Nice school

My experience at Nice School was a little tainted for a few reasons. First, obviously, I had a head’s up on the situation that I was going into before I even arrived. But I had also heard that the kids were amazing and was committed to doing what I could do to make their experience better. My first trip to Nice was a little more intense than I had planned, partly because of our traipsing all around Arusha town and having no sense of direction, followed by my dalla dalla trip into frontier land and then the walk through the town closest to Nice and the little walk along the path up to the school. The trip just felt remote and unfriendly and I wasn’t particularly comfortable. I tried to remind myself that I was here to be uncomfortable but I was having a difficult time discerning between discomfort and unsafe.

Marianna is the “director” at Nice School. I put director in quotes because I find it difficult to call her anything of the sort. She runs the school out of her mother’s house - there is a small classroom constructed between the house and the fortress-like walls that surround the property and another much larger classroom that had been built by donations from a previous volunteer. The yard of the property between the house and the classrooms is a dirt covered patch of land with lines of laundry hanging overhead. My first introduction to Mariana was a little surprising because she was wearing her housedress and her hair was wildly chaotic, which I have now learned is signs that an African woman is likely between hair styles. But why was she wearing a housedress and shuffling around her house in slippers while the kids were outside in their adorable little uniforms in the classrooms? She kept saying “Welcome, welcome” and “Karibu” (welcome in Swahili) but she repeated it so often it was almost every third word and it did anything but make me feel welcome, I felt a little like I was in the twilight zone. I can only imagine that I had a deer in headlights expression on my face so she was smart to send me out to the classroom so I could become enamored with the kids. One of the two permanent teachers grudgingly handed me a stool to sit on and gestured to sit in the corner with a group of children. The children all stood up immediately and yelled at the top of their lungs “Good morning madam!” I did not know what their protocol was so I responded with a “Good Morning”. They immediately followed up with “Fine, thank you Madam!”. So, for future reference, the correct response is “Good morning, how are you?” pretty much without exception.

The larger classroom was packed to the gills - there were children-size plastic tables lined up together, three in one section and another three in another section. Tiny plastic lawn chair style seats surrounded each group of tables and as I sat there, a little bewildered. I counted sixteen children around one group and fifteen around the other. Next to the table area was another section of smaller children sitting only in the plastic chairs; every time I tried to count them I lost count since they weren’t in rows or any specific order but there were about thirty children in that half of the room. There was no room between the chairs and when a child would try to get up they would literally climb over each other to get out. Maybe this was preparing them for a life of taking dalla dallas. My stool was jammed between these two groups and the children were of course immediately fascinated by me. I smiled at them and they were smiling and waving and trying to high five. It was difficult to resist indulging them - they have sweet little cherubic faces and were dressed smartly in little red sweaters and they were so eager for attention is would be impossible for even the most heartless of people to melt in this group of kids. One point for Mariana.

The two teachers were courteous but not friendly, they spoke to each other and to the class in Swahili so I sat there feeling a little irrelevant. I did note that they were both better dressed than Mariana, as in they were wearing proper clothes to walk around in - not a Mrs. Roper style house dress. I found it odd when one of them started pouring herself tea from a thermos and began nibbling on some type of snack she had brought from home at one point. Why weren’t the children eating? Why was she eating in front of them? The other teacher didn’t eat anything so I stayed quiet and did my best to try to figure out the norms of this new environment. After a command in Swahili the children started handing me their rumpled notebooks and the teacher handed me a red pen and told me to grade their work, which was simple enough - they were learning the alphabet.

This became the pattern of the first few days - I would sit there feeling somewhat useless, trying to ask what I can do and was then handed a stack of books to grade while the children sat there, as patiently as their youth would allow, while I would grade their work. Sometimes I was allowed to write a new exercise into the book for their homework but there was not much that occurred in the way of formal lessons, just a lot of sitting around while the teachers graded and wrote. Not only for me, for these poor little kids that must have been bored to tears! I tried not to be a distraction to them but they clearly enjoyed having an adult in their presence who would respond to them kindly. The tone used by the teachers was almost always a scolding yell. There was no kindness in their tone, just a firm shout, ordering something to happen in Swahili. I think it was the way they had been trained to teach, the tone of voice, the distance, the painfully slow process of grading and writing in the books, regardless of the fact that the children were likely learning to hate the tedium of school. I saw them act kindly towards the children in “off” moments so I don’t think they meant to seem so terrible, I think it was all they knew.

It wasn’t until my second day, after getting lost in Swahilini, that the awkward process of teatime with Mariana began. I thought maybe it was special that day, to make me feel comfortable after getting lost, but quickly learned it was a daily occurrence that I’d begin to dread. Mariana would come fetch me from the classroom and tell me it was time for tea. I’d take off my shoes at her backdoor and wash my hands in her shower room and perch on one of the couches in her living room, surrounded by Jesus posters, sipping tea and nibbling on white bread while Mariana sat across from me looking slightly Jabba-like in her position and attire. We would make pleasantries and I’d ask about whether the children were supposed to have porridge or break time. AWKWARD. Mariana said that she did not have the money for porridge or for a porridge pot but since the children would go home at 1pm for lunch it wasn’t really necessary. I wanted to say that it wasn’t necessary for me to have tea if the children weren’t able to have a break either, especially since I don’t think it helped my relationship with the other teachers who remained with the kids. I don’t mean to sound so judgmental, it was not that I didn’t appreciate her graciousness, it just didn’t feel particularly sincere and given that the children and other teachers were not given a break I didn’t want to appear entitled. Thankfully at least my inquiry about break time helped to reinstitute a break, that I’m not sure really existed or not.

