Work in the Field

Now the exciting teacher observations! Hildegard (Hilda) will soon be a master teacher. She is young, though she has 3 children 3, 5, and 7. In all the classes I have observed she has tried to apply upper level thinking questions. In one English class she asked me to demonstrate so she could get a better idea of what we were talking about. So with 5 minutes warning, I did my best. What fun I had! Hilda translated for me so the students could better understand. Then she just took off! Another exciting lesson was on how to use a TV. First she had the students in groups brainstorming what was needed to operate a TV. After sharing their ideas we walked over to another teacher’s house nearby that had a TV. It started with the plug, socket and switch (power here is 220 volts and the plugs have switches), next pushing the on button on the TV, and then using the remote to change channels (though there was only one with programming.) In the class of 60  <10% of students have a TV and about 25% have electricity in their houses. First, she demo-ed then had different students do the various steps needed.  Finally a couple of students went through the entire process. During the lesson she had her 3 year old with here as her house-girl had not shown up. Next lesson is making circuits with batteries, bulbs and wire.

Dickson missed the preparation workshops so he had a crash course in thinking level questioning. He struggled to understand and had difficulty doing a couple of the exercises we prepared that the others tried at the workshop. These were also activities we suggest the teachers try in the classroom.  Dickson was starting a unit on tourism in Tanzania. We consulted before the class and I helped him choose the activity and questions. He chose to use a picture to elicit what students knew about tourism in Tanzania. His upbeat, animated manner in the classroom is awesome. He broke the students into groups each with a different question to answer that had several parts to the answer. A different child had to write each part. Then the groups reported out. When I asked Dickson after the class how he thought it went well, he was enthusiastic. He said the students were involved, interested and all working. Then with great surprise he said “I didn’t know they already knew so much about tourism!” Check out this You Tube video of Dickson. The photos I have of him are blurry he moves around so much. http://youtu.be/bhFh6BCLAzA

I hope after we do the group work workshop the groups will have more assigned roles but I have noticed that trying to do that now doesn’t work. However, whoever is writing gets help from the others and I have noticed that when the recorder changes all the students are involved. Usually one person does all the writing and maybe 2 others are involved and at least three are looking around. The writer is usually the same person every time. The students break into groups all the time because there are not enough text books to go around. Sometimes there has to be 8-10 students in a group with most of them trying to read sideways or upside down. As you can imagine only about 3 students are actually involved in the work.

And We Are Off!

Tool Making Workshop

There has been an article about our work in a Vancouver local paper with an appeal for stickers to use as rewards and incentives. The best stickers have little or no English and are small so you get more stickers for the same amount of money. Please send them to:

Heather Best

Bukoba BILL Project

Bukoba Rural Council

Box 491Bukoba

Tanzania

Three weeks ago we had the first workshop with the 5 Ward Education Coordinators (WEC), one inspector, 6 head teachers (principals) and 6 mentor teachers from our selected schools to create the monitoring and evaluation tools. We learned from them the participatory methods the teachers were taught in teacher training (but were applying in part sometimes.) From these and our experience we created 5 categories of participatory methods: Question and Answer using the higher levels of thinking, Group Work, Whole class Activities (such as calendar time), Investigations including science experiments and projects etc. and Games, Songs and Drama. We also pooled our resources to come up with a Teacher Observation Form to be used by the WEC’s and head teachers and a Teacher to Teacher Observation form for teachers to support each other. Finally we created a KAP survey to capture the teachers’ experience of being observed. All a bit dry when written here.

We administered a baseline exam in Kiswahili, Math and English to 20% of the standard (grade) 4 students. The marking proved to be a challenge in trying to get a standardized marking scheme.  We ended up having to remark some of the language exams. A learning curve for us all.

Question and Answer Workshop

Then it was finally time to begin the project in earnest. Our first workshop was on Question and Answer. A simplified Bloom’s Taxonomy of thinking hierarchy was presented. We had lots of activities to for the teachers and head teachers to experience as well as apply in their teaching. Many of the participants could not answer why and how questions for example. They did not experience this kind of questioning in their schooling and have not had the opportunity to learn this kind of thinking. So they have to learn how to question themselves before they can teach their students.

Teacher Sharing Workshop

Following this one day workshop Christa, Louisa and I visited our schools (we each had 2 schools) to observe, support and encourage the teachers as they tried using questions that required more than just memory to answer. There was a wide scope of results from ‘got it and applied it creatively with exuberance and enthusiasm’ to ‘didn’t get it and feeling overwhelmed.’

