Happy holidays!
I’m back in Zanzibar from the 10 day trip to Dar es Salaam. Although I briefly suffered from a bacterial infection in my intestine, the two volunteer meetings I attended went quite well and I certainly enjoyed them all. It was also nice to see my fellow volunteers in the 20-2nd dispatch (the 2nd group to be dispatched this year (the year Heisei 20 in Japanese way of counting)) again after spending some time in each of our sites. Some of them are already swamped with work, and others including me are starting out slowly.
I especially enjoyed the conference for education volunteers. It gave me a chance to get to know all the education volunteers currently in service in the country, and was motivating for me to listen to their experiences in class rooms.
I’ve also learned that JOCV education volunteers are really active in Tanzania notably the Southeast where the infrastructure is minimal and shortage of teachers is severest in the country. Our field coordinator in the city of Mtwara (please google and refer to a map of Tanzania. In the future posts also, I’ll be throwing in the names of random places in Tanzania) has been organizing teaching skills workshops in the city every four months for both JOCV education volunteers and Tanzanian teachers which have had very positive feedbacks from the schools where JOCVs are assigned.
Unfortunately the coordinator is leaving soon after working here for 4 years, but at the meeting we have decided to continue with this tradition and the date for the next workshop is set to be sometime in the next February. What’s great about this workshop is that you are encouraged bring some of the teachers from your school with you to learn from each other, to help develop teaching skills for both JOCVs and the Tanzanian counterparts and to stimulate communications between Tanzanian teachers in different regions of the country.
I’ll be attending the next workshop of course and I’m already thinking about bringing along a teacher from my school even if I might have to pay for his transportation, food and accommodation from my own pocket. From the short time I’ve known him, he is very serious and enthusiastic about teaching and is deeply concerned about the deficiency of science education in this country. So I figured it would be a positive experience for him and the school to attend the event.
Hopefully I could get an approval from my headmaster and get through some administrative businesses.
Hope everyone’s having a great holiday season!
Friday, December 26, 2008
Thursday, December 4, 2008
[Notes and Photos] Nov. 30-Dec.4, 2008
Part 1. Dec 4, 2008
The school for this year is done today and I’ve got a month of break till the it re-opens on January 5, 2009. I feel this isn’t really a well-deserved break for me because I still haven’t done much at school, but I guess I was just dispatched at a bad timing.
According to JOCV regulation, I’m supposed to keep my traveling to minimal for the first three months to establish myself at the site, so I’ll have to save my traveling for the next long break. I am however obliged to attend the annual volunteer meeting and a conference for education volunteers in Dar es Salaam which are coming up in two weeks.
Aside from lesson planning and studying Kiswahili, I’m planning to spend some time exploring some of the beaches around the island.
Part 2. Photos
I had to put up this picture of khanga I found and instantly bought at the local market. It reads "Congratulations Barack Obama" on top and "Love and Peace he has granted us in favor of God" on the bottom. Though I'm very optimistic about his up-coming administration, I think it is a little presumptuous to make that statement at this point.
I was invited to the commencement at the state university in town by my colleague/friend. He finished his B.Sc. with Education program couple of months back and he was officially receiving his degree that day.
Line up of Tanzanian beers. (Tusker on the right might have been from Kenya)
There's also a hard liquor option called Konyagi.
Part 3. Food
Here’s my daily food consumption;
Breakfast: usually 4 to 5 bananas.
Chai at school around 10am. Usually accompanied by chapatti.
Lunch: pilau, byriani or other dishes (usually around Tsh. 1500-2000 which translates into about $1.50 to $2) at this local diner of which I’ve become a regular. Guys who work there already know my face and address me as “rafiki” (a friend) whenever I go there.
Dinner: I cook vegetable stir fries and rice at home using an electric stove I bought at the market, but I’m thinking about switching to kerosene or charcoal stoves as blackouts seem to occur frequently.
Since I don’t have a fridge at home, I cook just for a meal. I’d like to try using meat or fish some time but it’s difficult without a fridge. Vegetables and tropical fruits like pineapples, bananas and mangoes here are fresh and delicious.
Here’s some of my favorite food on the island.
Sugarcane juice: freshly squeezed sugarcane juice with lime, Tsh.200 (about 20 cents). A really good alternative for a bottle of soda. Great on a hot, sunny day, which I guess, is pretty much everyday here.
