Tanzania News (11/06/2005)

Well I did not write last week because the internet was full of PCV, so I have to cram in two weeks of news.Two weeks agoI took the midterm laguage assessment tests. These are very similiar to the exams we have to pass at the the end of training. We took the written exam on Friday and the oral exam the next day. I passed the written test and am ccurrently an "intermediate low" Kiswahili speaker. This means I can tie my shoes and talk about simple things that I have done or will do. To pass the final exam I need to improve to an intermediate mid by the end of four weeks. Friday was a happy night out and everybody was relieved to have taken the written exam and find it was not as hard as they expected/feared. Also I met a girl who is a healthcare PCV and six months into her service. I noticed that she tapped me to get my attention, because the girls never touch guys here (largely because of our cultural training). But more on that later, what is important is that Friday was alot of fun and Saturday had the oppurtunity to be just as enjoyable. However at end of the our Saturday training they announced one of the trainees would be going home early. The rest of the evening was rather somber as many consoled Brian. The evening was epitomised by the fact that even though all Brian wanted to do is enjoy an Indian dinner, by the time dinner was served he was already in a state that prohibited eating.
My second week of teaching the teacher let me teach without his presence and I had greater difficulty maintaining student participation while minimizing unrelated chatter. The highlight of week was seeing kids partake in the game I made. Not only were they enthusiastic about the game but I could see they learned from playing it too. Last Week. The third and final week of teaching training was a bit chaotic. I was better able to control the class but I was thrown a few curve balls. First I planned one class to teach a topic that apparently was already covered so I readjusted by having the students work challenging problems. Then when teaching a new ( and uncovered ) topic I was getting blank stares when I asked the students to do graphing functions. Near the end of class said they learned functions by writing tables not graphs. Finally Eide was this week so the chaos was finding out if I was going to teach. Eide is particularly interesting because is a national holiday for two days but it starts the first day after the new moon is sighted. This means that nobody knows when the holiday will be except the night before. I guess I am not going to get that cultural bit in. Sorry, T.