Where in the world is Ashley Churchill?

As many of you know, I'm currently teaching a special ed class in Moshi, Tanzania. And if you know me at all, you're probably just as shocked as I am that I was appointed such a postition. I have very limited experiece with children and NO experience with people with disabilities. The abilities of the students vary widely. Some have profound problems such as downs syndrome and some have more mild issues like ADD and dyslexia. One student was stood out to me was Bahati.

I'm not even sure why she is in this class. She's the one that has her assignment done before I'm finished passing them out. And she's the one that always has her hand up when I ask them a question. I thought there is no way she is being challenged enough in this school. So when I handed out today's assignment, I handed her a different one. I drew pictures of family members and animals and asked her to trace the corresponding word, and then write it again. Both in swahili and english. It was a bit tough for her at first, but she understood it after a while.

Its really and awesome feeling when you see the transformation you are making in another person's life. I don't feel the school is the best fit for her. She really should be in a regular primary school. She was a bit angry at me at first. This was all happening while the other kids were colouring. But I told her (in english, I'm only human people!) how well she was doing and how proud I am of her. I'm developing more worksheets for the coming weeks for her. She will be reading whole sentances by the time I'm done! Next, its spelling of numbers and verbs.

Bahati and I

So I got back from my safari a few days ago. The safari included tours of Lake Minyara, Ngorongoro (aka, 'The Crater'), and Tarangerie. So we left in the late after noon of Friday and arrived at Lake Minyara (including a pit stop at the Shoprite in Arusha and dropping by the camp site) in the late afternoon. We stopped off in Arusha for a few minutes to load up on your traditional car ride fare. I don't care too much for Arusha, too many tourists.

Upon arrival at Lake Minyara, my 'rechargable' batteries died. So no pictures from this particular park. We saw elephants, hippos, and girraffs a plenty. It was all pretty cool. After about three hours, we went back to the camp site for dinner. One staple for camping, as many of you are aware of, is s'mores. With that in mind, I purchased plenty of s'mores ingredients while in Arusha. So imagine my dissapointment when I arrive back at the site and there is no fire pit. GRRRRRRR. Did you know that people outside of North America have no clue of what they are? So our resident Australian is still in the dark about the marshmellowy goodness.
The safari was in a minibus over very rocky and windy roads, so its no surprise that a few people felt the effects of that. And as per usual, its the Canadian to the rescue with her Gravol.

Megan, Joe, John, Elise, Allen, and I at 'The Crater'

The next day, we took off in the early hours in the morning for The Crator in Ngorongoro. Basically, the whole park is this massive crator. There, we saw a mosaic zebras, wildebeasts, hipppos and ONE lion.

And the damn thing wouldn't even turn around for us. At one point, two wildebeasts starting fighting. By the time we all got our cameras out, they stopped. It was at this point that I yelled 'Are you going to take that from him?!?!' and he growls in reply. It is apparent that I speak fluent wildebeast. For when one of the others yelled something at him, he stayed in silence. I forget how high the crator is, but its deffinately at a high altitude, bring the temp down to the mid 20's. Which was kind of nice, it being 35*C every single day and all. One more thing that I didn't enjoy too much, but one of the other girls' found great fulfillment in, was squatting. We thought that they would have western toilets throughout. But when we arrive at our lunch site, it's not the case. I walk into the stall and see a commode similar to this....

Yeah, not fun. But you gotta do what you gotta do. So after lunch, we went in search for more animals. Wasn't as much as there were in the morning. Maybe the African wildlife are just early risers. So we head back to camp to enjoy another delicious meal prepared by our cook who is aptly named 'Goodluck'.

The next morning, we head off for our third and final national park of Tarangerie. The park was deffiantely more vibrant and pictureque than the previous two. I just wish I could say the same for the animals. We saw one Cheetah under a tree from a few kilometres away. And from that point on, it was pretty much all elephants.

Although, it was really cool when two elephants started sparring. You wouldn't beleive how loud it gets when they bang their tusks against each other! So at the end of the day, we pile back into the minibus and head back to our homebase. The ride was pretty uneventful. I fell asleep pretty quickly.

Peace out homies

AC

So we went to Arusha last week to sit in on the International Criminal Tribunal for Rewanda at the UN. It was actually really interesting. They are still trying the Rewanda genocides from 1994 and we 'saw' them question one person. Most of it was regaurding someone trying to coerce them into giving false testimony against someone by the name of Prosper Mugiraneza, who was arrested in 1999 for crimes against humanity. I have more experience with how 'judical' systems work than any civilian should. The person being questioned was coached to say exactly what her lawyers wanted to say. Its weird to see that kind of thing from the outside looking in. But going to the trials, it was sort of like witnessing history.

After the UN, we went to the Massai Market. I'm not a huge fan. People in Arusha are 10 times as agressive as the people in Moshi and the stuff is the same. There is tones of stuff I'd like to buy, but is too big to bring home. Who wouldn't want a life-size giraff statue? I would, but I doubt it will fit in my carry on.

On the weekend, I'll be visiting the bithplace of Freddie Mercury, Zanzibar.

AC

They found Neema, the student in my class that wandered away on Friday. She only had to spend on night out. Which is a good thing because I don't know how long she would have lasted on her own. Megan wants to leave the placement. I see her point. She's only 18 and this particular position is very demanding. Tracey, one of my fellow Canucks at the home base wants to take her place. Which is absolutely fine with me since Ibra, the CCS guy, doesn't seem to concerned about it at all. There is no way a single person can teach a special ed class of 15 on their own. The kids are starting to respond to me and my lessons. Learning the alphabet is going to be a slow process, but they're catching on. One funny tidbet. I was having them write the letter 'D' today and look at one of them wrote...

And she doesn't understand english. Out of all the words she could have written, she writes 'doom'. Maybe she's brighter (and darker) than people give her credit for. Not much else is new. We had a batik class yesterday. Look at what I made...

I can't wait for my safari on the weekend.

Peace out

AC

So Megan and I went to the school today with the expectation that we were going to do a home visit. So we would be visiting the homes of one or two of our students. But when we arrived at the school, there were more people there than we expected and a local woman in tears. One of our students didn't arrive home yesterday. I don't even remember her. She only came to class a few times and I never worked that closely with her. But we joined one of the staff teachers and the girl's mom to start canvasing the area. But when we went to the home of this one man that had been attacked the night before, Megan and I started to become very uncomfortable. Most of the time we feel perfectly safe in the area. But we had an encounter last week that reminded us that always have to proceed with caution. We don't know the area that well and we're out in the backroads looking for a girl that we don't really know. So we made an excuse to go back to the home base and left.

I do hope she gets back home. But with her limited mental capactity and the vast landscape of the Moshi area, it doesn't seem to likely.

AC