THE SECOND TERM IV

MATCH POINT

Numbers have long fascinated me, and I hardly ever look at a small integer without immediately sorting out its prime factors: 3 and 13 for the number 39, for example. Now the first of these factors not only has profound religious relevance, the Holy Trinity, to cite only one instance of great local importance, but it is also of more mundane significance, as anyone who was the first to be cast out from a triangular relationship can readily attest. Thirteen, of course, is humanity's unlucky number. Is it the traditional number of steps to the gallows, or did I just invent that? But until recently their product, 39, lacked any special significance to me. For young adults it marked the last year before that dreaded crossing into the aged forties, I suppose, and some comedian of yesteryear–could it possibly have been Jack Benny?–remained 39 in perpetuity.

Before leaving Seattle last June I had quickly read some information that the Peace Corps had sent me on income tax procedures for citizens working abroad and was reminded that the expenses of moving my household goods into storage and keeping them there were tax deductible. It was only a month ago when I started through the 1992 forms from IRS–it has been hard to make meaningful contact with the SSA, but the IRS never forgets a face...or a form–that this mattered to me again. It was also about then that I began to realize I might not be staying with the Peace Corps much longer. But it was only after the headmaster's and my differing educational philosophies brought us into open disagreement that I thought seriously about the 39-week minimum residence requirement for claiming moving expenses as a tax deduction.

Had I been at Ilboru that long? No, the troubles began in only the 35th week, and in the 36th the headmaster and I had exchanged memos. The 37th was lost to the Nairobi eye, and it was in the 38th that he began passing me with his eyes averted so he wouldn't be forced to acknowledge my existence; what a stupid way for two old men to part. Otherwise this 38th week at Ilboru went well, with some pretty heavy work being done by my students and me.

Things were not quite so smooth at Victoria House, however. There was still no hot water in my room, and the adjacent conference room that I had used for writing and study was no longer available; it was now dedicated to private parties and to video viewing, and when not in use it was locked. And on Wednesday of that week, despite promises from my favorite waiter and the manager himself, I didn't get the usual bucket of hot water for showering. An interesting new entry appeared beside that evening's menu, however, namely a timetable for meals that promised breakfast starting at 6:00.

Breakfast is a special problem in East Africa; it is almost always an integral part of any lodging agreement, and it is almost never available before 7:00 unless you belong to a sizable safari group. For the first few weeks of my Victoria House stay, I rode up the hill so I could have breakfast first. After working nonstop from 8:00 to 2:00 and walking back to town through a cloud of dust under the broiling equatorial sun, I typically reached the hotel after 3:00, filthy, sweaty, exhausted, and famished. It was only after negotiating for some hot water that I could have my second, and final, meal of the day. So a good breakfast seemed vital, and the daily double dose of cholesterol had so far successfully prevented even a single sighting of cobras, mambas, puff adders, or rock pythons.

The weather had turned surprisingly sunny and warm, despite this being the usual period for the long rains to begin, so I started walking up the hill instead of having breakfast. For a few days I grabbed a cup of coffee on my way through town, and occasionally the coffee shop even produced its unique pastry, an overly dense, greasy version of what my Danish aunt called äbelskiver, I think it is spelled; actually she was my mother's relative, as are the two precocious girl cousins who made my boyhood summer visits to Portland, Oregon interesting. Sometimes these clinkers appeared in time to accompany my coffee, but more often they appeared just in time to be wrapped in newspapers, and I chomped on them en route. Grease and newsprint evidently are immiscible, so there was no change in taste; it was only my hands that suffered damage from both substances. But after a few days this shop closed for “two weeks” of renovations, so I started buying a regular breakfast at a hotel across the street that opened its restaurant early. But then that hotel without warning adopted a normal timetable also, so a change in arrangements had to be made. The coffee shop did reopen, about two months later, but its day now begins at the canonical 7:00 also.

There is a general theorem governing all contracts in East Africa that should be well understood by anyone coming here. A service contract must be negotiated in good faith and by hard bargaining, but once concluded it binds only the serviced, not the server. The former is expected to pay the full price even if the server fails to provide what has been purchased. No hot water, no electricity, no breakfast: these are all the visitor's responsibility, not the owner's. Flat tires, vehicle breakdowns, road closures, game drives missed due to bad weather: these are all problems for the tourist, not the tour operator. It is well to understand, and accept, this theorem before even thinking of a visit to East Africa.