One week later the same group met again to share their experiences teacher to teacher. Concepts were clarified and enlarged upon. The teachers really appreciated a chance to learn from each other. There is not this kind of professional development here at all.

Question and Answer Activities

There was also a consensus that we not go too fast which I wholeheartedly agreed with. Three other schools were added and these head teachers and teachers had to be caught up with what had happened in the previous workshop. Then the next 4 days it was back to the schools but 9 schools instead of 6 this time so we each have 3 schools to monitor and support.

Next blog is my experience in the schools.

Nkhata Bay to Home

After all this bustling travel and sightseeing we collapsed beside the lake in Nkhata Bay, Malawi. We swam, sun bathed – at least I did, and were taken to a nearby beach by boat.

view from the dining room

On our way to Nkhata Bay

On the way the boatman snared a fish from a nearby fisherman so the fish eagle would swoop down close to us to retrieve it. Being a natural showman held the fish in his mouth absorbing out delighted laughter. At the beach we watched as the villagers strung their nets across the modest bay. Then they hauled in the nets gathering them on the shore. While this was going on our showman

Our boatman

organized a jumping game then a puzzle game in

Game in the sand

the sand.

After Nkhata Bay we meandered our way north to the Tanzanian border taking in a visit to

Hauling in the nets

Livingstonia and a unique resort that grows all its own food by permaculture. A

The catch

visit to the garden was informative. At Mbeya in south central Tanzania we boarded the train for a 22 hour ride to Dar es Salaam. Only it ended up being a 60 hour trip. We were stopped while they fixed a derailment. The best thing was that it wasn’t our train that derailed. The worst was 36 hours with locked toilets and no water. TIA (this is Africa). At least we were stopped at a town – still no toilets though, well two cubicles one with a broken pipe so my legs were saturated – you know, squat toilets… Finally we started moving to great cheers only to stop again 35 minutes later and be told the rails were still not fixed. A delegation of us found the person of highest rank and he informed us that he couldn’t do anything. The orders had to come from Dar and his phone wasn’t working so he couldn’t call them and, and, and. If we had to wait many hours we at least wanted to go back to the town. Amazingly others phones were working and he did call Dar. We finally lurch forward an hour later and barreled into Dar faster than I wanted to go. We arrived at 3 am, tired, sweaty and needing a hotel. All I’m dreaming of is a shower. We climb two long flights of stairs, open the door to a clean tidy room and… yes you are already there – no water! Not until that evening.

Pitching cargo to waiting dockers

Hava banana

From Dar we flew to Mwanza with no difficulties. We had a lovely visit with Patrick, our friend and another volunteer while waiting to board the overnight boat that would take us home. That trip too was uneventful except for the cockroaches in the bed. As we docked at a town a little south of Bukoba we took these pictures of off-loading cargo and in Bukoba of the plantain waiting to be loaded.

Fourth blog today and I’m a little tired. Maybe I’ll be better at writing them as I go along.

South Luangwe Park, Zambia

Marula Lodge on the South Laungwe River was the highlight of the trip. There are tiers of accommodation from your own tent and make your own meals to a cabin with full and delicious meals, game drives and other excursions. Sitting on the riverbank, facing the

As close as I want to be

setting sun we watched countless hippos submerged, coming to and from the river and most excitingly fighting for their staked out piece of water. Enormous Nile crocodiles bask with their jaws open – usually about 10 of them of varying sized. The largest being about 4 meters. The elephants come down and even a leopard was spotted just before we got their – drat! But we saw lots later. One gentle evening as Bill and I were enthralled by the grunts of the hippos a huge bull

My favourites

elephant crossed the river. I called to the guard, he called everyone and we sat very still and quiet as this bull elephant rose up the bank beside us like a prehistoric horror show and meandered through the grounds about 15 feet away. No pictures of that – no one moved a muscle.

On the game drives we saw all the usual animals the great parks provide plus twice we say

Thorndicraft Giraffes

the rare honey badgers and once a porcupine. And lots of pink hippos. The pink is due to a secretion that protects them from the sun. Thorndicraft giraffes abound and they are so cleanly marked. The soft golden become dark brown with cream demarcations in the older ones. There is also a different species of zebra with even more striking markings than those further north. In all we had three night drives, two morning drives and a walking safari. National Geographic has the best photos so I’ll just show a few.

This lodge is also involved in community outreach. We visited a school with Jenny, our hospitable host, to see the reading program she has started. As we participated in the outdoor class, many mothers walked by with buckets for water. Jenny explained that the parents were building a new latrine for the girls. And I thought – wow, these mothers realize their daughters will not attend school when they have their period if they cannot use a toilet privately and they want their daughters to have an education and a better life than theirs. This is their priority. So impressive! In the village of mud huts and straw roofs we saw solar panels hooked up to a boom box! I hope they have some lights too.

