Mtera School Visit

The last school to visit was Mtera.  Mtera Secondary School is in the rift valley and is near the Mtera Reservoir which has a major hydroelectric dam.  The school is about 3 hours from Iringa on the road to Dodoma, the formal capital of Tanzania (Dar is the effective capital).  A Chinese construction project is reconstructing the road to Dodoma which is a rough dirt track and construction was taking place almost the entire 120 KM to Mtera.

Semi wild Kanga birds hanging around the teacher houses

Water tank filled from deep well

Baobab tree near the headmaster's office

 It is very hot and dry in Mtera and fortunately, it is the only DIRA school with electricity because of their location near the hydroelectric dam.  They have a deep well with an electric pump that fills a concrete tank for their water supply.  Unfortunately, monkeys have opened up the protective screen and are using the tank as their private indoor swimming pool.  They need to secure the tank better and also get a larger capacity pump to provide enough clean water for the school.

The school is preparing rooms for a Global Volunteers visit in December.  These accommodations would be useful for BKB volunteers as well.   Mtera would be a good school for installing computers because they have electricity.

Henry (facing on right) with students doing analysis

I met with science teachers again and we prepared solutions and did the volumetric analysis practical with students.  The science teacher, Henry Msungu, was from Kising'a and had attended Kising'a Secondary for O level and Songea Boys for A level.  Although Henry was a Form VI graduate, he was competent in the laboratory.  The other teachers were practice teachers temporarily at Mtera.  I also met with the English teacher and left materials with him.  Mtera has 15 teachers and a relatively new Headmaster who appears to be making a difference at the school.

Five Year improvement plan for Mtera

The next morning we drove down to the reservoir and watched fishermen in dugout canoes bringing in a net.  The water in the reservoir is very low and the headmaster said that is due to increased use of water upriver for rice irrigation.  At some point, the low water will impact electricity generation.  We left early for Iringa before it got too hot and we lost our breaks because of a broken hydraulic line.  The line was a metal tube and the solution was to crush the broken tube with rocks and add more fluid to restore the pressure so the breaks at least worked partially.  While we were wondering if we would spend the night in the bush, we were passed by a Massai and a cart pulled by two donkeys who had no mechanical difficulties.  

Fisherman on Mtera circling a net

Everyone who goes to Mtera must bring back fresh fish, not sure how fresh these will be after a 3 hour drive through the Rift Valley

The more reliable donkey transport passing our car with a broken brake hydraulic line

Kising'a Visit

I went to Kising'a last Friday to visit our partner village.  The car I rented has a bad clutch that sometimes would not engage in any gear when the car is stopped.  A couple times it took about 5 minutes of trying to finally get it in gear and I thought I might be stranded.  Much of the ride does not have cell reception but there are quite a few vehicles on that road.  On the way, I picked up two men and two women heading to Kising'a and Isele.  This caused quite a bit of amusement when I arrived in Kising'a with two men who did not speak English.  That night at the house they must have laughed about it for more than 5 minutes wondering how we communicated.  It is nice to be back in Kising'a and Pastor Candidate Peweni, from Tumaini, was still there and she helped with English and is a delight to be with.

Pastor Wihale's living room decorated for my arrival.

Last Christmas, Sue and I brought a small solar power system for the Pastor's house that would charge a battery during the day to run two small fluorescent bulbs and three LED lights.  It can also be used to charge cell phones.  The family has decided that this last feature is more important than having light and they are using the system to charge phones for people in the village.  People pay 500 shillings to charge a phone and they can charge about 10 in a day, thus making up to 5000 shillings a day or a little more than $3.  This is another lesson that how we think about things is not how a Tanzanian might think about things such as the importance of having solar lights at night when you could use a candle.

Phone charging station with universal adapters.

I arrived mid afternoon and watched a football game between Secondary School students and the village.  I met a group of Form I and II girls from the Secondary school and was pleased to hear pretty good English.

Secondary School girls shouting Safi! meaning Fine! for every good play.

 

Younger spectators eager to have their picture taken and see it on the camera.

The next morning, we went to the preaching point of Kidamuka to see the new church they have been building.  I didn't trust the car so we used the shortcut foot paths which take you down one steep slope and up another.  We passed a tree nursery for pine seedlings.  Kising'a people plant pine trees to harvest for lumber and the parish has been harvesting their forest to pay for church construction along with our donations. Recently, a company called New Forests has come to Kising'a to plant larger tree plantations.  They built a new maternity ward at the dispensary for a benefit to the community.  This is probably a mixed blessing because the landowners in Kising'a will not benefit as much as they would planting trees themselves.

