Cultural lessons and Orientation

Besides going to placement, we having cultural lessons, kiswahili lessons, and other orientation activities in the afternoon, especially for the first three weeks which is the minimum amount of time that people can be here for. Last week we had swahili lessons that were taught by a few of the local mamas. I am getting good at greetings and picking up a few other words that will help me teaching the kids in the classroom. On Friday, we had our first big english lesson with the kids. We attempted to teach them to count to three. While they know the numbers in order, they can not distinguish them from each other or know what they mean. So I drew some Simbas (lions) on the chalkboard and asked them how many where in a group. They were really confused. A few kids finally grasped it. On monday we are going to move on to four and five Simbas, hopefully with good results. The classroom is stuffed with kids, they have chairs and desks (two or three to a desk), one giant chalkboard and the alphabet and numbers written on the wall. They are supplied with one pencil and one writing booklet which the kids have to pay for. This classroom is actually substantially better equipped than other classrooms other volunteers are working in.

We have also learned about the culture here through sharing by the staff and other local speakers. We learned about marriage and other rites. There are many traditional people in the area, one of our staff members paid for his wife by giving her father 6 cows and 4 goats. The people in the city, however, are a bit more modern but the locals do not like this because of the introduction of divorce into the culture. Female genital mutilation is practiced in the tribes surrounding Moshi but is technically illegal. There are many human rights campaigns around town which focus specifically on this issue.