Mothers getting water to make bricks

From Rwanda to Victoria Falls

Berta, Asterie, my colleague in Rwanda’s new daughter

It’s the end of May and school’s out. No staff to work with so we journeyed to Rwanda, SA, Zambia and Malawi for about 5 weeks. After a 12 hour big bus, dala dala, and shared taxi with 4 people in the front seat – 2 in the driver’s seat so he had to reach over the person beside him to shift gears we reached the border of Rwanda at Rusumo Falls. I nearly didn’t make it through immigration. They refused three different US bills due to microscopic tears – and you have to pay in US dollars. My head was a volcano and some lava slipped through my lips about not

Traditional accommodation

being welcoming etc. After that travel to Kigali became more luxurious with a seat for each person and good roads. We visited friends and colleagues travelling the length and breadth of the country – not hard as it is only 250 km across. Our most unusual accommodation was the traditional hut.

Apartheid Museum

To get from Kigali to Livingstone at Zambia’s Victoria Falls the plane went first to Johannesburg with a 23 hour stopover. We took the opportunity to visit a western shopping plaza to get haircuts. Big event. We were also gripped by a visit to the Apartheid Museum. A comprehensive historical statement. As we were entering there was a class of secondary school children – mixed race. I was thinking how fascinating it would be to attend their debriefing. I expressed this to the teacher and he answered that it was his favourite class to take each year. I was heartened to know that.

Victoria Falls

New hair styles and a pedicure for me and we were off to Livingstone where we stayed in fixed tents (with beds) on the Zambezi River. I am sure I learned about Victoria Falls but…the immensity of it was breathtaking – 1.7 km wide. The only photos of the whole thing have to be taken from the air. Unlike Niagara it falls into a narrow canyon. In this one picture out of it seems like hundreds you can also see the falls on the far right also and that is no even half! As we walked along the top edge of the river canyon to get many varied glimpses of its power we noticed there had been no baboons for about 20 minutes

Oh our lunch!

and there was a picnic table. So, buns, cheese, … and a few minutes later I was about to take my first bite – bunwich poised at my lips when a snarling, growing baboon shot out of the woods like a cannon ball. Bill, the mighty warrior, picked up the small log he was carrying to protect us. He roared and lunged at the baboon but sadly it had no effect. Me, I quaveringly threw my lunch into the woods nearby and shrank back with little whimpering noises. Well he got the sandwiches, and a yogurt, which he dropped and came back for, then sat placidly as our grumbling stomachs envied his repast.

Bill rafted down the rapids of the Zambezi while I walked with the lions. This is the objective of this program to increase the lion population in the parks, however

Gorgeous

the 15 month old lion cubs that do

A bit timid

the walk with tourists are habituated to people and will not be left in the wild for their own protection. For a couple of hours we walked (behind – not in front as we would then be prey), observed and petted the lions. Nature overwhelms!

Next blog: South Luangwe Park, Zambia

July 28, 2013 There will be a couple of travel posts to follow soon that actually were in June.

I realize now that my lack of motivation to do another blog has been due to a serious slump in my life here. We have had to wait until a couple of weeks ago to have the funding for the project approved – through no fault of ours. We completed all the necessary documentation three months ago! But for whatever reason… TIA (this is Africa), though I really suspect the delay was the Swiss foundation – and they are supposed to work like clockwork, right?

Then when we first started up again I feared that we were going to have to battle against the need for fitting in with the timetable instead of doing a quality job. With great relief I can say that this is not so. Mnubi, our program manager is stellar. He not only has the skills to run the project but also people skills. He is approachable and listens and modifies to the needs of the team. My understanding goes out to him because he is caught between the funders demanding a sometimes unrealistic sticking to the time frame and the team who wants to do the best that we can. Often the timing is thrown off because of events beyond our control – such as not being able to give a workshop when it would be best for us because there is a mock exam for the standard 7 students and the teachers and Head teachers are not available.

Our funder’s representative will be here at the end of next week and I plan to talk to her about this matter. Last week I was ready to pack my bags. I had remained positive for 6 months, reveling in the thought of the work we could do then the sky fell in on me. I have long recognized that I am positive/patient/enthusiastic etc. until I’m not and then I am really not. And that is what happened.

Our six months here have been fraught. First losing Bairu, the person who instigated the project and did the background research for the proposal. Then two months when we were creating work for ourselves – work that will support us in our future endeavours. We all took holidays in June as there was nothing to do – school was out for vacation. That means teachers weren’t available.

