8/7/09

I have translated the dialogue that I posted on 7/31/09.

I got some terrible news yesterday, that Ms. Wu, the teacher I that once accepted to teach, can no longer do so. She has just been lined up to do five more programs over the next year or so, and hence, will be really busy. Honestly, I am very understanding to her situation, and am still very appreciative that she even thought about teaching the woodcarvers. What I am disappointed about though, is that I could not have been told earlier. With only less than 5 days left here in Tanzania, it is unlikely that I will be able to find another teacher in time.

Anyways, there is no time for me to sulk about the loss of a teacher here, as the small party I am planning will be taking place tomorrow. I have had to change one of the groups' skits, from welcoming the new teacher, to one in which the students are still continuing to seek a teacher, and in the end, are disappointed a new one cannot come. The last line ends with a somber, 哎，我们该怎么办？ (Sigh! What should we do now?).

Things aren't really that depressing, and if the party were not tomorrow, I would restructure the latter half of the skit so that it would be much more optimistic, but in this way, the students in this skit group only have to add one additional line. Sometime later, I'll post all the skits that the students have done, so it'll be easier to understand.

My plan as of now is to stay at the woodcarvers market from 8 in the morning until 6 pm on Saturday and Sunday to try to talk to some more Chinese people about my project. It likely will not do much good, but it can't hurt to try. As for a backup plan, it may be possible for me to try to continue to send voice clips through the internet of the lessons to one of the more well off students (he is a businessmen and is professionally trained as a teacher), and then he can relay the lessons to the other students. Anyway, my goal as of now has shifted gears a bit from finding another teacher, to thinking of a way in which they can simply retain what they already have learned. Once I leave, I think many of the students may lose the desire to learn Chinese, but if they are really determined about it, it is entirely possible that they can continue to meet after work everyday in order to review the vast amount of Chinese which they have already learned. I've basically done all I can do, and now it is up to the students to take responsibility for retaining the Chinese language skills that they have acquired.

After I return to the US, I am going to try to get Princeton to start an internship where a student or two or three would do exactly what I have done this summer. The only requirements would be that they have sufficient Chinese skills to teach it (Mine are by no means, great), and that they have a willingness to learn the Swahili language. They will take courses at the University of Dar Es Salaam, and at night, would teach the woodcarvers. Hopefully, this ensures that at least every summer they will be able to continue learning Chinese. I think many students would be attracted to it, and it seems like Princeton, in the service of all nations, would readily try to eat up (hopefully the bureaucracy at Princeton University is not nearly as bad as it is here).

Despite the bad news, I do have a bit of good news as well. Earlier in the week, the chairman and I delivered letters to different newspapers and media groups, hoping that they'd turn out. One of the groups we missed, however, was the Mwananchi/The Citizen, because the chairman did not really know where their office was. This was a bit disappointing for me because it is the first paper I started reading here in Tanzania, and it was the one that my professor recommended I use as a means of learning Swahili. It also seems to be the paper that many professors on the University of Dar Es Salaam campus are reading. Anyway, this week, I took it upon myself to contact this paper through e-mail this Wednesday, and the following day, they responded asking to interview me as well as take a look at the Chinese class. The editor seemed really excited to hear about this story, and perhaps, even if the Chinese Embassy as well as the Chinese community do not show much interest in such a program, if the Tanzanian papers report favorably upon such teaching, it may change the minds of the Embassy. Any press is good press at this point, I think, and I really have not much to lose since I am leaving the country soon.

So an exciting few days ahead. I'll likely report again sometime Sunday/Monday after everything has settled a bit.