Teaching as a Volunteer in Tanzania

A little Hakuna Matata

A "Mambo?" enough and the sun will rise. If I learned one thing in particular during my much too short 5-week volunteer work in Tanzania in Morogoro, it is that it doesn't take much to be happy. After all, there is a bit of Hakuna Matata in each of us, it just has to be awakened.

I traveled with 3 friends from Germany. We'll all be teachers soon, and we thought to ourselves that a bit of reality in the form of social work in a developing country wouldn't do us any harm. Off into the wide world after a stressful exam! After a week in the hostel of the Mzimbazi Center, during which we became fond of Aidanus, who really does a lot for us volunteers, the first stress monsters fell away from us, although the city of Dar Es Salaam should probably be hectic.

Big city Dar es Salaam

About. 5 million inhabitants you can see 4,9 million every day who just scurry through the streets. There is always a traffic jam anyway; The numerous street vendors then use this to advertise important things such as small fire extinguishers, scented trees or tea towels on the open window panes. When changing money, the wads (the smallest 10.000 note – the equivalent of about 5€ – ALWAYS wads are generated when withdrawing money…) are quickly stuffed into the socks even by the locals – and off we go into the fray!

Crossing to Morogoro

The crossing to Morogoro – 180km inland – was an adventure in itself. I'm sitting in a bank of three - the next but one next to me is a Maasai; easily recognizable by his traditional robe and the weapon he carries. He looks me up and down and seems quite curious. When our shared seatmate in the middle unpacks his modern mobile phone and follows a godzilla-like short film in miserable quality, the Maasai warrior is tied and stares at the display as if he had never seen anything like it. Nevertheless, one has to say: Tanzania is more developed than I thought, especially since almost everyone here has more than 3 mobile phones - after all, you have to skilfully use the different tariffs of the telephone providers....

Arrived in Morogoro I was impressed by the Ulugurus - the mountain range around our accommodation. We started two hikes there. Simply fantastic. Endlessly wide view, small inhabited huts, countless banana and corn plantations, avocado trees, papaya, palm trees, palm trees, palm trees - as far as the eye can see!

We even visited waterfalls and stopped there to cook. Traditionally, ugali - cornmeal porridge - came on the table, or rather the banana leaf and it went in - always kneading a ball of porridge with your fingers and pressing a hollow with your thumb so that you can then dip the delicious vegetable sauce.

The accommodation is gigantic

A real lodge: we feel like we're on vacation there! Even if we couldn't shower for a few days (why isn't there any water coming out of the tap?!), it is actually above average standard and finally we also checked that there are simply fixed water times: So always fill the big bucket dutifully and go the scoop shower is going, hakuna shida! In any case, I have now learned that running water cannot be taken for granted.

At first it was a bit difficult to understand that the clocks turn more slowly and that the hour is not 60 minutes but rather 200, after a few days it no longer bothered me at all. We waited a whopping 15 hours for the taxi driver who said he only needs 2,5 minutes to get there. If that had pissed me off in Germany, I didn't think it was that bad in Tanzania - you just have to know how to use the time to just relax. Put chill mode on autopilot!

Teaching at primary school in Tanzania

My volunteer project as a volunteer was a primary school around the corner. In Tanzania, the primary school goes from the 1st class to the 7th class, whereby a kindergarten is usually also integrated. But beware - here the 4-year-olds sit in their bench in a disciplined manner and learn their ABCs and arithmetic. You feel less of games, even though my school, as an English-speaking private school, was still able to express a relatively high level of security for the conditions there.

The school fees – around €230 per school year – can still be raised by very few with ease. In July, most of the payments from March have now been acknowledged and in any case many children are sponsored by American partners. Already on the first day we were warmly welcomed by the head teacher - great things were expected of us, because in Tanzania some people have already understood that education is the primary means that can advance the country. We Mzungus (=whites; one should get used to this word) are regarded as role models.

The principal was a teacher through and through, gave free tutoring in the afternoons and gave really good math lessons for local standards. The morning parade, in which the children stood in rank and file – he led. Then, for example, the national anthem was sung, a little morning exercise was done and they marched to class – with the school orchestra drumming. But this ritual is a lot of fun for the children and the head teacher is also jumping at the top of the sport.

When we arrived, however, the school had 2 weeks of vacation - of which 3 classes were still present in one week: exam preparations. We used the week off sensibly and enjoyed 5 days in Zanzibar. As a little tip: It's worth getting up early, looking at the fish market and taking part in a spice tour!

The kids didn't want to let us go anymore. Although you can feel the poverty and see it in torn school uniforms or broken shoes, the children radiate a special warmth. They are affectionate and fascinated by our fine hair, just always wanted to be around us!

Since we didn't quite see through the actually well-planned but not always implemented timetable and the headmaster's original statement was: "Do like ... what you want! Feel free! The kids should enjoy with you!" and we should ideally be present in every class every day, we had a fairly relaxed program in terms of teaching material: balloon dancing, making boats, writing profiles, in between a bit of math, German-Swahili lessons, singing and dancing together - it was almost everything included.

The communication worked great: the children from class 6 spoke better English than we did! We also went to the "Kindergarden" once - since it's still difficult to explain here, we got support from the teachers and just played with playdough or balls. The little ones couldn't understand it at all: Playing, what is that actually? I guarantee you: Bring a single balloon and you've won the heart of an entire class! I have never seen children who can enjoy a piece of air as much as here.

At first I was fascinated by the school material: "Help, taking the square root of four-digit numbers in the 6th grade?! I've never experienced that in my entire mathematics studies!" Even if some things are taught quite early on, very few have understood them. The class register says: "All pupils have understood." This is where scheme counts and if you can do it, it's good. If not, bad luck. Logical thinking is hardly trained and although three-digit numbers are subtracted in class 2, the children can only solve tasks like "4 - 1" with the help of their fingers. Unfortunately, 5 weeks is far too little time to make a lasting difference here.

My highlight, however, was a little boy in this 2nd grade, who basically only copied every task from his neighbor in the bank. He got every result right, the teacher kept putting her ticks under it, but he had no plan for arithmetic. After trying to get the class to understand that copying isn't really going to do them any good, this boy was really dying to learn arithmetic. It was break time, everyone ran out. He stayed seated so I could explain math to him. And when I said at some point that he should take a break now, he said: "But after break we continue??!"

Yes - if I have achieved that that someone really wants to learn something, then my commitment was already a success for me personally.

Give Thanks

Thank you Aidanus for cramming all our luggage into this tiny car (even though my suitcase later broke off a piece of the trunk). Thank you Edwin for letting us meet your family and please tell Yoshua to put his motorcycle helmet on the right way round. Thank you Baraka for driving with us to the sweaty Tigoshop three times.

Thank you Peter for an unforgettable safari; we are proud of how wonderfully you can handle a handbrake and hope your wife was happy about the charcoal briquettes. Thank you Ramadan for your smile every morning, the green guard outfit looks great on you. Thanks Jay, Cheddrak and Taxidriver for two super great hikes, but I really couldn't have done it with flip flops. Thank you Jay, Adolph and Master P. for a very fun and crazy Tanzanian dance evening and the shuttle service to the bus the next morning. Thanks Piki for putting so much effort into the market, even though I really didn't want to buy the silver spoons.

It was one of the best decisions of my life and I was finally able to take a bit of the Tanzanian mentality with me to Germany. In this sense: "Haraka, haraka – haina baraka!"

Teaching as a Volunteer in Tanzania Review by Simone D, August 2013