Classes kind of started last week. I found out on Monday at 10 AM that the first class was scheduled for 11 AM. In spite of the short notice, 7 out of 30 students showed up and we started an informal lecture and discussion. The first week has students registering and arriving after coming up with the funds for tuition. It is hard to go to far with only part of the class present. The students were very interested in programming and were concerned that a course in Software Engineering that was supposed to be offered was not. They wanted me to teach that class also because they knew I had been doing software development and felt the course was important for them to have.
The next class was scheduled for Thursday morning at 8 AM and I showed up late because I was told that classes were not really starting this week but there were students waiting for me so we started a lecture. I had now seen 14 students out of 30. On Friday, I went to the computer lab to try to update the Moodle site for the course and prepare the computers for compiling C programs. The class is scheduled for the computer lab so that we can spend time working on programming. There are about 10 working computers so we will work in groups of 3. This will give me a good chance to see how the students are doing by watching them write programs. The lab filled up with about 8 students and I looked over and a couple of them were looking up C programming on their own. I had one computer set up with a compiler so we did a little demo to show them how to run a program and the students were very attentive. The computers in the lab are very locked down with student access limited to their flash drives. The virus problem is pretty severe here (both computer and human) and I do not plan to share flash drives on my computer. The students in IT do have computers at home so I prepared a CD with the files they need to program there that I will distribute at class this week.
I have been impressed with the attitude of the students I have met. They seem to really want to learn and are fun to talk to. Some of the students are also planning some kind of science demonstration event and I will work with them on that. I brought some Chemistry and Physics hands on lab experiment books that we can get ideas from.
The Finnish professor, Matti Tedre, who started the IT program came in this week and will be here for 3 weeks. For the next phase he will be here the first term of each school year and will return to Finland or Sweden for the second term at the University. (He is probably moving to University of Stockholm). Matti's research is IT education in developing countries and he is committed to the program here. We are going to dinner tonight and it is nice to have him here for my orientation to the program.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Friday, March 19, 2010
Neighborhood
There is a secondary school not far from our house. We have been watching the soccer field activities from afar. Yesterday Dan and I walked over to see the school. Two teachers warmly welcomed us to their teachers’ lounge area. We met the history/ Swahili teacher and the chemistry/biology teacher. The science teacher told us how perplexing it is that all students hate mathematics and consequently do very poorly in it and they are simply not interested in the sciences. We talked about using flash cards for learning multiplication and division in primary school and learning to read music because it uses the same part of the brain. He (Clarence, the science teacher) took Dan’s cell phone number in hopes that the two of them can work on some very simple science experiments using vinegar and sodium bicarb. to hopefully spark some excitement among the students. Dan is also working with somebody in the diocese schools (this particular school was a government school) evaluating textbooks and acquiring some very basic materials for laboratory experiments. At Tumaini University, Richard Lubawa wants him to help look at the possibility of setting up a basic science education department in which students who major in such can become high school biology, chemistry and physics teachers.
My big event this week was getting our second box of fresh vegetables.
Repeaters included fresh potatoes, green beans, baby corn on the cob, tomatoes, baby leaf lettuce, green onions, baby cauliflower. Newbies were fresh strawberries, baby leeks, fresh tabasco chilies, baby eggplant, these baby spinach/spoon shaped leaves for salads, and an assortment of fresh spices. We do a lot of cooking together, chopping and recipe hunting on the internet.
Last evening we, again, had no water so today Lotti (the house owner) has arranged for a plumber to visit. Dan went out to visit with the gardener and our night guard. He found out that Jumani, the night guard, has two children, age 13. No, they are not twins. He has two wives. He is either Muslim and has two wives or is simply a polygamist, which is quite common here! Dan told him that having one wife is enough! (Bless his heart?!) to which the two guys said, “when life is good, you have more than one wife.” I think that means if you can afford it, you have more than one wife. They don’t know how expensive American wives can be!
