School

People who have seen my facebook page,have seen large classes in Tanzania. More than 70 children in a classroom is no problem (actually almost the norm) and even 200 children is normal.

This explains why education sometimes leaves a bit to be desired, because how can you teach 200 children at a time?

You have no option than to stand before the class and make sure that everyone keeps his mouth shut, does not ask questions and just let them write down what you as a teacher write on the board. 

To make sure they listen you have a big stick which you are not afraid to use.

Also the salary is not very good. Teachers here participate in a "silent" strike by regularly not being in the classroom. They are either in the teachers room, or not at school at all, they sign the attendance register and leave again.

But this strike only hurts the children, not the one who has to pay their salaries. 

As a result of this children often fall between the cracks. Also the system here is such that you automatically every year go to the next class. So it is possible to do your final examinations while you are not able to read or write properly.

We have children in our center, especially from the first and second class, who show us what they have done in school that day. All their work is marked as great. But, if for example, you ask them a simple math question or ask them what they have written down in their notebooks, they do not know.

Therefore, we have an education center at our center and we give tuition. Also at our temporary shelter we give informal education, so that when the children go back home they will not be too far behind in their schooling. 

For our boys there is the added problem of being a street child with various trauma's, having been out of school for some time (some have never been to school) and often being older than their class mates.

For Upendo Daima is education one of the pillars of the work. We now want to try to start our own school, where children can go through primary school at a quicker pace and where we can guide them much better. So a challenging time for us in terms of work.

Street children

Some people might wonder why there are so many street children in a town like Mwanza

Some argue that it is caused by White people wanting to do good and establishing orphanages etc, which results in parents sending their children there.

I think the answer is a bit more complicated than this.

Yes there are more street children in Mwanza than in a small place. But that is because in Mwanza they have a chance to survive, in a small place that would be much more difficult.

Also the world is getting smaller because of modern communications. You can see people running with a mobile phone and smartphones. 

But it has also caused problems. People get better education and have higher expectations than their parents, not only because of their schooling but also by what they see on TV and the internet. They do not want to work on the field and live in a house with no running water and no electricity. No, they want to go the city and find a job as a manager. However, these jobs are not up for grabs. 

As a result areas around the cities come into being where living conditions are possibly even worse than in rural areas, because in the rural areas at least you can grow your own food. And unemployment, especially among young people is very high. 

This in turn contributes to the problem of street children. Children who grow up in the suburbs (and that is not a good word in Tanzania) run away faster to find something better. And girls may be tempted to choose a sugar daddy, after which they are left with an unwanted pregnancy. This child is then often left with the grandparents in the country, but the chances are that it runs away to the city at some point, if only to find his mother.

Also values in society are changing, where before people where part of an extended family and everybody took care of everybody, this is now breaking up. People become more individualistic and do not want to care for the nephew, cousin, etc. Also single parent households are becoming the norm. This results in many households that are not making enough money to care for the children, and people still want many children as they are the social security network for your old age. And what we also see is that when a single parent finds a new partner, this new partner often does not care for the children of the previous partner.

In short, there are many problems playing a role and it will require combined efforts to address the issues.

Lousy jobs

Below my list of lousy jobs to be found in Mwanza (for some mysterious reason the photo's are on top)

No. 1: scavenger in Mwanza
These ladies (and occasionally a man) sweep the asphalt roads in Mwanza. While doing so the traffic rages past, just missing them. They breathe the exhaust gases and fine dust , and they stand in the burning sun.
The good news is that they will always have work, because the side roads are all sand (so there is plenty of sand blowing onto the asphalt road) and a correct waste disposal they do not have (so clutter always ends on the road). As the asphalt roads are generally in the lower parts of Mwanza , all the garbage will comes with the rain.

No. 2 : Conducteur in Daladala
These guys (and one woman as far as I seen it) , stand / crouch the whole day in the daladala .
If they are lucky (or unlucky, depending on how you look at it , because it means one less paying passenger) they can sit down.
Most of the time they hang half outside the bus to see if there is a new passengers along the road. In between, they should try to find a place for themselves in the crowded Daladala (this usually involves squatting in the entrance) or they wriggle through the crowd to collect money for the ride.

