Scholars Retreat!

Sorry it's been so long before I've posted...suddenly got very busy!

See sustainsakina.blogspot.com for some more updates!

Some highlights of the past two weeks:

Thursday, July 2
Today we got a lot accomplished business wise (yay!). In the morning, we talked a lot about strategic planning. We created a budget for the rest of the summer, trying to anticipate all costs we might have. Then we prioritized them. I also taught them a little bit more about excel. While we were creating our budget we practiced doing some math to calculate the budget. They learned how to add, add different boxes, and use the sum formula. We also talked about different business models (donation based, service providers, and those that sell goods) and brainstormed ways SF in Sakina could raise money. Finally, we did a SWOT analysis of Sustain Foundation in Sakina to really demonstrate what resources we have that we should utilize and what things we still need to figure out. Overall it was a very successful morning!

Saturday, July 4

Happy 4th of July!!!! No fireworks here.

Today we had our scholars retreat!!! All the scholars finally arrived by about 10:30 and we were off. Most of them wore their school uniform and some of the early arrivers that didn’t wear the uniforms were sent home to change. I really didn’t care, but Emanueli and Irene seemed to think it was necessary. At snake park they have a lot of snakes (huge ones) as well as all different kinds of crocodiles. There were little ones and big ones. We all took turns holding a snake as well. The scholars really seemed to like it! I gave them the camera and they loved taking pictures with it again. Then we went through a Masai cultural tour…it was really interesting. The masai drink blood and eat a lot of meat. They do a lot of hunting and keep cattle. They wear a lot of jewelry which is just for decoration and once someone becomes a dad, they take off the jewelry. I asked the Masai guy why he wasn’t wearing ear jewelry and he said because it is too painful. He said the Masai can choose whether to make their earlobes super big. It was also interesting because about half of the exhibit was about the circumcision rite of passage when the boys are 18. Basically they get circumcised and they aren’t allowed to cry. If they cry, they bring shame to the whole family and are treated like a child for the rest of their life. If they don’t cry, they drink blood from a cow and there is a party at night. They used to have a ritual for women, but they don’t anymore.

We stopped at a little Masai boma that was right outside the exit and I bought rings and bracelets for each of the girls. The boys took my camera and ran off to take pictures. Then we all went on a camel ride which was really fun. I think they all loved it.

Lunch was amazing and they loved using my hand sanitizer. The idea of soap without water was so cool to them. We also went through a shop that was waaay overpriced, but the proceeds went towards a health clinic that treats anyone for free. I thought that was really interesting – it was about 1 km away. I also started interviewing all the scholars to find out about their lives.


July 5
Today we finished up the last 5 interviews. Then we started some arts and crafts. Some of the scholars used Emanueli’s paint and glossy paper to make beautiful pictures. The others just used the supplies I brought to make acrostic poems (in Swahili or English), self portraits, bookmarks, and placemats depicting their favorite subject. Some of their A’s in the acrostic poems said Anneliese…haha. We also had the best meal I’ve had since I’ve been in Tanzania. There was also this potato salad thing that reminded me of fourth of july, so I felt right at home!

Then all the parents came, which was really cool.


Tuesday, July 7
HOLIDAY!!! Saba saba! It is a day of exhibition in Dar es Salaam and is a national holiday (although mostly it’s just government that gets off of work). They asked me if we have something like that and I said that we have exhibitions going on all the time.

We also visited our neighbor, the Councilor of Elerai. It turns out he is Baba’s older brother. He looks and acts just like him. Baba used to be a village chairman a long time ago as well as headmaster of Burka Primary school, so he is well connected.

Names: I’ve seen multiple types of spellings for our scholars and I keep getting confused. I asked about it and found out that they have anglicized versions of their names. For example, Dominiki Loakaki is the Swahili version and Dominick Loakack is the English version. Irene said that people sometimes spell her name Airene. They also said that they can tell what masai names are sometimes because they have good meanings but they just sound weird. The Masai choose their names based on meaning but a pretty sound isn’t as much of a priority.

Wednesday, July 8

We had a focus group with the scholar parents as a practice for the health assessment we will be starting next week!!! The focus group actually went pretty well! It was also a real morale booster because Emanueli and Irene felt like they were really doing something and could see actionable results.

I asked Emanueli and Irene why the government business is conducted in Swahili (we watch the Tanzania Budget Committee - TBC channel all the time) yet they have all secondary school classes in English. I think it would be super hard for students here to go into an English language immersion where the teachers don’t even speak completely great English. It seems like there should be more opportunities to speak English around here if they are expected to be educated in English. It seems like it unfairly disadvantages those that can’t learn languages very well and also that students would learn a lot more if they could learn in Swahili. They said that there just aren’t textbooks in Swahili for highschool levels.

Anyways, I learned that a lot of the leaders don’t actually know English – many of them only completely Standard 7, some form I, form IV, or Form VI. Very few of the government leaders went to university.

This really hit home how important education is. Not that the leaders aren’t knowledgeable about their country, but the decision making process and understanding about economics, mistakes made in the past, etc. might go a lot smoother if there were people with a little more education. How can they reform the education system here if half the people creating policies haven’t even gone through it?