When our synod of the Lutheran church (the ELC) voted to allow clergy to be Gay/Lesbian earlier this year, many worldwide Lutheran churches wanted to break off relations with the ELCA, because they view homosexuality as sodomy and therefore a sin. The bishop of this diocese (DIRA – diocese of the Iringa region of Tanzania) said to our clergy, “You have the gay issue to deal with, and we have polygamy and polyandry (women with more than one husband) to deal with,“ therefore we should not judge one another. Unfortunately, the multiple partners’ problem is at the heart of the issue of the HIV problem here in Africa, because they may have multiple concurrent partners and because these are more than one night stands or fly by night affairs, they don’t use protection with these partners. But add one individual who is HIV+ to the mix and you can see how it mushrooms into a huge epidemic!
My big event this week was getting our second box of fresh vegetables.
Repeaters included fresh potatoes, green beans, baby corn on the cob, tomatoes, baby leaf lettuce, green onions, baby cauliflower. Newbies were fresh strawberries, baby leeks, fresh tabasco chilies, baby eggplant, these baby spinach/spoon shaped leaves for salads, and an assortment of fresh spices. We do a lot of cooking together, chopping and recipe hunting on the internet.
Last evening we, again, had no water so today Lotti (the house owner) has arranged for a plumber to visit. Dan went out to visit with the gardener and our night guard. He found out that Jumani, the night guard, has two children, age 13. No, they are not twins. He has two wives. He is either Muslim and has two wives or is simply a polygamist, which is quite common here! Dan told him that having one wife is enough! (Bless his heart?!) to which the two guys said, “when life is good, you have more than one wife.” I think that means if you can afford it, you have more than one wife. They don’t know how expensive American wives can be!
When our synod of the Lutheran church (the ELC) voted to allow clergy to be Gay/Lesbian earlier this year, many worldwide Lutheran churches wanted to break off relations with the ELCA, because they view homosexuality as sodomy and therefore a sin. The bishop of this diocese (DIRA – diocese of the Iringa region of Tanzania) said to our clergy, “You have the gay issue to deal with, and we have polygamy and polyandry (women with more than one husband) to deal with,“ therefore we should not judge one another. Unfortunately, the multiple partners’ problem is at the heart of the issue of the HIV problem here in Africa, because they may have multiple concurrent partners and because these are more than one night stands or fly by night affairs, they don’t use protection with these partners. But add one individual who is HIV+ to the mix and you can see how it mushrooms into a huge epidemic!
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Power Outage
We had a power outage last night that went from 7pm to midnight. Both of our cells phones kept beeping because they needed to be charged. We had candles lit and sat and talked for awhile, but then I got fed up with the mosquitoes and finally went to bed just to be under the net. When I do that Dan always remembers how Max would go to the tent on canoe trips in an effort to get away from the bugs. "He was no dummy." The Tumaini campus was all lit up and they were the only ones with lights so Dan thinks that they have a generator so the kids can study.
Sele, our gardener, came to us last night and asked for an advance in his pay for his room rent - 5,000tsh - equivalent to less than $4. I think that he told us that that covers him for a month! His father is deceased and his mom lives up in Dodoma. Minna, who is the wife of Tommy, who lived here with their two kids said that Maria sometimes asks for advances as well. We usually invite her to eat lunch with us, when she is here. She has three kids, all girls. The oldest just finished Form 4 and passed her recent exam to advance to Form 5, but Maria cannot afford to send her. Her second daughter is in Form 2 and will take an exam upon completion to go on and her third is two years old. So my guess is that the first two are from the same father. She is very sweet and works very hard. We told her yesterday that she only needs to come in three days a week, because with only two people, there is not enough to do. We will pay her the same wage.
Bariki, who has been our friend since our first group trip back in 2007, had a bad incident on the bus recently. He had just finished up his student teaching assignment and they threw him a going away party. He was really well liked from the sounds of things. They gave him money as gifts, then when he was getting off the bus, from that point to the next, someone took his wallet and his jacket as well. He found his wallet later, money was gone but thankfully his ATM card was still there.
Sele, our gardener, came to us last night and asked for an advance in his pay for his room rent - 5,000tsh - equivalent to less than $4. I think that he told us that that covers him for a month! His father is deceased and his mom lives up in Dodoma. Minna, who is the wife of Tommy, who lived here with their two kids said that Maria sometimes asks for advances as well. We usually invite her to eat lunch with us, when she is here. She has three kids, all girls. The oldest just finished Form 4 and passed her recent exam to advance to Form 5, but Maria cannot afford to send her. Her second daughter is in Form 2 and will take an exam upon completion to go on and her third is two years old. So my guess is that the first two are from the same father. She is very sweet and works very hard. We told her yesterday that she only needs to come in three days a week, because with only two people, there is not enough to do. We will pay her the same wage.
