Wednesday, February 25, 2009
I Know This is Home..
This feels like home to me. I can be me- ni kweli- it's true- I can joke with and tease my neighbors using Swahili and English. I feel so comfortable with them and I don't feel like I am putting on a facade. I feel like I am part of the community. I can visit neighbors at any time. When I am sick they care. The old mamas greet me as though I was their daughter- various neighbors have told me I am like a daughter to them..binti yangu..my daughter they call me..some even reference the song "Anita" by Matonya saying Anita wangu..my Anita. I have friends around my age that are Tanzanian. I have mentors in the female Tanzanian professors. Various neighbors want to actually learn how to make cookies and cakes from me. Students are my friends and some of them like a younger brother/sister but at the same time I am their teacher as well. When my neighbors see me they offer me beans from their farms. It is bean harvesting time here, I have so many fresh beans (the beans are in pods) offered by my neighbors that I think I will be eating wali and maharage (rice and beans) forever- which I don't mind as I don't eat meat. If you have any recipes involving beans email them to me..I will try and make enchiladas, chili, minestrone, maybe even some more red bean buns...
Kuwa na Moyo- Have Heart
Even if one needs one will give- this is so true. I was greeting a local farm worker the other day, she knows me pretty well. She showed me a bag of beans and 2 mangos and said "kupe" which means give you. So she gave me those items, I felt so bad as she could have sold them and made some money instead of giving it to me for free. . Later I was hiking Loleza peak with a student and I related my story to him. He said that there is a Swahili proverb about the heart and even if one is in need they give. I don't remember the exact proverb otherwise I would write it down. Tanzanian people here have so much generosity, even if they don't have they give. When I visit people's houses I am not intending on being fed, but they feed me even if they weren't expecting me. You would never see this in the States. You can see here community is important.
Sasa Hivi, Bado Kidogo and other TZ Sayings/Doings
So here in Tanzania they say sasa hivi or bado kidogo..when really it is not right now or just a little bit longer..it is sometimes 30 or more mins longer! Why do they say that you ask? Because they don't want you to lose hope. They feel if they say it is not too much longer than you will think that it will happen at some point and it is not never going to happen. But in a sense you lose hope because you know that it won't happen right now. I am bad explaining this feeling, but you will know what I mean if you experience it. But I guess it is like in the US when we say, "one minute"..instead of something taking one minute it actually is 5-10 mins..kinda like sasa hivi..right now..
We'll see each other tomorrow if God wishes. This is self explanatory. They love to say this to me when we end our day.
Be free. Meaning don't worry about being polite just do what you want to do, we are family so we don't care about formalities.
This one is not a saying but an action. Raising your eyebrows means yes. This is going to get take some getting used to and I can forsee if I get into this habit it will be hard for me not to do it once I get back in the States. Though for now my reaction is to laugh whenever I see this though it confuses the person saying the yes with raised eyebrows. In the States raised eyebrows usually means confusion or asking the question "What?" or "what did you say?"...so when I see it I want to repeat my question when in fact I should keep my mouth shut because they said yes. :)
We'll see each other tomorrow if God wishes. This is self explanatory. They love to say this to me when we end our day.
Be free. Meaning don't worry about being polite just do what you want to do, we are family so we don't care about formalities.
This one is not a saying but an action. Raising your eyebrows means yes. This is going to get take some getting used to and I can forsee if I get into this habit it will be hard for me not to do it once I get back in the States. Though for now my reaction is to laugh whenever I see this though it confuses the person saying the yes with raised eyebrows. In the States raised eyebrows usually means confusion or asking the question "What?" or "what did you say?"...so when I see it I want to repeat my question when in fact I should keep my mouth shut because they said yes. :)
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Kuwa kali kwa sababu wasichana wanaweza!
On the 13th of Feb I attended a NGO meeting that some fellow health volunteers in the region organized. It was regarding HIV/AIDS and what we can do to help the NGOs promote their organization and to help them with teaching prevention to citizens. The other facet was to help people who have HIV/AIDS learn useful skills..this is where I can help..one of the useful skills they want to teach is computer skills in order to help people with this disease get jobs. They want to build a computer lab in mjini in order to teach these skills. I hope that we can do it and I definitely will give any knowledge I have to make this happen.
