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Global Partners in East Africa
Mary Bruce, Monmouth College
Phone Number: 309-457-2183
Because some "groundwork" was in place from my visit in January,
this trip proved very productive. Dr. Njozi, Head of the Literature Department,
met me and Guy (husband) at the airport. Dr. Njozi’s presence proved
salutary, in that there was a bureaucratic snafu with my visa, which was
overlooked (to the tune of $50 for another visa), because of Dr. Njozi’s
prestige. Later, Dr. Chonjo of the Education Department visited and warmly
welcomed us. Dr. Njozi and I set June 15th for our official meeting, the
day my husband left to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro.
The aim of my visit were threefold:
1. to help Dr. Njozi with creative writing and with a folklore project
2. To visit and research educational institutions and methods in rural
Tanzania
3. To gather information about Tanzanian women writers.All three of these
goals were accomplished.
For the first objective, Dr. Njozi and Dr. Lillian Tamu and I met on June
15th for an extensive meeting on methods of teaching creative writing.
During this two-hour meeting, I gave Dr. Njozi copies of syllabi, various
textbooks on creative writing and detailed my methods for teaching both
beginning and advanced creative writing. Dr. Tamu took notes. Dr. Njozi
requested that I come to teach creative writing and also to show other
faculty my methods of teaching it. This would involve funding and a lengthy
stay during the academic school year. Dr. Njozi gave me a copy of stories
the students had written that were compiled by him and by Dr. Sonja Darlington,
so I could see the type and quality of the University of Dar es Salaam’s
creative writing students. He requested a copy of my book of poems, which
I promised to send. After this meeting, Dr. Njozi took me to tea, while
Dr. Tamu promised to get me a list of Tanzanian women writers.
June 16, after meeting with Dr. Tamu, who promised to give me a list of
women writers, I went to Nyota Publishers, The head of Nyota Publishers
(who had been educated at Lawrence, Kansas) received me warmly and provided
me with names of women writers whom they publish. These writers are as
follows:
1. G. Kihamfa
2. B. Mahlindi
3. E. Mwandiko
4. Sauda S. Killmanga
5. Martha Qorrd
A problem was that, except for textbook publishers, most of these women
write only in Swahili. I bought a couple books, which dealt with Tanzanian
folklore and promised to send him a copy of my novel.
Next, June 18th, I took an eight-hour bus ride up North to meet with people
involved in education, rural education. Last January, I had gone south
and gathered some information about rural education in rural southern
Tanzania. Now I wanted to investigate rural schools and educational methods
in the north for an article I intend to write comparing rural education
in the third world specifically Tanzania with rural education in the USA,
specifically rural Illinois. However this time, I had made specific plans
to interview experts, Hedwig Bennett of St. Anne’s School and Dilly
Mtui, Co-coordinator of the Kilimanjaro Village Education Project. I also
planned to travel to Lake Cholla, a lake near the Kenya/Tanzanian border
to interview people about the culture and folklore. These visits consumed
the better part of three days.My meeting with Hedwig Bennett was very
fruitful. She taught in Tanzanian public schools for over twenty years
and was able to sketch the development, progress and/or decline of public
Tanzanian primary and secondary schools. According to Mrs. Bennett, there
are inspectors for both private and public schools and one national curriculum
for both. Therefore, one standard is theoretically maintained. However,
the Tanzanian public schools have a lot of problems. The public schools
have large classes of 45 each and teach one National Curriculum in Swahili.
There are morning shifts and afternoon shifts of classes to accommodate
the students. There is no "lunch hour" so students fend for
themselves, often smoking, drinking and causing problems once returned
to class. The schools are theoretically free, but not really, as parents
must pay for food, uniforms, books as well as supplies. Hence, the poor
do not send their children to school. Some of the rural poor are herders
or hunters and take their children out of public school in order to herd
and/or hunt. The urban poor owe their destitution to Tanzania’s high
rate of unemployment and send their children out to beg or to do odd jobs.
