Oysta Bay - Shule ya Sekondari

Just thought I'd include this picture  of a giant baobab tree that is growing in the yard (and threatening to break the fence of) the house that Roald Dahl lived in for a couple of years in the late 1930's. Apparently this is the biggest baobab in Tanzania (could be up to 1000 years old!) Baobabs are my new favourite tree - I have so many pictures of them I could do a separate post, all about baobabs and the life that goes on in, under and around them. Maybe I will, now that I know that Laura's Middles at Halifax Independent are studying them!

So, the story goes that Roald Dahl lived here while working for Shell Oil as a young man. He used to look up the coast towards the cement factory (which still exists) and apparently it gave him the idea for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Does anyone know if he has any references to baobabs in his books? 

Roald's baobab is in Oyster Bay (pronounced Oystabay), which is on the peninsula (where all the rich people live). The school where I have jumped into teaching  is also in Oyster Bay, but once inside the school walls, one could be in any school anywhere in Tanzania. 

It is actually a fairly new secondary school (about 4 years old) and shares the site with a primary school which has been there for years. Because it is so new, the classroom block to house them all has not been finished (see below to the right of the picture) and they have had to go in shifts - the Form 3 and 4s from 7:00 to 1:00, and the Form 1 and 2s from 1:00 to 6:00. However, now that the school year is almost over and the Form 4s have finished their exams and gone, everyone is squished into one shift, and the Form 1's are housed in primary school classrooms.

So what is this school in the richest neighbourhood in the richest region of Tanzania like? The students come from all over the city and are not necessarily middle or upper class. There are 50+ children in a class, no textbooks or indeed books of any kind that I can see (I was told there were some English books in a cupboard, but the key seems to be lost). At this point in the year, there also don't seem to be many teachers in evidence - it seems that after the mid-term break a few weeks ago, many of them just didn't return. 


When I arrived, the Head was very happy - she immediately made me the Form 1 English teacher, even though I didn't really want any major responsibilities. What could I say ? It appears I may be the only Form 1 teacher - most times no teacher comes when my 70 minute class is up, and I have actually never seen another teacher with any of them. One of the first things that a teacher asked me in the staff room when she found out I was from Canada was "Is teaching a respected occupation in Canada?". Obviously there is work to be done on that front here!


I insisted on one day of observing and "helping" in a class, and I was assigned to the Form 3 English teacher, who turns out to be just about as new as me (in fact he and I were introduced to the students at the same assembly). Poor guy to have me following him around - I wondered why he didn't seem to know any of the kids!


And then I was on my own - 3 classes, no books, no syllabus to follow, and no idea what they had been doing up to that point. But there are only 2 weeks left in the term, so it didn't seem that difficult, except that now it seems there are 3 weeks and this  last one is stretching it a bit.  It has been an education for me (my ESL teaching is a bit rusty!) and the big challenge is to get the students to talk. On the positive side, they are very eager to learn, although shy about sharing what they know. My teaching tools are chalk (of which there is a plentiful supply!) and a blackboard. 


Here are some quick sketches of life at Shule ya Sekondari OysterBay: 
on Thursday mornings, the whole school has religion classes; nuns, imams, ministers and preachers descend on the school, and it comes alive with singing, chanting etc. I was hanging around in the staff room, when I became aware there was a girl flat out cold on the floor, and a group of other girls were in the process of dragging her out by the limbs. I was shocked and wondering why none of the teachers was leaping to her aid - they laughed and said she was just overcome by the religious fervour, and that it happens all the time!


At break time, women come in from outside, and open unofficial tuck shops with fires etc just inside the school gates. They sell homemade popsicles, cassava chips and many other  delicacies. The teachers share tea from a big thermos, and are absolutely shocked that I don't take sugar in mine.


Classes are incredibly noisy - from the outside. Being on a primary school campus, there can be so much noise at times that I can't hear myself - either there are primary kids drumming and singing right outside, or sweeping the veranda while singing, or just being kids and banging on the metal goal posts! With no glass in the windows, this can be just a little disruptive!


There is a lot of exhorting to be better students, to respect the teachers etc at assemblies. A lot of it seems to come from the prefects. Recently, because it is exam time coming up and it is crunch time for getting school fees out of recalcitrant parents, names of non-paying students are read out at assembly and they are directed to see the Headteacher - "for your own benefit". I have seen students being made to hop across the field on their haunches (not easy to do in a skirt) as a punishment (hopefully not connected to the school fee issue).


Finally, I assigned a paragraph to the 13 -18 year old Form 1 students about what they would like to be when they grow up and why (practicing the structure "would like" and occupations). Nearly all of the ones I read almost brought tears to my eyes - I had thought they would say things like, "I want to be a pilot because I love flying and I want to travel etc" but instead they were incredibly altruistic - for example I want to be a lawyer because I want to help people learn about their rights or I want to be a doctor to help  reduce maternal deaths (not quite in those words, but you get the idea). One person wanted to be president so he could eliminate poverty in the country and make Tanzania more prosperous.  Could this be part of the Nyerere legacy that even with such huge obstacles, Tanzanians still care about their community and have such lofty aspirations? 


So, I am almost finished my first 3 weeks here, and will come back in January for the start of the new school year. What will my role be, I wonder? NOT Form 1 English teacher....but perhaps I can help with setting up a programme and getting some resources so that children can learn in spite of the external difficulties. Perhaps some good textbooks with relevant reading material and enough so that they are only shared by 2 students instead of 4 or 5 which seems to be the norm? I will be thinking hard about it over the next few months.