But the 13th of Feb brought a topic I was totally excited about and knew I could help with: Girls Empowerment Conference. The health volunteers wanted to get the girls around them preferably in Form 1 or Standard 7 (like 6th or 5th grade) to come to a venue to learn about life skills. They plan on doing this in June and I offered the idea as the institute as a place where we can have it. They want to teach them about careers, life skills, and their bodies and HIV/AIDS (many girls in poverty resort to getting money by other ways). We can also let them play computer games as many of these girls probably have very little access to computers. I have spoken to various women professors at the institute and they are excited about the idea and willing to help. My neighbor is one of these women and she is one of 2 female professors that attended a conference on how to counsel young girls so I can definitely see her having an impact. The director of studies (DOS) is also a woman and she is excited to help to get more females interested in math. She feels that math is the simplest of sciences and most gals feel like it is hard but if you can tell them it is not that hard and make exciting activities you can gain their interest. We were talking about involving female students at the institute in these activities in order to let the young girls see girls that they can relate to like themselves. I have written a letter to the principal to request use of the facility and hostels and I think the response will be positive.
Also those two professors and I were talking about starting a women's group here at the institute beginning with a study skills and mentorship session during orientation week to retain female students at the institute- kind of like SWE or WISE. Also about having female students and professors going to local secondary schools in the area to show them that girls can be scientists and that science is fun in order to attract girls to enroll in the institute.
The DOS showed me some research she did on the number of women entering the institute. Apparently they started offering a short course to people before attending the institute to teach people math skills if their math was poor. If they pass the course then they may be accepted at the institute. She was showing me that because of this course there are more female students here, but because some can't afford it they were trying to get some scholarships so they can allow these females to attend this course for free. I am so excited for this positive response from various teachers here. I feel like this will be a sustainable activity because there is this interest and motivation.
I am doing my little part in trying to befriend the various female students around here..though they aren't as talkative to me as the male students are. Hopefully having cooking parties and running with these girls will let them open up to me more. As we pound up those hills and they start to quit because they are tired the Anita Hitler in me (my former running partner Elena G has coined the Anita Hitler nickname in endearment of course :) ) tells them "Kuwa kali kwa sababu wasichana wanaweza!"...be fierce because girls can! :)
But the 13th of Feb brought a topic I was totally excited about and knew I could help with: Girls Empowerment Conference. The health volunteers wanted to get the girls around them preferably in Form 1 or Standard 7 (like 6th or 5th grade) to come to a venue to learn about life skills. They plan on doing this in June and I offered the idea as the institute as a place where we can have it. They want to teach them about careers, life skills, and their bodies and HIV/AIDS (many girls in poverty resort to getting money by other ways). We can also let them play computer games as many of these girls probably have very little access to computers. I have spoken to various women professors at the institute and they are excited about the idea and willing to help. My neighbor is one of these women and she is one of 2 female professors that attended a conference on how to counsel young girls so I can definitely see her having an impact. The director of studies (DOS) is also a woman and she is excited to help to get more females interested in math. She feels that math is the simplest of sciences and most gals feel like it is hard but if you can tell them it is not that hard and make exciting activities you can gain their interest. We were talking about involving female students at the institute in these activities in order to let the young girls see girls that they can relate to like themselves. I have written a letter to the principal to request use of the facility and hostels and I think the response will be positive.
Also those two professors and I were talking about starting a women's group here at the institute beginning with a study skills and mentorship session during orientation week to retain female students at the institute- kind of like SWE or WISE. Also about having female students and professors going to local secondary schools in the area to show them that girls can be scientists and that science is fun in order to attract girls to enroll in the institute.
The DOS showed me some research she did on the number of women entering the institute. Apparently they started offering a short course to people before attending the institute to teach people math skills if their math was poor. If they pass the course then they may be accepted at the institute. She was showing me that because of this course there are more female students here, but because some can't afford it they were trying to get some scholarships so they can allow these females to attend this course for free. I am so excited for this positive response from various teachers here. I feel like this will be a sustainable activity because there is this interest and motivation.
