THE FOURTH AND FINAL TERM II

ONCE UPON A NEW MOON

It seemed a bit too early for the long rains to have begun, and after only two days of intermittent showers and cloudiness, it was probably premature to declare that they were actually upon us. Still, the weather had changed, and with it came a relaxation of my mood. My emotional state had been highly charged, partly in disappointment at having to teach double time for another term, and partly from the bittersweet experience of having another set of trainees intrude on and then desert my personal existence; twenty young kids just out of college do bring back memories, and these were especially poignant when my thoughts were so focused on resuming life in the US.

But something more was involved and I couldn’t quite identify it. I felt a yearning, or could it have been fear? Was it as simple as the wish to make an easy transition home, or was it the anticipation of coming difficulties? At Dow’s suggestion I had grabbed a copy of “Genius,” James Gleick’s biography of Richard Feynman, from the shelf of the UW Bookstore just hours before leaving Seattle, and had read it during the last few days of our hot, dry weather, often late at night or early in the morning under a mosquito net, and found it completely captivating. The descriptions of his youthful brilliance, particularly in performing mental calculations, are intensely exciting.

But what moved me most in the book were the sections dealing with the finiteness, the end of life. First, of course, was the tragic, terribly early death of his first wife, Arline, almost simultaneously with the test explosion of the atomic bomb; an event that presaged to Feynman, as it apparently did to most observers, the possible, perhaps even probable, extinction of the human race. The book’s biggest impact on me however, was the recollection it brought of those last few days in the hospital, when meaningful life is clearly over, and yet a person is forced to await a “natural” death because organized society still demands that its medieval mysticism be imposed on everyone. “I’d hate to die twice. It’s so boring.” These were his words near the end. Even after all these years, it’s hard to believe he’s really gone.

When I mentioned his name in class, I wasn’t surprised that none of my students had heard of him; their knowledge of the last one hundred years in physics is limited to the name “Einstein”–“He invented the atomic bomb,” one student volunteered–and the formula E = mc2. They also all know Avogadro’s number, that is its numerical value, but that they have no understanding of its meaning was painfully obvious last term when a form-five problem required knowledge of the mass of one oxygen molecule. “Thirty-two grams,” they responded confidently and unanimously. Kweli? I replied in real surprise and mock horror. “An ordinary letter home doesn’t have that much mass. Come on you guys, get with it.”

Somehow, they all seemed happy in the belief that 22.4 liters of an ideal gas at standard conditions of temperature and pressure contain Avogadro’s number of molecules, so we started from there. I paced off the two horizontal dimensions of the room and waved my arms at the vertical one. I calculated the volume of the room, the number of molecules in it and then their astonishingly large combined weight. Finally, I tried to convince them how absolutely crushing would be the pressure of the atmosphere around us if it were composed of such massive molecules. (Everything is scaled up nearly one septillion times, as Americans define that term.) They were impressed with my energy and vigor, but the intellectual impact proved negligible; on their tests a few weeks later, most still thought thirty-two grams was correct. So I wasn’t at all surprised a few days ago, when beginning to discuss quantitatively the equivalence of mass and energy in form six, that it was necessary to start at the beginning.

I’m not quite certain just what it was that set me off that Thursday afternoon, whether it was the book, the fact that the trainees were leaving, with none staying at Ilboru to teach form-five physics despite the most strongly worded arguments I dared voice publicly to Sharon, or that November’s car incident was approaching a possible conclusion. On returning from a short hike the previous Sunday evening I found that a copy of a letter from the PC country director in Dar to the Regional Police Commissioner in Arusha had been slipped under the front door. I was more than a little chagrined at the former’s description of me as “...an elderly gentleman” who “...found some children who guided him back to a familiar part of Arusha,” but we had never met, and as Stanley explained later, only the first of my two-page facsimile transmission had reached Arusha for forwarding to Dar; we had tried unsuccessfully for weeks to reach Dar directly. Stanley and I went together to the police station on Thursday morning, and the car was there; it had been impounded for a week. The file on the case was not, however; it had been misplaced, so we went home and returned the next morning. The car was still there, the file had been found the previous afternoon, but by morning it had disappeared again, so I filled out a form reporting my side of the incident, and we left, I am quite certain for good.

Whatever the reason, I overindulged that Thursday to a level I’ve seldom achieved before, and I charged up the hill under full sail despite the intense midafternoon heat; it was later in the evening that the weather finally broke. About midnight, and again a few hours later, I paid the price for my excess and, in a manner of speaking, laid the basis for a mandatory thorough house cleaning. It is likely the last “spring cleaning” I’ll give the place, but whoever follows me here will nonetheless find far better conditions than I did, either time.

