Letter to Sarah Palin

One of the small blessings of being mostly out of reach of North American media is not having to see Sarah Palin’s face simpering at me constantly (the media here much prefer Barack and Michelle!). But recently, I was getting caught up with the Globe and Mail, and happened upon this quote from Sarah speaking about McCain who was “standing up for the time-tested truths,” including “the belief that the government that governs least governs best.”

Here’s my response:

Well, Sarah, if you really believe that you need a trip here to Tanzania to see what happens when a government, because lack of resources, governs very little.

Leaving aside the huge inequities that are a part of daily life here (and in the States), the lack of a safe water supply, the problems with education which I have written about elsewhere, and the lack of any affordable healthcare for most people (a recent story tells about a “big” man who was rushed to the hospital and refused treatment because he didn’t have $500USD in cash – he later died), one only has to drive around Dar to notice that government is often “missing in action” and if you live here, it is impossible to escape. These pictures were all taken in my neighbourhood in the last week.

Let’s start with the roads. We have written about the potholes that can swallow a car (indeed we have had to avoid one of them every day since we arrived and have lost track of how many cars it has claimed). But less dramatic is the sheer bumpiness of city streets in most residential areas – the daily bump and grind of getting out of one’s  neighbourhood. The rocks, the mud and the homemade speed bumps (totally unregulated) make driving hell. And the poor condition of the roads leads to everyone having to buy bigger, stronger, and more gas guzzling vehicles. You haven’t made it unless you have a Toyota Landcruiser at least! And these monstrous cars are big contributors to the air pollution…

I mentioned speed bumps – they are necessary because no one ever monitors speeding in the city. It is an everyday occurrance to see vehicles passing others on residential streets at 80 kph – woe betide the small child or cyclist that gets in the way.

Air pollution? Everyday a cocktail of aromas wafts by our balcony – the lowtide stink of sludge, the burning of garbage, the runoff of raw sewage at our back door. When there are no regulations about burning, people tend to burn anything anywhere – this traditional boat is having the burning rubber treatment – 3 old tyres  being used to coat the wood and make it more waterproof. These are just the toxins I can smell – a visit to the industrial districts reveals lots of ancient looking smokestacks pumping out black stuff. It doesn’t matter where you live Sarah, air pollution affects us all!

Garbage disposal? I am helping update a book for newcomers to Dar, and it has fallen to me to investigate what one does with household waste. Forget composting, recycling and all those good things we have back home in NS – there is no municipal collection, and it turns out that most compounds (even large apartment buildings) just burn their waste outside their walls, often on the street. There are a few private collection firms, but they are difficult to find and expensive – and some of them apparently just dump the waste in these informal dumpsites. Every watercourse in the city seems to be a dump – and those ubiquitous plastic bags can really gum up a drain during a rainstorm!

How about regulating the professions? I’m willing to bet that this “Dr” who promises to cure infertility, impotence, frigidity and even to increase the size of your bum (imagine anyone at home wanting that!) does not have an MD.

Having homeless people living on your street corner doesn’t add to the tone of the neighbourhood – but you could probably learn to live with it, Sarah.

What about emergency services – those services we all hope we’ll never need, but are happy to have available? I have yet to see a public fire engine or ambulance. The only ones in evidence are operated by the private security firms which supply guards to the rich.

On the highways, we have occasionally been stopped by police wielding radar guns, but nothing seems to slow the drivers of the rickety buses and even more decrepit trucks who must be promised bonuses for arriving sooner. This front page photo shows a piece of squashed and twisted metal that was a dala dala (small bus) containing 17 people – the tanker was passing on a curve. The driver is still at large….

“Why do people flee from the scene of an accident?” was the question for discussion on the morning radio show today…most callers said it was because they were at fault – no one mentioned the fact drivers face summary justice from local people. When there is no faith in the police or justice system, people take the law into their own hands, with often grisly results.

So, Sarah, small government may sound great when you are rich and take for granted all those services we in the developed world count on our government to provide, but here we are constantly reminded that actually clean air, good infrastructure, and law and order affect rich and poor alike. Our neighbours in the mansion across the road suffer just as much as from the air quality and bad roads as anyone else!

But I shouldn’t overstate things, because government does visibly do some important things here – the main highways are well maintained, somehow they have managed to treble the number of high schools in the last 5 years and small dispensaries can be found even way up in the hills. And the constraints the Tanzanian government faces come both from within and without (aid organizations, multinationals, World Bank, other governments – all have their influence).  