By that Wednesday evening I was pretty disgusted, so I determined to challenge the new timetable at 6:00 the next morning. Not unexpectedly all I found then were locked doors and darkened rooms; even the overnight guards were asleep. I stomped around and rattled doors, and when people finally did arrive, I ranted and raved about this being a staff retirement home, not a hotel, and how could they expect me to get to work on time? My rage surprised them a little but made no impact, so the next morning when I came down early to take a prearranged long-distance phone call, I again faced a darkened room from the wrong side of a locked door. When it was finally opened, the phone had long since stopped ringing. It was after my impassioned raging on this second consecutive morning of frustration that the staff began calling me Babu (Grandfather) instead of Professor.

The afternoon walk down the hill always has a calming effect, although it is increasingly threatened these days by drenching thunderstorms, so I was quite relaxed when I sat down to negotiate with the owner and the manager. They readily understood my interest in a regular source of running hot water, they were totally sympathetic toward my need for breakfast at 6:00, and early morning telephone calls struck them as rather exciting. They had another room nearly as large as mine on the other side of the hotel, where hot water was generally available. They would see to it that breakfast was timely, and I could even take the portable phone, which uses their private number, to bed with me. Furthermore, this room has an unusually large verandah.

So I moved. This worked up a second afternoon sweat, after which I enjoyed my first normal hot shower at Victoria House in 18 days. And I thoroughly appreciated having dinner served on the verandah; the barbeque chef, who cooks traditional food over charcoal in the bar, is a genius with kuku (chicken). It was later that evening that I learned the toilet was difficult to flush–my colleague from nearby Moshi later discovered that it worked quite well if the plunger was operated from inside–and it was the next day before I found that the room's only electrical outlet was outside on the verandah. It all works out quite well, however, since no one else is up yet when I plug in my shaver, and the "mossies" are not too numerous if I'm forced to finish some word processing or printing in the semidarkness of early evening. And the verandah does provide a good view of much of the southern sky.

The 39th and–I honestly thought then–last week would be an easy one since the headmaster had chosen Wednesday and Thursday for the monthly exams he has unilaterally imposed on a reluctant faculty. Monday was routine, and on Tuesday I printed and had photocopied the test I had written over the weekend; as usual I was assigned the first day’s 7:30 slot. I arrived a little before 8:00, which is about the best I could ever do on foot after the prearranged early breakfast I was then eating. The invigilators were happy to be dismissed, and my students worked without complaint, or supervision, for about two hours; I had noted from the timetable that their next test was not until noon, so I had set mine for 90 minutes. As I left campus around 10:00, I was exhilarated; all I needed to do now was return on Friday, and the 39th week would be history. The headmaster skulked into the open doorway of his office and sulked as I strode down the nearby road. As usual neither of us acknowledged the other's presence.

On Friday one of the receptionists arose early to fix my breakfast. The eggs arrived fried rather than poached, but they were beautifully done and nicely soft. I was not in a very good mood, however, because I had decided that my students must be told I would not be back to teach them during their second-year, form-six studies. After discussing a few unfinished topics and going over the monthly test, I explained the situation to them as best I understood it. Their expressions saddened, and they slumped in their seats. Seventy pairs of eyes welled with tears, but none fell. Afterward they begged me to change my mind, but I could not. All I did promise was to discuss the matter with the PC director in Dar es Salaam the following week and to return to Ilboru for the weeks remaining after the Easter recess, which I had originally planned definitely not to do. Serious students here are hungry for even routine instruction.

The bus ride to Moshi the following Sunday morning was placid by comparison to the others I had experienced, and the early evening train ride was routine until we reached Korogwe about 11:00 p.m. I was sharing a first-class compartment–read those last three words in a very relative context–with Martin, my PCV friend from Moshi. The train is scheduled to stop here for 90 minutes in order to pick up a few cars from another train when going to Dar, and to drop them off when traveling to Moshi. When I awakened at 3:00 the next morning we were still there, and at dawn I learned, first from some soldiers and then from the assistant stationmaster, that there was a derailment somewhere, and no one knew when we would move again.

Now the drive to Dar is dreadful, even when the only alternative is to sweat in an uncooled railroad car under a scorching sun. Furthermore, a substantial distance separates Korogwe and its railroad station, so to make arrangements for a ride would not be easy. I didn't have long to fret about the matter, however, because the whistle sounded, we all scrambled back to our seats, and by about 6:30 we were at last underway again. I never did see anything resembling a recent accident, but roadbed repairs were under way in several places, and we did seem to progress very slowly. We ultimately arrived in Dar some 8 hours late; the elapsed time was 24 hours, 3 minutes.

We hailed a cab and went to the Hotel Mawenzi, the mandatory overnight stand for PCVs, and were greeted by two of our colleagues, one of whom had shared a first-class compartment with a Tanzanian on a train to Dar a few days earlier; the cookies he accepted from this person were drugged, which led to his being robbed, and when he did reach Dar, to 24 hours in intensive care. They informed us that as usual the Mawenzi had neither power nor hot water and recommended that we go to another hotel under the same management and acceptable to the Peace Corps that at last report offered both amenities. So we rehired our cab and checked in there.

