....and arriving.

If I hadn’t gone to Namibia for a week and experienced an airport outside of Tanzania for the whole year, I think I would have had a huge culture shock just leaving. As it is, I was still reminded how different an airport can be to Dar’s: large, open space, airy, clean, lots of customer service desks staffed by people willing to help, and toilets with more than 3 cubicles, with stainless steel doors, fast hand dryers (which work), and automatic soap dispensers. Don’t get me wrong: the staff I have encountered at Dar have not necessarily been unhelpful, but elsewhere they just seem to be more...customer-orientated!

During transit at Doha airport it was a strange and novel experience to pass a shop displaying rows and rows of CDs....and a WHSmith! All those lovely books and magazines and chocolate! I was glad that I was able to refrain from the old habit of purchasing something from the Duty Free. I had a good look round; contemplated the prices; smelt the perfumes, and then was able to really question the need to buy any of it. I would normally have bought some chocolate or alcohol, but having lived this year on a shoestring and without many luxuries, I realised it was just the illusion of wealth drawing me in. There was a lot of chocolate, alcohol, perfume, jewellery, stuffed toys – the usual products (and brands) found in most airports, in fact, so it didn’t even feel special to buy something for other people that they couldn’t already get for themselves. Gift-wise I wasn’t in a position to be buying much for other people anyway, and certainly not if it wasn’t unique. You could also pay $280 US to enter a prize draw to win lots more money or a luxury car – which, if you could afford to enter, you probably don't need to win.

It was surprising how quickly I stepped back into some of the old routines though: getting onto the escalator I immediately went to the left and kept walking up, expecting to pass the people who normally stand on the right – well, by ‘normally’, I mean in London, but I wasn’t in London, and it was interesting to note to self that it was silly of me to expect people to stand on the right and allow others to walk up on the left. How had I managed to spend a year in Tanzania with no escalators, and yet the minute I get back onto one, I slip back into old expectations and habits?

Arriving at Manchester I was disappointed to see you have to pay just to use a trolley and I mean pay: not just deposit a coin that you get back when you return the trolley (I don’t remember if this was in place before), so out of principal (and lack of change) I carry and drag my bags until, after a fairly short distance, I saw someone had kindly left theirs after checking in and which hadn’t yet been picked up by the roving staff. Hmm, no bins for throwing away my baggage tags though...I forgot that bins can't be found in any place of public transport here. Next stop were the toilets, which weren’t nearly as clean as Doha – the toilet paper was on the floor and blocking the sinks. But toilet paper and a sit-down toilet! And warm water to wash your hands! I walked through the Skywalk for my prearranged collection point: how nice to pass the beautifully manicured gardens; appreciate the orderly traffic lights and pedestrian crossings (soon to be considered a nuisance and too frequent once I’m driving again, I’m sure); clear signposts for the various destinations including an adjacent railway station. Strolling through the skywalk I passed at various intervals a set of 3 chairs, with green plants throughout which add to the calming atmosphere. At WHSMith (for their newspaper + bottle of water deal) it was refreshing to feel slightly more relaxed about being able to see my luggage trolley out of the corner of my eye, and not having to have a hand on every piece of it while I picked up a newspaper. Finally, onto Delice de France for a long-awaited warm croissant with a coffee, a selection of which is increasingly available in Tanzania – latte, cappuccino, espresso – but here with a jug of nice cold milk (which doesn’t have 'bits' in), next to the sugar and stirrers.

It took me a good five weeks before it felt like the world had slowed down enough to stop making me feel dizzy. I had been warned about reverse culture shock and thought I would be fine, however it may be that with such a full immersion of life in Tanzania, with no family or friends visiting; not leaving Tanzania except for one week in Namibia, and living quite remotely with very limited access to internet for Skype or reception for phone calls, coming back to Western culture was a real shock to the system. I remember thinking “there’s so much stuff everywhere” – and with constant advertising to buy more, or take out a loan and buy more. The pace was so different as well: ‘haring around’ because the car was parked for a certain amount of time, or there was just always so much to be done - but how lovely the recognition that a lot of this is self-imposed pressure.

One of the things which took a long time to get used to, and after eight weeks is still only beginning to feel ‘normal’ again is how the sky is still light, late into the evening, even until 10pm. It was waking me up in the mornings too at 4.30/5am! Being near to the equator in Tanzania, year-round the sun rose between 6-6.30am or thereabouts, and set between 6.30-7pm or thereabouts, never more than half an hour difference. It's so interesting how your body adjusts.

Despite the constant advertising to buy, buy, buy, there are some material things that I have been looking forward to using again - I can wear jewellery and heels....and after about three weeks I realised I can start using a bag which looks like a handbag, rather than a simple cloth shoulder bag with just a few essentials. However, you realise you need a bigger bag when you go out here because every single time you step out of the house you always need to take an umbrella, a raincoat, a thin jumper, sunglasses... and my hay fever seemed to want to make up for lost time! On the positive side there are so few mosquitoes, and I’m sure I will again appreciate the cooler weather of the English summer.

