From 6th-8th grade, I played goalkeeper on a Madison East side soccer team called the Hotspurs, composed mostly of friends of mine and neighborhood kids. I did my job and kept us in games with a few screw-ups here and there. I reprised the role of keeper for the quarterly staff vs. students soccer game here on campus last Thursday, which tends to be a big deal with a whole sideline full of spectators. I had a rather uneventful game; they managed to put only a few shots on goal, so I ended up pitching a shutout.
The one time I did let them come close to scoring was because of a lapse in concentration due to the fact that two monkeys ran behind my goal.
Beyond ‘’football’’, I have ended up getting involved in all types of extra-curricular activities. In that sense, there are times when it feels a little more like summer camp than work. The school steel drum band needed someone who could play drumset, so I joined up. One badass thing about this development is that I get to play the national anthem on the December 9th parade celebrating Tanzanian Independence Day, their 50th anniversary. The middle school and high school girls are now learning how to play softball for the first time, so I have been asked to help Mr. Tate (the P.E. teacher, from Seattle) coach. We’re hosting the annual sports weekend starting on December 1st, in which 7 other international schools throughout the country will descend on the campus. Coach Tate and I have some work to do, to say the least, but at least they can hit the cutoff about half the time now. I’m also co-directing the elementary school play, “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?” I’ve been tasked with not only working with the group as a whole, but also spending loads of time practicing individually with the two leads, Goldilocks and the Big Bad Wolf. The kid who plays the Big Bad Wolf—man, I wish you could see him. He’s this scruffy 5th grader named Nikolai and he’s already really excitable and animated, but his evil laugh/roar is about the least intimidating thing I have ever witnessed. His howl sounds like Enya. At least he’s trying.
At ISM, I am called at least 4 different things. Mr. Mulhern to my English and Theater students. Mr. M to the elementary kids in the play. Mr. Ben to the ESL students who I’ve subbed for a couple of times and have a tough time with “Mulhern”. Coach Ben to the softballers. It’s cool, but the problem is the other names feel less authoritative. And then you end up eating lunch with a big group of middle schoolers and giving dating advice. “Mr. Ben,” asked Papius, “What happens when you fart on your first date?” “I’m going to go ahead and say you probably won’t get a second date,” I said. “Couldn’t you just blame it on the girl?” said Nsa. “Are you even trying to get to the second date?” I asked. A real pack of future Ryan Goslings here.
I’m smart enough to know that first and foremost, I’m their teacher. Thus, I tend to keep a gap when I can--I don’t want to get into a situation where they think they can talk fart jokes with me in the middle of the lesson, especially considering I see the 8th graders every day. I teach: 6th,7th, and 8th grade drama class, 4th and 5th grade play practice, 11th grade Life Skills (decision making, don’t do drugs, have safe sex, etc.), and 8th grade language arts. With the exception of the 8th grade language arts, they are all hour-long classes that meet once a week. Because my host teacher Mrs. Aris is also the head of 6th-12th grade, I am often called on to sub when she has a teacher out. So I would say I average teaching between 3 and 4 classes a day, except Fridays which are half-days.
It is not exactly easy to lump such a wide range of kids from such a wide range of countries into one convenient demographic, but I will say that the kids are all polite. For the most part, they pay pretty decent attention to what I have to say, and if they get squirrely, it’s simple to get them focused. A major contributing factor is class size. In Minneapolis, the class I student taught had 30 kids. Here, my English class is 8, the theater classes and life skills average about 15, and the 4th and 5th grade classroom is in the low 20s. Obviously that helps. I think that culturally, the way kids are raised plays a role too. The local culture in Tanzania is built on respect for parents and hard work. Not everyone has that experience, of course, but the kids seem to really be here to learn. Being in a small tuition-based school means that most of them are college bound as well, either in the states or U.K.
On Saturday afternoon, four of us took bikes into Moshi town on what normally be a 15-minute ride at the most. There are a ton of bikes that are here for the boarding students to use, so the three of us who were bikeless took whatever chariots that we could fit on. Only one of the three bikes ended up being functional. My bike could not move up from first gear and I looked like a ridiculous frenzy of pedaling, and my roommate Ste found out as we cruised downhill that he lacked brakes. The other two were fine and went ahead as we negotiated haphazardly through roundabouts, yelling pedestrians, and randomly stopping Dala-Dalas, which are vans that literally pack in as many people as they can fit and are willing to pay. This usually ends up being 15-20 people and in some cases, people standing on the rear bumper and hanging onto the roof (for more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dala-dala). After lunch as we started uphill, my chain split in half. We were able to get a hold of Rafael (late 20s, Chilean, teaches chemistry) and he came to scoop me. A local tried to wrap the chain into the gears and then asked me for money for his services. I did not oblige.