The kids went wild during break time, they were after all, children, who had been forced to sit for an extended amount of time with the patience I could not imagine any American child able to exhibit. My third day was the first day that we had a proper break and I also met Morucha, the other volunteer teacher, who had been out sick for my first few days. She suggested blowing bubbles for the kids and I have never in my life seen kids react like that. They would scream at the top of their lungs like the Easter Bunny had just appeared each time a stream of bubbles would come out. Then they would jump to swat at the bubbles as if their little lives depended on it, desperate to touch one. It didn’t take me long to realize the strategy was to continue moving the bubbles around the small yard, otherwise I’d get pinned against a wall blowing bubbles into a pack of semi-rabid children. Their enthusiasm was endearing in a frightening kind of way - as if they don’t really have the chance to play, so when they do it’s with all this frantic, pent-up energy.

One of the early experiences that shocked me was not unique to Nice school, but I later found is the norm in Tanzanian schools. I looked down at the table, surrounded by little children, to see a razor blade. I gasped, uncertain of how it would have appeared there and grabbed it quickly. The kids must have seen this reaction before because they mimed out the action of sharpening their pencils. Not like the “old school” pencil sharpeners that we had in grammar school, mounted on a table or windowsill where we’d insert our pencils and turn the knob. No. Blades they used to file down the tip of the pencil like a spear. Well, in actuality they weren’t very spear-like, they were tiny rough nubs, but either way, razor blades!!! At least the erasers weren’t unsafe, they were just the smallest crumb of eraser that you have ever seen that the children were amazing about sharing and passing around when someone else needed it. So obviously that very night I stopped off at a stationery store to buy a few handheld pencil sharpeners and erasers. As helpful as these new tools were, there was also a period of a few days when there was a sudden need for sharp pencils. The kids were so enamored with these new efficient sharpeners that they were intentionally breaking their pencil tips just to have them sharpened again. Oh well, I think in the long run it was still an improvement over the razors.

NOTE: If you are easily disturbed by the thought of a chicken dying skip this paragraph

One day I was coming out of Mariana’s house after another fantastic tea session and putting on my sneakers when I realized that chickens were being slaughtered in front of me. I hadn’t thought too much of the chickens in the yard that morning - I noticed them but there was also a chicken coop in the back so I didn’t pay too much attention. But I was about to tie my shoe when I looked up to see a man holding a chicken upside down in the air in one hand, preparing to lay it down and behead it. It was like it was happening in slow motion, I saw a chicken head on the ground, the hole full of blood, the giant knife. I shrieked and ran away with my shoes untied and the children laughed yelling “cookoo! cookoo!” (cookoo is chicken in Swahili). Needless to say I didn’t go back into the house or anywhere close to that area of the yard again the rest of the day.

SAFE TO READ AGAIN!

Morucha and I discussed how we could improve the situation at Nice and I shared my concerns based on the experience of past volunteers. We felt we were in a bit of a quandary since it was very possible that anything we donated would get sold as soon as we left instead of being utilized to improve the situation. I loved the kids but I was also torn because I didn’t feel like there was much I could do to change the way they were being taught and even from a participation standpoint, I was frustrated that without knowing more Swahili there was little to do. Morucha said it was likely that she was going to change placements since she still had a few months to go - she wanted to make a difference somewhere and didn’t want to waste too much time deciding. I wanted to feel needed as well - to be in a placement where I felt like my presence and my actions could actually make a change. But it was so hard to imagine leaving the adorable little children I had already become attached to.

During one of my last few tea sessions with Mariana she told me how she was planning to admit another ten students to the school next term. It felt like the last straw to me; she already had seventy students without enough space, teachers, or any possibility of getting a decent education. How would adding more students help to make it any more likely that any of these factors would improve? It was virtually impossible. In my mind it proved to me that Mariana is not taking putting the interest of the children first, it's all about the Benjamins.

On another note, each day after school the kids would walk me “home”, which didn’t make my decision any easier. The first few days they would be walking home and when they would realize that I was fifty or so feet behind them, they would come running back to take my hands and I would then navigate the narrow path from the school to the road with three to four little tykes desperately grabbing onto each hand/arm. It slowed the pace considerably but it was such an amazing feeling, it was probably my favorite moment each day. When we’d reach the road a few kids would drop off and go in the other direction and our group would get a little smaller. As we’d pass through the village, more would drop off here and there as they came closer to their alley or turn-off. After a couple of days they would wait for me outside the gate at school for our daily walk home. I struggled with the decision of what do to. I knew that if I was going to change I should do it soon, it wasn’t going to get easier.

In the end I decided to change after visiting Fruitful Orphanage during a field trip. The kids would be amazing anywhere I went - but the biggest difference for me was that the children at Nice wanted attention, like any normal child does. The children at Fruitful didn’t just want attention, they were desperate for affection - they were orphans and this most basic of human desires for physical contact was something that they simply didn’t have. On top of that, Fruitful was still a relatively new orphanage, being run by a man named Isaac, who himself had been an orphan and wanted desperately to help other children experiencing a difficult life. Trying to get the orphanage fully operational and able to provide for these children was something tangible that I wanted to be a part of. One day with those kids was all it took. I went back to Nice school one more time when Andrew visited but couldn’t bring myself to say goodbye that day. I waited for TVE to confirm that it was OK to switch over the weekend and told Mariana by phone on Monday. Just looking back at the pictures of the children from Nice makes me sad but they have parents and families that can afford to send them to a school like Nice, so in the end I know my choice was the right one for me.