FIRST IMPRESSIONS VI

RETROSPECT

What first caught my eye when I arrived in Arusha, nearly half a year ago now, were the many poinsettias in bloom everywhere; it was a bit later, although I may just have overlooked them at first, that I noticed the beautiful Nanda flame trees also distributed throughout the town. African pied wagtails, fiscal shrikes, pied crows, and some very large hornbills dominated the skies by day, and at night the Southern Cross, Scorpius, and Sagittarius blazed brilliantly in the south just after sunset.

But the dominant fact of life then was the chilly misty weather in which I walked to training classes every morning except Sunday–the weather didn't change; there were just no classes. After four hours of outdoor Kiswahili indoctrination, not only the brain, but also the entire body was numb. Ten weeks later, when training in Arusha was finally over, the flame trees were really dominant; the poinsettias were generally becoming faded and wilted, although in sheltered garden corners, some were still thriving.

One month later still, after finishing training in Dar and surviving a superb Serengeti safari, I was impressed with the changes in Arusha, but also with the similarities. The water supply was off more often than it was on, but that had been true ever since arrival. The electrical power outages, however, which at first had been so infrequent as to be novel–showers by candlelight are not all that typical at home, at least not for me–now became the controlling factor of life after sunset. I usually retired very early on powerless nights, with the hall light switch on, and when and if the returning illumination awakened me, I arose and read until it was suddenly dark again. Here near the equator, the nights are invariably nearly twelve hours long.

But there were significant differences when I returned in October. The luminous red-orange of the flame tree had mostly been replaced by the monochromatic purple of the jacaranda, a color well matched to the increasingly gray backdrop of the sky. And although the daytime temperature often seemed hot in this local springtime, the early mornings were surprisingly cold. I often regretted not having brought lightweight long-sleeved shirts; my light shirts have short sleeves, and the long sleeves hang from heavy shirts. Occasionally, as now, I wear one atop the other. It was not unusual, particularly after a warm afternoon, to have an evening breeze that brought the jacaranda blossoms down in swirls of fragrance. The local youngsters tried to catch them in flight, but being inexperienced in the realities of relative velocities, they seldom succeeded. The morning walk to work was literally paved in purple. The biggest change of all, of course, was that I now lived in my own house, which gave me some independence and eliminated the daily necessity of a roundtrip walk between Arusha and Ilboru.

By the end of the month the short rains had begun, a bit early according to Peter and a few others I trust, but here in this continent of uncertainty, if anything is unpredictable, surely it's the weather. I didn't notice the exact starting day, but there was no doubt of the changed pattern. I presume they are called “short” because the rain comes in showers of rather short duration, but make no mistake, the rainfall is heavy. It pays to get home early in the afternoon, as I first learned after an overly long hike on the slopes of Mt. Kenya a half-dozen years ago. It often rains at night, and as I lie in bed I can hear, almost feel, the mass of wet air rushing closer and closer down the mountainside, and then suddenly, almost explosively, the water begins to pour down on the metal roof of my house, making enough noise to drown out the radio. Not infrequently the following morning is crisply cool and clear, and the jacaranda blossoms somehow have survived. Flowering periods here have an amazing longevity. It is also quite common now to see light snowfall at the top of Mt. Meru, but it is usually gone by noon. Because of the cloudy skies I seldom see the stars, but to the east, which is my dominant view, I have noticed Orion low in the sky in the early evenings. And the birds, well enough has been said already about them.

But sightseeing is not what brought me here, although it in particular has made my stay really pleasurable. To teach was the objective, and I have enjoyed assisting my 71 charges make a little progress in their study of physics. It is only natural for me to compare this current assignment to my past work, and in so doing I focus on five areas. The first is both the most obvious and the most disappointing: the philosophies of education in the two countries are diametrically opposite. The emphasis at home, particularly in science education, is on developing understanding of concepts and the ability to use them; the focus is the individual student and what is going on in that person's mind. Here the emphasis is on memorization, and the focus is the national examination; what impresses the students most is a teacher's willingness to solve the many problems they have collected from previous national examinations.

The second difference is the curriculum and the textbooks that support it. Here they both come from the UK and fit well with the ambient philosophy; I suspect this philosophy was imported from the UK with the curriculum and books. By my standards the curriculum is very dated, and the books present formulas with no serious attempts, or at least no successful ones, to develop understanding. And, as I've remarked many times before, the educational structure, or administration, here is totally alien to US practices. Teaching a subject is the least important function of a teacher. Maintaining discipline, supervising self-reliance tasks–tending gardens being the most obvious example–checking for clean collars and polished shoes, and just exercising authority for no apparent reason come ahead of class work. The headmaster gets quite serious about the need for teachers to take roll–twice a day according to the Kiswahili forms I was given–but I have yet to hear a single word from him about all the classes teachers skip.

The fourth problem is the one that I think will be most difficult to overcome even if a change in educational objectives is agreed to and funds are found for implementation, neither of which is likely in my opinion. It is the fact that secondary education here is conducted in English, and primary education is conducted in Kiswahili. English is studied during the early years, but the transition from standard seven to form one, in which all instruction is to be in English, is a difficult one. I have heard Kiswahili used in A-level classrooms, although this is strictly forbidden, and almost every discussion outside of class, including those of teachers, is in Kiswahili. Students, and teachers for that matter, simply don't work hard enough at their second language to make it a reliable vehicle for instruction.