Bariki, who has been our friend since our first group trip back in 2007, had a bad incident on the bus recently. He had just finished up his student teaching assignment and they threw him a going away party. He was really well liked from the sounds of things. They gave him money as gifts, then when he was getting off the bus, from that point to the next, someone took his wallet and his jacket as well. He found his wallet later, money was gone but thankfully his ATM card was still there.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Home on a Saturday Night
It is the weekend which means that Maria and Sele, the gardner, do not come. Jumani and Luk, the guard dog, come every day at 6 PM. Sue and I took it easy today with a relaxing morning watching the many birds and enjoying a sunny morning. We went into town for lunch and to do some shopping. Tomorrow we are having dinner guests, the bega kwa bega group is coming over to see our new house and we are fixing dinner. We had many nice dinners with the group when we were staying in the apartment and it will be nice to have them come here. We bought a couple nice pork tenderloins and will have a vegetable stir fry with the pea pods, baby corn, cauliflower, and green beans from our vegetable box. We will also have mashed potatoes and a salad from Hasty Tasty Too, the fast food restaurant in town. Our vegetable box only had enough lettuce for a couple days (about as long as it would keep) and Hasty Tasty makes a nice clean salad to go that is very reasonable. In fact we were there for lunch where each of us had a avocado salad with lettuce and cucumber (each salad has a whole avocado) and a samosa. For dessert we are going to have custard using Moir's custard powder. Just add the powder and some sugar to milk and cook to make a good tasting custard that we will add some fresh mango to. Moir's custard powder is a South African product and it looks like a keeper.
It is quiet in the new house which gives us time to read and we have satelite TV. I browsed some tonight and there was an interesting segment in english on the impact computer technology is having on a girl's secondary school in Dar by bringing in digital content to schools that don't have enough books. The rest of the channels are usually one of African rap video, Religious programming, soaps, or news. Occasionally, one channel has english news from the US, BBC, or algazeera. We don't watch much TV and most of our news from the internet.
Sue and I skyped my sister Ruth and her husband Fred tonight. Nice to be able to talk and send back video from here for just the price of the internet. We were on for about 45 minutes. Ruth also gets our mail for us from a PO box and the catalogs have not caught up with us yet but I suspect there are a couple container ships in the mid Atlantic with quite a load. Hope for a storm.
We go to bed early here, partly because we get up to let Jumani and Luk out of the gate at 6 when it is still quite dark. Also because a 12 hour shift is a little long for young Luk and he starts crying between 4:30 and 5 AM. Some mornings he more or less cries continually until it is time to go. Then he is rarin to go and pulls Jumani like a sled dog. I suspect he must get fed in the morning but part of it is he is young and active.
It is quiet in the new house which gives us time to read and we have satelite TV. I browsed some tonight and there was an interesting segment in english on the impact computer technology is having on a girl's secondary school in Dar by bringing in digital content to schools that don't have enough books. The rest of the channels are usually one of African rap video, Religious programming, soaps, or news. Occasionally, one channel has english news from the US, BBC, or algazeera. We don't watch much TV and most of our news from the internet.
Sue and I skyped my sister Ruth and her husband Fred tonight. Nice to be able to talk and send back video from here for just the price of the internet. We were on for about 45 minutes. Ruth also gets our mail for us from a PO box and the catalogs have not caught up with us yet but I suspect there are a couple container ships in the mid Atlantic with quite a load. Hope for a storm.
