Teach and Travel: Medical Donations, Geography Lessons, and a Volleyball Match

After a hard morning of construction and a delicious lunch, our afternoon provided some fun variety.

Amy, Jack, and Sonia had collected many medical donations from their own communities for the clinic in Pommern, and we took some time Wednesday afternoon to deliver those items to the clinic. Most of the items were of a very basic nature...and exactly what the clinic needed. Tylenol. Advil. Antacids. Bandages. Gauze. Neosporin. Latex gloves. Toothpaste and toothbrushes. Wet wipes. Multivitamins. Baby food. The kinds of things that we as Americans have immediate access to. The kinds of things that we as Americans have in every one of our own medicine cabinets at home. Only a few surgical supplies and sterilization materials, a couple of epi pens, some penicillin, and a nebulizer went beyond what most of us keep in our bathroom cupboards. And I think the epi pens and nebulizer were completely foreign items to the nurses at the clinic, though Amy and Sonia did leave instructions on how and for what purpose to use them.

It truly was an emotional experience standing there in the supply room at the clinic with all of the donations, realizing what fortune I and all Americans have in comparison. It is heart wrenching to consider that in order to get something as simple as a Tylenol pill, the people in rural Africa need to go to the doctor and be prescribed a rationed portion rather than purchasing a large bottle of it at Wal-Mart. I confess that at some point before the counting, recording, and explaining were done, Kendra and I slipped away, in part due to the emotion of it all, to go play outside with the kids who were anxiously awaiting our return.

Jack, Amy, and Sonia organizing and packing their medical donations in the mission house

Some of the nurses, Kendra, and I carrying the donations to the clinic (photo taken by Edward)

Sonia and Amy making sure Nurse Patricia understood what each item was
(photo taken by Edward)

A little while later, Edward summoned Amy, Jack, and me to go down to the secondary school to meet some of the students. We went into one of the classrooms where about 6 or 7 students were working on geography homework. A student named Teo showed me several of his questions and responses. All of the students in the room were Form VI students, the final grade before graduation. Form VI students would be equivalent in age to second-year college students here in the U.S., but their ages also vary widely because students go to secondary school when they are able, both financially and circumstantially. They must also have passed national exams given at various points during primary and secondary school in order to move on to the next grade.

I was extremely impressed by Teo's immense knowledge and dedication to doing well at school. He showed me a type of graph he was making to compare two different countries' exports (a type I, the AP statistics teacher, had never seen!), discussed an essay question with me about continental drifting and Pangea, explained the structure of the earth, and worked through a math problem that involved finding the distance between two points on a map. He was meticulous about showing all the steps of his work on the math problem, including keeping labels in the work, and explaining all the way how it was very important that he show all of the details of his work so precisely. In telling me how much he was expected to write to answer his essay questions, I learned that a front and back of a sheet of notebook paper would be an absolute minimum, and that it would not be uncommon to fill up to 4 sides of paper.

I also very much enjoyed seeing the interdisciplinary nature of Teo's work, with aspects of math, science, history, and geography all being part of the geography curriculum. We could learn some things from secondary education in Tanzania! I only wish I got to experience more at this level of education. I learned that Teo would like to attend university to become a history teacher, but that there were things that would dictate whether this would be an option or not. Money is an ever-present issue, and very high marks on February's Form VI national exams will be required. University tuition in Dar is somewhere around 1.5-1.8 million Tanzanian schillings per year, equivalent to about $1100-1400 US. Recall that secondary school tuition at Pommern was around 500 USD and that alone was a steep price.

One of the classrooms at Pommern Secondary School

When the students wrapped up their work for the day, we all went to "the grounds" near the school and played a long game of volleyball with the soccer ball purchased in Iringa. It was nice of the boys to let a couple of mzungu girls (and an mzungu boy, but that wasn't so unusual) play with them! No one kept score and no one gave anyone else a hard time for messing up a hit. In fact, the game became full body volleyball as the secondary boys employed some sweet moves, including hits off their head, knees, or feet to get the ball over the net. All in all, a wonderful time! We ended the daylight hours watching an organized game of soccer between two local Pommern teams on the soccer field adjacent to the volleyball court. It didn't matter that the ground was uneven or that there were many bare spots where the grass had worn away or that the goals were twice as big as they should be and had no nets; it was just kids/young adults playing a universal sport. How neat!