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Laure Kominar returns to Tanzania to challenge, create and, contribute You certainly do not need to travel to Africa to find children in impoverished situations. Yet, this summer, I chose to return to Tanzania with another Montessori educator, to help children in need. Honestly- perhaps I should be embarrassed to tell you - I hadn’t given much thought to the ‘why’ of such an action-not this summer, nor in November of 2008 when I spent time there while on a years’ leave from HSC. The chance coincidence of hearing about an NGO in Tanzania where HIV/AIDS orphaned children were being educated in a Montessori school setting while I was in the planning stages of a year away from my duties as an HSC Elementary Montessori Directress were too synchronistic to ignore. When I was asked to write about my summer experiences, I began wondering if perhaps I should have an answer for those who have asked me why I chose to go to Africa in the first place and also why I returned. On a rudimentary level, they were in need of volunteer Montessori teacher trainers and I have experience training adults, as well as, 30 years of classroom time spent with children ranging from 2 ½ years to 15 years of age. It seemed like a good fit. On another level, being rather new to ‘grandmotherhood,’ I felt a responsibility to tangibly contribute, in a very small, person-by-person way, to the correction of a fundamental problem of human society. The inequities for children born in Africa compared to the life our grandson experiences played a role in my decision to act as a citizen of the planet. On my first visit to Mbeya, near Tanzania’s western border with Zambia and Malawi, our teacher education programme venue was The Olive Branch for Children’s compound which included a well-equipped Montessori classroom for 30 children, several dorm structures for the orphan children and staff, a cook house and a guest house. The 24 adults who attended the training course travelled many miles - some walking for 20+ km in order to meet the bus to bring them to the Iwambi Centre. Only now can I see the sheltered impression that we took away from spending most of our time within the walls of the compound. Our experiences this summer have led me to what I believe is a more authentic experience of the Mbeya region. This summer, we took a week travelling by foot, bike, piki-piki (motorcycle) and truck to observe the teachers in their village schools prior to our ten day intensive course. Our home-base for this work was located one hour’s drive from Mbeya in the village of Mswiswi. In Mswiswi, we stayed in the home supported by The Olive Branch for Children which is the centre for the Home Base Care programme for adults living with AIDS. Adina is one of three women there and she heads the group and the household that currently is home to seven orphan children, four who are HIV+. Adina’s own story was told to us by Deborah McCracken, the administrator of The Olive Branch for Children in Tanzania and who I am honoured to call my friend. In the late 90s Adina lost both her husband and her only child. Around the same time she was ostracized by her family upon learning that she had AIDS. Broken-hearted and alone, Adina predicted that one day her family would need her again. Today, she is the sole charge for her niece since her sister died of AIDS. Each morning for a week, we departed from our accommodations in Mswiswi for neighbouring villages to visit with the teachers, some whom I had known from my previous time in Tanzania. We had 24 schools to visit in total and Deborah had divided them geographically for Pam Leudke, my Montessori travel companion, and I to cover in one week. I knew Shabani from my visit in 2008. His ‘school’ was actually a large tarp spread out on the ground outside of a mosque under the hot sun of Azimo. Some 40 children attended for three hours each day. At the end of our visit, we walked across the dirt road with the village chief who came to meet us and thank us, to inspect the new school building. It was very exciting to see the structure, still without floor or roof. We were told that it would be a month before the children would be able to have classes in this building. Some of the teachers we visited had actual school buildings. Others were waiting out their time under the shade of a tree, as was the case with Mama Zaituni. Aida, as I came to know her on this visit, lives and teaches in the Maasai village of Siluwya. Currently, she meets each day with her 26 students under the large tree located near her family hut. Baraca, the village chief, in Maasai garb and cell phone in hand, was pursuing the advancement of their small school being completed in his village as we loaded the gift bag of rice into our truck at our departure. These were long days travelling out to the many villages, often on deeply rutted dirt roads with the ever-present dust that is a constant part of life. Deborah incorporated visits to some of the patients that were part of the Home Care Programme during our days of school visits. I remember writing in my journal... “I had no idea what