Today we took the daladala (first daladala ride for Iris and Camryn) to the Zanzibar Secondary Commercial School, which teaches commercial subjects (business, computer science, accounting, bookkeeping, etc). Delta Sigma Pi, the business fraternity at UNC, sponsors a scholar here. The school is in a town called Mchina chaka, named for the Chinese investment that went into building a lot of the structures in the town. There aren’t any Chinese people living there, just investment.
In terms of professionalism and command of the English language, the school was a step between Lumumba and Ben Bella. However, they did have a computer lab with 6 computers. Even though every computer has to have 6 people to it during class, this is the first public school we’ve visited that students even have access to them.
When we were setting up interviews with the top 5 girls in form II, the headmaster mentioned that when they sign up for interviews, we mean the time we say, so if they come hours late, we won’t be here. It was a great reflection of “Africa time”.
The headmaster also talked about some costs that the government and schools have begun to pay for. The government pays for part of the form IV national examination as well as some textbooks for a certain class. The school pays about 5000 TSH for school celebrations, including the Uhuru Torch celebration, which he assumed we knew about. Here’s a news article about it. http://thecitizen.co.tz/newe.php?id=12812
We then went back to FAWE, where we met with Bibi Asma again. We discussed the need for individualized costs for the girls. While it is much easier just to give everyone the same amount, it’s not fair to give one girl with less need the same amount as another girl with a lot of need. Because our metric is based on performance AND need, we really need to ensure that we are allowing every scholar to keep up their performance by addressing individual need. It’s fairer to ensure that between parent contributions and our contributions, every girl is receiving the same RESOURCES, which may mean receiving differing levels of money from S4Si. Everyone has some level of need, but there are such different levels and the levels are sometimes so vast that we need to focus on the individuals in order to be good at what we do.
We will meet with Bibi Asma again next week to have her go over a mentor manual that we will create for the hire of three mentors, which the S4Si board has approved. We told Asma that computer skills are one of our top priorities, so she wants to see if there are women students available at SUZA (State University of Zanzibar) to serve as mentors. Great idea.
Some reflections from the week: I am so proud of us for achieving everything we did this week. We still have a lot to do in terms of documentation, but we have a great schedule for the next few weeks. We really need to revamp the Delegation packet to include processes (interview, school visits, scholar visits) because the summer trips are one of the most important things S4Si does and serves as a very small window of opportunity. We need a set process that we can show to our donors but also pass on to delegations so that we are doing things consistently year after year.
SEWAGE: Later in the day, our friend Star took us on a walk to the Hundred Steps beach. We asked him about sewage and Star said they can’t afford to clean the water, so the pipes run into the ocean. We walked by the “poop pipes” and saw the “poop lines” (which are basically like ropes attached to buoys that separate where you are and aren’t allowed to swim. I’m still not planning on swimming in the designated swimming area.
To say thank you to Remmy for hosting me for a week in Dar, we treated her to a trip to Zanzibar, a place she hadn’t yet been. She was so excited to be here and I can’t wait to show her around Zanzibar, which is sure to be very culturally different from what she is used to.
Word of the day:
tafadhali - please
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