one of the things that i really liked about tanzania was the formal greetings that they all had with each other and the level of respect that seems to still be there between elders and people of...well...high respect. i sound like an old rambling grumpy when i say this. "kids have no respect these days." but that's not really what i mean. in east africa (and, again, in many other parts of the world too) there is a protocall for greeting certain people. and it's just really cool to see this play out in society.
on our first day in east africa, while we were touring the "suburbs" of dar es salaam ("dar") with our friend jackie, we would pass by kids and they would genuflect just a little and say "chicamo." and we were supposed to respond "madahaba." it's a greeting that one gives to their elders or anyone of respect. it was just so cool to have someone sort of show that respect so openly and to greet people they didn't know in such an open manner. additionally, when we were staying with a family in mwanza, there was a 100 year old grandfather who resided in the house. he spoke no english at all (in fact he really didn't speak that much in general) and i spoke very little swahili. but i knew that every time i walked into the house i could say "chicamo" to him and he would say "madahaba." it felt good that eventhough we really couldn't communicate, i could still show that respect to him for being my elder and i could humble myself that way.
the above picture was taken during said tour of dar. it is of a classroom of preschool/day care students. when we walked in jackie explained who we were and asked the teacher if we could visit for a minute. when we walked in the room the children immediately stood up and said in unison "good morning, uncle" (to chris), awaited a response, sat down, stood back up again and said to me "good morning, auntie.' it was nearly one of the most adorable things i've ever seen.
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I am curious as to how the schools there compared to your experiences teaching English in the Dominican Republic. I also would like to know if the three weeks brought you closer to what you would like to do work-wise when you go there again for a longer period of time.
great questions, kais. well, i can't really say in any detail about the schools because i just toured one school so i didn't really see much in detail. but in terms of surface appearance they looked fairly similar to what we saw in DR-one story brick buildings with the doors open, windows open, wood desks and chairs and a courtyard where kids played and learned. the students wore uniforms like in DR, as you can see from the picts. there seemed to be more paper and pencils floating around as kids worked on assignments in class. although there wasn't as much "stuff" as in the us and i didn't see any textbooks (not that there necessarily were NOT any). there were several kids walking around with a manila envelope which looked like maybe they were delivering attendance or messages. and we saw the principal's office and it had some file cabinets and a calendar and some other stuff. i'm not sure if that's what you're asking. but again, i can't really say too much about the structure of the education they got, just basically surface stuff that i saw.
now, are we any closer to what we'd like to do? definitely. the trip absolutely affirmed the fact that africa is where we are meant to be and we have every intention of returning for the long haul in a few years.
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