7/21/09

I called the embassy this morning and talked to Ms. Wang. I told her that we were planning to hold a small party of sorts, in which soft drinks would be provided (I will likely shell out the $50 to buy all these drinks), and would like to schedule a day in which they could come. I suggested Friday the 31st and Saturday the 1st , since we have two hours of class on those days instead of the normal one. During the night class, I told the students to start writing some skits that they would like to present. They seem really excited about it, and I hope for the sake of these woodcarvers, that the people from the embassy will show up and appreciate the progress they’ve made in acquiring the Chinese language. In addition, I tried to find out some information about those students from China who will be coming to study here next semester, but found out that the students in China have yet to register for classes here. I also asked if she could obtain information about Tanzanians who had gone to China to study Chinese, but had returned back to Tanzania to work. She seemed to think that she could obtain this information and forward it to me.

I had a chat with one of the local Tanzanian college students who teaches English to the Woodcarvers, and he told me about a few students on campus who are doing work for IYF (International Youth Foundation, I think). Among those, he thinks that a couple of them are Chinese and that they are teaching Chinese classes on the Dar Es Salaam University campus. I will have to check this out and see if it is indeed true. He said that their classes sounded like Chinese, but that he was unsure.

During the English class, the students met with some of the chairmen of the Education group of the Tanzania Carvers Association and aired out their complaints about having to pay 10,000 shillings for three years of education. The biggest question was where the money was going, The chairmen tried to answer that it was for the sake of the electricity bill, fixing the chalkboards, repairing the benches, but it just didn’t add up. I was given the opportunity to speak and told the chairmen that the students already pay 500 shillings monthly for these things, and wondered where the other 10,000 shillings/student would be going. They said that they would have to see, and would use the money accordingly. It all seemed pretty excessive. The local Tanzanian who taught there made quite an elegant point, adding things up, and showing that there would be an excess of almost 500,000 Tanzanian Shillings ($400+) from these students. It seems like the chairmen will have to rethink this plan.

Also, another new rule that irritated the students was the necessity of graduating after three years of education. I’m not sure why this rule is in place at all. It was explained that this rule was chosen to try to get students to take their studies seriously and so attend every class. Nonetheless, it is obvious that three years of English education and/or Chinese language education from volunteers is not enough (I’ve taken Chinese for three years from some of the most well trained teachers and my Chinese is still not that great).

Anyway, it looks as if the 10,000 shilling fee will not be implemented, and that means that the woodcarvers will continue getting some semblance of English (and hopefully Chinese) language education.