and the gifts were large and small, cattle beast to a handful of coins. Our goat, Shishitoni, behaved well, and we had decorated him to look like a 1800’s tart!

The next day we were expecting Mama Riziki, another of our nursery workers, to bring her young daughter to visit us. We liked Mama Riziki and at that stage we had not met her young daughter. We employed her initially to bring us Grevillea seedlings because there was poor germination in the seed I had collected. She was a bright cookie and reliable in the nursery.

It was a quiet Sunday afternoon and I ventured into the cool of the garage while we waited for Mama Riziki and little Riziki. I noticed dusty hand-marks all over the Landrover! This was because the decorating girls had oil on their hands. Fragrant oil or lotion is used by most, because the fine dust dries out the skin and everyone likes to have clean, shiny skin.  The oil had stuck to the paint surface and the dust from the road stuck to those invisible hand prints, leaving them plain to see. Absentmindedly I began to wipe them off. Wham! I fell across the inspection pit that the Landrover was parked over. The pit had a steel edge where safety boards were supposed to sit.

The steel edging opened a gash in my shin, and I could see the bone! I held the wound to stop the piece of meat flapping and to stop the bleeding! I hobbled, bent over compressing the wound to the backdoor steps, where I called Mags. She called back that Mama Riziki had just arrived and that that I should come to greet them. But the tone of my reply, that I needed her right now, brought them all running.

One of our guests, Malcolm, quickly produced a bottle of brandy from his kit, with the enthusiasm of youth he hoped it would help! But I suggested I might need to be alert because we didn’t know what medical help we could find on a Sunday. Mags drove us into Dr. Joyce's hospital! Our field rep Mama Mbembe, had met up with Dr. Joyce and his wife socially, and so all vols ended up going there. Apparently if asked, he couldn’t produce his credentials – but that’s another story. Being Sunday the hospital was closed, but his day-guard went to fetch him and he came out and took me into his surgery.

All of his sewing/surgical equipment had been sterilized and he kept them wrapped in cloth to keep the invasive dust off. He injected some painkiller into the wound and began scraping the oil-gunk and dirt from the bone. That painkiller stuff didn’t do much of a job there! Once he was satisfied that the wound was clean, he stitched it up using ten stitches. Ness, who had worked as a vet nurse came in from time to time to cast her professional eye over his work. She returned to the waiting room and told Mags she thought it to be a little uneven, and that her vet could make a neater job! However, his work was good and it healed well and now is not easy to see.

The next day I had work to do at Valeska village and school.  It is an arduous trip and the paracetamol worked for a time, but not all day. When it wore off at about lunch time, I could not operate the accelerator at all so Mags had to drive us home. Luckily I mended quickly! It could have been worse had I fallen head first into the pit. I might not have been found for some time!

Nkoasenga Primary School

The road continues past Leguruki to climb over a ridge and eventually down into Ngarenanyuki, a route we used most usually when there was flooding through the Arusha National Park.
Bwana Tie, as we called him [because he was always well dressed and wore a tie], a school teacher at Makumira Secondary School and later headmaster at Ngarenanyuki Secondary School had his home place at Nkoasenga and asked us to visit there. His brother also was a Makumira, working/managing the canteen and another brother had been Headmaster at Ngarenanyuke but later became Headmaster of Leguruki Secondary School. Maybe that sounds complicated, but it is some history.

The road into Nkoasenga leaves the King'ori - Ngarenanyuki road and climbs up a steepish isolated hill and the school is perched almost at the top. I was somewhat amazed at the location of the school because the students and teachers had to climb uphill to their school and otherwise, I was unsure and remain of the exact catchment area of this school.

The school is set among some mature Grevillea robusta trees and is more modern than some other schools and is clean and tidy. There is a large water tank there, and while obvious there was water there - people were using the outlet - but I never found out about the source of the water or how it was set up.

On that first visit, we happened to have a group of young New Zealand visitors with us, and they quickly made friends with some of the younger staff and of course the pupils liked to meet them, checking out the modern clothes and the long hair of the young women.

We only carried out one seminar at Nkoasenga and one planting season, including the mandatory followups. The school management had an ambitious planting plan, and we supplied all the trees for the project. Our followups showed that the plantings had been cared for well and had a good ongoing future.

I was given a goat as a gift from the school, and the poor animal suffered an uncomfortable trip to the Makumira nursery because we had to tie it's feet so it lay down in the back of the vehicle - the road home was bumpy.
I found difficulty in feeding the animal because goats are not grazers, rather they are browsers and used to nibbling titbits as the walk along. So cutting food and taking it to the tied up animal became a task for morning and evening and it actually refused to eat a lot of the food that I delivered. It liked variety and only small amounts of each species of plant material.
Of course the goat was given so that it could be slaughtered and feasted upon - and from time to time the nursery staff were licking their lips in anticipation.

As it turned out, Amani, one of our nursery workers, was married and so with a purple bow around the goat's neck, I presented it to her and her new husband during the presentation of their gifts! It all worked out very well!

I don't have so many pictures for Nkoasenga and there are gaps throughout my time - I usually didn't have the time/opportunity to take photos, I depended on Mags or someone else to take the majority.









Staff and pupils at Nkoasenga Primary School










Staff pose with our visitors - the goat is there too.










