7/20/09

This morning I went with the chairman, Focus, to help get the school registered again. I didn’t exactly understand the process, but we went to a local government post to get the application stamped, then another larger government post to get it stamped by another guy. The guy at the larger post took a tea break for an hour, and since there were three people in front of us, it took two hours to get this done. Such is the life of a government official in Tanzania. Because of the delay, we did not have time to take it to the third place, where a regional educational officer will look at it and hopefully approve it. If so, then I think the school will be officially recognized by the government.

Tomorrow, we will attempt to finish this task (which likely will involve waiting a couple of hours), and then head to the Chinese Cultural Center, which Focus has been to a couple of times. Focus has gotten this idea that if he can obtain some tapes of Chinese language instruction that are broadcast here by the Chinese International Channel, as well as a cheap TV, then students can watch these tapes in class until another teacher is found. I am skeptical that this is a good idea, especially since tapes are no replacement for a teacher, but admit that it is not too bad of a backup plan. It’s best to consider all options, I guess. In addition, maybe the cultural center will have people that may be interested in teaching Chinese to the woodcarvers. It can’t hurt to check it out.

I am pulling out all the stops now to try to find a teacher. This means talking to every Chinese person I see and telling them about my project. Today, I ate at a Chinese restaurant, but upon talking to the restaurant owners, obtained nothing too useful. They did say that there were a few local Tanzanians who go to China to study every year, so maybe if the embassy has a list of these people, I can try to contact them, though it is unlikely that they would freely hand out this information. After arriving at the woodcarving market at 4 in the afternoon, I found a group of six Chinese customers, and asked each of them whether they’d be interested. Upon asking the sixth person, I found out that they are actually from another far away region in Tanzania.


In other news, I found out that the chairman, Focus, is indeed trying to get each student to pay 10,000 shillings (roughly $8/year) for three years of schooling. This is in addition to the 500 shillings they already have to pay monthly for electricity. While $8 seems very reasonable, to many Tanzanians, a one-time payment of this sum of money is out of question. As I said earlier, many of them live day to day, and the storekeepers do take advantage of this (essentially paying the woodcarvers a day’s worth of food for a carving that would otherwise sell for much more). The students have complained and hence will hold a meeting with the chairman about this new plan. In particular, they want to know where this sum of money would be going. I have talked with some of the students, and they think that the money will be spent to buy sodas for those at the top of the party. I will likely attend this meeting, and though I’d hate to be at odds with the chairman after all the things we’ve worked through together, my larger objective remains to continue to allow these woodcarvers to learn both the Chinese and English languages.


Today, I also started buying woodcarvings from my woodcarver students. As a general
rule, I am paying 15,000 shillings (roughly $12) for a small woodcarving. I am letting the students choose what they wish to make. I arrived at this sum after estimating that with $15 they could likely buy a piece of wood 2-3 feet high, and maybe 1 foot in diameter, and that they could use a small piece of that to make a gift for me. This way, they can use the remaining wood to carve something which they can sell to either the storeowners, or if they are lucky enough, people who pass by the carving area. In essence, I am giving my students 15,000 shillings, and telling them to give me whatever they want in return.

In order to understand better the dynamics here, I need to explain how the stores are set up. Essentially, facing the main street, one can only see the stores. Many tourists only see this face of the woodcarver market and so they only see the storeowners, not the actual woodcarvers. The woodcarvers themselves carve behind the shops, and so are unlikely to be seen at all by people who pass by. For example, one of the Chinese customers I talked to today thought that the storeowners ordered the carvings from another part in Tanzania. He did not realize that behind the shops there were actual woodcarvers carving on the spot. As one can imagine, the woodcarvers would make a lot more money if they could sell directly to the customers. If they are lucky enough to have a customer (or a teacher) who they can directly communicate with, they can make a much better profit. Of course, without the storeowners, many woodcarvers would not attract the attention that these stores are now receiving. My goal here is not to criminalize the storeowners, as they are not exactly super rich either, but to show that the woodcarvers do have a particularly hard time making themselves known.


I have been told by some storeowners that the Chinese they are learning has really helped them grab the business of Chinese customers. One of my students, Amiry, has made friends with one old woman, who actually told him that she would come back next week. The storeowners also tell me that the Chinese customers become extremely happy upon hearing that the owners can speak a little Chinese, and hence are more willing to buy some of their items. I’m glad that at least on the surface, it seems that the Chinese is helping.

At the same time, I realize that to many, especially the woodcarvers, learning Chinese is really more of a luxury than something that will “improve” their lives in an economic sense. As I explained earlier, woodcarvers have very little contact with Chinese customers (though there still is some) so their opportunity to use the language is much less than the storeowners. At times, I feel like I am just relieving the pain of poverty, rather than pushing to end it. Nonetheless, I can’t help but to feel as if what I’m doing has some meaning. It reminds me of the story “Shou” (Hand) that I read for 5th year Chinese at PiB, where a young girl, despite knowing that she’d never really do anything meaningful with her education, continued to go to school anyway. I guess something that I’m struggling to grapple with is that I know for a fact no aid agency would fund a project that simply taught Chinese to woodcarvers for the sake injecting happiness into their life. If rated by an aid agency, my project would be ineffective in reducing poverty and completely unsustainable (I am not being paid to teach). I’d be the first to admit these things. Nonetheless, it seems odd then that what I am doing seems to be something that may be more meaningful than giving these woodcarvers a microfinance loan, which could pull them out of poverty. And if given the choice between either teaching them Chinese or working with a microfinance bank to try to improve their economic status, as of now, I think I’d have to side with teaching them Chinese. Would it be the most effective or sustainable choice? Of course not. But for some reason, it seems like it’d be the right one for me.