Kids These Days

The last two days at placement have been a different dynamic because now it just Katie and I. Today Amani, our local volunteer who translates, was sick so it was just us with the kids. Yesterday, we worked on pronouns, giving each kid a different one and forcing them to make sentences out of them. They do very little creative thinking in the school system so they had a rough time trying to come up with anything other than the sentences we provided as examples. At the end, we had them do class evaluations and told them to write in Swahili what they liked and didn't like about the class. I think that this is the first time they had ever been asked their opinion about class and they were a bit lost. One boy for the thing he liked said "football" and another just wrote joking comments about how he wanted there to be more punishment in class. Corporal punishment is actually a very serious issue that other volunteers are dealing with so we didn't find that one too funny. But for the most part we discovered that the kids really do like class and they actually asked to have more of it and to be taught math as well. This was the first time I had ever seen a teenager ask for more school and for more math.

After class, we went with a couple of the mamas to visit a sick elderly woman. It is tradition in Tanzania to either bring sugar or flour to the house of the sick. The woman claimed to be 98 years old and this fact was substantiated independently when we met her son outside the home. Her house was a simple one bedroom mud and stick room with two beds, tons of dishes and a few clothes. Her family had left her alone except one grandchild from Arusha that sends money occasionally. It is such an honor every time to be welcomed into the homes of these women, most who have so very little and are sick. It is also very humbling to be welcomed as a savior. I know full well that I can't do anything for her, but in her eyes the very fact that I bothered to come visit her means an incredible amount.

Today we attempted to teach the days of the week and birthdays but it didn't really go over very well because we didn't have our translator with us. While they respect us and really do adore us, they also don't take us quite as seriously as we would like. Tuesdays are safari days and the kids led us to a river to show us where they swim and do their laundry. We were completely at the mercy of the kids because we had no translator and had no idea where we were going, weaving in and around the houses.

They were typical teenagers, horsing around and being wild. I had another "mzungu moment" while trying to get them in line. Because I didn't know how to get them to be nice in Swahili, I just kept saying "Woah! woah, woah!" trying to get them to be calm. This just made them laugh and laugh more. Well, come to find out that the word wowowo (pronounced like woah woah woah with the emphasis on the middle woah) is Swahili slang for a large butt. So I was shouting after them "Big butt! Big butt!" trying to get them to calm down. Needless to say, I got a good translation back at home to calm them down for the next time. Oh well. These kids love us, we are continually learning from each other.

While I was trying to get them to behave, I thought for a moment how different this was from babysitting back at home. Instead, I felt like they were babysitting Katie and me. We had no idea where we were and they continually have our best interest in mind. During class we always play musical seat-on-the-bench so that Katie and I can sit in the shadiest spots. These kids have been in charge of themselves from the time they could walk. We frequently see 2 and 3 year olds tottering around by themselves and walking to school by their lonesome. This is possible because the cultural standard is that a kid belongs to the entire community and it is the community’s responsibility to take care of the child. It is acceptable and expected that you punish and comfort random children that you see that are in need of either. What a contrast to home.