Roads

When Victor and I took the form one students on a field trip to the airport, one of the students, Michael, asked me, “Are there roads in the sky?” This was the first time our students has seen a plane land and take off, our Maasai students who’ve only ever dreamed of being on a plane, who may only ever get to dream. At the time I looked at Michael a bit confused and replied simply, “No, there are no roads in the sky.”

“Then how do they know where to go?”

*

It’s been nine months since I started teaching in Tanzania and there’s only three weeks of class time left. I dread the day when I’ll have to say goodbye to the 69 students (we started with 73 in January) I’ve grown to adore and respect, the 69 pairs of eyes that have watched me stand before them day after day, the 69 smiles that have made me a richer person.

I can picture it now – tears running down my face, hugs and waves and Tanzanian handshakes goodbye. I’ll watch as the students, dressed in their daily school uniform of navy blue bottoms, black leather shoes, red sweaters and ties, walk away from the school for a five week break. But it’ll be us who’s leaving – Scott and I – and the students who will remain.

In my daydreams I’ve pictured some of my students walking the halls of Trinity College – where I went to undergrad – confidently, smiling at friends they’ve made, being comfortable with where they are. I’ve imagined meeting students at the airport, or Scott and I driving for hours to visit a student who’s attending college in the states. I’ve even pictured having a student over for dinner and listening to them recount their challenges, achievements, their homesickness. The student might even stay over. Scott and I could become that student’s American family and support system.

But that’s where my daydreams end. For me, their happy ending is attending a college or university in a developed country, ideally the USA. I don’t take into account what happens after. After getting a degree, do they return home to become leaders in the villages they grew up in as so many of them write about in their journals? Do they adapt to America and stay for further academic pursuits or a job? It doesn’t really matter, though, my daydreams. In the best case scenario, less than a handful of the 69 will leave Africa. I’ll be happy if some to the students leave Tanzania.

Jonace is a form two student who – like most of the students – is smarter than me in terms of aptitude. Jonace is a brain. He’s eloquent, honest, and helpful. He usually seems genuinely happy to say hi to me, which is more than I can say about some of the other form two students. One day him and Mbayana asked about where Scott and I had traveled to during our one-week break from school. I told them about our travels with a visiting friend to the Selous Game Reserve. At first they didn’t know where I was talking about, but after I said it again, Jonace understood and said to Mbayana the Swahili name for the Selous. At that point, I got “Ahh”s of recognition. I told them about the animals we’d seen, what we did. Mbayana and Jonace then asked about other parks in Tanzania, like Taringire, Ngorongoro Crater, the Serengeti – parks that are essentially in their backyard. When I said that yes, I had visited them, their reaction was a mix of awe, regret, jealousy, not because I had been to them but because they hadn’t.

“The farthest we’ve been is to the Manayara district and Arusha town. That’s it,” said Mbayana, describing a distance of no more than a hundred miles.

“You’ll go one day,” I said in an attempt to reassure them. “You’ll go.”

At some point, Mbayana casually walked away from the conversation, leaving Jonace and I. Jonace challenged me. “When will I go? I’m twenty-something and I’ve never been anywhere.” Jonace has, in the past, written in his journal about the desire to travel. Of course, all the students want to go places, but Jonace feels – rightly so – there’s a slight injustice to the whole matter. “It’s my country but I haven’t seen any of it.”

And he was totally right. He stood before me, a young man of twenty-something years (Joance only has a vague idea of when he was born), so bright, but with a world view that stretched only over a very small distance. Whereas I, his “teacher,” only a few years older, having only been in Tanzania a small amount of time, but yet has seen more of his country than he could ever imagine. All I could say – and I meant it – was, “One day, you’ll go. You will.”

I do have a vague belief that – likely through Orkeeswa Secondary School – Jonace and the other students will get to go to these places, will see the parts that have made their country famous, will see their own animals that walk on the same land.

But I also want to believe that these students will go places on their own, that they’ll carve out their own paths, make their own roads that lead them to their own destiny – whether that be a university in England or America or Uganda or in Dar es Salaam; a head of a household or of a district or of Parliament; a farmer or a doctor or a journalist or a secretary; or a place I cannot even imagine or picture or daydream.

Second Best Line Ever

Orkeeswa Secondary School is an English-medium school, as all other secondary schools are in Tanzania. Except Orkeeswa actually enforces it. In the classroom, there’s only English from both the volunteer teachers and the local teachers. During tea and lunch time, the students are expected to only speak English. On the playing fields and courts, there’s only English. Myself and other teachers sometimes find ourselves telling the students to, “Speak English.”

Yesterday, the form twos were on the volleyball court playing a series of games and I overheard Edward saying to one of his classmates, “Laugh in English.”

*

The ultimate best line ever from a student (and really, there are so many) is from Lalahe. He was in my newspaper club from two quarters. In the second quarter, he was working on the ‘Say What?!’ section of the paper, where he would have to think of one question and ask five to six students the same question; something akin to a ‘man on the street type’ thing.

During one club meeting he was trying to tell me who he was planning on interviewing. One of the girls he listed off was Grace, a form one student. I said, “You can’t interview Grace. She was in our last paper for ‘Say What?!’”

Lalahe replied, “No, no, not Grace. I can’t think of her name. You know, the black one.”

Suitcase

A few of the form one girls were asking me at lunch yesterday when their final exams were taking place. I said it wouldn’t be until December. “December?!” they replied. I explained that the last day of school was on December 10 so, yes, their final exams wouldn’t be until December.

Suzane said, “That’s when we’ll say goodbye to you, December 10. Your last day.” I hadn’t even been thinking about that when I mentioned that day; after all, they were asking about final exams.

“Don’t say that!” Naeku, one of my favorite students, said. I kind of laughed, trying to keep the conversation light. Naeku tried too. She started to ask another question, presumably about final exams, but before her first word even got out, she abruptly turned around and walked away from the conversation. At that, my eyes started to tear up.

I’ve only cried once before in front of my students, when we were reading Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes as a class. When the young non-fiction heroine dies at the end (don’t worry – this fact is mentioned in the back of the book as well as in the prologue so I’m not giving anything away), I couldn’t help myself. I recall my eyes welling up when I was reading it on my own, but inside the classroom, when I heard the gasps of shock and sadness coming from students, there was no way of stopping the tears from falling.

So the students know what I look like when I’m about to cry, which is how I looked yesterday at lunch standing among form one girls with Naeku walking away. Nabulu smiled kindly and said, “Don’t cry, teacher.”

Scott and I have exactly one month left with these students before saying goodbye to them. And while we may be ready to see family and friends and enjoy a slice of America, I don’t think either of us are ready to leave these students. I’ve taught before. I’ve spent long periods of time with students before, but I’ve never been this attached to faces, to smiles, to personalities, to laughs, to handshakes, to certain hellos.

There have been so many moments that I’ve failed to record, small moments with students, exchanges, times they’ve made me laugh, times that have made me fall in love with them, to the point that if I could, I’d take some home with me and do whatever I could to make sure they were happy. The thing is that I can’t even pinpoint how many of them that would be. I’d keep wanting to add to the group.