Piki-piki: Now we're having fun!

Dear Friends and Family,

A safari to Ketumbeine and now riding the piki-piki (off-rode motorcycle), this has been a trip of many firsts, even though both of these firsts are several years later than originally planned. It is Africa, so must figure things will happen on Africa time, after all. And we had to wait for me to reach my full height, as the height of this bike stretched the limits of my feet reaching the ground.

As you can see, the chosen road was not the most challenging -- didn't want Mama or the Mwangaza folks to worry any more than they already were. However, if you look behind me on the middle picture, there is a turn to the right just where the person is in the distance. Since that turn leads to an open area near the local church a quarter mile away, seemed like a good place to go before turning around. Was a much more interesting piece of road, with ruts a foot plus deep and rocks a foot plus out of the ground -- that's why it's called an off-road bike! Got more interesting as I approached the exit of the local elementary school just as the students were running out to head home so had to maneuver around a Maasai babu (grandfather) leaning on his staff while waiting for a child. Moved back into my lane (notice how well the road is marked, and how wide it is -- subtract 10 feet, then imagine a median in the form of a deep rut) b/c I was meeting a bike with several milk carton cases strapped on the back. You guessed it — IT WAS GREAT!!

Then back to work, marking the assessments from our first follow-up school visit -- but that's another story.

Peace and Love,

Mike and Sharon (who watched long enough to take the photos)

First follow-up visit: Kimandolu Secondary School

Dear Family and Friends,

Will let pictures do most of the speaking with this journaling, but will share that the day went extremely well, with Kimondolu's well-prepared reality and our expectations well adjusted, resulting in Happiness as a very positive integer.

Loading up the Mwangaza Land Rover and on our way, soon on-site and presenting the Sheltered Instruction texts to the school for use by the seminar participants and any other interested teachers. Recent history shows teachers have moved frequently from school to school, so this establishes that the books stay with the schools Mwangaza is supporting in the Intervention Program. We did let them know we expected to see fingerprints of the seminar teachers on many pages.

On the right, Michael Moshi is speaking of the one day workshop he and two other seminar participants organized for the rest of the staff so that all the school's personnel would have some understanding of the new methodology. Was reinforcing to hear him speak of using some of the strategies and much of the vocabulary from his week at Mwangaza.

Art & Linda Milton, and some others, will undoubtedly remember Mr. Monoya (below, middle photo) from his '96 visit. We are impressed with his staff, having shared with some in previous years' Mwangaza seminars. Their readiness factor today was a strong indication he, and the staff, are in sync with the Intervention process.

Salome and Mary Jo were soon off to administer the assessment — No pictures of that exercise today, but will relate more later — while the rest of us went to the computer lab.

They have made an effort to set up and maintain donated computers, resembling those at Mwangaza, but 'tis challenging to address today's information and options with the last decades' technology. You can see the modem plugged into a flash drive extension in the first photo below, then the impatient waiting for the limited memory available to process and install the software. Incredibly, it takes only 256 mb of available memory, but this computer had little more than that.

While waiting, we plugged in the flash drive which had been loaded with content (Powerpoints) and showed that these could be downloaded to each of the computers, thereby being available to teachers and their classes with no need of the internet for watching. Since had gathered several of the Powerpoints between seminar weeks, these teachers and computer lab coordinator were seeing the option and the pictures for the first time.

Once the modem had established internet connection, John demonstrated how to connect long enough to find what you were seeking to read, then disconnect to spend the time reading, making notes, etc. before re-connecting to do more searching or sending. In this manner of efficiency, the purchased memory can serve for some time.

After handing over the modem to the computer coordinator, our team prepared to leave. Nice timing to be stepping outside just as a distinguished gentleman arrived. A former teacher, he has been Kimodolu's "school manager" (board member who regularly speaks with the principal, teachers, students, and staff) for a number of years. Here he is telling the rest of us about Salome's tenure with his school, when she was both a respected and respectful teacher.

Back at Mwangaza, we debriefed while marking the assessments. It is obvious the teachers and students need support.