Pine cones drying to produce seeds for planting.

Tree nursery in the valley where water is available.

Pastor Wihale, Peweni and evangelists in front of Kidamuka church.

Peweni on my right and Wihale on my left inside the freshly painted church.

Flower and unripe fruit of naturally growing Passion Fruit on the shortcut path.

This poor thing grazing in a burr patch with a beard of burrs.  Reminded me of my dogs.

 Kising'a parish was having a special Marriage, Family, and Children program that weekend led by Peweni and Pastor Wihale.  Women from all the preaching points had gathered for the program and fellowship together.  The met in small groups to discuss family matters and did a lot of singing.

Women discussion group.

Preparing a sweet beverage from a local wheat like plant.  This same beverage can also be made alcoholic but of course not for the women's group.  Maybe we shouldn't complain about our Church kitchen.

Progress on the new Church at Madisi, the main preaching point of Kising'a. Lumber for the church from the parish forest was stacked at the Pastor's house and completion was expected by the end of this year.  Next step creating two concrete beams.

In the afternoon, we went to Kising'a Secondary school for the graduation of the Christian Student Fellowship Form IV students.  The school graduation will be next week.  The ceremony was a bit long but included a lot of singing and dancing.  They had a fun fund raising auction where people could bid on something to be given to others by saying the amount of the bid and the person it was for.  I bid on a soda for Peweni and then she turned around and did the same for me.  I met the headmaster and teachers the following morning.  The teachers are all Form VI graduates themselves so like many Tanzania Secondary schools you have high school graduates teaching high school students.  Brian, an American volunteer from Idaho had just arrived to teach English for at least 4 months and he might stay for as long as 2 years.  We met his sister Katarina last year when she was at Kising'a teaching English for 4 months.  VST acquired a lot of text books last year and Kising'a school is now well supplied.  The bigger problem is recruiting teachers with teaching degrees and teacher and headmaster turnover.  This is a common problem at most Tanzanian secondary schools and remote village schools are in a difficult position.

Student receiving her certificate with reusable garlands for the photo op.

Water is still an issue in Kising'a.  The pump we installed a couple years ago is not working because the seals need to be replaced.  Sargent, a student we sponsored, has found a natural spring high up a nearby mountain.  He built a water intake at the spring and laid about 2 KM of one inch pipe to bring water to the edge of Kising'a village using gravity flow.  The water looks pure and people have been drinking it with no ill effects.  This has a great potential for connecting to a central tank in Kising'a with distribution lines running to different parts of the village.  On Saturday, I will go back to Kising'a with the Iringa Region Water Engineer Byemerwa, a friend from past work at Image and Ipalamwa wells, to measure the elevation at the source and evaluate the flow of water available.  We will also try to bring someone from Kilolo Star to replace the seals in the pump.

Anna Wihale carrying a double stack of 60 lbs of water.

The source is on the ridge near the stand of Eucalyptus trees.  Pipe is laid from that point to just below where this picture was taken.

Sargent next to the end of the pipe with continuous flow of water.

Closer view of the crystal clear water flowing from the pipe.

Pommern School Visit

We left Bomalang'ombe to visit Pommern.  Pommern, the longest running DIRA school, started in 1989.  They now have 890 students and about 40 teachers with about 5 degree teachers.  The headmaster was not present and had not alerted Flora Sanga, the Second Master, about my visit.  She quickly organized the science teachers to meet with me, after chai (tea and mondazi) of course.  I met with the Science coordinator and six science and mathematics teachers. They were very excited to have the more sensitive digital balance and had asked for such in order to prepare quantitiative solutions for the volumetric analysis practicals.  They were also very excited about the science activities in the Shika Na Mikono (Hands On) manual I brought.  I felt that they really will take advantage of the ideas and do a lot of experiments with the students.  Two of my students from last year are now teaching at Pommern, Inukia in Mathematics and Reuben in Chemistry.  Unfortunately, Reuben did not know I was coming until we were ready to leave and I met with him in the computer lab and gave him some digital materials on disk for their lab.

Teachers preparing solutions with the new safety glasses.

More manageable class size for the practical.

The class had a majority of girls and they did a good job with the practicals.  I was impressed to see a group of girls complete all of the calculations for the unknown without needing any further instructions.

The Discipline room has a sign that says "Speak English or no Service" I guess if you don't speak English you won't get disciplined.

For any chemists out there, here are photos of the practical that they were doing.

Bomalang'ombe School Visit

Bomalang'ombe means enclosure(boma) for(la) cattle(ng'ombe) and the school sits on a plateu in a valley of grassy hillsides.  The school plants pine trees on the fields so they can harvest lumber after about 10-15 years of growth.  They are staggering plots so they will be able to harvest every year in the future.  They are also fortunate to have a fruit canning company nearby which has hydrolectric power and piped water that the school has access to.