On Friday afternoon I was visited by my then current safari arranger to see if I still wanted to go on the next day’s planned circumnavigation of Mt. Meru. There were many reasons not to: the weather, my less than robust physical state, and the fact that he had not worked out to be too great an organizer. But I assented, thinking it would be good to get out of the house, and I could use the car to run a few errands downtown beforehand.

It worked out quite well. Neither the guide nor the driver had the vaguest idea of what road we should take, and despite the fact that this was the fifth day I had hired a car and driver from them, they just couldn’t quite believe that my objective was to look at birds, plants, animals, and landforms, and I had no interest in arriving some place in time for lunch, particularly not Momela Lodge. But they persisted. So while they queried a fair fraction of the local Maasai population on the whereabouts of the Lodge, obtaining many conflicting opinions, I studied the roadside bird life. It was varied and difficult to figure out, but the next morning at home, alternating field-guide study and spring-cleaning, I did reach some reasonable conclusions.

Among the less common, to me, raptors that I could identify were three greater kestrels, a brown harrier eagle–snake eagle in the south–and a gray falcon. We all agreed that a bird we had trouble getting close to was an osprey, although it didn’t seem to be in proper habitat, but then neither was the lesser flamingo standing desolately alone in the middle of the desert. The two mainly white birds flying low over the ground were definitely black-shouldered kites, not pallid harriers as I hoped they might be.

But it’s the little birds on the ground that are so hard to identify, and on this morning they were popping up and down all over the place. I’ll never know for certain, but I venture to say the two most prevalent were the Northern white-tailed lark and the desert cisticola. And the plover I’d never seen before just had to be a European visitor, the ringed plover. Shrikes were a problem too. One I swear I know from many observations in the south just doesn’t occur here. But the rosy-patched shrike is a certainty, and I’ll give odds that the other new one to me is the black-fronted bush shrike.

In the weeks since my return, quite a few birds had ventured to Ilboru, and I was particularly excited to see a gray-headed kingfisher–chestnut-bellied in the south– essentially take up residence beside the neighborhood garden patch in my front yard. He was there for an hour or two each morning and evening, greedily gobbling down wriggling worms from the newly spaded part of the plot, and apparently not too disturbed by the human traffic. On this past Friday evening, just before leaving for dinner, I saw him in full flight, about one-half meter ahead of a pursuing fiscal shrike. When they came around for the second and final time, the margin had been halved, and I despaired of seeing him again. But, happily, on Sunday there he was, so I guess the shrike was after his food, not him.

The Scandinavian aid organizations are the most visible contributors of assistance here, and they also provide their volunteers with vehicles and plenty of money, to mention only the most obvious benefits. My colleague, Martin, is always going off on some marvelous safari with a beautiful young Swede or Norwegian. The Danish group, DANIDA, has an ongoing objective of refurbishing schools, and I had been promised from the day of my arrival at Ilboru that “very soon” they would repair and repaint my house interior. Well, they finally came, but only to replace roofs, channeled metal, on a few of the oldest houses; happily mine is too new to be attacked.

Their arrival at the neighboring house produced two major “successes”: the kingfisher was frightened away, permanently, and the neighbor’s old roof was removed the afternoon before the deluge that spectacularly ended a ten-day dry spell. I lay awake half the night–there was much lightning and thunder–wondering how my friends could survive. They did by staying awake all night and swimming for their lives. Despite facing several more days of roof installation, drying of furnishings, and replacement of ruined ceiling plasterboard, they emerged next morning drenched but smiling. What amazingly good-natured people they are. Had they realized then that nearly a month would pass before everything was restored to normal, perhaps they would have permitted slight frowns to furrow their brows.

Students have complained constantly about the low quality of their food and several times have protested by refusing to eat a meal. This had last happened an evening or two before the most recent trainees finished their work at Ilboru. As usual I knew nothing about it while it was happening and only discovered the incident late the next afternoon when I went down the hill to hold class and instead found the students congregated in the shade of the huge jacaranda tree standing between the parade ground and the small stream that bisects the campus; they were being addressed by the second master. I found one of my form-six students, Genes, standing on the edge of the crowd, and I asked him, “How long will this go on?” “I think only ten more minutes, sir.” I was skeptical, but I did wait twice that long before giving up and going off to the Lodge for dinner.

The early problem had always been a lack of sugar for their porridge, but when I talked with them seriously the next morning, I learned that now they were dissatisfied with how few beans they were given to enliven their bland ugali, the maize porridge that is the staple of life here. The problem, basically, is that the continuing drought has driven up the cost of beans by a factor of four, and the government is sending less, rather than more, money to its schools. The students see the headmaster driving his little red pickup full of materials for the residence he’s building, and they are persuaded he is diverting school funds to personal use. It could be true; some faculty members also believe this. A major factor in the school’s various difficulties, I think, is the headmaster’s autocratic style; he simply passes down regulations for the second master to enforce. It is just not in his nature to sit down with either faculty or student leaders, discuss a problem, find a compromise, and then negotiate a consensus to support it.

