The sunny side of Tanzania: Boko and a few other encounters

Though the last post painted a negative picture of Tanzania and my experiences here, it is an incomplete picture.

During my week and a half at Boko One-Stop Secondary School, I experienced the most heartwarming hospitality from everyone. Just their willingness to help me in such things as getting water from the well showed me that though they may have little, their give all that they are able. I can not say that I was impressed by the education at the school and here in Tanzania, (just the opposite in fact, I was terribly dismayed) but nonetheless, the students are eager to learn. They constantly ask me questions about America and about the subjects they are learning in school. Considering their backgrounds—orphans, abandoned, abused, impoverished—they see light in every opportunity and “want so much a good education.” They are lacking good teachers and people who treat them as equals, as valuable members of society and I wish so much that I could have stayed longer to share everything I have to offer. There is simply not enough teaching occurring at an institution that is meant to teach the children. What do I mean by this? Example: Sometimes teachers don’t even go to class. Even making mandaazis (donuts), they did not know that it is a waste to use baking soda and baking powder in preparing the mandaazis and that it is essential to have live yeast in order for the dough to rise. Actually, before Aaron and Kaitlin came into the scenes on behalf of Ark, the students didn’t even make mandaazis, which they now sell for 50 schillings each to make a bit of profit and to provide food for breakfast.

At Boko, they are only given two meals a day (at 2:00pm and 7:30 pm) and each meal consists of ugali (this maize-based mush) and boiled beans. I ate every meal with them and was saddened at the site of ugali at every meal. Still, the students are grateful, grateful to be fed at all. By Western standards of course, this seemed unacceptable to me since 1) breakfast is the most important meal of the day and they were not provided such a meal and 2) you need to get vitamins and essential minerals from vegetables and fruits and they had none. But even this situation is better than the situations of many students in Tanzania. Can you just imagine? Some schools give a brownish ugali, which is a lower-grade maize than the white one we had.

I’m happy to see that Aaron (from Australia, Masters in International Development) and Kaitlin (from US, Masters in International Education) are there now and starting to get things into shape. The children deserve to have a chance to get further in life and I’m positive the two of them are the best on the ground team that Boko can have! It’s such a difficult situation though because in truth, it would be best for the own community members to make efforts to better the situation of their children, but some of them just don’t care. That’s not to say that none of the staff at Boko are dedicated to the students, but that they are not enough. One such person is Rodgers, who has been an Ark child since he was young and has a personal connection to struggling youth. Another is Mary. Oh Mary. She was my roommate at Boko and simply a lovely person. I observed her nursery school (at Boko they have a Nursery school to help the surrounding community) and her children are astonishing. They are learning so much English through songs and pictures and games—this is the kind of interactive learning that all nursery schools need in Tanzania! Right now I am with Mary at the Capacity Buildling Workshop help by Ark Foundation in Bagamoyo, Tanzania. Probably the best part of being in Bagamoyo: no ugali and beans! Haha

One last positive note, I met an attorney assistant Jean, during my brief trip to Arusha to visit the UN International Criminial Tribunal for Rwanda. He was able to explain the cases more to me and give me an inside look. On the negative end, I can tell from the responses of the judges during the session I sat through that the entire case is so politically loaded and definitely weighted towards the prosecution (UN community) side. You know, the case I was watching has been going on since 2004, and it’s actually one of the shorter cases. Other cases have been going on for more than 10 years now. Crazy eh?

(Pictures were brought to you by Mama Rhoi and Aaron and Kaitlin.)