We go to bed early here, partly because we get up to let Jumani and Luk out of the gate at 6 when it is still quite dark. Also because a 12 hour shift is a little long for young Luk and he starts crying between 4:30 and 5 AM. Some mornings he more or less cries continually until it is time to go. Then he is rarin to go and pulls Jumani like a sled dog. I suspect he must get fed in the morning but part of it is he is young and active.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Home
We finally have accommodations of our own. We are in the house of a graduate student who has been the procurement officer for Tumaini University. It has already been fun to be able to cook on our own. Lotti (the owner of the house) is a good young man. He is working on his masters degree at the University of Dar es Salaam and and when he completes his studies he will be able to teach as well at Tumaini. He has worked hard to make these accommodations pleasant and economical for his renters. He has covered the cook top of the electric stove with a set of 4 gas burners. We boil our drinking water and the water with which we wash dishes. For the water we drink we filter it through these ceramic cylinders then cool it in the frig. The house has three bedrooms and all of the beds have mosquito nets which fit to different degrees. Dan and were fighting with ours last night to get a good seal and the mosquitoes were fierce. Then we had a power outage at about 7:30pm and lit some candles, but eventually just went to bed because there wasn’t anything else we could really do. We could see the stars and they were quite spectacular. Then in the middle of the night, the power went back on. To utilize electricity, we have to go downtown and pay a voucher which we then enter into the electric meter at the house. We paid a little less than $40 for what will be a bit more than a month of electricity. We have a gardener, named Sele, who comes on duty every day from 2pm-6pm, and a night watchman with a very young dog, named Luck, who must be part German Shepherd and part lab. He is really sweet. The guard is Jumani and he speaks very little English, but he does a good job and is good to his dog. Jumani and Luck are on duty from 6pm-6am. The gardener and guard are paid by Lotti. Then we have a house lady, named Maria, who cleans and does our laundry by hand and will occasionally cook for us as well. She will make banana bread and regular bread. After the laundry dries on the line, she irons almost everything, including Dan’s boxers!
Jumani and Sele and the not very ferocious guard dog, luk: The reason for guarding the property is to protect outside stuff. There isn't much concern about breaking in to the house but even clothes left on a line overnight can be a target:
The highlight of our day was finding out what was in our vegetable box that we ordered from a produce company here. You may order it once a week and then pick it up the following day at a place called Neema (which means “grace” in Swahili) Café and Crafts. (Will have to do a blog on Neema crafts and café at a later time.) This is this first box of veggies that we have received. You go to the bank and deposit 100,000TSH in their account (which is a little more than $75) and then for $15, Masifio Estates provides you with a box of fresh veggies. Today we were so excited about it, we even took a picture of it. It included 4 small ears of sweet corn, a bag of baby corn, 3 kilos of potatoes, a small bunch of green onions, a baby cauliflower, French beans, peapods, a small bag of baby lettuce, cherry tomatoes, several rutabagas and baby zucchini. We had the sweet corn and a lettuce salad and then a fruit salad of fresh mango and bananas for dinner this evening. We are going to try to start a composting pile with all of the peelings etc., from the produce.
The Vegetable box:
Jumani and Sele and the not very ferocious guard dog, luk: The reason for guarding the property is to protect outside stuff. There isn't much concern about breaking in to the house but even clothes left on a line overnight can be a target:
The highlight of our day was finding out what was in our vegetable box that we ordered from a produce company here. You may order it once a week and then pick it up the following day at a place called Neema (which means “grace” in Swahili) Café and Crafts. (Will have to do a blog on Neema crafts and café at a later time.) This is this first box of veggies that we have received. You go to the bank and deposit 100,000TSH in their account (which is a little more than $75) and then for $15, Masifio Estates provides you with a box of fresh veggies. Today we were so excited about it, we even took a picture of it. It included 4 small ears of sweet corn, a bag of baby corn, 3 kilos of potatoes, a small bunch of green onions, a baby cauliflower, French beans, peapods, a small bag of baby lettuce, cherry tomatoes, several rutabagas and baby zucchini. We had the sweet corn and a lettuce salad and then a fruit salad of fresh mango and bananas for dinner this evening. We are going to try to start a composting pile with all of the peelings etc., from the produce.
The Vegetable box:
A House Worth Waiting For
The house that the Finnish professor had been staying in with his family opened up the beginning of March and we were able to move in on Sue’s birthday as a present from the owner ( The final paperwork was still going through approvals). We were very fortunate to be able to stay in the Bega Kwa Bega apartment our first two months. Everyone was very gracious to us and helped us learn our way around Iringa as a resident instead of the tourists we have been in the past. There is a shortage of available housing in Iringa because there are a large number of people here for a Danish road construction project as well as rapid growth in Iringa.