This unexpected change in hotels at least partially explains why, when we set out walking early the next morning to the posh area where the Embassy and PC offices are located, I made an initial wrong turn that eventually led us into trouble. The route would take us to our destination to be sure, but when I realized it would be along the shore of the bay, I would have turned back had I been alone; in fact, alone, I would have taken a taxi from the hotel in the first place. But the route along the bay is quite scenic, Martin is skilled in the martial arts, and I didn't know for certain that the shore here, so near the city, was as infested with thieves as are the more distant beaches. So we proceeded. I kept an eye on the two guys who stopped jogging on the beach, put on shoes, and kept pace with us on the other side of the road, which at this time of morning was filled with vehicles carrying their occupants to work. It was comforting to see this traffic, but I never thought for a moment that anyone would stop to offer assistance should we need it. Every few minutes I turned around to ensure that a third guy behind us kept his distance, and when he got too close, I stopped and forced him to get ahead of us.

About the time we entered a region where there were no buildings and even vehicle traffic was limited, I noticed one of the first two guys talking to a bicyclist he had stopped, so I was not surprised a little later to see two more guys approaching us from ahead. Our situation seemed a little like that of two antelopes being stalked by five wild dogs. One of these last two guys stayed back, but as the other reached my position, he tried to grab my watch with one hand and empty my pocket with the other; he got nothing, and when he turned to come back, Martin scattered the pack with a few strongly articulated and well chosen four-letter words. So that threat was averted, and we were not even a little tempted to accept a ride in the taxi that stopped for us a few minutes later. Martin was disappointed that he didn't get the chance to flatten one or two of the thugs, but when I reminded him that similar attacks on secluded beaches are carried out at knifepoint with victims losing everything including the clothes on their backs, he felt better. What really ruined our morning, however, was to reach the American Club and discover that the restaurant there was closed for a few weeks; we had really looked forward to pancakes for breakfast and hamburgers at lunch.

Discussions with the PC director in Dar confirmed what I had already suspected: the problems at Ilboru were caused mainly by the headmaster, not the teachers nor the Peace Corps. Even I was surprised, however, to learn that he had illegally and tactlessly fired and reassigned the young PCV who had been assigned to Ilboru in January; what he wrote would have resulted in a successful libel suit at home. The director and I agreed that I would leave Ilboru at the end of the term and either accept another assignment or terminate early. There the matter rests; nothing further has yet developed, and I frankly doubt that anything will. Housing remains the apparently insurmountable problem. Had the current headmaster honored the agreement made between his predecessor and the Peace Corps, the friction between us would never have developed in the first place, and my continuation here in another position also requires government-provided housing.

Only a few days remained at Ilboru before my Botswana safari, so it was a month later before I talked with a few of my fellow teachers about the headmaster. They, too, were being scorned by him; he often walked right past them without acknowledging their greetings or presence. Morale has fallen among students and staff as well. My favorite class monitor said of him, “He is not a good person.” He appears briefly on campus only in early morning and late afternoon. To be sure he is involved downtown with other officials currently assigning form-four graduates to their A-level schools, but the teachers feel he is simply ignoring his duties at Ilboru.

My only view of him for two months has been a brief glimpse as the school four-by-four plods by and now and then a better view as he races his little red pickup, sometimes with Mama along, down the hill past me to town. On these occasions I hold my ground, and he pours straight down the road, always staying on his side, hands tightly gripping the wheel, eyes straight ahead lest he look at me, and with a mien of damaged righteousness I've seen before only on a church elder who has just been bested in debate on some vital dogma of sacred scripture.

How things came to this state, no one knows–he is a respected official with twenty years experience in his position–but clearly the Peace Corps and I are not significant parts of his problem. Students remain very friendly, and classes continue to be fun, but I sense that my guys are working a little less diligently and are more than a little nervous about next year. The student organization seems strong and is effective in maintaining order and discipline. The faculty is not organized, but those who did teach regularly continue to do so; their enthusiasm has waned, however.

It's the nonteaching staff that seems most affected. The attitudes of several, particularly those most closely associated with the headmaster, are decidedly unfriendly toward me. It hardly matters since I have no official dealings with them. The real losers are the students, unhappily. If they riot or protest too strongly, they'll simply be expelled. They remain remarkably patient. On a recent Sunday evening, for example, the only key to the kitchen was inexplicably downtown in the pocket of a wayward staff member at mealtime, and the cooks could not get in to prepare their dinner. They did finally get to eat, but not until about 10:00 p.m. When I asked my students about this incident, they only laughed; they accepted it without complaint.

