Big couple of weeks in the vill. We had both the primary school and secondary school graduations. They were completely boring to sit through, as all graduation ceremonies are, but it was a big milestone for the kids. Especially the secondary students; it was the first graduation for that school, so this was the first crop of kids educated in the village to finish “high school”.
The primary school was first. I was put at the head table again, but was less concerned that I was on display than last year. It was held outside and at one point the wind picked up and part of the tarp broke free. This led the other guests of honor to tell me they obviously needed me to plant more trees, haha. The girls had all been in my girls program and had been asking for days if I would be there.
The secondary school ceremony started several hours late, as the guests of honor (representatives from the US-sponsored NGO Africare) were late. It was funny, as he kids were given their certificates (certifying that they attended school through Form IV) the parents and friends would come up and put garlands on them and gave them wrapped gifts while posing for pictures. Then, when another student went up, they would sometimes take back the garlands and gifts and be photographed giving them to someone else! It looked sad to me, they were taking their presents back! But it was all about the show for the camera I guess. After all the speeches, the memorial tree planting (with a tree bought by yours truly), the certificates and pictures, they brought out a very small cake. They cut the cake into tiny pieces, skewered them with toothpicks, and took pictures of each of the guests of honor (even me), being fed a piece by a student. She was one of my Mali Hai kids and got a little excited when my turn came. This process I've seen before, but then they did something that was a new one for me. They did the same thing, but with a half a cooked chicken. I don't know what happened, but th chicken had gotten some of the bright green cake frosting on it, so it tasted... interesting. When they went to feed me the chicken, the photographer was distracted, so I had to stand there with a bite of chicken being held halfway into my mouth until they could get him to take the picture. I had a picture taken with my neighbor who graduated and gave her a present of a kanga with a proverb wishing her well in all she does. Those kids start their national exams this week that will determine whether they can go on to higher education or not.
and now: the continuing saga of the Mikumi trip. Last time I got the letter saying we could go. Yay!... or not. I got to the village and went to the school the next day to deliver the good news. Then I was told that we can't go that day. Apparently Form IV students aren't allowed to travel the week before national exams, and the trip started exactly week before. they said they called the park and they didn't want to postpone our reservation date. The schools solution: to cut the form 4s from the trip (half my group) who have worked with me for a year and replace them with form 1s who have done nothing to earn a trip that sucked so much energy from my life. I was the only one in the room that saw the unfairness in this, and started feel like i was a crazy person for being the only dissenter. Then the teacher who has been working with me this year showed up and told them how we can't do that, ts completely unfair, and i felt sane again. The other concern is that if we go after exams, it can be claimed that they aren't students anymore(?). So, a few days later one of the teachers went to town and talked to the district secondary education officer to get permission for the new trip. He got it, then went with the ed officer to a national parks office in Dodoma (which i didn't even know existed, apparently the region has a game reserve I've never heard of) and had the person in charge there call the Mikumi warden directly (a feat I never managed to accomplish), explain the situation and get a new reservation date. We should be going on the 17th, two days after the national exams end and two days after my PC site visit.
In other news, the grant coordinator is inexplicably finding problems with the document after having it for 6 weeks. No one can explain why it took so long to notice the problem and tell me about it. I worked on it and sent in a new version yesterday, so hopefully its ok now. If not, I may have to drop the chicken project. If we wait much longer, the rainy season will start, everyone will be working their farms all day, and I wont be able to find single person willing to build me a 100+ capacity chicken coop.
Soap and batiks are stalled because my women groups, while excited to do the projects, seem to have zero interest in selling the products. Then they complain they haven't made any money. The nun who is running this show is tired of it and trying to sell the stuff herself while planning to give the projects to a new group of kids who have finished either Standard 7 or Form 4 and aren't continuing school, in the hopes that they will have the time and motivation to follow through. I told her, good luck with that.
I was planing to go to Kondoa this week, my nearest enclave of volunteers. After giving me tons of karibu, at the last minute they all bailed and said they couldn't come to town. thanks, guys! So I went to Dodoma instead and visited my site mate by default (he's the only one in my district).
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