We didn’t actually go to the right place to find “the government that governs least” in Africa – for that we should have gone to Somalia. Perhaps you should try life there.

Yours in sisterhood,

Molly Hurd 
PS: Please stop giving tea parties a bad name.


(with thanks to Lars)

Tuskers Tussle

Uluguru Perambulations

We’re starting to count down the weekends til we leave Tanzania for good, so it was very satisfying to have finally got back to Morogoro for the walking in the Uluguru mountains that we had planned since our early days here. Having bought the guide book, and obtained an ancient (1970) ordinance survey type map (things haven’t changed that much), I was determined to get there! We were almost thwarted yet again when we stopped to change drivers on the side of the highway outside Chalinze and the battery seemed to be stone dead…we were resigned to spending the afternoon doing boring car stuff and then heading back to Dar.  But, thank heavens for the ingenuity of passers by! The first guys to arrive on the scene spotted a loose, dirty connection to the battery, and after requesting a little “maji” (water) cleaned it and had us on our way in minutes.

Maji = magic to me!

 

On Sunday morning we were on our way by 7:30 am. We were dropped part way up the mountain on the “road”, and started walking with our guide Hamis – a lovely guy who unfortunately spoke no English. We made do with our broken Swahili, but I gave up trying to identify the wildflowers using my book when he insisted on picking every one I showed interest in!

We were heading up to Morningside, the remnants of a German colonial farm, built ¾ of the way up the mountain. Goodness knows how the occupants got up there! But they didn’t get to enjoy it for long – it was built in 1911 and then handed over to the British in 1919. Today the mountainside is quite intensively farmed and the slopes are dotted with farmsteads and a patchwork of fields of everything from carrots to leeks to strawberries. After about an hour, the road ended, and we were winding through fields and patches of wild banana.

We passed this restaurant on the way up – obviously closed on Sundays.

Sokoine University of Agriculture owns Morningside now, and uses it for some experimental crop planting. They have plans to refurbish the house to make it suitable for overnight stays for hikers and others – what an amazing spot it could be!

Among other things, we saw a "celaenorrhinus uluguru" - a beautiful yellow, red and black butterfly which is only found in the Uluguru mountains (not pictured below). We also tasted a new fruit for me - zambarau which turns out to be damsons - somewhat like a small plum, but much more purple. They were falling from the trees, and we met a man carrying a bucket load down the mountain.

All you Nordic walkers – I brought my poles all the way here, and this was the first time I used them. No one laughed out loud at me (except Lars) and I figure we look so outlandish to the local people anyway, what’s a few extra weirdnesses? As it turns out, they were very useful, especially coming down the steep bits, and I am now debating whether to take them to India where I just might scale a mountain or two. 

It got very hot on our way down, and it was lovely to return to the Morogoro Hotel (an intriguing example of 1970’s government hotel architecture) where we had a swim and lunch (that is not me going in the pool).

On the way we passed this little “English” church – another relic of colonial days.

All in all, it was a lovely weekend, and I am a bit relieved that it is probably our last long drive on the Tanzam highway – that long road from hell that stretches from Dar all the way to the Zambian border. The scenery is beautiful, but I will not miss the nail-biting, near death experiences that have me rigidly hanging on to the door and not appreciating any of it! Lars will not miss my gasps of horror every two minutes.

The Importance of the Letter "R"

Here we are in the lead up to the long rains when the temperature seems to mount a little each day, and I find myself getting more and more lethargic and unambitious. I have taken to carrying a handkerchief to mop my brow, and teaching for a hour makes me want a two hour nap! Luckily Oyster Bay Secondary school has found a new Form One English teacher, and I am down to taking the English Club one day a week, along with a bouncy Aussie teacher named Ruth. We play games, sing songs (10 green bottles was a big hit) and try to get the kids talking - still not easy with 60 - 70 kids in the group.

I have had a chance to observe and talk to teachers, and I find myself a bit discouraged at the magnitude of what lies ahead. I don't know why this surprises me, since Tanzania is still very much a developing country, and although everyone extolls the importance of education, there are structural reasons that things will not change as quickly as people would like. There is a huge push to provide secondary places for the increase in the number of primary school leavers (in a relatively short time, Tanzania increased its primary school enrolment from about 70% to 95% - a big success). This explains why Oyster Bay has a brand new classroom block of 4 classrooms, with 3 more on the way (including a science lab and a library) - all built over the December break. This is happening all over the country, although there are still many schools on shifts as Oyster Bay was last year. 