Mshikaki: reminds me of yakitori back in Japan, it’s a skewed meat on grill, common in all over Tanzania and probably East Africa in general, but the ones over here have wide selections of skewed fish and seafood as well as beef, chicken and goat. Tsh. 200-300.
Pilau and Byriani: Zanzibar is well-known for its spices and in my opinion, they are used best in pilau and byriani, two of my favorite rice dishes here. Did I mention people here eat so much rice?
Seafood: as in mshikaki, fish and seafood like clams broaden the selection of mchuzi (stew) and deep-fried items here from the usual beef and chicken.
Zanzibar Pizza: it’s not really a pizza and perhaps started out as a tourist attraction, but it’s greasy and good. I can’t find any ways of describing it other than to say it’s like a Spanish omlette rolled up in thin chapatti dough and fried on a pan.
Orojo: spicy and sour soup. The color is yellow but I can’t quite figure out what it’s made of. My guess is unripe mangoes. Served with deep-fried noodles, mshikaki and potato-made snack called kachori. Tsh. 500.
The school for this year is done today and I’ve got a month of break till the it re-opens on January 5, 2009. I feel this isn’t really a well-deserved break for me because I still haven’t done much at school, but I guess I was just dispatched at a bad timing.
According to JOCV regulation, I’m supposed to keep my traveling to minimal for the first three months to establish myself at the site, so I’ll have to save my traveling for the next long break. I am however obliged to attend the annual volunteer meeting and a conference for education volunteers in Dar es Salaam which are coming up in two weeks.
Aside from lesson planning and studying Kiswahili, I’m planning to spend some time exploring some of the beaches around the island.
Part 2. Photos
I had to put up this picture of khanga I found and instantly bought at the local market. It reads "Congratulations Barack Obama" on top and "Love and Peace he has granted us in favor of God" on the bottom. Though I'm very optimistic about his up-coming administration, I think it is a little presumptuous to make that statement at this point.
I was invited to the commencement at the state university in town by my colleague/friend. He finished his B.Sc. with Education program couple of months back and he was officially receiving his degree that day.
Line up of Tanzanian beers. (Tusker on the right might have been from Kenya)
There's also a hard liquor option called Konyagi.
Part 3. Food
Here’s my daily food consumption;
Breakfast: usually 4 to 5 bananas.
Chai at school around 10am. Usually accompanied by chapatti.
Lunch: pilau, byriani or other dishes (usually around Tsh. 1500-2000 which translates into about $1.50 to $2) at this local diner of which I’ve become a regular. Guys who work there already know my face and address me as “rafiki” (a friend) whenever I go there.
Dinner: I cook vegetable stir fries and rice at home using an electric stove I bought at the market, but I’m thinking about switching to kerosene or charcoal stoves as blackouts seem to occur frequently.
Since I don’t have a fridge at home, I cook just for a meal. I’d like to try using meat or fish some time but it’s difficult without a fridge. Vegetables and tropical fruits like pineapples, bananas and mangoes here are fresh and delicious.
Here’s some of my favorite food on the island.
Sugarcane juice: freshly squeezed sugarcane juice with lime, Tsh.200 (about 20 cents). A really good alternative for a bottle of soda. Great on a hot, sunny day, which I guess, is pretty much everyday here.
Mshikaki: reminds me of yakitori back in Japan, it’s a skewed meat on grill, common in all over Tanzania and probably East Africa in general, but the ones over here have wide selections of skewed fish and seafood as well as beef, chicken and goat. Tsh. 200-300.
Pilau and Byriani: Zanzibar is well-known for its spices and in my opinion, they are used best in pilau and byriani, two of my favorite rice dishes here. Did I mention people here eat so much rice?
Seafood: as in mshikaki, fish and seafood like clams broaden the selection of mchuzi (stew) and deep-fried items here from the usual beef and chicken.
Zanzibar Pizza: it’s not really a pizza and perhaps started out as a tourist attraction, but it’s greasy and good. I can’t find any ways of describing it other than to say it’s like a Spanish omlette rolled up in thin chapatti dough and fried on a pan.
Orojo: spicy and sour soup. The color is yellow but I can’t quite figure out what it’s made of. My guess is unripe mangoes. Served with deep-fried noodles, mshikaki and potato-made snack called kachori. Tsh. 500.
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