I missed family and friends more than I had before when living overseas, which surprised me. I think it was because regular contact was not possible and the post was so unreliable, which was something I wasn’t prepared for. It’s been good to be back to see them, but now those feet are itching and I would enjoy seeing the sun for more than 5 minutes at a time again.

So long, and thanks for taking this enlightening journey with me. I’m going to try to remember go at a pace in order to appreciate each day. I hope there is something from my experience that has been enlightening for you too.

Leaving....

After (finally!) getting back to Iringa from Ifakara (see previous post), Juanito had a surprise farewell meal ready and waiting, along with decorations and gifts from my awesome team (cue the tears): thanks guys, you're amazing....

 

 

 

 

 

 

And then a farewell team lunch the next day! I am so lucky!

I'm also missing your cooking, kuya.

 

I am not missing the bus travel...

 

....but the scenery was truly breath-taking.

 

A farewell bonfire :-)

 

And not without a final trip to Mama Iringa's...

 

....con la mamma, Concerta.

Waving hankies farewell! Oh the tears!

 

More farewell drinks, in Dar now, with more friends....

 

 

 

Lots of wonderful people; lots of happy memories. Mungu akipenda tutaonana tena, Tanzania.

 

College facilities

On our project we were working with 6 Teacher Training Colleges, and were able to occasionally visit a school too. The colleges are residential, with 5 of the 6 overcrowded in terms of the number of students allocated to them vs actual college capacity. In most of these places there was at least a blackboard and chalk, but that was pretty much all you could count on:

Catering for the 1000+ student teachers who are resident at this particular college,

although the money to feed them is rarely enough and never comes in time.

Meat is given twice a week, and 'breakfast' is a cup of sweet tea. Kitchen staff?
Meant to be 1 per 100 students. Here there was a rota with 2 shifts
with 2 staff members each shift.

The dorms at one of the TTCs. Privacy? No chance. Malaria, or other?
Shared nice and easily.

The washing cubicles for the girls. About 450 of them (girls, that is).

The best library of all 6 TTCs we worked with....

....with the most recent books dating mostly from the 1960s and 70s.

Creative teaching!

Flipchart paper: more versatile than the blackboard.

In one of the more spacious teaching colleges,
students do a kinaesthetic activity. Hurrah!

Now to the science department. Imagine how expensive (and how breakable) all that glass laboratory equipment is? And the scales, jugs, rulers etc... Students learn how to make as much as possible using everyday resources:

The tutor explained the students had never seen a stopwatch,
but he had made this for them to see what one looked like
in case they ever got the chance to see and use one.
For timing actual experiments they use their mobile phones.

One thing never in short supply are plastic bottles. 

Back to the dorms: this is taken from another of our TTCs. The building here
was meant to be an office, but due to an increase in the demand for teachers (due to the MDGs??),
 the government assigned more students to the TTCs to become teachers. Erm, capacity??
Any follow-through on that thinking??

He counted himself lucky for at least having something to lean on.

Can YOU see what's on that blackboard??

I didn't see any student teachers without chairs,
but that doesn't mean an awful lot.

Loving the creative thinking for wardrobe alternatives.

Where do they store them in the rainy season?

Tightly-crammed classrooms does make kinaesthetic activity more difficult, and
student participation slightly more challenging, but not impossible.
I felt it was often used as an excuse for demotivated teachers.

In this college library neither students nor teachers liked to go in here
as it was also the storage space for the batteries taking solar charge.

Space = non-user-friendly access to borrowing books.
Yes, this was a library. We might call it a cupboard.



The female toilets for another of our colleges.



With the principal from Mpuguso and the senior team at a local school,
in front of one of the classrooms.

We visited a middle school where, for the last 5 years, they have achieved consistently high results despite a very evident lack of facilities. After speaking with the team we discover it is mainly down to the hard-work and long hours from the teachers; parents who support the school, and regular, rigorous testing of the students. Taught to test? Maybe. But if that's what the system demands, then maybe the fault lies with the system.

One of the teachers was retiring so today was a day of festivities, with no classes.

At least the daylight gets in. Do you see any lights otherwise?
And how would they be powered?

This is a classroom for approx. 30 students: the rest sit on the floor.
And hope the building doesn't collapse on top of them during lesson-time.

The student toilets.

Ventilation is clearly not an issue, but
 it does get cold up here in the mountains.





















The principals at our colleges were amazing: they felt the responsibility for those students, and worked hard to make changes to improve their situation, for example at Tandala they make their own bricks and are building new toilet facilities themselves. At Mpuguso the students had to go to the local river to get water, so when the new principal arrived she herself managed to arrange the piping of the water to the college. Raising funds by asking their community, who have little themselves. They do it, because no one else will. You might argue that as long as they are doing it, their government won't, but who suffers in the meantime? And when would it get done? All this is during a time when they're meant to be studying; learning; being taught, and teaching others, not fighting to survive.