The last problem, that of inadequate financing, is of course serious in the US also, but here it is much worse. Let me illustrate with two remarks by the headmaster. The first time he visited one of my classes he took advantage of my pausing to erase the blackboard to describe for the students one part of the new curriculum now being considered for secondary science students. In the first two years they would learn to use electronic calculators, in the middle two they would use computers much as I am doing now, and in the last two they would study various computer languages. “The only question,” the headmaster concluded, “is who will pay for all this?” It was about two weeks later that he told the faculty, and then the students, that he didn't have funds for postage to mail out term-end reports, essentially grades, to their parents; if they wanted this done, they would have to provide the stamps. And a few days later I was given 23 envelopes to distribute to my form class. Domestic postage is 20 Tanzanian shillings, about a US nickel, and with 852 students involved, that is a total of not much over $40 US.

As I write this, it is only one day before Thanksgiving, and it's very hard not to think of that lovely bed and breakfast establishment in San Francisco where so often in recent years I have spent the previous weekend, taking in an opera or two, enjoying some fabulous restaurants, and then floating down to the Salinas area to share marvelous wines, excellent foods, and outstanding fellowship with quite a number of my very best friends. My feelings are greatly improved in anticipation of a very pleasant day to be spent with the Jacksons, however; I rather expect it will be the first Tanzanian Thanksgiving festival for each of the four of us, the parents, their son Paul, and me. This year that is the day on which most of Ilboru's students will be leaving for their vacations, not to return for more classes until January 18. Those that remain include my 71 students, their 62 form-six counterparts, and a few who stay on between terms to do various jobs and protect the property. If I leave on a trip, I plan to store all my stuff downtown. The science-math students are remaining an extra week and a half to be practiced upon by the recently arrived batch of PC trainees, 23 of whom are expected to teach math or science. That neither the Tanzanian Ministry of Education nor the US Peace Corps could be bothered to check school calendars and learn that no students would be here on December 15, which was the starting date on their original eleven-page schedule of events, amazes but does not surprise me; we all saw it coming from the vantage point of our own program last summer and rather wondered what would happen. Now at least I know.

They arrived yesterday afternoon for their first visit, the main objectives being for them to meet and talk with their counterparts here and to observe some typical lectures. To make matters a bit less typical, it has been decided that classes will convene between 2:00 and 5:00, which they never do during the term, and that the students will be reassigned temporarily into eight groups, instead of the usual five. To schedule all this is quite an achievement, and I congratulate my two good friends and competent colleagues in the math department for their work. I was supposed to teach my own students yesterday in their three separate classrooms, working from 3:00 to 6:00, but I knew better than to take that assignment as a serious threat, so I lurked in the shadows and let my colleagues do their thing. Sure enough, they were so excited to show off in front of these young Americans that they more than filled the available time, and I was delighted just to chat, frankly and honestly, with the four prospective physics teachers in the group. It was sad to hear that little had been done to improve their training program, and they were just as disappointed as we had been. Later, their director gave a much more positive evaluation of changes made in the Kiswahili program. As best I understand it, between now and December 4, I will observe two of them conduct five classes each and give two of my own.

Several of you have asked or commented in recent letters about my health, about the parts of my life at home that I miss most, and if there is anything I would like sent here. But it was a question from a Bayreuth Ring Cycle friend that helped focus what I have been thinking and feeling since arriving: “Do you find that Africa is changing your thinking and viewpoint on certain things?” The short answer is certainly “yes,” but in a way totally different from what I expected, and I will guess that my long answer may surprise most of you. Before moving on to that, however, let me comment that my health is fine, and all that I really would like from home are items such as clippings from newspapers, copies of magazine articles, and of course more personal letters.

I volunteered for the Peace Corps fully expecting the experience to change my life completely and halfway anticipating that at its conclusion I would become a vagabond, spending as much time traveling as possible, and returning to my home base only for occasional visits. This could still happen, but almost immediately after arriving I realized that the Africa of my imagination, at least in this Arusha setting, does not exist. Christianity, commercialism, and contemporary world values have long since subverted the indigenous culture in which I had fancied becoming immersed. And in my visits to other cities and game parks–the latter certainly are remnants of the real Africa–I have enjoyed acting and being treated more like a British colonial in Kenya than a participant in a Tanzanian community. It is clear now that any expansion of my social contacts will be with the Europeans and Americans who live and work nearby.

On the other hand I have found teaching to be much the same as it was at home. Productive discussions with students here are even more exciting than in the US, probably because they occur less frequently and also because of the cultural gap to be bridged. The boring parts of teaching, however, testing, grading, and form filling, are even more stultifying here because of their number and incredible variety. So I find myself in about the same place I was a few years ago, looking forward to finishing a teaching assignment and resuming a life of reading, opera, travel, wine, friends, and anything else exciting the future holds. Whether this implies the world is becoming more uniform and thus less interesting or simply that I may have wandered enough recently, I don't know. Could I really have come this far only to learn I was already happy at home? Maybe so. But no problem, I'll continue taking the best advantage I can of being here, and if our embassy in Nairobi, unlike the one in Dar es Salaam, has a consular clerk who has heard of Social Security retirement benefits, I might even manage another safari or two with Peter.

With all best wishes for the holidays in general and especially for the New Year,

W. Vance Johnson

25 Nov 92