There are still minimal resources, and  it seems that teachers prefer the old methodology of lecturing, writing notes on the blackboard, and having the students copy them. There is lip service paid to "new" ideas of more participatory methods of teaching, but the reality of huge classes and lack of training and resources is discouraging.

The most rewarding part of teaching here, of course, is the students, who are excited about anything that is a break from the usual. They are even excited about a new textbook!

 

But, the one of the biggest challenges facing the education system here is the low status teachers have, and the consequent lack of committed, serious teachers. Richard, above, who is now the head of the English department is a bright, ambitious young man with lots of potential. However, as someone from a poor background, one of the only ways for him to get to university is to teach for 2 years and then be eligible to apply for a scholarship. So he will be gone soon, and indeed who can blame him - at a starting salary of $150 a month (not much more than we pay our part-time housekeeper), he can't imagine ever being able to build a house, get married or do anything but scrape by. All the other English teachers are part-time, university students who are very anxious that everyone know they are not "just" teachers. Teachers are often absent, often doing other paid work (like marking exams, tutoring etc) to supplement their incomes. When they are absent, no one replaces them, although sometimes a conscientious teacher will ask a student with good handwriting to copy the teacher notes on the blackboard so the students can then copy them.

Another big challenge that I see (and this is not seen as a problem by most people I talk to here) is the emphasis on exams - an inordinate amount of time and energy goes into writing, administering, marking, returning, agonizing over the results of exams, and from what I have seen of them, the constant revising, cramming and rote memorization that goes on to get students ready is actually not contributing towards producing analytical, critical thinking creative citizens.

Language of instruction is another area subject to a lot of debate here. Now, primary school is completely in Swahili, with English taught as a second language (or not, depending on the resources of the school). Secondary school is supposed to be completely taught in English,with all exams etc in English. In practice, although all the notes copied from the blackboard are in English, most of the lecturing I hear is in Swahili, and the level of some of the teacher's English is minimal to say the least. So, the debate rages - isn't it better for students to learn in their own language, so that they can learn all those creative, critical thinking skills left out when they are hampered by learning through a foreign language? Tanzanians are very proud of their beautiful Swahili, and of the unifying effect it has had on the country. 

The reality however (as seen from my vantage point) is that while the debate goes on, they are stuck with a system which is possibly the worst of all worlds - bad second language teaching by unqualified, unmotivated teachers. The language debate is further complicated by the existence of myriad private, "English medium" primary schools, which give some students who arrive in the government secondary schools a huge leg up over those who have had little exposure to English. I estimated that roughly one third of the Form 1 students had little or no English when they started this year, and one third were quite competent (they could read an age appropriate text and answer comprehension questions). I can see this gap widening still further as the years go on as those with English will understand the content presented, and those with none will slip behind. 

Tanzania seems to be turning into a more and more unequal society each day - and it is compounded by the education system. A  huge factor is the number of very good, private secondary schools both day and boarding to which the elite send their children. These schools siphon off all the "good" teachers as they are paid more. Every middle class person I have talked to sends their children to private school, and I have heard more than once that many of the elite send their children abroad (indeed we have met many of the products of this system). Where is the incentive to improve the public system going to come from if the politicians have this way out?

In spite of all my gloomy projections, I see lots of hope – hope that some of the products of these “good” private  schools will graduate, become movers and shakers and put something back into their country. I also know that Tanzania has its share of bright, motivated children who will learn in spite of the barriers they face and will grow up to shake things up as well. There is so much talk about education at all levels of society, and it is reflected in the mottos and names of schools you see around the country. When I talk to Rose, our housekeeper, she tells me about  all the effort her family puts into educating their children, and how they all pitch in to find school fees. Her sincerest desire (apart from getting married) is to go back to school, and she says the President himself is urging all Tanzanians to finish secondary school.

Here is a small country school we dropped in on one day, to drop off some school supplies donated by friends and family at home. It was neat, orderly and the teachers seemed very enthusiastic. Their English wasn’t very good, however, so it was difficult to communicate. But since we hear so much in the city that rural schools are so deprived, it was good to see one which seemed so well run!

Finally, what have I accomplished in this few months here? Well, I hope that if I have done nothing else, I have at least helped some hundreds of Tanzanian school children to pronounce the letter “r”!

Now, repeat after me, "In rural areas, it rains red raspberries"

Stayed tuned for more teaching adventures: this time at the Dogodogo Centre for Street Children.