I am doing my little part in trying to befriend the various female students around here..though they aren't as talkative to me as the male students are. Hopefully having cooking parties and running with these girls will let them open up to me more. As we pound up those hills and they start to quit because they are tired the Anita Hitler in me (my former running partner Elena G has coined the Anita Hitler nickname in endearment of course :) ) tells them "Kuwa kali kwa sababu wasichana wanaweza!"...be fierce because girls can! :)
Monday, February 23, 2009
Cultural Exchange Through Cooking and Hiking
On Sunday the 22nd, I went hiking with that fellow student in addition to that saying about heart (see a previous post) we talked about listening, respect and tolerance. We were talking about this in regards to the student debate club. The guy was saying that he watched CNN and he was amazed that when they debate that they actually wait for one another to talk before talking (well they do to some effect). At the debate club at school the students try to rile up the debater by interrupting him/her before he/she finishes. This is because in secondary school they did this to have fun, but he thinks in their culture people like to put one another down when arguing to say that their point is right. I told him though in order to be effective at debate, you need to listen to the other person in order to prove their points wrong (you can do this once you know their reasoning behind their points) and in order to come up with a solution or compromise. So we both agreed that respecting and tolerating someone's opinion by listening and not just saying you are right without reason is the best way to become better at debating. And that got us on a different topic of cultural exchange when it comes to being on time as many students aren't on time for these debates. As a different student keeps telling me "There is no hurry in Tanzania". Tanzanians aren't punctual in general but those in the States are. So if someone was doing business with the States they should know that one should be on time. But at the same time an American should be tolerant of Tanzanians when they show up half an hour to an hour late.
On Saturday the 21st I had the students that I run with at my house in order to teach them to cook "American" food. We made egg noodles (from scratch) with pasta sauce, garlic bread, and peanut butter cookies. I showed them oregano and basil and they died and went to heaven when they bit into peanut butter cookies... We also talked, danced, sang, and I got to know them better. I am trying to get the token guy student that runs with us interested in cooking so far he tells me that I should teach him how to make peanut butter cookies. I plan on teaching them to make pizza next! :)
On Saturday the 21st I had the students that I run with at my house in order to teach them to cook "American" food. We made egg noodles (from scratch) with pasta sauce, garlic bread, and peanut butter cookies. I showed them oregano and basil and they died and went to heaven when they bit into peanut butter cookies... We also talked, danced, sang, and I got to know them better. I am trying to get the token guy student that runs with us interested in cooking so far he tells me that I should teach him how to make peanut butter cookies. I plan on teaching them to make pizza next! :)
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Conflict Resolution Management
I am not a conflict resolution manager or career counselor but last week I felt like one. The head of dept was letting a teacher know about something that he didn't like about this guy's performance. So he calls me into the room with the other guy because he felt like I was a third party and could give objective advice. Myself, though, I felt very uncomfortable because I did not want to offend either party by my advice. But in the end I successfully managed to give advice that didn't offend any of them by telling them that it all boiled down to communication. My advice consisted of the following:
A manager needs to communicate announcements timely to his subordinates and his subordinates should not be afraid to tell the manager when they could not complete a task. If you can't complete something you should communicate and tell the manager you can't get it done instead of not saying anything. If you don't say anything then the manager will think you didn't even start the task and he or she will get annoyed at you or even think you are performing poorly, when in fact you did start the task you just could not get it done. Also one should tell the manager about any problems one is facing so that if one needs help the manager can help find the resources in order to get the task done. At the same time a manager needs to create a friendly environment so that his subordinates aren't afraid to tell him any problems. I am thinking in this case the culture in TZ is to not be direct so as not to offend anyone so I am guessing the guy was afraid to tell the head he couldn't get his task done for that reason. But the head went to school abroad so he has adopted this direct manner of communication so he expected his subordinate to be direct with him. Open, honest communication- it is important in the world. But at the same time understanding culture matters in order to work effectively with one another.
A manager needs to communicate announcements timely to his subordinates and his subordinates should not be afraid to tell the manager when they could not complete a task. If you can't complete something you should communicate and tell the manager you can't get it done instead of not saying anything. If you don't say anything then the manager will think you didn't even start the task and he or she will get annoyed at you or even think you are performing poorly, when in fact you did start the task you just could not get it done. Also one should tell the manager about any problems one is facing so that if one needs help the manager can help find the resources in order to get the task done. At the same time a manager needs to create a friendly environment so that his subordinates aren't afraid to tell him any problems. I am thinking in this case the culture in TZ is to not be direct so as not to offend anyone so I am guessing the guy was afraid to tell the head he couldn't get his task done for that reason. But the head went to school abroad so he has adopted this direct manner of communication so he expected his subordinate to be direct with him. Open, honest communication- it is important in the world. But at the same time understanding culture matters in order to work effectively with one another.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
V-Day
We made a Chinese New Year dinner at my house (yeah we celebrated it kinda late) complete with red bean buns, stir fried egg noodles (a la longevity noodles), and spinach/ginger dumplings. It was a definite yummy delight. Later that night we watched as students participated in an English debate club. Hope everyone had a valentine's day filled with friendship or love..whichever the case may be.
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