No. 3 : porter
There are two kinds of porters, the one carrying a heavy load on their head / spine (mainly near the market where the stalls are to be stocked, they carry than bags of more than 70 kilograms) , and the one who have a pushcart / bicycle on which they transport cargo (the cars / bikes are loaded and , as already written earlier, Mwanza consists of many hills). It's hard work and labor laws do not exist here apparently.
The good news, with the way that Mwanza was built and the money their customers have to spend, they will always have work.





There is also a fourth "job" that I should mention. However, it is not really a job, namely that of street child. The children have to beg, steal, do chores for other, etc to try and earn their living. Many people are not friendly to them, they must be on their guard for the police and the retailers who chase them away of arrest them, they should watch out for older street boys and adults who abuse them, they are never sure whether that day they will have something to eat, they must wash in the lake which is infected by bilharzia, they do not have health care, and in all weather they sleep outdoors or in a doorway. 

Unfortunately children who are already living on the streets for a long time can not get used to living in the comfort of a family relationship anymore, and there are also children who are born on the street and who do not know better. 

Upendo Daima and other organizations, try to help these children, but it sometimes feel like carrying water to the sea. Due to the economic situation and the disintegration of families new children keep on ending up on the street. For more information, see our website or our Facebook page www.upendodaima.nl  and  www.facebook.com/upendodaimastraatkinderen

Living conditions

Perhaps you are curious as to how I actually live. 

Well, actually quite luxurious. 

I live on a compound which includes the house my landlady, two other houses and a Duka (shop). 

My landlady has a reasonable sized house and lives there with several family members (this varies somewhat, so who is actually living there?). 

In the other house there are three bedrooms, in two of them live a family and in one a student. These people cook outside on a charcoal fire in the backyard and they have a shower / toilet block in the back garden. Next to the Duka is a small room and two students share that room, they also cook outside and use the shower / toilet block. 

I live in the other house and have my own bathroom in the house and I installed a kitchen, as i was not very keen on cooking outside on a charcoal stove. My home consists of a kitchen, a bedroom, a bathroom and a living room, and all of that on 32m2. 

The great thing about my house is that I never have to clean the windows, because there is no glass in it. Of course this does mean that I have to sweep more because of the dust blowing inside. 

The luxury is in the fact that I have indoor plumbing. And also we have electricity (as Tanesco, the electricity company, works).

Compared to how many people, even here in the city live, this is a luxury. 

A few doors down , they have no electricity and no water. In large parts of the countryside there is also no water or electricity. 

Here in the city, there are at least the lake and several stand pipes or pumps where one can get water. In the country I have seen that people depend on, for example, a river . In the dry season this means that a hole has to be dug in the riverbed in the hope that you can find water. You then have to use a small cup to fill up a jerrycan. 

Nowadays, the water is running low and this can be a major problem . Also for the country as a whole. The fields dried up, the price of food goes up and people will be really hungry if there is not quickly a substantial amount of rain.

Time in Africa

Here in Africa the perception of time is very different. 

It starts with the clock (6 hour time difference). 

So when someone says, we will meet saa tatu (3 hours) he means 9 o'clock in European time. 

So it is important to know if we are talking about Swahili time or European time, because you might still too early or too late. 

Although, being late does not really exist in Tanzania, frankly it amazes me that they have a word for it (nimechelewa = I'm late). 

Partly, I have adapted very well. 

On Sunday the church starts at 9 o'clock in the morning starts (European time) and I have to walk about 10-15. So I leave my house at 9 am because I know I'm still well in time. Too bad for me if Janusz doing the service, because he is usually on time. 

But otherwise, I still have some trouble with it. For example you ask a handyman to come over and he says he will be there at 10am. 99% chance that he is not there, so at 11 o'clock I'm going to call him, and then he says "ninakuja" (= I'm coming). Against my better judgment I think he really is coming, but this is not always the case. If he arrives at 1 or 2pm, it is fine with him, he is there anyway so what's the problem! (Now I maybe exaggerating a bit, because some people really come in time, but this is just to give an idea.)

Now it's not always the fault of the person who comes . For example, you leave on time and run into someone with whom you just need to have a chat ( just to say hello and walk on does not really belong in this culture, at the very least you should be informing as to the health of the person and the family , work, etc). Also Daladala's do not run on time , so you just have wait ( and because there is always one more who can fit , elastic vans here , that waiting can take quite some time) . 

Or rather to conclude this piece , the most important lesson you have to learn here is, we have the clock, they have the time.

Mosquitoes and education

As previously written, education in Tanzania is often poor. 