The prizewinners at Nkoasenga Primary School













Gifts given to us included two stools, kangas and a goat.










The senior staff with us after the presentation









I'm (unusually) decked out for Amani's wedding, with Mbise and the goat also decked out










Presenting the goat to Amani and her new husband

Leguruki Primary School

The village of Leguruki is the last large village on the main road Malula - Ngarenanyuki. This is the village were the Bishop had his home place and where Mch Majola had taken us to the church where he was in charge of the King'ori District within DME. We had a lot of involvement with the church and the women's group there.

The primary school is a little off the road and sits on a small hill, a rock outcrop. Because of the lay of the land the classrooms, all in a line, step down a couple of times.
Elsewhere on the internet you may find reference to this school because a German Pastor provided some assistance for a number of years and he networked with other schools in Germany. Also the relationship of the Lutheran church in Germany (mainly) and the closeness of the Bishop's farm meant that the nearest school was given assistance.
It was really good to see that a German school funded tea (with milk and sugar) and a slice of bread to each student there for a year.

Still the school was under resourced! There was a large student population because the large catchment area they came from.
The school was led by a young man, Mbise, and he was enthusiastic doing good work within the school, and encouraging any assistance that he could find. He didn't look for us, we found him

I have a note here that is distasteful for me but I experienced it from time to time. There are ex-teachers in each area who are sort of district inspectors/supervisors and they recommend things to the Regional Office in Arusha. These people have the power to move teachers from one school to another and the teachers seem to have few rights of appeal. Teachers may be set up in a village with their homes and are happily ensconced in their work. But the inspector can be bent by other teachers, who for reasons of their own want someone moved on - some of this is corrupt. Sure there are times when teachers become slack and need to moved on, but some pay their way into being left where they are too. Mbise was one that was moved, he went to Malula and we met with him some years later - Leguruki's loss was Malula's gain.

The Head Teacher's off was small and difficult for three visitors to sit with him, and we were left in there while Mbise was called to us. He was a young tidy man and it was obvious he had the interests of the students at heart and had his finger on the running of the school. The walls of his office were covered with charts and graphs showing the progress of the school and passport photos of Std VII pupils because their success in the end of year national examinations ranked the school. Many (most) of the other teachers were senior to him in age, but all seemed to me to be happy in their work and working under Mbise.
Mbise was very happy with our proposal to carry our environmental seminars and tree planting among his student. After we had set up a timetable, he took us into the village to a local restaurant. A dingy looking place with the interior painted in dark green and red - making it all the darker. Mbise went to talk to the cook/owner/chef and we partook in chapati and mtori. Mtori is a both of mutton or goat meat with perhaps onion. The colour of grey dishwater and served on aluminum plate-cum trays. It did not look appetizing at all and I have to say to those who do not like the food of other counties, you should always try. It was nothing short of delicious, hot and clean. Whenever we went back there, I was always keen on a repeat.

Over the next few years we carried out our environmental programme and tree planting projects with good success because this too was an area where there was adequate rainfall and a good water tap. Most of the villagers and schools took water from a line that starts from Lendoiya
and goes right down to King'ori, those villages higher up the took the water as they required it and there was not enough for the lower villages.

We were able to supply text books and maps/teaching aids from the Assistance to Primary Schools Project and there was much gratitude for that.
There was a line of quite old Jacaranda trees on the front of the school which shows how long the school had been established there.
One night there was a storm with very strong winds and many of the tree fell onto the school - thankfully this was at night. I was able to apply for funds for the almost immediate repair of the school and the Education Department was able to supply the roofing iron. With judicial spending, we were able to re-plaster some of the floors and walls of the classrooms. I had done a good budget with Mbise and some of the committee but savings were made by parents doing some of the work, timber cut locally and carting the materials by myself rather than hiring transport.

We had made friendships with teachers who we found posted to other schools and the kids were always very good to work with, and we found them at secondary schools through the years - even some after the so-called 'pressure-cooker' teaching training - in some classrooms.





A girl tends her tree and will later erect a shelter around it.













As a form of motivation I brought the Leguruki Primary School Environment Committee down to our Makumira nursery, to give them an idea of what we were doing and how we did it.



It was a long day as there were two loads for me to go back and forth. We supplied a lunch and the ubiquitous soda.
Amani, Upendo, Mbise and Veronica are working here and Loti stands by.
The day was a success and it built on the relationship with the school.







Kids wait for us to get organized for the prize giving ceremony.








Head Teacher, Mbise organizes some of the boys during a Prize-giving ceremony.







A lineup of prizewinners. It was good to see a range of ages and sexes.








Another group show off their prizes. Head Teacher and Environment Teacher pose too.








Another group of prizewinners.








Here I am standing beside a Loquat tree about two years old. Loquats are a very good fruit and grow well in the climate. Whenever I went to Lushoto (usually to buy seed) I would buy a bucket full of Loquats and give them to my nursery workers or neighbors on condition they returned the seeds to me. They thought it a good bargain.








Some of the successful plantings at Leguruki.








Some of the teachers stand in front of the renovated/repaired staff room.

Home again

It has been well over two months since I have added anything to my blog.
I have been to the UK to visit our family, with some travel here and there.
I don't expect anyone to have in interest in these holidays, but it explains my absence.