1st November - Shangani Secondary School

The Shangani Secondary School is a demonstration school for the Teachers’ College. It is used for students undertaking teaching practice and is supposed to be a model of good practice as far as Tanzanian education in concerned. It takes pupils aged 14-19 years and follows quite a traditional Grammar school curriculum. This morning I met a Japanese maths teacher, volunteering there. I have to say I understood more about algebra today than I ever did when I was at school; so it being explained by a Tanzanian student speaking Swahili-English with a heavy Japanese accent probably helped. “Sawa?”  (OK?) barked the teacher in oriental Kiswahili. “Sawa”, grinned back the students. Their demonstrations on the blackboard showed that they had understood perfectly.

I plan to spend part of my week teaching English at Shangani. It is only minutes from here and there is much to be done.  The English class that I went to observe had no teacher, she being on study leave, and the pupils were catching up on homework quietly until I disturbed them. I asked them a few questions about England, which soon turned into a litany of Premiership football clubs, the new international vocabulary.

Back home at lunch-time to tackle Ratty. He visited again last night, helping himself to my lunch, so we’re waiting for the ‘fundi’ (technician) who will supposedly mend the roof, block other holes and hopefully leave poison to kill Ratty. The trouble is he’s been threatening to come for five days and hasn’t actually made it. Francis has an enigmatic way of answering open questions with closed answers. It might be that I speak too quickly, or that Francis doesn’t want to trouble me with too much detail, but, as an example, I phone to ask Francis when exactly will the fundi come, “Yes”, says Francis, “He is coming”. Eventually as we are about to leave, fundi arrives. He has a hammer and a screwdriver. Seemingly every job requires just these two tools. He has no ladders; instead he makes a makeshift ladder from a discarded bed and two chairs. He smiles benignly at me as I hold them for him, as if to say, “Have you nothing better to do?” I have no idea how the piece of hardboard he has nailed on to the ceiling will prevent our rat from getting into the kitchen; instead we’ve bought some ant-rat glue. It’s the sort of stuff I last saw used on Tom and Jerry cartoons, but the kindly Asian shopkeeper assured us that it works.

I asked Lucia whether she had rats, “Yes”, she said “All these houses have rats. You must catch them or kill them.” 

Easy for her to say, I thought.