SEPTEMBER 2004
Fri 17th My first impression of Tanzania was out of the plane window, two soft black 'bumps' in the landscape against a bright orange morning sky- Mt Kilimanjaro. Then, once we stepped off the plane, the stifling mugginess hit me - karibu Africa!

Tuesday 21st Up here, near Amani village where we live it's a fair bit cooler, which is just fine by me! One of the first things that struck me about Emau (apart from the beauty- there's tall, tall trees, ferns, bamboo, banana and papaya trees...........) was the noise! It's never quiet- there's always at least three different insects chirping, trilling and beeping (one sounds exactly like an alarm clock), as well as the birds, monkeys and all the other things that live in the rainforest.

Friday 24th I've got used to the noise now that we're into the full swing of our TEFL training course. There's three volunteer teachers- me, Liz and Jenni and as none of us are teachers at home, Caroline's teaching us how to teach. In a week!

Sunday 27th We visited the schools that we'll be teaching at today. We drove up in the car and there were children standing and waving all around. I was told that I'd be teaching standard 1 (7-8 year olds) and standard 5 (11-12 year olds). Amani school looked very poor- the children were squashed onto benches, the walls are dirty and bare of any posters or colour and the classrooms are dark with bars on the windows. However, it's still better than at IBC school (where Liz and Jenni will be teaching), where some children have to sit on the floor, because there's not enough desks.

OCTOBER 2004
Sunday 3rd I spent the whole day doing lesson plans and preparation for my first lessons tomorrow. That's all me, Jenni and Liz did; think, think, think and plan- and we've only planned four lessons each which is one day's worth! Oh well, see what it goes like tomorrow, have to get up at 6.30!

Mon 4th Got a bit of a shock when I arrived at school this morning- the district school inspector was there. Not only was she there on my first day of teaching, but she came in and inspected my very first lesson!!

I had one other lesson today, with standard 1, and it went really well. We were doing adjectives, and they were great, shouting out "fat", "thin", "tall", "short" at me. as I pointed to the fat cat, tall giraffe etc. They're so keen, it's really sweet. Then I did a 'match the word to the picture' game on the board. One boy was too short to reach the top picture so I picked him up, and the class just burst out laughing, they thought it was hilarious. So, despite the inspector, it was a good 1st day. I found out I have 78 pupils in standard 1 and 63 in standard 5!!

Wednesday 13th Well, the inspector was there on Tuesday too and made a beeline for me again, aaggrhh!

Later on I did a 'draw and write' exercise with standard 1. I collected all the books at the end of the lesson, but it wasn't 'till I got to the staffroom, that I realised that half of them didn't have names on! They'd obviously been given new books in the previous lesson and hadn't written their names on the covers. I marked them all anyway as well as standard 5's work- over 100 books to mark. I'm definitely going to be needing more stickers.

One of the teachers had a jackfruit in the staffroom. It looks just like a huge scrubbing brush. The inside is yellow and the fruity bits stick up like fat bristles. It tastes a bit like a lychee, sweet and slippery- nice.

Thursday 21st Taught std 5 'If you're happy and you know it' yesterday. It took them a while to get the hang of it, but when they did, they liked it. I picked up my bags at the end of the lesson, but they didn't want to stop, so I could hear "...and you REALLY want to show it..." all the way to the staff-room, so sweet.

Then today, std 1 got completly over-excited. We're doing ongoing activities, one of which is 'chasing'. I thought, for a bit of fun and to explain the concept, I'd face paint 2 kiddies as a cat and mouse and get the cat to chase the mouse. I got a boy volunteer to come to the front. He didn't know what he was volunteering for and when I started painting on a red nose and cat's ears on his face, the class was shrieking with laughter, and he looked really confused. I chose a little girl and made her into a mouse with round ears, small nose and whiskers and big front teeth. Then I got him to chase her around the front of the classroom to demonstrate- everyone was in stitches. Any attempt on my behalf to teach after that was drowned out by raucous laughter every time the 'cat' chased the 'mouse'. I don't know if they learnt much that lesson, but I got some funny photos.

Thursday 28th I can't believe it's the end of the month already. I feel like I've really got into the teaching now; I know a lot of my pupils' names, and it doesn't take a whole day to prepare four lessons any more! It still makes me smile when they do written work and I hear them hissing "teecha, teecha" wanting me to check it's right, and the way they add "i's" to every word, making match into matchi, fat into fati and team into teami!

Tanzanians in general, and this tribe in particular, have trouble distinguishing between 'r' and 'l'. So just to be mean, I taught std 5 the tongue twister "red lorry, yellow lorry". You would never have guessed it from what they were saying: "led rolly, yerrow rolly, red rorry, yerrow lolly and every other combination imaginable.

NOVEMBER
Monday 2nd I have been promoted to chief examiner for standard 1. Well, ok, Mama Chacha just asked me to write their exam paper for English, but it makes me feel important!

I had the most scary lesson ever with them the other day. They were being rowdy as usual, when the noise level rose and EVERYONE was out of their seats. I went over to investigate and there was a huge spider on the floor! It was as big as my face with great long legs and PINCERS! Its front two legs ended in crab-like claws which it was waving in the air. I don't know who was more scared- me or the kids.

Tuesday 10th Now that Jenni and Ewan have left, I've inherited the Kindergarten class from Jenni. On average there's about 15 of them, which is a nice change from 50 kids, as I know all their names and can speak to them individually. However, it's challenging in other ways, as they have a lot of energy and a rather short attention span! They're really lovely though and good fun. They love anything with music and dancing so we do lots of 'musical bumps' when they start flagging. I played them "Heads, shoulders knees and toes" and we did the actions today. It's really tempting just to do songs and games, but I guess I'd better teach them some English too. Next lesson: body parts, so they can sing as well as mime the song.

Mon 15th I've started a Bingo craze with std 5. We played it for the first time last week and they really enjoyed it. Now they all shout "Bingo teecha, Bingo!" at me when I go into the classroom. Might have something to do with the winners getting sweeties...

There was no school today because it's the end of Ramadam. One of the night watchmen, Mzee Abede, invited us to his house to celebrate. His family were all dressed up in their best and we had pilau spiced rice, chapatis and milk fresh from the cow. It was really sweet of them to invite us volunteers, in fact everyone is very friendly around Emau. We've got to know the neighbours now and we always have a trail of kids following us when we walk up the hill.

Thursday 25th Well, school's finished for this year. Yesterday was the Amani school graduation ceremony for std 7. All the pupils have been practising for weeks - singing, drumming and dancing culminating in a performance for parents, teachers, various chairmen and other "important people". The children were fantastic. The dances involve a lot of foot stamping and hip swaying and the kids have an amazing sense of rhythem. I felt a real sense of pride when my std 5's went up and did their bit, with Rahima leading the singing and dancing. I've found out that I can continue with my two classes next year (they'll be std 2 and 6 then), which is great as I'll know them all.

Tuesday 30th We ate Liz's birthday chicken today. We had a 'Scottish evening' on her birthday, about a month ago and the local community gave her a live chicken as a present!! The people here really don't have much in terms of possessions and even livestock, so it would have been rude not to eat it! Vincent and Rosa cooked it in a garlicy, spicy sauce and it was rather good. So that nicely rounded off our stay here.

Liz and I are going off travelling now, then in mid January I return to teach for another six weeks and Liz goes home to cold, cold Scotland.