TOD and a School-Wide Epidemic

I hate being Teacher On Duty (TOD) and this was the week from hell.  The teacher who is teacher on duty has to wake up early in the morning to supervise students cleaning the school, check on all the students who are sick, greet all parents and visitors, discipline students who misbehave, grant permission for students to go to the village, and deal with any issues at the school like teachers not coming to teach.  There are few things I hate more than being TOD.  I don’t believe in corporal punishment and could care less if students go the village, so me being TOD just frustrates other staff members anyways.  But this week was AWFUL!  Nearly 75% of the student body was infected by something.  We had to cancel classes and make multiple trips to the hospital. There was this creepy insect that infested the school.  It was gross.  Students started getting sick.  Eyes were swollen almost completely shut, and students complained of headaches and other flu-like symptoms.  We don’t know if the problem was some sort of eye conjunctivitis or if it had to do with the insect, but there was an epidemic that swept the school and my village. The Peace Corps doctor recommended that I stay inside my house and not have any unnecessary contact with students… clearly he did not understand that I was teacher on duty and was the person that students came to with problems or illness. 

The life of An African American PCV

In honor of Black History Month, African American Peace Corps Volunteers in Tanzania were asked to write about their experience for the PSDN (Peer Support Diversity Network) Newsletter.  We were told that our audience would be majority white (other PCVs) so we are not allowed to be offensive.  I am posting what I submitted below.

However, since this is my blog I can be completely honest… Being an African American Peace Corps Volunteer is like being a double minority.  You obviously aren’t Tanzanian, but you don’t always fit in with your majority white fellow volunteers.  When I am in my village I am clearly labeled as a foreigner due to my ignorance to their culture and difficulties with Kiswahili.  I think my skin color is irrelevant to Tanzanians who see me regularly.  The time I am most aware of being Black is when I am with other volunteers.  I have been in restaurants with fellow volunteers and ex-patriots who treat the Tanzanian staff like house slaves and make comments that are so blatantly racist it makes my skin crawl.  I have also been in conversations with other volunteers where frustrations in teaching turn to overgeneralizations about the intellectual inferiority of Black people and why Tanzanian students just “can’t learn.”  Rather than simply rant about my own thoughts on this, I would love to hear the comments of some of my loyal readers.  In the age of Obama, American racism continues to astound me…

Submission for PSDN Article:

     I have always had a strong sense of racial pride and my African American identity has shaped my perception of the world.  When I found out that I would be a Peace Corps volunteer in Tanzania I was overjoyed by this sense of returning to the motherland and helping my fellow black brothers and sisters.  Unfortunately, my experience thus far has led to an unexpected racial identity crisis.  In the United States, my black identity was taken for granted. While I would occasionally be asked if I was biracial, as a result of our infamous “one drop rule” my race was never questioned.  In college I spent a semester in Cape Town, South Africa and was quickly labeled as “colored.”  Apartheid had created this racial category for everyone who was light in complexion (although clearly not white) or of mixed ancestry.  While I was struck by the blatant racism in South Africa and the division between Blacks and Colored’s, I could identify with being a racial minority in a country that was oppressed by whites.  Although I am “Black” in America and “Colored” in South Africa, I was not prepared to be categorized as white when I arrived in Tanzania.  

            During training I heard the lovely echo of “Mzungu” as I walked with other PCVs, and sincerely believed that they were not talking about me.  Clearly they were referring to my white peers.  Then, on my first day of internship teaching my bubble of self-delusion burst.  One student said to me, “Madame, we would love to hear more about the experiences of white people like you in America.”  This comment confused me. I immediately responded by telling the student that I do not know about the experience of white people in America because I am Black like all of them.  Then I tried to explain how Black people in the United States are all different shades and that its important to look at facial features, hair texture, etc. and not just skin color.  I was met with blank stares as I realized I was speaking a foreign language both literally and figuratively. So I gave up but decided to do a preemptive strike when I reached my site.  I teach form one English and I was able incorporate race into lessons on family and physical appearance.  As I showed my students pictures of my family and our spectrum of skin color, they were able to appreciate Black diversity. One of my students said, “Wow, Black people are so beautiful.” In a society still healing from the wounds of colonialism and Western conceptions of beauty, this comment made me so happy! My students have also learned that I am, “Light, not white.”

            At first being called white both annoyed and offended me.  But then I learned how arbitrary race is.  What matters is how you see yourself and if you are confident in your own identity, it doesn’t matter how many times you hear the word “mzungu.”

Happy New Year!!

Happy New Year!! I know I have been a terrible blogger over the past 4 months, but my New Years resolution for 2012 is to be more consistent about blogging and write back to all of the people who have been kind enough to send me letters and packages.  Since I consider my life pretty boring and routine at this point, I would love to hear your comments, questions, or topics you want me to blog about. Overall, I have been doing well just extremely busy.  There was a period where I was the only teacher at the school and was trying to teach every form and help them prepare for exams.  Luckily, that will not happen again this year. I have deactivated my Facebook account, so this blog is now my main way of letting everyone know what has been going on in my life.  I have this feeling that 2012 is going to be a big year for me and I want to focus all of my attention on personal growth and my students. 

It’s hard to believe I have been in Tanzania for 7 months already!  There are only 20 months left of my service (unless I decide to extend) and I have so much that I still want to accomplish.  The school year officially starts next week and I am frantically trying to prepare.  My father came to visit over the holidays and brought me some new toys to use for teaching, so I am super excited!  (I plan to blog about his trip, so be sure to look at backdated posts). I am on a mission to make school and learning more enjoyable for my students.  However, my greatest task will be teaching critical thinking skills.  I am not sure how old I was when I first started asking questions about the world or challenging authority figures (i.e. my parents) on the logic behind their rules, but Tanzanian youth are discouraged from doing this.  So if anyone has any suggestions for me on how to teach or promote critical thinking, please let me know!  I will be teaching form one, form two and form three English this year (freshman, sophomores and juniors) as well as implementing the Grassroots Soccer program in our school/ village.  It is going to be a busy year for me, but I am excited! 

I hope that 2012 is off to a good start for all of you and I promise to keep you posted on my adventures in Africa.