After one month, a typical day

I've had a request to describe in detail what a normal day is for me, so I'll try to do that in this blog entry.

Everyday, I get woken up at 4:45 by the mosque a couple houses down. At first, I would get up around then, but now I'm very good at sleeping through it, though it still wakes me up when it starts. It broadcasts the call to morning prayer through a megaphone speaker on the roof. There is talking and singing, mostly in Arabic, though sometimes there is some Kiswahili too, saying things like "Wake up your family and come pray." Ramadan is going to end either tomorrow or the next day, depending on the moon (like Groundhog Day, kind of), so I'm hoping that the mosque will be a little less enthusiastic when this month is over.

I get up to start my day around 6:15, and I brush my teeth and get my water for my morning bucketbath. Usually my dada (sister) has been up and put some water on the charcoal stove to warm up for me, which is very nice, so I pour that in my bucket and go to the hose in the courtyard (my family's only source of running water)to dilute it down to a nice temperature. I then go into the shower room and use the plastic cup with handle and pouring spout provided for me by Peace Corps to pour water all over myself (armpits are the only tricky part, but I've found a good technique), then I soap up and rinse off. This has only been awkward a couple of times when I've forgotten to bring the towel in the shower with me... but I haven't exposed myself to the family yet so everything's good. Either before or after the shower I also make a stop off at the pit latrine, which is 2 doors down from the shower, next to the cowpen. Then I go back to my room, get dressed in my clothes for the day (usually khakis and a short-sleeved button-up shirt), and go have breakfast, which is tea, a couple hard-boiled eggs, and bread with margarine and jam, or sometimes chapati, which is kind of like an omelette crossed with a crepe, but very greasy.

Then I ride my bike to school (it's a nice one, on loan from Peace Corps) to school, which takes 10 to 15 minutes, mostly uphill. The school has 5 classrooms for the students (3 for Form 1 (freshmen), and 2 for Form 2 (sophomores)), a teacher's room, and 4 unfinished classrooms. The most finished of the unfinished classrooms has been given to our training, and so the other 3 volunteers assigned to this school and I have our Kiswahili classes there whenever we're not teaching. We started teaching this week, and it's been pretty fun. The students seem to like us a lot, but it's very hard to gauge their understanding. All of their instruction is in English, but that only starts in Form 1, and before secondary school their English instruction is minimal. Also, they don't have textbooks, so they write down everything you write on the board verbatim, which can be very time-consuming. Teaching Form 1, I assume that the students do not understand English well, so they will only really be able to understand things that I write on the board, so class goes slowly. I am teaching Physics, because the school only has one Physics teacher, and there is another math volunteer at my school. The topic I'm teaching is pressure, which I did some good demos for. The first day I attached an extra violin string to my bag and to contrast how the same weight can feel different when held by a wire and by a nice wide strap, which I thought was a good introduction to pressure on solids. The second class I brought in a water bottle with holes poked in the side near the top and near the bottom, and the difference in pressure was easily apparent from the amount of water coming out of the two holes.

The first class I taught seemed to understand well and get very far, in the first 80 minutes I taught all my solid pressure material and I started on liquid pressure. The second class didn't get quite as far, and then the third class wasn't familiar with "area", so since pressure is force divided by area, that slowed us down a lot and I got to teach some math. I was looking forward to trying to re-gauge how well the first group actually understood this week, but there are holidays for the end of Ramadan, and next week the school is giving them examinations, so even though I'm supposed to practice teaching for the next two weeks, I may only teach 1 or 2 more 40-minute periods. Each class gets 3 physics periods a week, first a double period and then a single period, but the way my schedule worked out I teach 4 periods on Monday, and then one each on Tuesday and Wednesday. Last week I picked up and extra double period because the other teacher needed to go into town. It's hard to get more than a couple students to participate in class, and the speed class has to go can be frustrating. I used my single period to get the students to do an example problem, so I told them this, wrote up a problem, gave them about 5 minutes to copy it, read it, and started walking around to help them. The whole class appeared to be busy when I gave them time to write, but it was when I started walking around that some students began to write the problem, which will take them about 10 minutes to do before they will begin work on it. Then, other students will just stare at the board waiting for me to present the solution... sometimes I feel very ineffective, but the students really seem to like me as a teacher. I got ovations after 2 of my classes, and some of the Form 2 students tried to trick us into teaching them math instead of their normal math teacher. They told us as we were walking by their classroom that they were waiting for their math teacher (true, and as per usual here she was starting class about 5 minutes late), and that she hadn't been to class in 3 weeks (completely false). The other math teacher and I went to the teacher's room to offer to teach more if the school needed it, and the headmaster said that they had all their classes covered, and would tell us if they needed more help. Apparently, they just wanted us to teach them too, so our reputation mus be pretty good.

After school, sometimes we go into town, or sometimes we have a bigger meeting with about 16 volunteers to discuss teaching strategies or other issues. I'm always home before dark (about 6:30) because it's not very safe for me to walk around by myself after dark. I have dinner around 7:30, and spend the evening preparing lesson plans, studying Kiswahili, and talking with my family and occasional visitors. I take another bucket bath before bed, and usually read a bit and listen to some music on the iPod, which is a very nice way to end the day.

I've been at the internet cafe for 90 minutes now, so I'm going to call this post long enough and go back home for lunch. Also, I got my phone working (thanks for everyone who sent advice), so anyone who wants to can drop me a line or a text message at +255 71770 8150. Also, Saturday I got my first pieces of mail, thanks to those who sent letters, I'm working on replies.

salama,
Gregor