Teaching English in Mwanama

My new program is amazing. I am incredibly happy with what I am doing now. I am teaching English at an adult school in a much more rural area of Arusha. The school teaches about 120 students English in hopes of furthering their proffesional lives. Without English advancement is hard and the school system in this country does not teach English effectively. My school offers the cheapest English language courses of any place in Arusha as well as classes in Italian and Spanish. My school is on the second floor of a rickety building. It contains 2 classrooms and an office and it is about the same size in its entirety as your average classroom for 20 students in America. It is very small and their resources are remarkably limited. The students are very eager to learn and they are very excited to have me. I am teaching with 3 other teachers - men from Tanzania and Kenya who are about my age. They are very nice. None of my fellow teachers have college degrees and they do very well with what education they have. This country is so poor. They need so much. One of them asked me if I could please take him to the internet cafe and show him how to use the internet. He has never used it before. I don't know if any of them have. I said I would try to teach him. The problem is that at $1.50/hour it is too expensive for most locals to use. They need books here...BADLY. Getting a spanish textbook in africa is apparently impossible. They have 2 books in spanish from the 1980's in very bad condition. They need English grammar books as well - most of those are British publications from the 1980's as well. If anyone can get ahold of some used books and is willing to send them these people would be incredibly grateful. I realize that shipping will be expensive though.

Mondays and Fridays we run class debates to teach students speaking skills. My first class was a debate about the best way to eradicate AIDS in Africa. I assisted in educating them further... They were only discussing using condoms, abstinence, and faithfulness. I brought in an excessive amount of facts about HIV and the importance of making your partner get tested. I think that I was quite helpful.

Tuesdays and Wednesdays we go over grammar and vocabulary. Thursdays they take tests. Today I helped them with grammar and worked with the less advanced ones to go over vocabulary. Most of this entailed going through a list of opposites such as "here" and "there" and using them in context.

The owner of the school, Masha, (one of the teachers) has me over for lunch every day with his wife and baby. I don't quite know how to take this but at my first introduction to the wife she said, "She is pretty" and then handed me all of their wedding albums to go through. We proceeded to eat while watching a Gospel DVD of dancing gyrating and praising. The dancing is quite unlike anything that I have ever seen. The first meal we had I was fed Ugali. This is very similar to cement and because I was a guest they gave me alot. I can't explain the agonies of hospitality in situations like these, but let me just say that the conclusion was carried out most grotequely over a gaping stinking hole in the ground 2 hours later.

The men that I teach with are so capable but they cannot afford college. All they want to do is have access to better reading materials and go to school and they cannot afford it. Most of them didn't complete high school because their parents ran out of money. They just read up and passed their equivalent of the GED. One of them went in to the University and inquired about fees and the administrator said, "what do you do for a living?" He told her he was a teacher and she asked how much he made. After he told her about his earnings she said that that wouldn't even cover the first third of one school year so he went home. I am looking into scholarship programs for them here and abroad. Maybe the Rotary could do something.

If anyone has access to materials let me know. Also, if you know of any materials online that I could print off for them those would be very helpful as well.