Hujambo from Tanzania! This week, the Tanzania Tree Huggers continued our work at Orkolili secondary school! On Thursday, we were planning on attending day two at the Nelson Mandela Institute but unfortunately, the school decided not to return so instead, we spent the day observing classes such as form I English and English literature (approximately eighth grade), form IV mathematics, and form IV biology. These observations at least gave us a basic understanding of how classes at Orkolili function and what kinds of methods are being used there.
Friday was a shorter day for us since Friday afternoons are dedicated to religious studies in Swahili which they sent us home before but it was also our first day teaching there. We were popped into form I English again for the 80 minute block where we had the students create and present dialogues focusing on going to the market, read a part of the book that they had been reading the previous day (Hawa the Bus Driver), and played two rounds of “Simon Says” to practice both English and commands, something they had also been discussing the previous day.
On Saturday, we went back to Arusha one final time to explore a bit more and meet up with Brenda, a contact who had previously gotten her PhD at Michigan Tech before moving to Tanzania to work. We met up with her at a coffee shop and discussed both her experiences and ours. Afterwards, we did a bit more shopping for souvenirs before heading back to Boma where we spent the rest of the weekend relaxing.
For the remainder of the week, we pretty much repeated the same routine of going to school, teaching a class English, and then observing some classes. It was great getting to chat with the students after class about both our lives in the U.S. and their lives here in Tanzania. Learning what we can from the students is one of our favorite parts of being in the schools.
Week four turned out pretty good! On to the final week in Tanzania!
