When we walk back to the White House after our dancing lesson I stop at a shop and say: “Subiri, nataka kununua biskuti.” (=Wait, I want to buy some biscuits.) J is surprised. He didn't know that I knew the vocabulary. When he tries to trick me into being speechless I find another solution. Instead of making me speechless he get’s speechless himself. I grin and I'm super proud of myself! Then I realize that I remember mostly everything perfectly well without having written down anything since he started teaching me. My pride rises.
During dinner I check my messages and see that my mentor posted a WhatsApp message into our group saying that a volunteer in Butiama got seriously sick and will leave for Germany and won't come back. Her roommate doesn't want to stay alone and will leave to another project. Our mentor asks us whether someone would shift. This is a strange question in my opinion since we just finished the settling-down and no one would like to start all over.
I also got a message from volunteer who works in Lesotho telling me that he saw a lot since he arrived there nearly three months ago. He has been on a safari and has been here and there. He sounds like Lars. I don't understand why they live the life of a tourist instead the one of a volunteer. I enjoy my life here, I don’t need to see as much as possible in a short time. I want to enjoy everything and when the time comes I can go to the tourist attractions but first I want to live here and not make a very long vacation. When I complain about these tourists to J he tells me that I'm just different. I was the only person answering: “I want to help.” When he asked me why I am doing this. All the other volunteers he met said: “I don't know, why not?!”
I text my mentor back and tell him about my school work, my Swahili improvements and tell him also what my friend from Lesotho told me and what J told me afterwards. He is proud of me as well. “Honestly, I am impressed. When I saw you the first time I thought: ‘This little girl will have a hard time to connect to life and culture here.’ But it is completely opposite.”
The fact that family and friends from Germany are proud seems natural to me. But I would never have believed that people here, who I just met two months ago, would be proud as well.
On our way home, I surprise the conductors when I tell them to not touch me during their usual competition. It's funny, one month ago I was so new that they didn't even talk to me. But it seems like they know me now a bit and start to talk and touch me. So I have improved my answers for this. J is enjoying it very much.
When I'm sitting in a restaurant to write my blog entries I order my lunch and something to drink in Swahili. The guys at the next table look astonished at me. While I am writing I can see one guy pointing at me and I know they are talking about me. When I look at him a bit annoyed because of his finger he puts it down and a few seconds later he nods in my direction. He must really be stupid. Maybe I don't understand everything in Swahili but body language is international!
A few minutes later he comes and tells me that he is a tourist guide and wants to improve his English. Oh my goodness you are number five or so. I tell him that I don't have time and I am sorry. I think he just wants to meet and show me something so that I will have to pay him later. He asks me when I will have time. I say: “Not at all. I don't have time and I won't have time.”
“But you have time right now.”
“This is my lunch time.”
“So you can teach me during your lunchtime.”
“No, I won't. This is my lunchtime and as you can see I'm still working (my iPad is right in front of me).”
“So… I'm just a tour guide and I want to improve my English.”
“I can perfectly understand you. Everything's fine just keep speaking whenever it's possible.”
“I don't have friends speaking English. I want to really speak it perfectly.”
“Then you should ask native speakers. I'm not a native speaker I'm from Germany.”
“Can you teach me the lifestyle of women then?”
(Now I have to look up from my iPad. Did he just say that? How did the topic change from “teach me English” into “teach me the lifestyle of [German] women”?)
“Did you just say women?” (What a sexist.)
“No, I mean both sexes… a genders.”
“Sorry, I really have no time.” (J comes into the café and sits down next to me.)
“Why don't you have time?”, says the tourist guide.
“I have a tight schedule and I want to finish my work.”
“So right now you have time?”
“No, I'm working and making a short break to get to know you but you make a bad impression.”
(J asks to be excused. I think: Oh no, I asked him to come and now he has to watch this.)
“I can't teach you. Sorry, maybe you can ask someone from Tanzania.”
“But those are not good. I need someone like you.”
“Do you mean white?” (Why is everything about the skin color?)
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“They are mother tongues.”
“You mean they are native speakers. Not everyone is a native speakers, just like me, I told you: I'm from Germany.”
“So can you teach me?”
“No, I don't have time.” (J comes back.)
“Can I talk to him then?”
“Feel free.”
(Am I supposed to forbid him talking a friend of mine?) They talk in Swahili. I understand a few parts for example when J points at another white person to tell the guy he should ask someone else who is not busy. I laugh. The guy asks me for my E-mail address so that we can make out a place and a time when I will teach him.
“I won't teach you, I won't give you my number, not my name and to clarify something for the future I won't give you money.” (J starts chuckling.)
“What?” (J laughs even harder.)
I repeat it.
“What?” (Is this a game now to repeat this endlessly?)
“You make a bad impression and I don't want to spend time with a foreigner.” (J bites his lip and watches the guy.)
He finally leaves, I realize that the staff members were watching us. They think this is quite amusing. I look at J and burst into laughter. He joins me. He tells me he only got out to laugh out loud and the guy is super weird and I confused the guy when I laughed as I understood what J said.