The next morning my students were very optimistic about the outcome of their discussions. I still don’t understand why, but they felt they were now in charge. “This time the headmaster has to do what we want; he has no choice,” my favorite class monitor told me. Things did quiet down, and my main activities during the next few weeks were teaching and beginning to think about what to do during the Easter recess. And then one day I suddenly wondered if I had ever succeeded in teaching all forty-two periods now on my timetable in any one week. It seemed likely that some interruption had always prevented this, so during the first full week of March, I began keeping score. The first ten periods on Monday went well and were followed by the next ten on Tuesday; by Wednesday evening eight more were done, and my scorecard read twenty-eight in a row.

Mary stopped by the Lodge for a drink that night, and after bragging about my achievement, I learned her time for driving to town the next day and also verified that there would be room for me in the vehicle they were taking to the Serengeti Friday morning; she insists that her volunteers restrict their work to four-day weeks. The end of Ramadan was near, and we were all speculating just when the two-day holiday would occur. The dominant branch of Islam in Tanzania, Sunni I think, uses the traditional visual sighting of the new moon to establish feast days and religious holidays, and by my reckoning the new moon would be only nine hours old at sunset Saturday; thus I was hoping for a Sunday sighting and a two-day respite from teaching. Any of the faithful can make this observation, but it must be reported to a particular official who has authority to set the dates, or at least so I was told by one of my Muslim students. It is not uncommon to learn this decision by radio news the following morning, as happened the second time I was in Dar, about a year ago.

That evening Mary returned to her place to eat, but I stayed on at the Lodge for a leisurely dinner alone; except on weekends, or when she joins me, I’m the sole diner. It was after nine when I left for my place. As I approached the school it was surprising to see that no lights were on, either in the dormitories or in the two Wazungu houses across the road. With other more serious matters to ponder, I let that observation go and walked on up the hill; the lights were on in my neighborhood. Next morning everything seemed normal, and four more class periods were reeled off before tea break. During the next one, however, the thirty-third in succession, the assembly signal was sounded, not just a few times as is done to indicate the hours for arising, eating, going to class, etc., but over and over again. “Is this some kind of emergency?” I asked. The students quietly nodded their assent. “Will you be assembling on the parade ground?” “Yes.” I opened the doors, looked out, and saw that a few of the students were already there. “Finish copying this problem before you leave,” I suggested, and after answering a few questions, I too went outside.

It takes some time for about eight hundred energetic, fun-loving young men to get in place, and once there they were ordered by the TOD to stand in alphabetical order, stream by stream; then they were directed to sit on the ground. Finally satisfied, the teacher in charge began reading a list of names, and one by one the boys so selected moved off into the shade of the school’s main building; it was clear they were being absolved of blame for something. But what had happened, I wondered. “Didn’t you hear the ruckus last night?” one of my students asked. “No, I was elsewhere in the neighborhood.” “Well,” one of my teacher friends explained, “this time when the boys got angry about their food, some lost control, stormed up the hill, and attacked the headmaster’s house. He was away, but the rest of the family fled in panic, windows were broken, and his pickup was damaged.” It still strikes me as odd that some teachers went around identifying students who were not involved, like those participating in a full-voiced, multi-tongued, high-volume, Pentecostal service in the school chapel, to summarize the descriptions from my friends who live next door, rather than trying to calm the students who were rioting. It does explain how some of the innocent could so readily be identified, however.

The first estimate I heard of possible consequences to follow was that as many as 500 students could be expelled; this seemed to me a ludicrously high percentage of the total enrollment. This guess was reduced to 150 by a more experienced teacher, who also thought that no form-six students and only a few from form five were involved. He and another teacher I trust were convinced there would be no more classes until after the Muslim holidays. So, convinced that my string of consecutive successes had ended with none out in the thirty-third inning, I decided to join my Lutheran friends for a few days to investigate the state of the Serengeti during the height of the annual migration.

Pastures there were certainly greener and more peaceful than at Ilboru. The valleys around Lakes Ndutu and Masek were literally choked with animals; it was easy to believe that wildebeests numbered into the hundreds of thousands and zebras only an order of magnitude fewer. Many very young animals were to be seen since the calving seasons had just ended. I was particularly pleased with the large flocks of Abdim’s and European white storks, migratory fowl I had never seen before in such large numbers. There were many hyenas and quite a few jackals about but not much else. From time to time my enjoyment of the awesome vastness of the entire spectacle was interrupted by thoughts of what injustices might be in progress at Ilboru, but I dismissed those as quickly as I could.