View from school, notice the different plantings of pine trees.

Crops are planted in the valley where there is more moisture. The burned area has many flowers and may be in preparation for new tree plantings.

The school has 415 students in 4 forms with expansion plans for 5 more classrooms, laboratories, and a library to accommodate 720 students, including adding Form V and VI.  Trinity Lutheran Church in Stillwater has been supporting the school with building construction, science laboratory materials, and a well.  With that support and the water and electricity supply, Bomalang'ombe is blessed with hard resources but like any school in Tanzania, quality education is still a challenge.

They have 21 teachers with 8 having degrees and 13 diploma holders.  I met with three science teachers, one who had a degree in agricultural economics and two that are Form VI leavers.  We set up to do the practical like at the other school and also took apart a couple D cell batteries to get the graphite electrode in the middle and did electrolysis of water and salt solutions. Then we set up to do the practical with the students. The instructions were given in Kiswahili, unlike at the other two schools, and I had an impression from speaking with some of the students that English might not be used here as much.  I had a nice conversation with a group of students who did speak English well after the practicals.  They had many questions about things in the US like when someone dies does a relative inherit the wife, what happens to the property when a man dies (they were surprised to learn that it goes to the wife since the man's family often lays claim to it here), why do we only allow one wife and a lot of questions about farming in the US.

Lab Microscopes and balances which have not been used yet.

Yet another titration photo to show some students.

Boys dorm and playing 'keep away' with a soccer ball.

 Classes were not being held this week due to preparations for graduation on Sunday.  The canceling of classes for a variety of reasons in endemic with it being common at Tumaini University also.  There were two girls from Germany volunteering at Bomalang'ombe for six weeks to teach English and Mathematics.  They just graduated from Secondary School and were taking half a year to travel before going to University.  They will be in Tanzania for 3 months working at two schools and then go on to Ho Chi Min City, Laos, and Thailand before returning to Germany.  They said that most of the students in their class were taking big trips abroad but usually to the US or Australia.  I told them that most Secondary school graduates in the US would not be so bold to travel like that and some do gap year trips after college.  I left some cheese, bread, drink mixes, and toilet paper, all valuable commodities for a westerner in a village for 6 weeks. I stayed in the headmasters room in the house where the German girls were staying.

Girls dorm in front and headmasters house in back.

Bomalang'ombe has a computer lab with computers from Global Outreach.  Some of them are infected with viruses but most are working and are Pentium P4s with 30-50 GB hard drives.  I left some CDs with content such as past NECTA exams and study guides, digital science textbooks, physics videos, and the entire New Testament in audio mp3 files.  The latter can be used for Bible Studies and also to practice listening to English.  I also left some copies of a couple of the "Mini Books" designed by the staff of Mwangaza Partnership for Education.  Mini Books are two sided pages folded to look like a book with a story in English, related vocabulary words and a grammar lesson, and also content material such as nutrition or anatomy that is related to the story.  They prepared lesson plans to go with the books and each student should be given their own copy of the book.  I gave the materials to Violet, an English teacher, who will work with the German girls and I hope they can send me some feedback on how the books were received by the students.

Computer lab with about a dozen computers.  They also can get 3G internet at Bomalang'ombe.

This last trip to three schools turned out to be shorter than planned because of the need for the vehicle back in Iringa.  I think there may be a lot of value in longer stays like what the girls from Germany are doing and this may be something to discuss with Pastor Ngogo who is coordinating my visit and will be visiting Minnesota in November.

Lutangilo School Visit

We left Iringa to visit three schools and got caught in a traffic jam caused by two camels walking down the entire length of the Iringa main street.  They are not from here but belong to a ranch that was creating interest by parading the camels.  On the way we stopped in Kidabaga to repair a leaking power steering hose and pick up 5 big bags of maize flour for the school

These two attracted a lot of attention.

Maize milling machine to make ugali flour

Bridge on the road to Lutangilo.

  We arrived in Lutangilo just after noon and were greeted by Headmaster Sebastian Chaula and dancing students.

Student assembly to welcome us.

Headmaster Sebastian and student doing a Hehe dance. note bells around knee and ankle.

Lutangilo is high in the mountains and has natural forest on the hills nearby.  The road there is only passable in the dry season and cuts through and over hills of newly planted pine trees.The school is on a rise with three rivers below.  One, below the natural forest, is crystal clear and is used as the water source for the school.  They have a well but it is not working.