At about 11 that night, a bunch of teachers went out for one of our co-worker’s birthdays. My roommate Ste got a hold of a cab to take us to meet everyone at Pub Alberto. To give you an idea of just how cheap a cab is here, the 15 minute drive cost us 5,000 Tanzanian Shillings—roughly $2.90. So we split the cost at a pocket-breaking $1.45 apiece.
Pub Alberto is where I first became acquainted with the Konyagi man. Konyagi is the local Tanzanian gin that errs more on the side of Fleischmann’s than it does Sapphire or Beefeaters. They basically give you a whole fifth of it for 4,000 shillings and then you buy bottles of soda water for mixers. I would say I got probably 3-4 mixed drinks out of it for 8,000 shillings, which is not quite five dollars. When I say ‘’the Konyagi man’’, I am referring to the shadowy man on the front of the bottle, raising his arms and possibly spitting fire:
A couple of the teachers had made their way to the dance floor, and it was safe to say that the Konyagi man had loosened me up a little. The DJ was playing reggaeton style songs that were in Swahili. The mood on the dance floor was both lively and incredibly smelly. I have been on a smelly dance floor or two in my day, but this one was on a whole other level of unpleasant.
Out of nowhere, this guy gets in my face—I’m thinking ‘’Did I bump into him? Is he wanting to start something?’’ After he gets my attention, he pops and locks and kicks a whole bunch of fancy dance moves. He stops, shrugs, and asks me to return the favor. ‘’C’mon, brother,’’ or something to that effect. Normally, I’d be happy to in this situation, but I wasn’t confident in my skills to unleash my usual repertoire to the slower reggaeton music. Then, the DJ begins to cut in a familiar song and my head instinctively bobs as I catch the beat. It was Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg’s 1999 single ‘’Still D.R.E.’’
If it’s a dance-off you want, sire, then a dance-off you shall receive!
I proceed to bust out moves that I didn’t even know I had in me. He’s doing the thing with the shoulder-shake and I’m right back at him, and what impresses him the most is that I’m rapping along with Snoop and Dre the entire time. Most of the crowd is still doing their own thing, but there’s a circle of ten or so watching the contest heat up. We got through that entire song plus a Rihanna song and T.I.’s ‘’Whatever You Like’’. I didn’t get written statements from those watching or anything, but the general consensus is that the other guy edged me by a little. The Konyagi man and I have agreed to disagree with them. At about 1:30, 5 of us teachers split a cab home, making the cost 1,000 shillings apiece, or 60 cents. Awesome.
The next day Ste and I got a ride up to some land near Kilimanjaro and participated in what is called a ‘’hash’’. A hash is a kind of recreational race that I guess is done in several different countries. The organizers make a trail (in this case, by dropping spots of flour) and then try to lure you onto false trails and dead ends. This hash was about 7km and had a lot of uphill running as we were more or less on the base of Kilimanjaro. The trail featured scenic overlooks, light agriculture (I tripped face first in a cornfield at one point), lounging cows and small villages. Very interesting. I walked back to the front yard of the house where the race had began and realized I was the only one there. The organizers wife came out with a tray full of samosas and other snacks, so I said “Hey, where is everybody?” She said ‘’You’re the first one back.’’ I grabbed a glass of water and a samosa and waited. About a minute or two later, a middle-age woman came jogging up followed by my roommate Ste, both panting and sweating. Ste, who is pretty competitive, lost his mind when he saw me leisurely snacking on a bench in the front yard. A couple of the organizing crew said that I may have cut a kilometer or so out, but I didn’t notice. Once again, I maintain victory.
The last thing I’ll say real quick is that Greg, a pastor expat from West Virginia who coaches our school’s basketball team, lives not too far off of campus and has ESPN. A few days ago I woke up at 4:30 AM and he came over to get me, and we watched the live broadcast of Monday Night Football. For me, it was Tuesday Morning Football, but I took comfort in the fact that many of you were watching the same game at the same time. The 45-7 outcome didn’t hurt, either.
I'll update the blog with new pictures in the next day or two, hopefully. And in a few days I’ll re-cap my weekend trip to the ridiculous Tanzanian island of Zanzibar.
-Ben.
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