Peace and Love,

Mike and Sharon

Prepping for the first follow-up visit

Dear Family and Friends,

You have probably noticed that the journals have decreased in number and size in the last 4 weeks, as our Mwangaza team and staff:

1. hosted the first seminar week for the teachers of the 5 Pilot schools,

2. spent the next week wrapping up, assessing and adjusting to make adaptations for the second,

3. another week facilitating the second seminar with teachers from 8 other secondary schools,

and 4. spending the time since wrapping up and prepping for the visits to the Pilot schools, plus a Friday trip to Makumira to lead Carol Stubbs class (left picture)as she and Megan were heading back from the US. Copy machine got a work-out, as did those of us writing comments and reviews of 60 plus lesson plans and compiling copies for teachers to share their plans -- both a first for our times at Mwangaza.

Packets pictured include: a. the binders of lesson plans and an addendum to the Mwangaza Resource Book, b. a Sheltered Instruction book for each participant, c. mini-books (one story fitting on a back-to-back page folded into booklet form) and the lesson plans which go with, d. the English proficiency assessment, f. a flash drive (in the baggie) containing seminar information, content area websites, and power points of topics in each of the subject areas,

and g. a Vodacom (phone/internet company) modem (in the white box) which contains a replaceable memory chip and plugs into a computer port. A new chip can be purchased when that memory is used. The modem contains the program to download the connection to internet and can be used in any number of machines, one at a time or connected to a few by a splitter. Pretty amazing option for schools which do not currently have normal internet connection options and will allow us to be in contact with these schools/teachers from Mwangaza and from DeKalb.

Tuesday, with materials prepared and packed into boxes, we sat to discuss and determine the on-site process, as would be visiting one school each day, Wed-Fri and Mon-Tues.

Welcome and Greeting Reception, reviewing the seminar objectives and purposes of this visit, presenting materials and setting the sequence of events, assessing the students and installing the modem -- quite an ambitious visit.

John and Salome are very patient with we Americans as we are checking our watches and writing explicit timetables, then help us prepare for reality by reminding us that it's very good to have a plan, but sometimes adjustments must be made according to the environment and the circumstances. They help our team have a positive result to the "Danish philosophy of life" equation: Reality - Expectations = Happiness.

Notice everyone was smiling on Tuesday !!

Peace & Love,

Mike and Sharon

Pangas: Taking your work home

Dear Family and Friends,

No, we have not dropped off the edge of the World, or even the edge of Africa, but should find some opportunities in these next 2 weeks to send a few pictures and stories of recent weeks. In fact, better do so, or will have to tell you in person, as we leave in 2 weeks, almost to the hour.

Does not seem possible, and have quite a list of Mambo ya kufanya (To Do List, or List of Stuff to do) remaining to be addressed. Actually feeling very good as have completed quite a number of these lists, and the completion of those has allowed us to make more and try to address them also.

Will be interesting to see if can mesh our Team's list with the challenges of administrators and teachers getting 2nd term started at the secondary schools we hope to visit. If all were to go perfectly, we would visit each of the 5 schools which were represented in our first seminar. Since then we have compiled a binder of follow-up and follow-through materials and can now also give them the Sheltered Instruction books for on-site resources -- had to keep those at Mwangaza for a bit to have available for the second seminar.

Mary Jo Huelle, a '96 alum of Mwangaza teacher partnerships, and a 10-time (I think) returner, landed at the beginning of the second seminar week and joined in with presenting, wrap-ups of this year's seminars and looking forwards to the months and years to come. She is also the Chair of the Friends of Mwangaza Board, the Stateside support system of Mwangaza and its programs.

Meanwhile, almost every day brings a new opportunity to view life as we don't often see it on the streets in Illinois. This young man found the T-corner of Ilboru Road, just in front of the Mwangaza campus, a good place for his business. Here he is practicing his livelihood by sharpening a panga (short sword, almost a "corn knife" for us Midwestern farmers) by:

1. parking his mode of transportation,

2. putting the back wheel up on a stand,

3. raising the whet stone wheel to engage the 2nd chain,

4. flipping up the normal seat so he can turn about and sit on the temporary seat,

5. begin pedaling to turn the bike wheel and whet stone wheel,

and 6. sharpen the panga.