significance packing an orange, some chipati (crepes) and a mendazie (small doughnut) would hold for the day- but it turned out to be more than I could have imagined.” On this particular Wednesday in July, we were scheduled to visit two schools in Utengule. Putiyei, Deborah’s Maasai husband, dropped us off in town after we visited with Queenie who Deb had heard was quite ill. We were invited into the dark, three roomed mud hut that Queenie and her mother inhabited to find Queenie lying on a mattress on the dirt floor weak and emaciated. In Deb’s compassionate manner, she assessed that Queenie needed to go to the hospital. The best choice for her was a journey 2 ½ hours away where, once we arrived she was given a blood transfusion and placed in a ward that reminded me of a scene from a MASH episode. We spent the better part of the day seeing to Queenie’s needs and ensuring that she and her sister-in-law that accompanied her had the necessary supplies for an indeterminate stay at the hospital. I recall the surreal feeling of standing in the hospital ward amongst very ill women who had family members attending to them. It was difficult to fathom how the degree of medical care that I would expect differed from their reality. My orange, chipati and mendazie were gratefully accepted by Queenie’s caregiver and we also left some money for other food. I marvelled at Deborah’s patience and compassion in this all too familiar scene. Once she was settled, we climbed back into the truck for a memorably quiet journey back to Mswiswi. I couldn’t help but wonder what the future would hold for Queenie, as well as reflecting on my personal sense of mortality and the luck of the geographic and genetic draw. On August 2, we began our ten day intensive Montessori course with 35 adults. The training was offered at the school in Kujunjumele a 9km journey from our home in Mswiswi. Each morning, Pam and I would set out on our bikes down the dusty road, passing many children dressed in various uniforms and heading to government schools in the area. This was the most peaceful and contemplative time in my day. Occasionally, I would listen to music on my husband’s borrowed iPod as I rode. One morning, Christmas songs interspersed with other pieces and I couldn’t help but be impacted by their appropriate sentiment and the juxtaposition of the music I was hearing and the scenery I was viewing, not to mention the reminders of home. Many of the teachers were far from their homes and spent their nights after long days of listening, making materials and practising, sleeping on the cement floors of the two classrooms used for the course. Five of the women brought their young children along with them. Daily, the children were nursed in the classrooms as their mothers cared for them while also completing their own studies. All of the women had left many other children in their home villages in order to attend. Each day, the women would draw water from the well at the school site to wash clothes, themselves and their children. While I admired them for their stamina, I couldn’t help but wonder why their lives had to be so difficult. My heart was opened to see how the women expressed their love for their children. During my last visit, I recall that the mums had a somewhat indifferent attitude towards their children. When I enquired, I was told that since infant mortality rates were high, mothers often do not become attached to their infants until they have passed this risky period. This was a strange notion to my western ears and everything I had come to know as a mother and grandmother. Tegemea arrived at noon on the first day of classes. She had travelled a great distance on the back of a piki-piki from her village, ripe with child. The expression on her face said it all. She was anxious to join the group and bring back anything she could that would help the children of her village. Tegemea took a seat at the front of the lecture classroom on one of the crowded backless benches and she beamed. Even though translators were used to provide Kiswahili translations for our English instructions, still Tegemea regularly nodded acknowledgement when presentations were given. Only once during our time together did we see her lie down on a thin mat on the floor of one of the classrooms during lunchtime, unabashedly taking some well needed rest time. The ten days of the course were intense. Adjacent to our lecture classroom was the classroom where the village children attended on a daily basis. In the Western world, Montessori teacher trainees are not generally permitted contact with the children as part of their training process. In our case however, we took it to be a learning opportunity to have the adults interact with the students in order to show them how to set up and manage their classrooms. I have to admit, there were times when I seriously reconsidered our reasoning on this point and other times when I could not think of a better vehicle for a lesson than learning by doing. It was most helpful to have the young students wear nametags when the 18 teachers lined the classroom walls each morning. However, it was a challenge to work