Headmaster with natural forest in background. It is helpful for a headmaster to be able to muster a stern expression but that is the opposite of Sebastian's personality.

Water source for school.

Lutangilo currently has about 140 students in four forms with 13 teachers.  Seven of those teachers are Form 6 leavers meaning they have only completed secondary school themselves.  Most of the rest are 2 year diploma teachers.  Lutangilo is a difficult location for attracting teachers because of its remoteness.  During the wet season, teachers would have to walk 20 km to Kidabaga to get transportation to Iringa.  They have a generator and the classrooms and teacher houses have electricity at night for lights.  The school has one house for teachers and rents another. They are building a new dining and meeting hall to replace the current one built from scrap boards.

Classroom buildings

I met with the teachers and we used the balance I brought to prepare solutions for doing volumetric analysis again to practice for the exam practicals.  We then had the students do the titration and they did a good job.  I think it was important to go through this before the exam because if things are not prepared properly, the students will not be able to do well on the practical even if they do the titrations well.  We also did the gel crosslinking slime experiment with the students.

The night was very cold and the headmaster had given me his room to use with a nice blanket to supplement my light sleeping bag.  The next morning the students assembled before 7 AM and one read morning devotions from the bible in English.  The students at assembly were using English and sang their school song in English.  There were no teachers present and I had just happened to be there so I know the English was not for my benefit so I was encouraged.  They will need good English to do well on the national exams.  We had some rain in the night and the cloud cover was very low and we drove through some of the clouds as we left for Bomalang'ombe school.

Student reading the bible in English for morning assembly.

Image School Visit

I just returned from 4 nights at Image Secondary School where I installed a computer lab with Global Outreach and worked with the Science Teachers on experiments. A student of mine from 2010, Joseph Uhemba, was my host and he gave me his room to stay in at the house he shares with Shedrack Kikoti, the head of the Science department, and two young men who work a shamba (small farm) and take care of things at the house including taking care of a couple pigs for raising piglets.

Joseph Uhemba and I, I am the taller one.

The first night Shedrack made Ugali with a tomato stew, vegetable, and dried fish from Mtera dam.  The fish is too strong for me so I just had the ugali with vegetable and stew.  Ugali is made from maize flour and has a consistency like mashed potatoes, it is the white ball in the photo.  Cooking is done inside on charcoal stoves called jikos and is a very involved process.  The life of a teacher is to go to work early in the morning (7 AM), get home around 5:30 or 6, and spend the rest of the night preparing and eating dinner before going to bed.  Joseph's and Shedrack's house has a 45 W solar panel that provides lighting all night which is much nicer than a smelly kerosene lamp.

Shedrack Kikote, science teacher and 1st night cook

Global Outreach arranged transportation to bring us to Image with the computers and return with the old computers that used to be run on the generator.  The driver was driving a bit fast for a car full of computer equipment and he demonstrated the low status for dogs in this country by running one down without slowing a bit.  The primary role of dogs is for security as noise makers and most Tanzanians are somewhat afraid of dogs.  However they do belong to families and often have names and someone may be missing that dog.  Miraji, another student of mine from 2010 working with Global Outreach, texted me on his return that the dog was amazingly still alive but I think he may have been trying to make me feel better about it.

Computer class with the new computers.

We installed 13 low wattage, netbook like computers, a file server, and a wireless router to run on a 200 W solar power station.  The file server was loaded with educational content, including a 130,000 file wikipedia selection, math and science videos, an English learning program called Genki English, high school and college digital science textbooks, a medical encyclopedia, copies of past NECTA secondary school examinations with study guides, and more.  The wireless signal reached all 14 of the O level classrooms so teachers with a laptop could access the content in the classrooms if they wish.  I saw about 6 teacher laptops which can also be powered with the solar and an Airtel modem works at Image so they can have internet.  Internet has drastically reduced in price since I was here in January and 500 MB for a month now costs about $5 making it affordable for teachers who earn about $200 - $300/month plus receive housing.

Secondary students have four years of Ordinary (O) level instruction leading up to national exams (NECTA) in 7 to 9 subjects.  The examinations run 2 weeks and students take them with much anxiety (called exam fever which has caused instances of mass fainting, especially among girls).  The exams for science now must include a practical laboratory exercise that counts for 50% of the science score.  This is new for many village schools which used to be able to substitute with a theoretical alternative exam and is one of the reasons for my visits.  I helped the teachers prepare solutions for volumetric analysis titrations and do a standardization of an acid solution.  We then did volumetric titrations with 65 Form IV students as a practice for the exam they will be taking next month.  The students did a great job doing the analysis and had a good understanding of what they needed to do even though they had not done laboratory work before.  The school has a nice library with US textbooks from a Books for Africa shipment.  The Tanzanian textbooks are the ones in demand however because they are tied to the curriculum to prepare for the all important exams and they are kept on reserve for the students to check out to use in the library.  The students can go there for their private study (PS) periods and in the evening when the generator is running to light up the classrooms.  The students I saw were mostly reviewing and copying lecture notes and one had a Tanzanian textbook.