Pretty cool! Others, who heard and saw his work, brought their items, and queued (British English for lined) up with what they needed sharpening.

Did you notice that this panga was a bit longer than Andrea's? And curved at the end? It is a version made for cutting grass while bending at the waist, grass the length of that in our yards, cut to the length of a fairway of a golf course, and taken to feed the cattle or goats. MOST grass is cut this way, including school yards and other large areas.

OK, must move along this evening and write a couple of Reviews and Comments on lesson plans from seminar participants. Then will be able to check off some mambo!

Peace and Love,

Mike and Sharon

Relaxing and reflecting

Dear Friends and Family,

Spending today enjoying the change of pace, changing some money and replenishing the pantry this morning, Sharon doing some laundry and mixing up the next batch of bread dough -- pizza tonight, perhaps!?

Will spend some time writing emails and sorting some pix and stories as the day/weekend passes, then get back up here to send them later tonight and tomorrow.

Was another good seminar week, we think. Good to have the second opportunity to share methodology, with some time between weeks one and two to assess and adapt. This week will focus on wrapping up and preparing for the visits to the pilot schools in the remaining weeks.

So for now, hope you have had the opportunity to sleep in a bit this Saturday morning (we did !!) and have some pleasant weather to greet you.

Peace & Love,

Mike & Sharon

The seminars, part 2

And continuing ....

We facilitated each session in pairs, basically the lead teacher and support partner, but the other 2 were usually in attendance. With observations and our previous weeks together in April-May, our team seemed able to link methodology and vocabulary for the participants as we moved through the week. The 4 of us appeared in all possible combinations of nationalities and genders, hopefully conveying that our methods were applicable in different school settings and with different teaching styles. Over our many years, we 2 have received much advice from experts who had obviously not been where we were -- couldn't be much more obvious than here, where wazungu from the USA have obviously not been where the seminar participants are. John and Salome were great in making suggestions/connections to Tanzanian secondary school environments and challenges. Certainly our time sharing with them in April and May helped us be more aware and hopefully more realistic and believable.

Mike enjoys stirring the pot a bit by putting number and word challenges before the participants, sometimes containing a not-so-subtle message. Can always count on the math/science types to respond even if nothing is said until one is either successful at solving it or s/he is confident that a mistake must have been made by Mike -- and that has happened. This year my favorite is: 5 ___/___ X 20 ___/___ X 15 ___/___ X 2 ___/___ = # _____/_____ Followed by # ____/____ -:- 40 ___/___ = # ___/___. Mike Moshi solved the equations by figuring out the message: If you are 5 minutes late for each of your classes each week, you cheat your students out of 75 class periods in a year. We also challenged with some mnemonics (like HOMES for our Great Lakes, had them looking for combinations with countries in Africa, including those bordering TZ -- Mr. Tobias came up with a good sentence for that one. Below, Mike is challenging teachers to see applications beyond the obvious -- Venn diagrams can be used for more than math concepts, just as our acacia thorn was also good for a toothpick.

Of course no gathering worth mentioning, especially if it has Lutheran somewhere in it's name, could have been successful without good food to sustain the hard work. We broke for chai and lunch, but everyone worked until dinner at 6 PM, and more than half were working on lesson plans each evening until about 9. Love that long handled wooden spoon Rachel is using to stir the sauce for the meal's ugali (corn flour mixed with water). Most days were warm enough to eat under/around the banda, even if needed a jacket or sweater. Below is one participant helping us establish a new seminar practice, scraping and stacking plates after finished eating. Think the kitchen ladies appreciated Sharon's idea and Mike's encouraging everyone to participate in setting a new tradition.

Our experiences over our teaching years reinforces that:

1. it's hard to carry then sustain the enthusiasm and implement the new ideas of a seminar once back into the old environment, but technology has brought options of follow-up by texting and emailing that had not been here before.

and 2. we are excited to have some days in July to visit these pilot schools for continuing the professional development . We know that John and Salome will continue to do so after we leave.