The house is new and Tomi’s family was the first to live in it. There is an interesting foot path to campus that crosses boulders on a small river. The road to it is very bad but fortunately Tumaini has provided us with a Toyota Land Cruiser that I fit in easily and can negotiate the road. It is great to be close to campus now with the term starting up and with our own kitchen we will not eat out as much, especially since we are about 5 miles from town where most of the restaurants are.
The House, on a hillside with rocky hills all around:
The living Room, actually has satelite TV that carries some US and BBC news broadcasts. Most of the african programming is religious or soaps:
The Dining Room:
The kitchen, small but adequate with a nice gas stove. The steel cylinder is a filter that we pass boiled water through for drinking and cooking:
The bedroom, bed is not as long as I am but most aren't. Fortunately there is no footboard but we still have to get the mosquito net down:
The car, has 200,000 miles on it but is rugged:
The house is new and Tomi’s family was the first to live in it. There is an interesting foot path to campus that crosses boulders on a small river. The road to it is very bad but fortunately Tumaini has provided us with a Toyota Land Cruiser that I fit in easily and can negotiate the road. It is great to be close to campus now with the term starting up and with our own kitchen we will not eat out as much, especially since we are about 5 miles from town where most of the restaurants are.
The House, on a hillside with rocky hills all around:
The living Room, actually has satelite TV that carries some US and BBC news broadcasts. Most of the african programming is religious or soaps:
The Dining Room:
The kitchen, small but adequate with a nice gas stove. The steel cylinder is a filter that we pass boiled water through for drinking and cooking:
The bedroom, bed is not as long as I am but most aren't. Fortunately there is no footboard but we still have to get the mosquito net down:
The car, has 200,000 miles on it but is rugged:
Waiting in Iringa
I didn’t realize how long it has been since we updated the blog. We had been waiting for a house to become available and I guess everyday life in Iringa seems pretty normal now and not blog worthy. In the mean time I have met with a couple other well drillers working in this part of Tanzania and learning about science curriculum for secondary schools. The diocese has textbooks for their 7 secondary schools and I have been checking those books to make sure they follow the approved Tanzanian curriculum that the students will be tested on. I also broke my string of 4 months total time in Africa without ever being sick. I am getting over a good old fashioned Minnesota chest cold so I still have never had a problem with food in Africa.
Sue and I have also been helping sort out the applications for students enrolled at Tumaini. They enroll about 1,000 students a year and accept many more than that because so many either go to other schools or cannot come up with school fees to attend. We were going through them pulling the ones that actually are enrolled. It is interesting to see all the names, I wish we saved a list but here are some common ones Happy, Happiness, Godlove, Godbless, Goodluck, Innocent, Job, Nimrod, SweetBertha, and many more interesting ones. The other surprising thing in the applications is how low the secondary school grades are, even for these students who are in University. The passing standards for Secondary School allow exam scores as low as 30% and students are allowed to fail at least two subjects. The majority of the students we saw had failed basic mathematics. I did not see the IT applications so I hope their results were much better in math.
The problem is the educational system starting right from primary school. There are so few teachers who are really proficient in math that the cycle perpetuates itself because students end up not liking math or science and do not see a good reason to study those subjects when the best opportunities they see are in Government or Business. I’ll learn a lot more when I start working with the students.
Sue and I have also been helping sort out the applications for students enrolled at Tumaini. They enroll about 1,000 students a year and accept many more than that because so many either go to other schools or cannot come up with school fees to attend. We were going through them pulling the ones that actually are enrolled. It is interesting to see all the names, I wish we saved a list but here are some common ones Happy, Happiness, Godlove, Godbless, Goodluck, Innocent, Job, Nimrod, SweetBertha, and many more interesting ones. The other surprising thing in the applications is how low the secondary school grades are, even for these students who are in University. The passing standards for Secondary School allow exam scores as low as 30% and students are allowed to fail at least two subjects. The majority of the students we saw had failed basic mathematics. I did not see the IT applications so I hope their results were much better in math.
The problem is the educational system starting right from primary school. There are so few teachers who are really proficient in math that the cycle perpetuates itself because students end up not liking math or science and do not see a good reason to study those subjects when the best opportunities they see are in Government or Business. I’ll learn a lot more when I start working with the students.
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