My students in Tanzania

My morning group: Jipe Moyo Women care

Jipe Moyo Women Care was founded to support women affected by HIV. (The name of the group means "hope".) There are 30 members in the group (28 women and 2 men). Most of them have HIV or are affected by it in another way; they can for example be widowed. They need helo especially as other people in their society often exclude them because of their disease.

What do I do with them?

Mainly I teach them English, but sometimes I teach them how to use their lap top - don't ask me where they got it from -or try to figure out new ideas how to improve their quality of living. Below you can see a picture of one of the "classrooms" where I have been teaching them.

Jipe Moyo's members are luckily getting help not only from volunteers but through the local Rainbow Center. Another volunteer and I were invited to join them one morning, when they were given maize and cooking oil. The person who greeted us, was a nun who gave a long speech in Swahili, which of course, we didn't understand what she was talking about, but we clapped when other people clapped. Only after a while we found out that the nun was praising for us because we have come here to help! Below you can see a picture of Rainbow Center and the people outside sharing the handouts.

How has it been with these people?

I have to say, that I have had the worst days with them as well having had great days. The most difficult thing to live with is that you never know what tomorrow brings with them. What was agreed yesterday will probably be forgotten by tomorrow, which makes teaching quite challenging; it is very difficult to plan lessons because people are on very different levels, you never know who is going to show up and for how long they can stay. I have had to learn to go with the flow and adapt "pole pole" (slowly slowly) and "hakuna matata" (no worries) as my new attitude.

My afternoon students

At first I had only one student in the afternoons, who I "stole" from another volunteer. She was badly behind the other students, so we thought that it would be a good idea to teach her one to one.) After a couple of days another beginner turned up, and later four Masai men walked into my classroom (which is actually an empty bar). So there I have sat, in a bar, around a plastic table with my beginners and have taught them numbers, basic vocabulary and phrases. I am pretty sure that when I get back to Finland I will have to pinch myself to believe that I have actually been teaching Masai men - who seem to be incredibly smart - wearing their traditional dresses, holding their sticks and having huge pearsing holes in their ears.

The afternoon lessons has been quite unpredictable too, as you might have been able to tell based on what I just wrote. What makes teaching beginners challenging, is that we have a common language - if we dont count my little knowledge of Swahili. I have had to for example sing, run, sit down, get up, sit down, get up... and pantomime many things in front of students to make myself clear. But the biggest challenge for me has been that most of the students can't read at all, meaning that most of the usual ways of teaching and sharing information are not available. Luckily I've got my imagination, which has safed me in many tricky situations!