First, I added some recent pictures if you wanna check 'em out. I know I keep posting pictures of white people vacationing, when what everyone really wants to see is pictures of my students and villagers and Tanzanians' lives in general. I'm still pretty uncomfortable whipping out a flashy, nice camera in front of poor people, but one of these days I'll be brave and go crazy taking pictures in my village. Until then, you'll just have to use your imagination...pole sana (so very sorry)!
I just arrived in Mtwara town after a relatively pleasant (no breakdowns) 5-hour bus ride. This leads me into the highlight of my week. Drum roll please...tomorrow I will be...FLYING ON AN AIRPLANE to Dar es Salaam. Yep. Replacing a 15 or so hour bus ride on unpaved roads with a 1 HOUR flight is my idea of a good deal. The road up to Dar is not so great at the moment and volunteers have been getting stuck, which sucks for them, but meant that we (me and Toni, a health volunteer down here who is also going up to Dar for PSDN training) were able to convince PC to book us flights as a matter of volunteer safety and security. The few volunteers that have flown before give raving reviews of the flight, which even includes a snack service. Other people are just as excited as me about the prospect of my flight; my counterpart, Mr. Likulu, has never been on a plane and asked me to tell him all about it and take lots of pictures. And as ridiculous as it sounds, I am even excited to go through the airport security process!
So I'll try to wrap up the post on another high note, but first to bring you all down a bit...Tuesday was probably the worst day of my Peace Corps service thus far. All week I was invigilating (watching students take exams for 6 hours/day) the Form IV Regional Mock NECTA exams. On Monday afternoon, a small group of my top Form IV boys had come to my house and asked for help solving some math problems, which I'm always happy to do. Karim, our very top student that lives next door with my counterpart, even brought over a page of more problems late that night and asked if I could solve them and give him the solutions to review the next morning before the exam, which I also did. None of this was odd, because these students in particular are very motivated, like math, ask lots of questions, are constantly reviewing old NECTA problems, etc. Well the exam rolls around on Tuesday and, upon opening the exam, I was shocked to see about 75% of the questions I had solved for them the previous day. I don't remember the last time I was so shocked, angry, and hurt all at the same time; I was almost to tears. Not only did the students cheat (in the extreme), but they used me to do so. They all know my feelings about cheating - they've gone so far as to tell my counterpart they don't like when I invigilate because I stay in the room the whole time and watch them so they are unable to cheat. If it had even been any other students I don't think I would have been so angry, but I absolutely did not expect it from these students and I was so disappointed in them. They later told us that some students somewhere in the region managed to get ahold (my counterpart assumes teachers were involved) of the test in advance and texted them the questions. Everyone seemed much more concerned about how they managed to get the questions, than the fact that they cheated so badly. Unfortunately there were no consequences at all to the students. If students are cheating on my tests, I can take away points or give them a 0, but there is nothing I can do when it is for another teacher's exam or NECTA. With no consequences its not hard to imagine why students wouldn't at least try to cheat; it just seems to be so ingrained in the education system here that there is really nothing I can do about it but accept it and try not to take it personally...
But now I have 6 weeks off from school and I am starting my vacation and I promised to end on a high note... so one more piece of exciting news: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is visiting Dar next weekend. I may actually get to meet her, since I will be around the PC office for training....we'll see!!
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