That brings me to another frustration. In Tanzania, Rwanda, Zambia and Malawi and I suspect the rest of sub-saharan Africa stands with they’re hand out. All of us have seen this – not just our team. They are so used to ‘muzungus’(westerners) paying for things that that is what they expect. There has been little need for the motivation to ask – ‘How can we do this for ourselves?’ Trillions of dollars of aid money have been poured into sub-saharan Africa with little result. Thankfully, our project is designed to address this. Only…the funding is coming from the west, the experts from the west but the teachers will not give of their own time to participate. This sticks in my craw! But I am willing to go along with it in the hopes that with success the teachers will be motivated to improve their teaching on their own time. I would have preferred that they gave something also so that they were more invested in the result.

Enough crabbing! Tomorrow we begin our first workshops to create the monitoring tools. I’ll report the results.

Cuso/VSO have been recruiting people for “placements” in the areas of Education, Health, HIV/AIDS, Secure livelihoods and Governance  for the past 50 years. From now until 2016 they are changing to having “projects” rather than placements.  In a simplistic model there is a triangle between the project, the funders and the in-country partners. A project involves several volunteers working to fulfill an aim with the partner organization, whereas placements were more individuals helping to fulfill an aim. A project requires more research to develop a plan, and often more stringent methodology to measure the impact of outcomes. (The first picture shows the rivers formed on the pathways between classes during the rainy season.

The children took off their shoes and walked through mid-calf water to get to the toilets. All good fun!)

Our project, called the Bukoba BILL (building inclusive learning and leadership) Project, is the first of its kind. This makes us trail blazers with no prototype to follow. I love it – an empty canvas!

The only downsides being that our funding has not come through yet and we have lost Bairu, our anchor man who did all the baseline research and has a brain full of knowledge. The upside is that we have had two months to examine all the information available and do many school visits to see what is already in place. This has given us a fantastic picture of possibilities and hindrances.

The overriding thing that would improve education here is for the teachers to be at the school and in the classroom teaching. In the 12 schools we have visited I would guess that the best school had 70% of teachers teaching in the classroom while we were there. You must realize that that is a best effort put forward for the visiting foreigners. Some schools had one out of seven teachers in the classroom teaching and that only because we were the visitors. II thought the biggest problem was going to be getting the children to

school but it is not. I’ve been thinking of what we can use as incentives to get the teachers in the classroom teaching. Louisa and Christa who come from the UK and Belgium repectively have had many parcels with felts,

coloured pencils, stickers (simple), erasers, etc. sent by friends. The postage from there is much less than from Canada. We are going to make many packages to be given to the teacher in a school who has taught the most number of classes on their roster. Other ideas gratefully received.

We have seen many brilliant lessons given by teachers who have been to workshops about using teaching aids and participatory methodology. Grade 1 math lessons with sticks for counters – a great start. However, they were doing double digit adding with carrying when the children did not yet have a concept of numbers.  We have also seen the stick used frequently for discipline, tons of chalk and talk and repetition.  In the 12 schools, none of us has seen a child ask a question, heard a teacher ask an open question, or seen groups with less than 8 children and one child doing all the work.

All a plus for us. It gives us direction. Our next step is to meet with the best teachers we have seen and to design together workshops in methodology that could be tried in the classrooms here.

It summer break from now until July 15^th. Our funding will be in place by then and we will be ready to move ahead quickly.

This last pictures was of windmills made by the children from plastic water bottles, sticks and a pin/nail to demonstrate how wind or water could turn a turbine. This was just as wonderful as the teachers braids, though I was unable to get a good picture of them . She is a stylie lady!

It has been so long since I wrote a blog that I can’t struggle with the formatting tonight.

Two weeks back in Bukoba

The past two weeks have been a roller coaster of events and emotions. Bairu, a Canadian Cuso volunteer, who has been here for a year and a half and who created the project we are working on was taken ill. It turns out that he has a devastating cancer diagnosis and is now back in Canada about to begin treatment. The outlook is not good. Christa, another of our volunteer group on the project spent nearly 3 weeks with him in the Nairobi hospital. Her empathetic heart was a comfort for Bairu as he learned about his illness but it has taken a toll on her also. However, she has sprung back with great strength. So now we are five at least for several months. Our project manager, Mnubi, a Tanzanian, Alex also Tanzanian is our community liaison person and Louisa, Christa and me. We are in the process of regrouping.

