Secondary School

SMELLS OF TZ: It smells kind of sweet and smoky here. Sometimes it is more putrid; other times it is more refreshing.

LIFE IN ZANZIBAR: Every morning at 5:30, I am woken up by the call to prayer at the mosque. I always fall back asleep, but it’s a very interesting dynamic to have a town-wide call every morning.

As an American university student used to a fairly fast-paced life, I am so intrigued by the way things are accomplished here. For example, it’s incredible and cool that you can just walk around here and ask for Jack, and locals know right where he is and will take you there. A guy named Jacob Jacob (not a typo) is helping us plan our safari. He is kind of a moving office because he started his own business. So, we met him in one of the alleys and told him what kind of safari we wanted. At least he has some low operating costs!

In addition, the secondary school education system is confusing. Today we went to Ben Bella, one of S4Si’s secondary schools, and they didn’t have a breakdown of the costs for the school. We tried to get a good grasp on fees and the school calendar, but there wasn’t anything that outlined it. The headmistress just told us from memory, which she was unsure about. For being one of the best schools in Zanzibar, how is it run this way? We visited a couple of classrooms, but sometimes the teacher was absent and the students were just in the classroom doing revisions in groups. At the same time, the girls work VERY HARD and study all the time. Their favorite subjects are typically science related, which is awesome. Even if they want to be accountants or business people, their favorite teachers are the physics and chemistry teachers. Tanzania is definitely trying to encourage girls to be proficient in science right now since there is a shortage of those entering the medical fields.

SECONDARY SCHOOL EDUCATION SYSTEM:
Tanzania uses the British system. They have 7 years of primary school and 6 years of secondary school (Form I through Form VI). The schedule can be confusing. School is year round, so they have week breaks during the year. Forms II, V, and VI meet in the morning from and Forms III and IV meet in the afternoon. S4Si starts funding girls in Form III because that is when many of them drop out. Form IV and Form VI have national exams that students must pass to advance to the next level (either Form V or University). If they don’t pass, they either drop out, resit exams, or retake a year. Forms V and VI are very similar to college-preparatory courses.

After reading about, hearing about, and talking about our scholars all year, I was so excited to finally get to meet them! Because Forms V and VI are in between U.S. high school and college, a lot of our scholars are the same age as us! It’s so humbling to meet these girls and talk with them about their ambitions and share stories about our lives. Some were more outspoken than others, but they were pretty shy overall and a little nervous to meet us. We talked about how we could support them better and talked to them as a group and individually, finding out what their ambitions are as well as sharing favorite foods, movies, etc.

We met a longtime S4Si friend named Star. He loves meeting up with S4Si students every summer, teaching them Swahili, and taking them to good local restaurants. For dinner, we had chocolate and banana Zanzibar pizza and breadfruit, which I’d never seen before. It has the consistency between cheesecake and bread. Such a strange thing!

We also learned the hard way how some locals rip off foreigners. A guy named Ali standing by one of the stands introduced us to the breadfruit and asked us if we wanted one. We said yes and gave him the money. We didn’t realize that he wasn’t the vendor and had charged us three times the amount it actually cost. He paid the vendor (about $1 USD) and kept the rest for himself ($2 USD). Darn!

Word of the day:
Ndio – yes
Hapana - no