Regularly teachers are not in class, the classes have 70 to 100 pupils and perhaps two books. It's almost a miracle that so many children manage to pass their exam. 

Then high school is entirely in English (and believe me, most of the children do not speak English after finishing primary school other than "good morning" (all day and) "we are fine") and the books are very difficult (I did not get half of it and I did university). 

So they often learn the answers by heart, they learn what answer goes with what question. 

So in  short, education is not something to write home about (although I am doing it now, so perhaps another saying is required). 

But now you are probably wondering about the title, what do mosquitoes have to do with education? 

Let me explain. Their education is also poor. 

Lesson 1: mosquitoes stabbing at dusk 

Unfortunately most do not seem to have paid any attention in class, so they stabbing during the day also

Lesson 2: Mosquitoes love dark blue and black 

But I am white (demonstrated by how often I am called Mzungu (white person)), I wear bright colors and long pants / skirts and use mosquito repellent (unless my Swahili is so bad that it actually states on the bottle that it is a mosquito afrodisiac) and I will still be bitten. Current record 22 bites in 45 minutes. After that I fled to bed with a mosquito net. I saw green (not with envy but of the colgate toothpaste I put on the mosquito bites to stop them itching). 

Lesson 3: Mosquitoes do not like mosquito repellent

See above, they keep coming. 

So I have to admit, you cannot win from the mosquitoes here.

Man-Woman

The relationship between men and women is here the same as in the rest of the world, women do most of the work and bear the heaviest burden.

Thus, for example, you can see a couple that has gone together to the shamba (their field). The mother is carrying a child on her back, a large bunch of firewood on her head, the hoe on top of the firewood and the man walks slowly behind her.

You also often whole groups of men sit somewhere, mostly coffee drinking. I once asked the daladala driver why they were there. Well that taught me, a big discussion started. According to the driver, because they are too lazy to work. According to the man next to me because there are no jobs. After a heated discussion the driver won and the passenger had to admit that there is work (however not necessarily what one would like to do).

What is striking is that you do not see women just sitting around. When you see women sit, they usually have a small Biashara (little business), they sell for example tomatoes or bananas or peanuts, etc.

One-parent families (read "where women are on their own") are also quite common here. And in many cases the father is really the great absentee, the woman can figure it out herself. (There are of course exceptions, I know men who then might not live with the mother of their children but will have to ensure financially.)

But the funniest thing I've seen so far happen in the man-woman is the laundry. If you wash by hand (so pretty much everyone) than the man is washing his own clothes and the woman her own clothes. Can we call this emancipation? (It might be hard to see, but behind the tree is my male neighbor is doing his washing, while in the foreground the female neighbor is doing hers)

work

Perhaps some of you are wondering what exactly I'm doing here. Because until now there I have not written much about my work. You know that I work with street children, but further than that ...




Well, this is quite difficult to describe my work in a few words. I think the best description is that I stick my nose in everywhere. People who know me well will have no problem to believe this.

When I started the job was very simple and consisted of two parts: help where you can assist and help the organization to get to the next level, professional.

I started with some administrative support work for the management, tutoring to children and playing with the children.The first and last were not such problem, but teaching! I learned at least that I'm not cut out for teacher. Individual tutoring goes quite well, but in groups, a disaster. Of course it did not help that I barely spoke the language.




Slowly but surely my role is changing into a more administrative/ support role. So I am now the information officer, which means I started posting on the face book site and must try to contribute information to the website, which is maintained in the Netherlands. I am also the monitoring and evaluation officer. This means that I actually have a right to stick my nose in everywhere. For this, I need to write different policies, plans and reports and check that people do what they are supposed to
do and whether the filing and reports are correct. In the event that this is not the case, I need to take action. Interesting work, especially since as far as this is concerned there is a big difference in the culture between Tanzania and the Netherlands. In Tanzania there is oral culture. Donors and professionalism ask for work according to a Western culture; in other words, paperwork. To
bring these two cultures together is occasionally quite challenging. And I also help with fundraising.
Because I do not want to do just office work (then I could as well have stayed in the Netherlands) I still do playing time with the children and I am responsible for the library. This change between jobs keeps the work fun.

I have deliberately chosen to not really be looking into the background of our children. My language skills are insufficient and the kids already have counselors dealing with their problems. I just want to treat children as children, because in the end that is what they are, just kids. 

