Here in Majengo

It's been a week now since we got to Moshi/Majengo, and things are going really well. Moshi is a town of about 100,000 people, just south of Mt. Kilimanjaro. On clear days, you can see the mountain from the town center (we haven't caught a glimpse of it yet, but then again, we haven't really been looking). We're staying about 20 mintues (walking) from Moshi center in a small town called Majengo, and working at an English-medium nursery school there called the Step-Up Center. The school is a place where, for a small fee, elementary and nursery school students are taught a normal curriculum as well as English. Most children only get access to English either in expensive private schools or in secondary school. However, classes in the government secondary schools are in English, while, in the government elementary schools, classes are in Swahili. University is also taught exclusively in English. Getting a "step-up" on English-language instruction allows these students much better access to higher education, as they can actually understand their teachers' instructions.

So every day, Becca and I get up early and walk two minutes down the road to the school, where we are trying our best to help the students learn the alphabet. It's difficult, as some of the students are as young as three-and-a-half. Besides, the Tanzanian teachers are really excellent, and they hardly need the help of a couple of Americans who barely speak Swahili. Nonetheless, little kids are sponges for language, and even by speaking to them in a little English and giving them some one-on-one instuction, hopefully we are imparting on them a little bit of concrete knowledge. Besides, I am hoping that by just giving the students, and perhaps more importantly in the long run, the teachers, access to an American who cares about Tanzanians and who is trying to bridge the gap between the two cultures, I can open up doors both for the Tanzanian students and (someday) my own students.

Becca and I are staying at a gust house called the Mississippi Lodge. The woman who runs the lodge, mama, has really taken us in, albeit in her own gruff way. Although we have been trying to cook for ourselves, she has insisted on "helping us," which, in reality, means cooking delicious Tanzanian dishes for us as she sits us down to eat next to her own sons. As it's winter here, she even berated us for not wearing coats as we left the lodge the other day! We have our own little room, and we bought a couple of dishes, a loaf of bread, some peanut butter, and some instant coffee.