This Morning

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." I'm beginning to understand what Dickens was talking about. This day was simultaniously the best and worst of training so far.

This morning I was delighted to wake up early to teach my first early class, and as a result I caught the morning assembly of students. Usually some of the 600 or so students we have collect in the school courtyard to say what I can only guess is the Tanzanian pledge of allegiance and to hear announcements. The line up military style by form (year) and stream (class) and that is exactly what I found when I walked up to the school this morning. It all started out normally.....and then I saw that the teachers overseeing the morning assembly had sticks. And then I saw some of the teachers - normally extremely nice, welcoming, intelligent people - start punishing the students by hitting them on hands.

O.k. I knew there would be corporal punishment, and we were duly warned about this and I have seen it all before. But while I was watching this from a safe distance, I noticed things started to escalate. One of the teachers woke up on the wrong side of his mosquito net or something because suddenly he was indescriminately administering hits from his stick to students trickling in. It was horrific, but no one else but myself and another PCT who I arrived early as well seemed to notice, and plenty of teachers were just enjoying their chai. And plenty of students were laughing. And some were crying. And one girl that got hit particularly badly was escorted to the bathroom by her friends to wash the wound (I guess). And then it was all over and the students went to class and I just stood there looking confused, dumbounded, and more American than I have ever felt in my life. Then this sweet teacher who a second ago was whipping students comes up to me and asks me how my family is doing and shakes my hand. I couldn't do anything but return the reply and be herded to class by my PCT friend, who thought it would be better if I just got away from the teachers.

So I get to class and all I can think of as I stare at these students is that they just witnessed and some were victims of a highly unorganized, frightening punishment. I couldn't even imagine how it made them feel or decide if I would have even come to school anymore if that's what our mornings were like. Well, I pull it together and talk to the students a bit about what they have been studying. I'm taking over a class that has been taught by a substitute teacher for the past month because their teacher went M.I.A. unexpectedly (not unusual). The substitute is this incredibly nice woman, and a good teacher, who was thrust into a new school a month ago teacher five different classes over two different subjects. I found out through talking with the students in those first 10 minutes of class that the material I thought we were to cover over the next few weeks, and the material they had spent the last month covering, had already been taught be the previous teacher. No wonder they were bored out of their minds!!!! And no one had bothered to speak up, because students here don't talk back to teachers, so the past month had been a complete waste of their time. I spent half of that class finding out what they knew and the other half starting new material from where they left off, and it was like a light switch turned on. They were excited and talkative and they participated and not one, I flatter myself, was sleeping in the back of the class for the whole two hours that I kept them. The teacher after me never showed but I ran out of material to teach them off the top of my head and had to go to kiswahili class myself. There have been few moments in my life where I felt more greatful to be on earth than when my students yelled "Karibu Kesho" (you are welcome tomorrow) as I left the classroom.

And then it was 9:30am and the rest of my day started. This is Africa.