through the translator to deliver instructions in Kiswahili to the children and the adults. I drew on alternative communication modes during our time together and my miming skills were vastly improved as a result of these experiences. The adult students worked diligently over the course of the ten days making classroom materials and practicing with the various learning materials we had prepared. Having arrived in a place where the chalkboard at the front of the room is the only teaching tool, we were reminded of just how advantaged we are. I actually had thoughts of how a SMART board might be used in one of these classrooms once the small glitch involving electricity had been overcome. Six goats had been purchased for slaughter for the students during the course. Putiyei and I picked them up the day we visited his home village. I cannot recall the last time I travelled with six goats in the back of a truck all trying to remain erect as we travelled down the potted dirt roads. Three women from the village of Kajunjumele had been hired to prepare three meals a day for the attendees. We ate lunch together each day at school. A typical and usual lunch was ugali and greens. Ugali is a corn based paste-like substance that is generally gathered with your fingers, held in the hand and squeezed into a cylindrical form with, in this case, cooked greens from the pumpkin plant kneaded together. Occasionally, cooked cabbage was also offered by the women who carried the huge kettles balanced on their heads to the school location. Rice is another staple frequently served. We had oranges everyday and on a few occasions, the tastiest papaya I have ever eaten. As the days passed, we gradually emptied the suitcases of materials that had taken months to collect and prepare. Through our translators we told the teachers about how the Montessori children at Hillfield Strathallan had participated in an African Market fundraiser which helped to supply some of the materials for them to use in their classrooms. A few days later, Getson, the music director in the group, led the teachers in a song of appreciation and gratitude to Canada for its generosity. In a similar manner, on the first day of classes, the chairperson from Simike had journeyed from his village to humbly shake the hands of the Canadians who had come to help educate the children. Inexplicably, the days moved slowly while the weeks seemed to race by and soon it was graduation day. The chair person from Kajunjumele delivered his speech in Kiswahili which Deborah translated simultaneously for us. He spoke with humility and sincerity about his country’s determination to break the cycle of poverty and illness through education. He reminded the teachers of the selfless nature of a teacher and the power of the group as educators to support each other in these times of great challenge and change. Pam and I were given an opportunity to address the students and our messages echoed the same sentiment. We wanted to express that we were proud of the work the teachers had done but we learned that there was no direct translation for the word ‘proud’ in Kiswahili. Instead, we told them that the gifts we took away with us, in our minds, far outweighed anything we had lugged in our suitcases. The celebration ended with a shared feast of goat, cooked greens, rice, salad and boiled eggs. And as with all special occasions, warm Coke and Orange Fanta were served as refreshments. Before the teachers departed, we distributed every last article from our suitcases. I watched Farijala who is a minister in his village as he carefully balanced and strapped a huge bundle of school materials onto the back of his bicycle preparing for his 4 ½ hour journey home. I don’t think I will ever forget the kindness in his eyes. Our 13 hour bus ride from Mbeya to Dar es Salaam followed by 19 hours in the air gave us plenty of time to reflect on how we had spent our summer in Tanzania. My journal and picture album help to remind me of an experience that built compassion and capacity for empathy more deeply than I could have imagined. I believe that my best answer for ‘why?’ came to me through one of Dr. Martin Luther King’s messages. I went to Tanzania because ‘we are all a part of the fabric of humanity.’ In a matter of one week’s time, I rejoined my friends and teaching colleagues at our annual Links to Learning sessions held just before the students return. As we entered the Early Ed gym, we could not help but notice the three banners that advertised the College’s focus for the next academic year: Challenge, Create, Contribute. As I sat with a table of my peers, I began to think how appropriate these words reflected my time in Tanzania. Since our return, Deborah has announced that the teachers have formed an association and elected Farijala as President. At their first monthly meeting, they reviewed curriculum and practised the lessons we had shown them using the Montessori materials. Bricks have recently been fired for a new school building in Mahongo. Queenie had passed away and Tegemea had not yet delivered her fifth child. |
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