My School

So, from what little I’ve seen, my school is fairly typical of Tanzanian schools, facilities-wise, or probably a bit fancier, what with the computer lab and all. For anyone who’s curious about Tanzanian schools:

We’ve got I think eight main school buildings; one office, one bio/chem/physics lab without equipment, one computer lab, one unused building of classrooms, and four used buildings of classrooms. The office and the computer lab have lighting and electrical outlets; three of the classroom buildings have lighting but no outlets.

We get electricity from two sources:
1. A solar panel on top of the office. This only works during the day, and doesn’t provide that much electricity; it’s used to run a television, to charge cell phones, and if the office computer is needed, the tv and phones have to be disconnected so that people can use the computer. Sometimes it’s cloudy and the solar panel makes less electricity than usual, and the tv/phone-charging use has to be limited.
2. A diesel generator. This works whenever, makes enough power to run everything at once, and is run nightly from when the sun goes down until about ten pm. It is also run during the day whenever there’s a computer class session that’s going to involve actually using the computers, or if the office computer is needed and there isn’t enough sunlight. Oh, and turning the generator on involves turning a big crank, reminiscent of really old-skool cars, and then flipping a switch or something to engage the actual generator; when the generator is engaged, hopefully the person cranking is in the middle of a strong push/pull, or there won’t be enough power to start it, and you have to try again. I’m disappointed to say that I definitely need to practice my cranking.

The teachers don’t have offices (which they apparently do in many schools here); instead, we have a “staff room” in the office which is where all the teachers hang out when they’re not teaching. Outside the office is an assembly area, where there’s a daily morning assembly and a daily end-of-school assembly. In the morning, there’s announcements, the students sing either the national anthem or the school anthem, and any students who were late to show up get hit with sticks. Before the morning assembly, there’s school cleaning, performed by the students, and I imagine the stick-hittery is to keep them from wanting to skip out on the cleaning. Also, at the end-of-school assembly, if the teachers need more water, they assign students to fetch water for us; I’m really glad to have this system when the on-campus water supplies aren’t in action, but I also feel really bad for making students do that much of what feels like it should be my work.

(Also, most of the students are boarders; we have one boys’ hostel and one girls’ hostel on our campus.)

In terms of staff, we have some teachers, a headmaster, a secondmaster (who is also a teacher), an academic master (who is also a teacher), a cook/generator master, a cook/typist, a dedicated cook I think, and a night guard. The headmaster has an office, the secondmaster has an office, and the academic master has an office.

Each classroom is stocked with a bunch of old-skool style desks (a small table with storage below, and a little bench, attached together), a chalkboard, and windows to let light in; the ones with electric lights only light up when the generator is on, which is generally only at night. The academic office provides chalk and erasers.

The students in each grade are divided up into “streams”, or “classes” basically. Each stream has their own room, and they stay there throughout the day; when a given teacher needs to teach a given stream, the teacher goes to that stream’s room. When I need to teach computers in the computer lab, I go through the following process:
1. Turn on the generator with the aid of the cook/generator master.
2. Go to the stream’s room and say “let’s go to the computer lab”.
3. Go to the computer lab.
4. Teach stuff there.
5. Send the stream back to their room.
6. Turn off the generator without the aid of the cook/generator master.

Oh, and to signal assemblies/the beginnings or ends of periods/etc, we have a bell. It is a tin can, hanging from a string, with a little metal rod that a student uses to bang the can.