What a delicious sound to wake up to! The steady flow of water into the toilet cistern! We leapt out of bed and rushed for the buckets. Our huge vats were nearly empty and we had already decided that if we got no water today, desperate remedies would be called for. No need. Our cups overfloweth, almost literally.
Having said all that, we wouldn’t have been exactly lying in. Whilst the imamu seems to have had a day off, no-one told the roosters and then laddo next door seems to love nothing more than run errands for his mum on his motorbike, revving it up outside my bedroom as he passes. One of our tasks today is to dispose of rubbish. Yes, we set ourselves fairly limited goals. We seem to be required to burn it outside our house, but am concerned that no-one else seems to have acquired the number of plastic water bottles that we have.
Last night, we spent an enjoyable evening at the Upendo grocery. It’s a general store with a small verandah with plastic tables and chairs. Next door is Kia’s chipsi stall where you can buy chipsi mayai (chip omelette) for 1500 tsh. We drank bia baridi with Philbert, a retired schools inspector and two young doctors, Tom and Deo, til quite late. We were introduced to them by another VSO volunteer returning to UK today.
Philbert is working as an adviser in the King David School, a Seventh Day Adventist school, working on their school development plan but also taking his guidance on other religious denominations, something they got into hot water over recently. You might recognise this at home, but the private schools, nearly all religious, have more resources, better motivated teachers and, as a consequence, better attainment levels. Tanzania’s efforts to meet their Millennium Development Goal (MDG) for access to education have been so successful that there is now a dire shortage of teachers. In these conditions, the gap between schools with money to pay teachers and those without, becomes more stark. Philbert, unsurprisingly, identified the shortage of teachers and poor school buildings as the priorities. We talked about my placement to improve the quality of teaching, but as he quite lyrically put it,
“Before you wear socks, you must first have shoes.”
I asked Philbert what he would do. Nyerere had recognised education as the force for change in society and nationalised many private schools at Independence. This allowed the formerly dispossessed, the Muslims, the non-alligned, to receive the same education as the Christians. For Philbert, Nyerere was right, and if he had his way, the private schools would be nationalised again. He agreed with me, however, that it is not likely to happen any time soon.
For today, we have simply to buy, then cook, our spinach, rice and beans, swim at high tide later this afternoon, take a couple of beers at the Southern Cross and come home before dark.
For those of you interested in our menagerie, you might like to know that a small herd of large goats (they are the size of cows) has taken up residence just beyond the hens. They have huge horns and, again, Caroline embarrassed us both by squealing as we hurried past. After a short lull in hostilities, battle with Ratty is due to recommence after he got stuck into Caroline’s knickers last night (she wasn’t wearing them at the time!). We have a new lethal weapon, though - a deadly white powder - which will be deployed at nightfall.
Very interesting, Adrian. Is there a connection perhaps between nationalisation and redistribution;? And between privatisation and increased freedom and power for religious authorities? There's no doubt that in England the denominational interests like the de-nationalisation of schools (into Academies etc.), and the further weakening of the privileged position of the C of E. It was not until the former unity and strong central power of the Roman State had been almost completely dispersed that the Christian Church began to assume the position of power to which we have now become accustomed.
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