First Month in Village

The first month in village has come and gone. It's hard to sum it up in a few words. This month has been tiring yet exciting, scary but fun, busy but slow going. There is no way around it and from what I've seen so far no way to speed it up. Village life is slow. 1 hour seminars take 3 because no one shows up on time and the sub village leader has to give a 20 min speech before the seminar can start. Class gets cancelled at the last minute because teachers have meetings or the children have exams. No more than 2 or 3 things can be planned for any given day because they will all inevitably run late and you'll completely miss the last event. No one is in a rush to get much of anything done here and illness and death are a way of life. It's hard to change peoples minds no matter where you are. Here it's hard to get people to even show up. But community organizing takes time and we are working on building trust among community members so they will want to listen to what we have to say and participate in our activities.

The kids are wonderful though. They are enthusiastic. They want to learn and play and get to know us. The first project for our SRH club in the primary school will be to paint the cabinet we will use to store our information resources materials (magazines and pamphlets). They've already started making up songs and role plays about HIV. They love all the non formal education techniques we use (thank you snowball) because most of the day they are taught in a very strict formal lecture style.

The Tanzanian Ministry of Education has been called one of the worst in the Africa. Corporal punishment is prohibited on the books but in reality it is the most commonly used way of disciplining children. An Ex-Pat working in Iringa told us once that Tanzanian children don't learn in primary school they survive primary school. What I've seen has yet to prove this statement false. But it all depends on the school. Our placement primary school in Igula is small and pleasant looking. It's 4 large buildings under a grove of trees with farm fields in the back and a soccer field to the left. The class sizes are small with only 30 to 35 kids per class compared to 100 kids per class at Ilembula Primary. But the kids in our placement are timid and frightened of teachers. I've witnessed them being smacked with a stick across the palms as well as their ears being twisted and being slapped on the back. But I have a suspicion that I've only seen the tip of the iceberg. When I'm talking in class and make a gesture with my hands that is anywhere near a child's head they flinch and duct. When I'm talking calmly with a child and I try to pat them on the head they cower. I've told them I will never hit them but their movements are reactionary and I think they don't trust adults (especially teachers) very easily. This compared to the children at the bigger more crowded Ilembula primary where the children are loud and excited. They most likely get hit every so often there too, but you can tell that their spirits aren't broken and they don't live in fear of their teachers.

Not surprisingly the teachers and headmaster at Ilembula are far more welcoming and cooperative with us than the teachers at Igula primary. The discipline master at Igula primary. Who happens to be a nun, is a particular challenge. She likes to sit in on our SRH lessons and glare at us from the back of the room. The children are terrified of her and as soon as we split them up to do group the kids in the desks near her scramble to other parts of the room. We just found out that she is the teacher assigned to run our Igula primary school SRH club. YEAH RIGHT is all I have to say about that.

All in all village is a great experience I'm learning so much and they bright smiling faces of the children make all the challenges worth while because I know we are empowering them to live healthier lives.