For you guys to have some idea of ​​the background of our kids: mostly one-parent families, corporal punishment is widely accepted in this society, there is a lot of poverty so that a child cannot go to school but must somehow earn some money, if the single parent finds a new partner he/she is often unwilling to care for the children of a previous partner. Also, we deal with children whose parents /
guardians are deceased, whose guardians are drunk, living with 10 men in a room, etc. (in the picture is the grandfather of a boy who we have successfully reintegrated)




But we also have children who ran away because they have stolen money or other goods, they have poor school results, they have not complied with agreements and who are afraid of the punishment they can expect.

And street children have to deal with the stigmatization and abuse by the people at large, the police, other children. As a result, children learn that adults cannot be trusted. The street is their home and the other street children their families. This makes it difficult to get them off the street, especially if they have lived there for some time.




Now I do not want to give the impression that Tanzanians cannot provide for their children. We deal with a certain part of society make, that part which doesn’ t/can’t take good care of the kids. There are also plenty of families where it's going well, where the children go to school, where there is a loving home where there is enough food. But these are not the children with whom we work.

Faith

Yes I must also say something about it, after all I am working here as a 

lay missionary. 

Well there is no way to get around faith here. I do not know if anybody ever 

counted how many churches there are in Mwanza, but there are manyyyyyyy. 

And so everybody believes in something (unfortunately sometimes they will 

believe the witch doctor who says that if you chop off the hand of an albino 

you will surely win the election, will have business success, etc.).

Almost everybody goes to church, and often times more than once a week. 

And the church is not the required 45-60 minutes, as it occasionally feels 

like in Europe. No! A good church service lasts at least two hours. A sermon 

is at least, if you are a good priest, 45 minutes. 

As our new priests, who have just come from language school and thus 

keep short sermons, come into the church, it will be forgiven to them, because 

they are still new. But if you master the language better you do not have that 

excuse anymore, then people wonder whether you are sometimes doing 

something better that you are making the sermon so short. 

Outside the traditional components of a service you also have the "Tangazo" 

(= announcement), these often last even longer than the sermon. Whether 

they are interesting? I do not really know, because by the time it is Tangazo 

time I usually stop listening. Usually there are announcements from the 

administration, the choir, the neighborhood, etc.

But faith also plays a role outside of the church. It is quite common in many 

organizations to pray for a meeting (this is perhaps a colored picture because 

of course I work for an organization that has begun under the church, but I 

have seen it also in other organizations)

And making the sign of the cross before starting the bus is also quite normal. 

This is not surprising when you consider how many accidents happen with old 

and new buses because they all drive way to fast, regardless of the condition 

of the road, traffic or weather. 

According to the Dutch embassy more than 1000 people have already died in 

the first six months of this year in bus accidents, one of the reasons that I do 

not really travel a lot in this country. Another reason is of course the way in 

which you get a license here. I sometimes say for fun, you get a license with 

a carton of milk, and I seem to not be far off. When I inquired about how new 

drivers get a license I got the following: you can learn to drive in two ways, 

through a school or through your brother / cousin / uncle / neighbor / etc. 

There is no exam given by the government. If you have a really serious 

driving school they take your exam and then they will arrange for your license. 

Otherwise you pay the driving school at any given time 100 000 shillings 

(50 Euro) and they will arrange for your driver's license at the TRA (which 

actually cost 20 euros, but you must also pay something for the service). If 

you have learned from your brother / cousin / uncle / neighbor / etc then it's 

just a matter of knowing someone at the TRA (or someone who knows 

someone) and then again paying a sum of X shilling and you have a driver's 

license.

But the most shocking thing I've seen so far, regarding religion, is an exorcism. 

That is also considered "normal." It's no fun to see this. The person in question 

was completely out of it. 5 adult people tried to restrain him but still he managed 

to wrestle himself free and slam head first against a wall a few times before 

they wrestled him to the ground. He was tied up,a cross was held over him, also 

rosaries and then there was  a continuous chanting of "devilleave him" and "in 

Jesus' name go away," or something to that effect. After about 45 minutes it was 

over, and the person in question was quiet again and remembered nothing.

Now you may wonder why the faith lives here so much stronger than in the 

Netherlands, at least so it seems to me. I think faith is inversely related to 

wealth, the more prosperity there is, the less people occupy themselves with 

faith, at least with the institutionalized form of it.

Well I think this is enough preaching, next time another subject.