After my nearly four day journey back to Bukoba, I had Sunday to ‘rest’ then there was a four day workshop on Child Rights for the head teachers (principals). This was given by our potential funder, Pestalozzi Children’s Foundation.  As we were only observers at this workshop little effort was made to have any of the presentations in English. I sat listening to Swahili trying to keep my eyes open because for me it was the middle of the night (a ten hour time change). Alex translated much of the goings on but when he was talking he couldn’t be listening so we missed many things. Also he wasn’t there all the time. A lot of time was spent guiding the head teachers to see that using the stick for any and all misdemeanors (including many that were not the child’s responsibility) was not okay. As a team we gained insight into the depth of the issue.

We are hoping the funding will be finalized this week and we can get the final action plan. In the meantime we are now creating a document on what teachers can do instead of using the stick. Some will be relatively easy to implement such as learning and using the children’s names but others depend on developing new teaching methodologies. That’s what we are here for so the workshop helped to focus our efforts.

There is African music from some nightclub reaching our heights on the hill now accompanying the crickets and added to with howling dogs. Last weekend we had guest VSO volunteers from the greater hinterland. It was wonderful to have them. Also this weekend we had other volunteers staying with us. We all and others went to lunch at a place on the beach. It was heavenly.

Meals at a restaurant here are a social occasion. Your order something to drink – Fanta, beer, water- then about a half hour later someone comes to take the food order. In an hour or an hour and a half the food arrives. They certainly make sure you are hungry. But sitting on the sandy beach in the shade of a banana leaf umbrella waiting for the meal and talking to interesting people creates the slowing down that is one of the best virtues of being in Africa.

Back in Bukoba

I am sitting on our balcony looking at the sunlit lake with a myriad of birds swirling around, listening to the harmonious choirs of the churches and happy to not be moving anymore. I left Victoria on Wednesday afternoon and arrived home Saturday evening. A tumultuous time  with highs of the birth of Harper Elizabeth encasing joyous times with Eben and Rebecca’s twins, Jana and Gabi plus superhero Isaac and of course Eben, Rebecca and Rebecca’s mom, Margaret. Coming down to earth with the news that one of our team, the creator of the project, is going home with a devastating diagnosis. Somehow we three newbies have to fill his space as much as possible.

The change from Tanzania to Canada and back again highlighted the differences in the cultures. Here in Africa they seem to embrace what I would call chaos but they would call I don’t know what but it appears to be socializing. Efficiency is anything but the rule. For example, there are few signs so it is  necessary to constantly ask where to go and what to do when going through customs and immigration from Uganda to Tanzania. Leaving the ‘out’ immigration office in Uganda it is not clear where to go to the ‘in’ immigration in Tanzania but there are many people who will guide you to the right place for a price. Being a “muzungu” ( foreigner or white person) these helpers descend like flies grabbing at my sleeve. Being me, I disliked this so I marched off on my own and walked a long way before I realized I didn’t know where I was. I asked a kindly older gentleman to help and he guided me in to the right place without asking for money. I know, I know that these people need the income BUT something in me resents the need for many (20+) men to be thinking this is a productive occupation.

It highlights the need for slow change. As education increases, jobs requiring this education must be in demand. I wish I could explain it more eloquently. Young people graduate from high school or even college and cannot find jobs because the infrastructure has not developed enough. On the other side are many, many young men (especially I see the young men) standing or sitting around with little to do. Many, many taxi drivers and piki piki drivers (motorcycle) waiting for business. An unbelievable number of tiny shops – all hopefully making subsistence earnings with no hope of advancement. Most have 5+ men sitting outside chatting. A few have ambition for more but feel that opportunities are lacking. And it is true that for the few go-getters there is a chance but not for all.

Sorry only a sunrise picture taken from out balcony and, I am led to believe, too much writing. 483 words when the optimum in 300. Oops! I hope I didn’t bore you with my rambling. My mind is not yet in gear from the trip but I’ll post anyway. Thanks to all who made it to the end.

Introducing Harper Elizabeth, born March 17th weighing 8 pounds 15 ounces and measuring 22.5 inches in length. An avid eater leading to a peaceful sleeper.

It has been a wonderful family time. I’ll be returning to Tanzania beginning my journey on Wednesday and arriving home on Saturday.

L to R Jana, Gabrielle, Naomi, Naia and Isaac at Isaac’s 5th birthday party.

Eben, Jana, Naia, Isaac with Gabi and Naomi playing with the post.

Isaac and Rebecca at the family BD dinner.

Ian and Zoe out for a yummy breakfast.

Eben and Harper at Isaac’s BD party.

Gabi at her second birthday party.

Jana – often seen expression