Monday, August 11, 2008

Projects!

I just finished up my COS (Close of Service) Conference, a preparation for returning to America, and probably the last time I'll see all the members of my Peace Corps group together. It was a good time, and a sad time. It does not feel like two years are almost up, but come December I'll be back in America.

All that makes me feel like I have almost no time left to finish up lots of things that I want to finish. I mentioned in my last blog that I wrote a grant to renovate a local elementary school. My parents have kindly posted some pictures of the school to my flickr site: flickr.com/gregorgregor. If you think you'd like to help with this, you can donate to my project here. Unfortunately the site seems to be quite slow about updating how much money has been donated (it's the government, after all), so even I can't be sure how much more is needed.

The other big project I'm working on is writing a math book for the course I'm teaching. There aren't any books published in Tanzania for A-Level subjects, A-Level being the last two years of secondary school that serve as college prep. For most subjects there are British textbooks that fit the course rather well, but I've found that for Basic Applied Mathematics, those books don't match the Tanzanian syllabus very well. So I decided to write one. My book is going very well; at 132 pages it's nearly finished. I'm hoping to have a good draft and some student feedback by the end of the month, and maybe I can print it in September.

While here, my parents were really surprised that I speak a bit of Pangwa, the tribal language in my area. I actually can greet in quite a few tribal languages: Pangwa, Benna, Nyekyusa, Kinga, and Hehe. (A lot of them are very similar, so it's not too hard.) When I travel in Tanzania I always try to learn the local language in that area (Tanzania has around 200 of them!), and it's a nice way to make people smile (or guffaw) because an Mzungu (white person) is speaking their tribal language. It also helps show that I know what I'm doing and that--at least a little bit--I belong. In my area, I think it shows the people that I'm respectful and trying to fit in to their community. And they love it.

Until next time,
Gregor