Meanwhile Victoria House has improved some facilities a bit but otherwise continues its steady decline. I was surprised on returning from Easter vacation to find that the toilet in my room had been repaired; it now requires only occasional intervention by me to remain functional. Power is available more of the time, and the government has announced that rationing will end completely in June. And there is hot water in the shower, but only in the morning unless I request that the heat be turned back on. I have also heard that the other side of the hotel now has hot water as well. But it's the wet season, and the hotel is empty except for Chris, a Welshman who is setting up an Arusha office for Massey-Ferguson, and me.

Local residents still visit the restaurant and frequent the bar, but in declining numbers. The owner is seldom in town, and the manager seems increasingly weary of spending long hours seven days a week for his monthly salary of $67, at today's rate of exchange. He seemed unusually eager a few nights ago when I suggested bringing my account up to date instead of waiting until I check out at month end. When I asked about drawing a check on my bank downtown, he said cash would be better. His face broke into a smile, and he shook my hand the next noon when he saw the receptionist counting out the pile of notes I had brought. It was hardly a surprise to learn a little later that my payment had enabled him and other staff members to draw their monthly salaries…ten days late. At his specific request a day or two later I made another small deposit to enable him to pay some current bills.

It is not unusual when I leave these mornings to find that not a single staff member is awake and in the office or dining room. Occasionally the guard has to awaken one to get a key so an early-departing guest, me for example, can exit the gate across the driveway. The long rains continue, but they're seldom torrential, so I regularly slip and slide up and down the hill on foot. Staff members have long since conceded they cannot get up early, so now a tray of food and a thermos of coffee are set out for me in the evening. In really bad weather I take a cab, but those rascal drivers double their price when they see an old man under an umbrella sloshing through the rain. Because of modest patronage the hotel is often out of staples–bread, Kenya pilsner, and Scotch whisky are but three of the recent victims. The evening menu is often limited to one item, typically fish fillets–pronounce the “t”. Someone laid in a vast stock of those, and they just don't sell. More and more I think I've stayed at Victoria House long enough.

Here near the mountains the air is now cool enough at night to make it comfortable again to sleep under a blanket, and the flame trees are once more coming into bloom to rival what I saw when we came to Arusha nearly one year ago. The poinsettias also, although they have been in bloom the entire time, are now looking much more vigorous and colorful in the cooler weather. Clearly, my life in Africa has come full circle.

My premedical students finally have another biology teacher, and she seems both skilled and dedicated. She is in fact the first and only teacher I've met here who is aware of the environment. It continues to shock me that not one of my 70 students has ever visited nearby Ngorongoro Crater; for them it's impossibly expensive, as indeed it is also for their teachers. On two recent occasions I've entered the classroom–she precedes me and doesn't quit early–to find the students busily and happily examining flowers they had collected themselves. One morning late last week I came early to class to present her with the yellow flower that grows in conical clusters atop so many trees in town; in general shape they remind me a little of our chestnut trees. They have provided the dominant color here during April, and I wished to learn their identity; it was my misfortune that she didn't show up that day.

Chemistry instruction has been the biggest disappointment for my students this year, but a few months ago the pre-engineers, at least, were assigned a very capable young Tanzanian whom they respect. Mathematics has always been taught well. So, if the Ministry of Education assigns a competent physics instructor for next year, as I fully expect it will, the situation will be decidedly better than it was when I arrived. That is encouraging.

I suppose any serious teacher comes to the end of the year disappointed at how little was really accomplished. I always did at home, and I certainly do now. The best of the time here was certainly the warmth of the relation between the students and me. It didn't begin that way; I had to earn their respect. The most frustrating was the system of national examinations that left the students interested only in solving problems from old papers; if a topic was not in their syllabus, they simply paid no attention to my presentation.

The most serious defect in their education, however, is the total disability to reason and think; developing these skills is simply not part of the program. One day recently, for reasons I don't remember, I asked them, “What will happen if I throw this piece of chalk in my hand vertically upward?” “Of course it will fall back down into your hand,” they responded in unison, no doubt wondering why I asked such an obvious question. “What if I throw it again, but this time while walking at a steady pace across the room?” I continued. Their responses were neither so quick nor so assured this time. “It will fall back to the floor at the place where you were standing,” they guessed. So I walked steadily, and I threw the chalk straight up, and when it fell back into my hand, they laughed and applauded; it was an unexpected result. But they did see clearly that to them the chalk moved in a parabola, while to me its motion was along a straight line. There is hope.

W. Vance Johnson

23 May 93