Now it's time to look only ahead to next week's seminar and be certain that we are prepared and energized. Marieth Mlay (2001) will join in as a participant, then serve Mwangaza by giving feedback and being a mentor to the Enaboishu LSS team, her school.

Peace & love,

Mike and Sharon

The seminars, part 1

Dear Family and Friends,

"Why are you going to Tanzania?" "What are you going to do in Tanzania" were very frequent questions in the last months of '09 and the first few months of '10. And always we replied "To facilitate seminars for secondary teachers". Guess it's about time to send word(s), and a few pix of course, since last week was one of those "facilitating" weeks, with this week to assess that week and prepare for next week when 30+ teachers from a total of 8 schools will attend.

Since both the words and the pictures will be multiple, already know will take a couple of installments to complete and send this journal. If gets too many or too long, remember the location of your "delete" button.

The format and focus will be the same, with adaptations for coordinating a larger number (like dividing them into 2 groups and presenting some sessions to each instead of to the total group) and a few changes to improve some things we found in our surveys/assessment. Once again, we do know that Sunday evening through Saturday morning will be intense !

Mike teased John and Salome this afternoon with a few stories of superstitious athletes and coaches who will try to keep everything the same for the next game when have had an outstanding game. Since he feels good about the first week, doesn't want to take a chance on changing anything in our prepping, so will take off for Ketumbeine again Thursday afternoon. Wasn't his funniest joke and half the team voted a resounding "absolutely NO".

20 of 23 scheduled seminar participants arrived Sunday evening, with our team on hand to check folks in, assign rooms, note whether or not the pre-assigned lesson plan was finished, and to hand out the first assignment. Attendance can be an issue here and makes both planning and professional development follow-up challenging.

Enjoyed when one of those checking in mentioned that he must have been given the wrong homework sheet, as parts of his were highlighted -- had highlighted one every so often to bring forth the idea of adapting text. With his announcement, folks immediately began comparing sheets and interest in one of Monday morning's topics was off and running.

Each day began at 8 AM with Sala (Bible study), which in turn begins and ends with a hymn. With many familiar English names under the Swahili titles in the hymnal, reasonably easy for us to "sing" because all letters in Swahili words are pronounced. With great TZ voices singing in harmony and the Sala led in English, we are blessed each day before we are called upon to lead others. Mama Sharon, assisted with hymns by Salome, led Friday's Sala.

It is important to know your audience and ours was varied, with 5+ subject areas (+ b/c most teachers are prepared to teach a combination, such as math & physics), 5 schools, and experience ranging from 3 months to 25 years. Some had attended Mwangaza seminars in past years, including times when we were here, but those were focused more on specific content than methodology. From the beginning, we developed 3 different grouping configurations (school, content area, tables) and moved from one to another during each session, emphasizing expectations of grouping and student interactions providing opportunities for listening (to someone other than the teacher), speaking, writing, and reading. Notice Mr. David in the pink hat with his school colleagues on the left and with the math group on the right. Also had some teachers who have administrative duties, working side-by-side with the teachers they lead, in some of those group configurations.

Since expectations of Mwangaza's longitudinal grant focused on Form I students, which our "teaching language through teaching content" is now coordinated with, include regular measurement of progress and the keeping/interpreting of data, the participants were also introduced to and practiced using Microsoft EXCEL. Very challenging for several who have had no/little computer experience, and made more challenging by the age and status of Mwangaza's donated desktop computers. However, we observed some of the best partnering and teamwork between participants that have ever witnessed anywhere.

Even though holding only 512 mb of memory, flash drives donated by N IL Univ were very helpful and a big hit. We downloaded some power points for physics (very nice one on simple machines!) and math (notice favorites here?) so could be taken back to the small 6 - 18 computer labs at the schools and used even though some do not have internet connection. If you happen to have sites you really like for a content area, please send the info (site and specific content, please) and we will work on taking more flash drives filled with info to the schools when visit them in July.

