The Mountain and its People Sing

Life on the mountain is a challenge everyday. I swear I walk up hill everywhere I go. (Pole; sorry for your burden) (Asante sana; Thank-you for caring) I hear these two expressions everywhere because people are caring (usually women on their heads) everything they need to survive: water, firewood, crops, food, rocks, cement and even saw a stack of lumber carried like this. People say it to me too when I am carrying my bag with my school supplies.
My morning begins with children singing (usually hymns) at 6:00 a.m. I lay listening to them,smiling. i then hear the sounds of sweeping. The children clean the campus of the school by sweeping the dirt with branches. The collect the paper and sticks and throw them into one of the perpetual fires used for cooking or heating water for washing. Sometime I wash my clothes, a few articles at a time. This is done in a bucket and you rinse in a differnet bucket (you must choose wisely the order in which you wash) The straining the water out is the hardest part.
When I am up I open the door to my room so I can see. If it is too cold I will light the kersene lamp to eat my breakfast by. The children have porridge (watered down ugali) they don't get fruit, ever, because it is too expensive for the school. I have dinner with frineds some nights and one night I bought: 2 eggs (they are not refridgerated and you buy one at a time, not by the doze) a cucumber, 2 onions, 3 carrots and 2 oranges and it cost me 80 cents. This tells you how poor most people are here. The kids never complain about the food and in fact most seem to enjoy it. They have never known anything different so they are content with what they receive.
Some of the gilrs beathe in the morning, too cold for me! The water they use is different from what I receie. There's comes from a shallow well (large hole) where runoff water and waste water seep. Their water is not heated and they fetch it them selves. My water is brought to me everynight, and it is rain water and it is heated. They treat guests as if they were royalty. Many people here have housegirls, that take care of the chilrden, cook and clean. When I told them that very few people have "maids" in America they were suprised.
My first class is at 8:00 a.m. My classroom is so dark I don't know how the children see the front of the room. Some days it is worse because the children sweep the room (with the same branches they used on the campus) and the dust is so thick I have a harcd time seeing the chaulk board and I am writing on it.
My classes range from 40 to 80 minutes and I never have enough time because of all the copying requierd. The children work hard, but they sit so close that it is raelly hard not to use your partner's brain. I devised 2 forms of a quiz for them to take and instructed everyother person to either answer the questions on the left side of the board or the right side. It threw them for a loop. They performed very poorly. Tanzania is a communal country by nature, they do many things together. eventhough they see themseles as free individuals that is not the same as being independent from eachother.
Tanzanians are very dependent on eachother for food, transportatioin, medical help, help with children, laundry, cooking and encouragement. They work together to solve most of their daily needs.
After my morning class I walk up to UAACC and teach two English classes (one beginner, and one advanced) I work with an amazing group of volunteer teachers that live around the mountain and they help translate what I am trying to say to my students. This can be rather funny sometimes because of all the idioms and metaphors I tend to use in my everyday speech that I wasn't even aware that I do. We have great conversations just surrounding what I am trying to say that isn't technically part of the English lesson. Like, "Ok we are now going to shift gears" none of these people have even driven a car.
I eat lunch with the theachers everyday and we have develped quiet a friendship. During lunch (ugali and beans or mcandy which is corn and ugali) they watch music videos or African soap operas. It is hilarious to watch them get into these day dramas.
The teachers love to practice their English and they will ask me what certain words mean or how to prounounce them. Sometimes they will ask, "Are you sure it is pronounced that way?" This is when it is hard for them to say. Their sense of humor is really fun.
After classes-which end around 4:30 I am either playing basketball or reffing a football game.
Watching the young eople try and learn to play basketball is like watching someone learn to downhill ski for the first time.
Sometimes the ball dribbles them. There is not much in their daily life that lends itself to dribbling, passing, catching or shooting. They are also not used to running on a conrete slab(slightly covered in dirt, which make stopping in the flat bottomed flip-flops difficult) Sliding becomes part of the game. They listen to every direction I give and try to exedute the drills I provide with adandon. Some are becoming pretty good. I just have to convince them the Kobe Bryant is that all that and a box of rocks too. What these peole lack in basketball skills they make up for in mad soccer skills even in inadequate footwear; a field that hs rocks (large ones) on it to hold the cows ropes that graze there; the piles that the cows leave behind; not to mention the cows themselves. All this they have to navigate around coming down the field.
Two days a week I go to an orphanage further up the mountain and work with a young many who is having trouble learning to read. I am using my dyslexic training and hooked on phonics to help him. He loves the one on one. He is learning to blend the sounds and feels so good when he can say the words himself. His smile and hugs when he sees me coming are amazing. He yells, "Teacher, my teacher." I can get hime to focus for about an hour and a half every session.
I get back to my room around 6 p.m. and my "shower" is waiting for me. It is a bucket of hotish water. The school moms give me rain water to shower with (the softest water I have ever felt) I try to use as little as possible and share the left over with the girls. I am really glad that I cut all my hair off before I came. The girls rotate on who gets my leftover water. The girls use cold water from the "well"
Dinner is late around 8:00 p.m., this part I don't like, but I have adjusted. I have learned not to eath the meat (I will never complaong about school food again) so in the evening my diet is usually rice and regydrated spinach--yum. I use lots of hot sauce to give the food a lift. Before and after dinner I am with the students helping them with their studies. This is done in the classrooms, three of them, with lights from the generator. We have a lot of great discussions about the misconceptions regarding the US to kids back home and how they behave.
The generator makes a noise (surge) when it is about to run out of petrol and all the kids scatter to their dorms. The girls dorm is adjacent to my room and at night their whispering sounds like the buzzing of a great bees nest. It is that sound that carries me off to sleep.
On Fridays they sing. The children actually have organized a choir complete with a director. They are preparing for their church service on Saturday (which is all day)
On Saturdays I quietly make my wat to town. The biggest town nearby is Arusha. It is hard to gage the size of it because I only see part of it. I get up in the morning and have my usual breakfast of bananas, organes and passion fruit and walk down off the mountain, about 7 km. This takes a good hour and on my way I am greeted by everyone I see on the road. I get to USA (pronounced oooosu) and catch a smoosh mobile (a dali-dali) into Arusha. This takes another 30-50 minutes depending on how many stops we make, which is determined by how mnay people are standing by the side of the road and give the signal to get picked up.
In Arusha I get a cup of coffee at a little coffee house first and have a bite to eat. T then visit one of the upsacle hotels ( a trick I learned from Jessie) to use their bathroom and stroll their grounds.
I then shop or visit a museum or pick a new place to try for lunch. Sometimes this is a trek. I then eat lunch and begin my safarri back to Meru Peak. I take a Dali-Dali back to USA River and walk back up the mountain. I hear musci everywhere I go. They love Bob Marley, Celine Deon, and Dolly Parten (I know) they also play their African gospel and hip-hop, and soul music. I have danced with many people up and down the mountain, everyone loves to dance. The walk back up the mountain takes longer and is very steep in places. but is feels so good to walk it. I views are beautiful. I always look forward to Saturdays.
Sundays I would wash clothes, clean my room and play more soccer. The kids and I would sing songs and just enjoy eachothers company.
My days are full and I am fulfilled.