Ratty lives on!

Well the anti-rat glue might work in the cartoons, but I reckon Ratty took one look at our pathetic trap and laughed, maybe sniggered. He picked daintily over the glue and nibbled all the grains of rice. He sniffed at the banana skin and then found a fresh banana in the living room. He’ll be back, no doubt.

Teaching English at Shangani might be more challenging than I first thought, not because there are 60 pupils crammed into one classroom, not because they don’t have enough desks, nor because not everyone has an exercise book, nor because the chalk is dusty and the board is pitted. The main challenge is that the pupils’ exercise books show neat tables of sentences with pronouns underlined, a table for past future and present tenses, a glossary of literary terms which would grace ‘A’ level candidates’ work – and yet they cannot choose an adjective to describe themselves. Many of them know what adjectives nouns and verbs are – that is they can repeat a definition they have previously copied - but they cannot identify one for themselves. Knowing where to ‘pitch’ the lessons, I will find difficult.

As I arrive in school, a boy runs to carry my bag. Mtumbi advises that this is their way of showing respect and I should oblige. Each morning school starts at 7.00am with Cleanliness. Pupils patrol the school brushing and watering and tidying. At 7.30 begins inspection. This is led by students and I am introduced to the school. Classes begin at 8.00. The two classes I taught today were docile to the point of unresponsiveness. They are polite, but the combination of my accent and their unwillingness to do anything other than precisely what they are asked, makes for a dull lesson.

The heat is unbearable. It rains for about twenty minutes and then the heat returns with a vengeance. At break, I ask if there is water, “No,” comes the response from my colleague. “This is Tanzanian education.”

Back to College for lunch. Outside our house is a small thatched shelter. Under it is a table with two benches and a charcoal jiko. Here we are served chipsi na mayai -  literally, egg and chips, but in fact a chip omelette cooked on a charcoal stove, washed down with a bottle of soda, which the helper went to the shop for on his bike  - a gesture of pure kindness on his part – no reward expected.

After lunch we had a power cut. No surprise expressed, but I was told the fundi – the spaki – would be along. I’m ashamed to say I assumed that this would be like UK and I would wait in all afternoon for the guy to turn up at tea-time and say he needed to order parts. Not at all. This guy had – you’ve got it – a screwdriver and a hammer! He fiddled with the fuse box, looked at it, prised it apart, bent it, fiddled with it some more and put it back. When the lights came on, he was more surprised than I was. He didn’t expect a tip, but he brought his boss, Francis, along later just to bask in the congratulations of actually having mended it.

There is no doubt that living with rats and geckos and ants is unpleasant, but there are many, many rewarding moments.