I'm marking. JM asks me to fill another cumulative mark record sheet for P5. I say I can do this as soon as I have time. He says: “I really appreciate it. Thank you.” (I have a tight schedule having a lot of work. You're just sitting there: Do this yourself!) But I somehow like this cumulative record sheet they look so smart because of all the numbers. I tell him that I can't promise anything since I have a lot of work myself and he shouldn't say “thank you” just yet. He says again: “Thank you.” Before he can add: I really appreciate it. I say: “JM, I have too much work.”
“Just imagine my work.” Oh goodness is this a competition? And if so, I think I win.
In order to mark your exams you mark one and write all the right answers at the edge and then you give the papers to someone else. I think: ‘Just like you [JM] did on Friday when you gave me your history exam. Right now, you seem pretty relaxed and doing nothing except moving one paper from the left to the right and another one from the bottom to the top of a pile of documents.’ However, I just keep concentrating on myself.
The street-stranger and I are going to meet in Uhuru park. I saved me one hour so that I can mark the rest of my English papers. When I'm halfway through I take a look at my watch. It's 17:12 he was supposed to be here 12min ago. Alright I can wait, I have enough to do. I continue working but my eyes are getting super tired and I get annoyed by reading the same words over and over. I feel sympathy for the teachers in Germany: Marking here in Tanzania is much easier because of the multiple choice. Here I don’t have to check whether they included all the important point in their summary of a newspaper article. I think the government made the marking easier because of the amount of students here. In Germany the students are less and so the teachers are expected to spend more time with single students who need more help. Crazy! I have more respect for (my German) teachers now!
17:33 I call the street-stranger. Last time he came two hours too late but I don't have that much time. I already planed to spare 2,5h for him I can't spare more. I have to mark my exams and I want to write my blog entries. I am in my tenth week now and I only published until week four. He doesn't pick up. I continue working and think that I just use the time to finish this. 17:37 he calls me back and says he will be there in 15min or less. At 18:05 I leave and go to the meeting point with J. I gave the street-stranger time to show up and I have to move my legs again. I'm used to stand in front my class and now that we have examinations and I was only supervising I miss standing! But when I'm marking I can't stand…
When I arrive at the meeting point for J and I, I take out my exams and continue. Oh goodness this looks horrible (horrible!!! not horable, hurribul or harubla)! I receive a text message from the street-stranger saying: You're gone. I think: Yes, I know. And funnily a message from him from yesterday reaches me now saying: I like that. This fits perfectly together. I chuckle. He sends me another message saying: I'm late because I'm from Africa. I don’t think that this is the reason for being late. Otherwise every teacher would come late and J as well. But again I don't respond. A few exams later he sends: Do you get any of my messages? I'm like: Yes, but I don't want to respond... I continue marking. He calls me but I don't pick up. Why is he suddenly all over the phone? Then he sends me a message saying: I think I'm annoying enjoy your evening. Wow finally he stops. I continue marking. Can you believe this I'm still not finished. They had 33 words and 17 sentences. I get tired of reading and trying to read the handwriting. Just as I am about to give up for today I see it. One student voted for Hilary Clinton. I laugh hard and take a picture.
The street-stranger comes in. He acts like nothing happens. Oh shit, I wanted to send him a text message saying: Why do you have an excuse to come 1,5h too late but I don't have an excuse of not answering my phone for 20min? Well, I continue marking. He pats me weirdly on the back and says: “You're busy as usual.” Then he sits on the couch. When I'm finished with marking I take out my iPad so that I can put the marks into my own record sheet. He thinks I'm done and comes and starts talking. I tell him what I wanted to text him in person and he says he is late to everyone. I say this is still not an explanation for him being impatient as long as I don't answer my phone. J arrives and the street-stranger feels obviously uncomfortable and before J starts laughing again he pretends to get a call. The street-stranger invites me to a day trip to a lake tomorrow because he is going there with six other German women. He thought… (He stopped speaking there.) I tell him I'm in school and afterwards not fit enough. Then the food for me and J arrives and the street-stranger says enjoy and that our talk was really nice. I will never understand those people.
J sits down and asks me about my day. “Too much unsatisfactory things.” I tell him about the reading exam and the spelling results and JM expecting me to fill a new cumulative mark record sheet although I told him I had too much work and that his response was simply that I should imagine having his work. Then I tell J what happened with the street-stranger and he says he really doesn't get that guy. "You have such a tight schedule and so much work and then you spare time and they do not understand that you stop your work just for them." I look at him with a slight smile as he says this. "You get up at 06:30 you work between 08:00 and 15:00 where you have a lot of students to teach, a lot of papers to mark and then you have the other teachers who do not help but make it even more difficult for you to do your work properly. In your lunchtime you are supposed to regain power but that doesn't work with your school food so you need your own. Then you get back pretty exhausted buy the food for the coming day, eat just a bit and then you wash your clothes, prepare your next lesson or you mark something. Then you make your notes of the day and when your finished I'm coming and we go for dinner. When we're back it has already been a long day and still I ask for your shoulder blade." I have to laugh. The fact that he puts his daily request whether I will show him my shoulder blades again into his numeration of my daily activities really pushes my mood. (Showing my shoulder blades doesn’t stand for something offensive but my shoulder blades are extendable. One day after our dancing lesson I stretched myself and J saw my shoulder blades standing out and since then he’s surprised how that works.)
Then I show J the exam from my P6 student who voted for Hilary Clinton. He laughs hard and says I have to give him an extra point for that.
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