This results in students’ failing their examinations on the National
Curriculum.
Economic and political conditions are bad because there was no feasibility
study before the transition from socialism and capitalism, and the fallout
from the abrupt switch has been great. Also, corruption has stained the
original Tanzanian idealism. "Nothing will improve," she told
me, "unless corruption declines."
After her lengthy tenure in public schools, Ms. Bennett, along with six
master teachers, pooled their money, bought 500 acres for eight million
TS and started a private school, so as to teach the way they thought students
should be taught. In addition to smaller classes and strict discipline,
St.Anne’s is an English language school, for as Hedwig puts it, "How
are young people going to get on in the world if all they speak is Swahili?"
This means that her students are effectively trilingual; they speak their
tribal language, Swahili, and English. The school, now a boarding school,
has a waiting list. The current campus is for primary school students,
but construction has started for an eventual secondary school. At St.
Anne’s there were clean, orderly classrooms, dorms, and kitchens,
but was most delighted with the polite, orderly behavior of the students.
The girls even automatically lined up their shoes in rows when they entered
a room. Enclosed are pictures Mrs.Hedwig gave me permission to snap.
In the case of the visit to Lake Chala, although the lake was gorgeous,
sketches of Same Ben Laden decorated the outside of some huts, and the
villagers, though polite, were not friendly. I sensed that probing about
their culture and practices would not be well received and so stopped
pressing for information after a while. My driver, born and bred in Tanzania,
however, did provide some information.
The following day I met with Dilly Mtui, quality control director of the
Village Education Project, begun by English lawyer Katie Allen and now
a registered charity in the U.K. According to Dilly, Northern Tanzania
has the best climate and friendliest people in the nation, but the schools
were inferior. The Village Education Project deals with building and improving
these Northern rural public schools. Because of a miscommunication, I
left my camera behind, which is a real shame, for during this visit, I
saw Tanzanian idealism at its best. Dilly and I visited a total of five
primary schools, one vocational school, and a separate Teaching Resource
Center, complete with a computer center with eight computers.
The first school we visited was a primary school that had been renovated,
Halmashara, which had 567 students and which had been, according to Dilly,
"falling apart." Through the efforts of the Village Education
Project, the United Arab Emirates donated twenty-seven million TS. I met
the principal and was shown two pictures of the school, a "before"
and an "after." We then visited three more schools, Samanya,
Matala, and one other, whose name escapes me. All of these had been renovated
or built by the Village Education Project and from donations by various
countries, e.g.. Canada, U.K., Ireland, USA. In each of these schools,
the National Curriculum was taught but English was added as an ESL subject.
Another school we visited just being rebuilt. The former building had
been constructed on grounds, which were rife with termite tunnels, and
much of the wood part of the building had been gnawed away. With money
from the United Arab Emirates, iron doors and window frames were being
installed in the new building to prevent further termite damage. Dilly
talked with the laborers and told me that he inspected the work at each
school every day to make sure the work was "up to standard."
He also said he was instilling in administrators the necessity for frequent,
almost daily, repairs of the new and renovated buildings.
Next, we traveled over many hills and terrible roads and hills to the
most impressive school I visited. There were no termite problems, so windows
and doors were conventional. There were several, small to medium sized
painted concrete clean buildings surrounded by tidy flowerbeds. In the
back of the campus were tire swings and jungle gyms, (must have been a
feat getting the equipment up steep hills.). What so impressed me were
the educational murals on the exterior walls. On the exterior walls of
the buildings were colorful murals of the chemistry elements, human anatomy,
math tables, world maps, maps of Africa, the solar system and so on. We
in the USA would do well to "decorate" our schools so practically.
As with the other schools, I met the principal and his immediate staff.
