my last blog post!

damn it's good to be home!
thanks for reading
xo

a picture is worth a thousand words, right?

tab-> thats africa, baby

i have malaria. when i started feeling flu-ish this week fellow volunteers suggested i get tested for malaria just in case. thanks to them, i caught it early so i only have a mild case that is easily treated with the meds i've been prescribed. in a few days i should be just fine. i feel sick, but its not the horrifying situation you're probably imagining. to be honest, its worth it. it's unreal being in tanzania.

once again i feel like im in a completely new world. a world where the government had to mandate that public schools serve porridge every day to ensure that those children get fed. a world where women walk over 10 km down from mt. kilimanjaro into town carrying bananas on their heads and their babies on their backs. a world where 25 million out of 32 million people are infected with HIV/AIDS. a world where the local witchdoctor has to sleep on a piece of paper with your name written on it so he can see you in his dreams before he can magically heal you in the morning.

i haven't really felt shocked about anything in this 'new world', but i think that's only because i've been ready and waiting for whatever came my way. even malaria!

safari weekend

14 of us left right after placement on friday and got into the crater site where we would stay the night just before the gates closed at 6. we got up at dawn to spend the morning in the ngorongoro crater, where we saw flamingos, buffaloes, zebras, ostriches, elephants, a lion&lioness, hippos, a black rhino(a rare sight because they're endangered), and gazelles.

that afternoon we went on a tour of a masai village. a tour guide briefly told us about their history, their tribal culture, and how they continue to live traditionally despite tanzania's cultural developments towards modern life. right when we pulled up the women put on necklaces and began a choreographed but somehow not at all unified song/dance performance for us. it was as if they couldn't all agree on a song and dance so they pieced together different ones. a few of the women pulled us up to dance with them (pretty much just jumping up and down) but that was almost more awkward than being in the audience.







while the tour guide took us in to one of their stick&cow-dung built huts to show us how they live, the women set out jewelery to sell us. we all liked the idea of buying goods directly from them to be supporting them and at the same time scoring some sweet authentic stuff, but they were asking for $10 for a tiny beaded bracelet.. obviously we were not the first group brought there to learn about the masai, but i think we were the most uncomfortable.

sunday we spent driving around the lake manyara national park. we saw some of the same animals as we had seen in the crater, some new ones, took a lot of pictures, and drove home when we were all safari-ed out.
i spent most of the weekend with my eyes wide open and my jaw at my knees, poking rachel and pointing. it was incredible. i still can't believe how close we were to some of those animals. for the rest of my life i will be able to say that this safari was one of the coolest things i have ever done.

safari pitcures

our safari group in the ngorongoro crater



on our way to the crater we spotted these prehistoric looking creatures



zebras and buffalo, coexisting



mufasa



a hyena gnawing at a dead buffalo's head. yummy.



youll notice me sitting in the car. poking my head out the window. freaking out.



water buffalos play-fighting

you can call me teacher rebecca

sunday night rachel and i sat down to write a lesson plan for our classes the next day. we cut out five different shapes of five different colors, so we could call the students up by color and have them each identify what shape their color is and then call them up by shape and have them each identify what color their shape is. then we planned on splitting them up by color and having them work in groups to match up all their cut out shapes with the written words on a piece of paper. next we wanted each kid to relate the shapes to vocabulary words -sun, desk, eye, box, roof- that we would review with them when we reviewed the shapes, using a two column word match up.

we started our lesson with teacher oliveri's class on monday and we're maaaaybe half done. the kids all loved getting something handed out to them, something bright and unique, but it took them a bit to adjust to a new activity.

they usually spend the first couple hours of the morning coping sentences from the blackboard (i.e. This is a shoe.) into their notebooks and working on 10 simple addition problems, while we go around checking their work and helping the ones who are struggling. they spend the next TWO hours reviewing the morning's lesson, which just means repeating every word out of the teacher's mouth.

Teacher: What is this?
Students: What is this?
T: This is a shoe.
S: This is a shoe.
T: S.H.O.E. SHOE!
S: S.H.O.E. SHOE!

i doubt they retain more than 5% of the lesson. the other problem is that some kids are much smarter than that and they aren't being challenged because its impossible
for the teacher to give them personal attention.

we were hoping to finish the lesson with teacher oliveri's class today so we can run it with teacher ishmael's class, but our whole volunteer group missed placement to go on a spear making/cave spalunking/market shopping/waterfall hiking excursion. (great pictures ensue- i'll post them when i have time.)

in any case, i love helping teachers oliveri and ishmael out because its draining to run a classroom that big by yourself. rachel and i might not get to run that many different activities in the few weeks we're here, but we're trying to introduce creative ideas for them to hopefully implement in the future.

kibbutz revivim through pictures

rachel and phil in front of the mini-studio-apartment-like rooms where we lived



goldie, hard at work overseeing volunteers



ladies of the machsan begadim (laundry room/our workplace)taking a break from folding



gan charuv, one of the nurseries that i occasionally worked at, celebrating passover



iftach, possibly the cutest boy in the gan



the ugliest animal in the chi negev (zoo)



the refet



one of many sculpted trees in the crazy tree garden



the cactus garden