Ndutu Lodge has definitely slipped further in quality and will not regain its former greatness until new strong management is found; camp out or try the Sopa Lodge near Seronera. Gibb’s Farm, where my friends left me for three days of joyous living, was never better. I spent one day driving the length and breadth of Lake Manyara National Park, which remained very hot and dusty, but was not quite so overflowing with tsetse flies as the first time. Very few new birds were to be seen, despite the good volume of water in the lake toward the end of the migratory water fowl season, but I was excited by the drive along the edge of the Rift itself to Maji Moto, hot springs toward the south end of the lake, from where the view past its lichen-colored rocks, over numerous flamingos, and on across the lake was memorable. Back near the entrance the ground-water forest filled with blue monkeys was at least as much fun as before, and I was stunned to see an “antelope” I couldn’t identify, even after consulting the mammals field guide; surely it must be a bushbuck, but its puzzling markings add yet another problem to a steadily lengthening list to be resolved at home beside the fireplace. After two years on the equator, a real winter should prove delightful, but one may well be quite enough.

Ilboru seemed peaceful the Wednesday I returned, and students were now at least permitted to go to their classrooms to study, but no teachers were assisting them with their work. The previous day forty-six students had been expelled and sent to town, but my boys claimed, “Oh, they’ll be back, they’re talking with the Regional Commissioner.” And sure enough, two mornings later, back up the hill they came. Two policemen stood sleepily in front of the school’s main building, but they weren’t about to do anything, and whatever investigation had been conducted was unproductive. The School Board met at week’s end and passed down two decisions: thirteen students were suspended for forty-five days; and each student on campus, whether innocent or guilty, is to pay one-thousand shillings, about two dollars, to help repair the damage. The latter seems a most unfair decision, since those who might have reasoned and worked with the students during the previous three-and-one-half terms to prevent such an outrage, the teachers, staff, and particularly the headmaster, did nothing and yet will pay no fine.

I happened to see the headmaster near midday on Friday, and after commiserating with him in regard to the troubles, I asked if I might resume giving classes on Monday. Only eight class days remained until the Easter recess, which, combined with the Peace Corps completion-of-service conference–on Zanzibar, yet!–would result in losing at least another eight days. He said I was free to go ahead, but he doubted that my Tanzanian counterparts would. “They are upset with the boys’ betrayal of their confidence.” He did seem surprised, however, that the one class monitor I had asked on the previous day if I should resume teaching then and there, had responded, after some serious thought, “No sir, I don’t think that would be right.”

Many impressions and sensations filtered through the classroom activities of those last eight days. I was shocked and angered to learn that Mr. Kimaro was charging “tuitions” for the laboratory exercises he had not given during scheduled practical periods. What brazen behavior by the triple disaster; may God forgive me for restricting my notice of him to a perfunctory return of his greeting when we pass. On the other hand I was quite pleased with my classes that last Wednesday, even if the subjects, thermodynamics and the magnetic properties of materials, are hardly the most exciting topics in the lexicon of physics. The feeling that these could very well be my last presentations in a formal classroom was quite strong. And I continued to be both intrigued and puzzled by the damage done to the door of the headmaster’s office; someone had burned it the Saturday evening following the riot. The students were confined to their quarters then, and it seems unlikely to me that they could have cut a hole in its bottom and then ignited it, which is what the evidence I saw suggested. The school board agreed and speculated that either a school staff member or an outsider was responsible. It remains an intriguing mystery.

It could well have been two months ago that Efrem approached me after class and inquired about my plans for going home. After I told him my likely schedule, he explained that he was preparing a “traditional gift” that he wished to be certain I received; after thanking him, I forgot about it. A few weeks ago he and a colleague followed me out of class, and he gave me a photo of myself hungrily wolfing down a traditional lunch our cooks had prepared at Seronera during the November safari. I was very pleased with that reminder of a happy event, but his earlier mention of a gift remained forgotten. A few days ago, when he asked for an appointment, I thought that he, as several other students had already done, would ask for money to pay the fine, practical tuitions, or, more appropriately, the bus fare home. But no, he reached into the bag he was carrying, extracted a mug, and handed it to me. It is made of calabash, I think, and its decoration centers on the figure of a bird; he knew I would be particularly pleased with that. His eyes moistened a little as he handed me the second, matching mug and said, “I never expected in my entire life to be able to visit those parks.”

This was not the first time I had realized how relatively unimportant is a teacher’s role as a transmitter of knowledge or even as an instrument in encouraging a less mature mind to begin thinking and learning individually. The greater role must surely be in helping others gain an enlarged perspective of life itself. Certainly few teachers in two years will have much impact on the system within which they work. I didn’t affect the system at home very much in three decades, and I hadn’t expected to change anything here. But it is satisfying, and very flattering really, to receive concrete evidence that at least a few of these young men are glad I came, whether as teacher or as friend hardly matters.

I still don’t know when the crescent moon was first sighted, and since classes were suspended then it hardly matters, but I’ll always value the legend on those two mugs: “Thank you, Prof. Vance.”

W. Vance Johnson

30 Mar 94