Performing Volumetric Analysis titrations with 65 students

Reading the burette should be at eye level, an advantage for me.

The 2012 Form IV exam schedule, click to enlarge.

The Image School Class Schedule, click to enlarge.
 

The library, the Tanzanian textbooks are preferred over the US ones.

I attended biology, math, and kiswahili classes and also walked in on a couple other classes that did not have a teacher present.  Students for each Form (class year) are split into streams to have average class size of 50 to 65 and they stay in the same classroom all day.  Students rise and greet the teacher when they enter the room. Class periods are usually double periods of an hour and 20 minutes (see schedule) with the first class starting at 7:30, a 30 minute break at 10:10 when the teachers have chai and mondazi (tea and a fried doughnut) and the students have breakfast, and then classes continue until lunch at 2.  After lunch there are special programs like the laboratory periods I went to, other special topics, or sports. The Kiswahili teacher made me take attendance, pronouncing or mispronouncing each name to teach me proper pronunciation. I also gave the English teachers copies of "mini books" designed by the Mwangaza Tanzanian staff (Mwangaza is a Lutheran partnership for education based in Arusha that we visited last February).  Mini books are two sided pages folded into a book that have a story, associated vocabulary on one side and related content and a grammar lesson on the other.  They chose two stories dealing with nutrition and with malnutrition. For students that do not have textbooks, having their own mini book has been fun for students up North.  I was not able to see the class use the books before I left, unfortunately.

Tawala Kikoti, Biology/Chem, giving a lecture on the Endocrine System

Students in Biology class, 50 - 65 per class.

The second lab day we did some experiments with Form III students.  I showed them a reaction that is done in US schools known as "making slime" by crosslinking glue with borax.  Normally we use white elmers glue but the Tanzanian glue is a colorless solution of partially hydrolyzed polyvinyl acetate polymer (I wasn't sure what the glue was until I bought some and it crosslinked with borax).  Mixing diluted glue with a solution of the borax (sodium tetraborate) causes the polymer chains to crosslink forming a rubbery gel that is mostly water and fun to handle.  We also did electrolysis experiments by taking D cell batteries apart to get the graphite electrodes and connecting a 9 volt battery to them in Epsom salt solution to produce Hydrogen gas at one electrode and Oxygen gas at the other. The students could see more bubbles on the Hydrogen electrode confirming the ratio in H2O.  I was impressed that the students knew which was the anode and which the cathode, the electrochemical series, and that hydroxide ion would react before sulfate ion.  We next changed the solution to use sodium chloride salt and this produces Chlorine gas instead of Oxygen because the chloride ion is much higher in concentration.  The students could smell the chlorine.  Students wondered if the graphite in a pencil would work as an electrode and they stripped a pencil to connect it to the battery and found that it worked very well.  The students were very excited about doing science activities and there was a lot of chaos trying to let all 65 students see what was going on.  At the end they were asking when can we do science experiments again and hopefully their teachers will continue to do other experiments from the book I brought that was written by a peace corps volunteer with Tanzanian teachers for doing experiments with materials available in Tanzanian village schools.  Another group was more interested in how they could make soda.  I told them to get some baking soda and vinegar to generate carbon dioxide gas and bubble it into a solution of orange juice with sugar.  Homemade Fanta!

Tawala Kikote demonstrating electrolysis.

Next week I go to three other diocese schools and help them set up science practicals.  The other schools are not as well equipped or well stocked with science teachers as Image so it will be interesting to compare.  They are also in more remote areas so I will probably not have such nice accommodations.  The Headmaster of Image, Andeck Ngogo, is providing the school car to take me to the other schools.  He just finished his master's thesis at Tumaini University on "Factors affecting quality education in Diocese Schools" and will be visiting Minnesota this November as a nice fit with my trip as we investigate how we can help the schools improve.

Shedrack, Joseph, me, Tawala in front of the science building. Shedrack is looking pretty stylish wearing my hat.  I am glad I do not have a mirror with me.

Friday afternoon football after lunch, Form II beat Form IV.

Joseph on his motorcycle to get water in town.

Children on my last morning who thanked me for taking their picture.  

Children here love to see themselves on our digital cameras