After visiting these primary schools, we went to a vocational school,
one in progress. Here we met an extremely conscientious director who showed
us each of the classes in crafts, tailoring, wood burning, construction,
masonry and electrical installation. Interestingly, the students had built
the latest addition to the school as part of their practicum. The principal
was currently trying to get funds to get machines so as to teach welding
in the school. Here, I learned from Dilly that only 2% of primary school
students are admitted to secondary school. Therefore, many fourteen year
olds are turned out of school without skills to make a living. This, of
course, results in crime and indolence. The large number of young unemployed
men plus the growing number of AIDS orphans make for a possible explosive
political climate, which the Village Education Project is trying to remedy.
The need for more vocational schools is obvious.
Our final stop was the Teacher Resource Center where I met the head and
the assistant, Mrs. Sandi. Here, seminars for teachers are held, teaching
materials are handed out, and a small library is in existence. In another
building are eight computers, each covered carefully with a colorful kanga
to keep out dust. Computer lessons are given to teachers, but so far not
many computers are regularly used, as teachers do not get time off. The
center does not yet have Internet. Although the buildings, the Teacher
Resource Center, the library and the computer center were spotless and
organized, I was struck and saddened how few "resources" were
available. Even pencils were in short supply.
Despite the scarcity of teachers’ "resources," delicious
food was in abundance at a lunch. There, during the traditional Swahili
meal, Mrs. Sandi told me Chagga Folktales, some of which I sent to Dr.
Njozi and are currently attached.
This day, June 21 was the longest and fullest of my exploration of the
Northern schools and culture, and I returned to the Marangu Hotel exhausted
yet filled alternatively with hope and sadness. Most of all, I would like
to return and help these hard-working people.
June 22-26 I and my husband went for a game drive and R&R. With the
exception of visiting a Masai school
June 24(see pictures), this trip was for pleasure. I included in my expenses
only the gratuity for visiting the Masai school, occasional meals and
Internet. The Masai School was very interesting from an American point
of view, as it featured "Direct Instruction," the latest fad
in education courses, which, obviously, is not a recent development. The
children recited their ABC’s for us and some math facts, but the
majority of this "kindergarten" seemed to be instructing them
in the Masai culture before they went off to government primary schools.
I also gathered some folklore about the Masai, e.g. Why Lion avoids the
Warrior.
June 27, we returned to Dar es Salaam on another all day bus ride. Then
I set about looking for folklore and Tanzanian women writers—again.
June 28, we made an overnight trip to Zanzibar to look for folklore, but
got nowhere. Despite the fact that we hired a guide to speak Swahili for
us, the people were not forthcoming, and in Stone town we did not feel
welcome. In fact, the guide at the Sultan’s Palace told us about
the Al Quaeda on Pemba, a northern part of Zanzibar. I didn’t list
my expenses for Zanzibar, except for some food, because it was such a
fruitless visit. Besides I had spent more than the grant money by then
anyhow. If Global Partners wants the receipts, I can provide them.
After several earlier abortive attempts, June 29, I wrangled an interview
with M.Elisa Lema, acclaimed author of Parched Earth and co-owner of E&D
Limited Publishers. This interview proved productive as far as getting
contacts with women writers. The few she recommended are as follows:
1. Professor Amandina Liharmlsa
2. Zaiwab Nrwanrrga
3. Professor Mulokozi, University of Dar es Salaam.
More interesting, was the information Ms. Lema provided about her novel,
the characters, the social issues involve, i.e. feminism, her poetic prose,
and her next novel, also written in English. I suspect I will get substantive
article out of this conversation. Again, I promised to send her a copy
of my novel (based in Africa).
Finally, I went back to Dr. Lillian Tamu and got the names of a few more
women writers, most of which are included in Women Writing Africa. Many
of these names I had gotten from Elisa Lema or Walter of Nyota Publishers.
Lillian and I agreed to follow up via email.
Despite many setbacks, I gathered a great deal of information and laid
more groundwork for helping Dr. Njozi in the future. It was a wonderful,
though arduous, trip.
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