Back soon with Installment 2

Peace & love,

Mike and Sharon

Quick and wonderful safari to Ketumbeine, part 2

This mountain is Pastor's home territory and all signs pointed to his being happy to be back and people glad to have him. He has been here about 2 months, with our understanding that he had been in Engoruka and the two pastors were exchanged. After leaving the first church, we stopped at Pastor's boma and had chai. Randy got the child's version of the 3-legged stool.

Then we were off to mountain congregation 2, who are in the 5th year of building a beautiful brick church while continuing to worship in a building which is leaning seriously downhill.

ELCA missionary Doctor Steve Friberg has helped this project move along by overseeing a couple of groups who have come to TZ wanting to do a project -- mixing cement by hand for a large floor area is a project not soon forgotten. Having been on the roads to this place, it is nearly impossible to imagine how bricks and cement were moved here.

Our last stop for the morning (now about 2:30 PM) was a couple of kilometers hike from a stick, rock, mud and cow dung building where we were welcomed by a youth choir. After receiving lunch back in the main village, we left for the congregation under the acacia tree, where we also were treated to beautiful music, goat meat BBQ, with acacia thorns for toothpicks.

Bethany Friberg, our great B&B hostess, introduced us to her ladies beading group. Sharon made some selections for those who have requested and some items for the N IL Synod Women. Bethany also shared the actual receipts and accounting of the Love Auction money First Lutheran had sent last year for famine relief. We were very impressed with the great job the Friberg's did in organizing through the evangelists and local leaders to find those most in need of nourishment. At one point in our conversations, Steve said "You need to share with people that, without those funds coming for food, our family would have left the area, because we were not prepared to stay and watch children and families starve to death." This from a man who has set up dispensaries and clinics way out in the bush, where people struggle to live on a daily basis.

Saturday morning gave us the opportunity to visit one more congregation, near a very large boma, which in this case was a settlement of many individual homes within the same thorn fence. Their old church is pictured in both the middle and right photos, with Randy, Marissa, and Sharon standing on the floor (which was only footings when you were there, Jack) of the church-to-be. The evangelist shared a very nice story of "community" here, as the boma's inhabitants and neighbors are mixed in their religious beliefs, but everyone has been invited and has gathered in the old church over the years for meetings and during rainy and cold weather, so the community is now looking forward to the new church being finished.

Took Mike 6 trips to TZ to get here; Sharon remembered well by church elders from her '03 visit; and both of us very grateful to Randy and Pastor Seth Sululu for making this trip possible.

Peace and Love,

Mike & Sharon

Quick and wonderful Ketumbeine safari, Part 1

Dear Family and Friends,

Luggage comfortably packed in the back? Seat belts on? Everyone have plenty of elbow room? Hope you enjoyed that moment, because in TZ there are no such "road trips". Starting with only 8, we stopped at an Evangelists' school and added several more. Randy Stubbs showed many skills that we folks from First did not know he had, including securing luggage for cross-country trips which are literally "across country" !

Once arrived at Ketumbeine, Pastor Lukoja (sp?) used maps to orient us to our travels to and around his parish, which now has 21 congregations. To give you a bit of an idea where we are/were: Mt. Meru/Mwangaza are just to the right of his knuckle, with Arusha under it. The heavy black line is the border with Kenya, and Mt. Kilimanjaro is the arrowhead sitting in the upper middle of the white area still in TZ. Pastor is pointing at Longido, where we left the highway heading southwest (left) to Ketumbeine. If you are wondering why we didn't just drive northwest from Arusha to Ketumbeine, please look closely for the road -- as there is none. As is was, most of the "main" road from Longido looks like the section below.



On our way up Ketumbeine Mountain to visit our first congregation outside the actual village of Ketumbeine (remember the road picture from the "transition" email?), we passed this water project, with water piped from a spring to a central location at this elevation. Once nearing the first church, we had this view of the office-to-be, the church roof beyond, and the valley we had just left beyond that. Quite the contrast when looking past the church in the other direction, to the top of the mountain still covered by mist.


Part 2 to follow soon.
Mike