Slow News Week

I've been busy working on a class schedule so that I can figure out hiring needs -- specifically the subject combinations to economize re: the number of teachers to hire for 140 students. I've also been working on the Student Handbook and three-year goals for the school.

The three-year goals are required by the government. I have directions on how to do it -- complete with examples -- before me. One gets the sense of just why government schools struggle: All the goals concern physical infrastructure and not actual learning.

I'll also start working on some forms, etc., so that they are in place (grade reports and the like).

I'm working with Books for Africa, hoping to find space in a container that's being organized to head this way. I'll post details re: how the readers of this blog might help in that regard when I have them.

Among the highlights of recent days has been reconnecting with folks from my past, specifically from my time at the Diocese of Cleveland Tribunal (where I did field ed. as a seminarian in the summer of 1991) and from my time as a scholastic teaching at St. Ignatius High School in Cleveland. Very nice to know that time and distance don't sever ties.

Dancing in the Dark

I don't dance, but if I did it would be in the dark.

Why? Because national rationing of electricity has begun -- 6-10 every night indefinitely.

We have solar lighting for our dining room and living room, and I have a really spotty headlamp to read, so it's not so bad. Occasionally.

Here's the story.

Headed out for pizza (the pizzeria has a generator) to celebrate St. Joseph's feast, given that I didn't properly celebrate Patrick's.

Thankful and Angry

Malasi, the scholastic in his second year of regency, was returning home by bus to Dodoma from Dar es Salaam, where he was doing some work for OLQP. The buses here are very unsafe -- drivers racing on a road that is not divided without limited access. (You know where this is going, I'm sure.) He was on a bus that was racing another. The other bus was passing a third on a two-lane highway and the bus he was on was in hot pursuit. Well...the bus ahead of his, trying to overtake the third, managed to do so -- but it was blocking the view of the following bus. And there was oncoming traffic -- a truck.

Instead of a head-on collision, the driver chose to rear-end the vehicle going forward in his direction -- it bisected the bus. One passenger was declared dead on-site; others died at the hospital. Many others lost limbs. Malasi was unscathed. Thank God.

Not only do the reckless drivers make me angry, but also a detail of the story makes me angry. Malasi had things stolen from his bag while he was waiting for help after the accident. And not only that: a man who was pinned in his seat had his phone stolen from his pocket by a thief while pinned! No shame whatsoever.

Not only am I thankful Malasi is safe; I must say that given all my bus travel the last weeks, I'm happy to have arrived home safely. I don't know when I'll be ready to ride a bus again.

Re-entry

We returned to Dodoma on Wednesday. I've been writing some observations regarding what I learned from the visit to other schools and addressing some of these matters as they pertain to our building. (For instance, I was confirmed in my initial judgement that we have too few classrooms).

What else did I learn? Some schools spend their days preparing their students for national exams, others spend them preparing their students for life. Starehe in Nairobi and Loyola High School in Dar es Salaam are examples of the latter. At Starehe, a nationally known boarding school for poor boys that is among the top five schools in the country, play is an important part of their program -- and they don't compromise on academic success in this regard. At Loyola High School, service is an important part of the curriculum. Other schools we visited -- very well known schools in Tanzania and Kenya -- were all about drilling facts into students' heads.

I am beginning to work a bit more on the school's curriculum -- not without some frustration. We have been asked to offer agriculture as a subject. When I was in Dar es Salaam, I went to the Tanzania Institute of Education, the government office where one purchases the syllabi for the government courses. They don't have a syllabus for agriculture. Arghhh!

This morning we had four alumni from Loyola High School stop by to visit us at the parish; given that I was headed out to the site, I invited them along. It was a very nice visit with them -- and they had some great suggestions for us.

While there, I took pictures of a truss being hoisted for placement. No cranes -- but after all, a pulley is a pulley!

Snows of Kilimanjaro

Go ahead and click on the pictures -- you might be able to make out the mountain -- taken just outside the Jesuit Community in Moshi.

(I just tried myself -- really, it is there, ghostlike.)

Some Religious Art

Above are some examples of nicely done religious art in Jesuit Houses in Nairobi. The crucifix is located in the community chapel at Mwangaza, the Jesuit Spirituality Centre in Karen, Nairobi (think Karen Blixen -- it's located on part of the vast farm she owned). It was carved by an Ugandan sculptor who used the wood from a tree on the property.

The two stations of the cross are in the chapel at Hekima (Wisdom) College. You can see all of them here. They were designed by Engelbert Mveng (Google translation here), a Jesuit from Cameroon.

Runs Like an Impala

I just arrived an hour ago to Moshi (at the foot of Kilimanjaro) after some days in Nairobi. Kiarie and I visited three of the most well-respected schools on Tuesday. By coincidence that was the day when the results of the national exams were announced -- you can imagine the excitement in the air. All very different schools with different philosophies. I learned a lot.
I've also learned that the road might be paved with good intentions but that the road to Nairobi from Arusha is not paved at all for much of it on the Tanzania side. Rough going on Monday when there was a lot of mud -- and dusty today on our return.
We have been warmly welcome by our Jesuit companions -- first the novices at Arusha, then the Jesuits at the provincial residence in Nairobi, and now this evening in Moshi.
In addition to seeing the school's mentioned above, we also spent yesterday visiting Jesuit (and affiliated) works in Nairobi, including our parish and retreat house and Nyumbani (at home) -- a place for HIV+ children. So proud to be a Jesuit. (Incidentally, our retreat house is beautifully set in the area called "Karen" because it was the farm of Out of Africa fame.)
Some pictures later (haven't taken so many).