First days

I have been in Dar es Salaam for ten days and teaching for three, therefore I am a sponge without much conclusive analysis, but want to start the sharing before it gets more unmanageable than it already is! I spent 35 hours in transit, eating international airplane food and reading a great book from Opera's list "Say You're One of Them"by Uwem Akpan, stories of trial and resiliency in children from several African countries. My imagination latched onto the dusty roads, smoky food and barefoot children. I felt the limitations of my perception of Africa; common knowledge about this place is deeply simplified and stereotyped. I said many times that  I was "moving to Africa", but it is Tanzania that I come to, Dar es Salaam, my neighborhood, not the entire continent, that is a much larger being to come to know, if it is even possible.
This journey to know a new place is quite complicated. Not only do your senses need to adjust to new shapes, colors and smells, but the very foundation of knowledge that you base your assumptions on for what is safe and what is friendly, what success means and how time is spent is new. Its like language, you are not simply learning new words for the same old things, greetings have different weight for different people in each moment, the reception of a single question can vary by region, the notion of love has vast interpretations as well as a menagerie of methods for communication.
But I am here in it doing my best to learn and see- we are here. Zak and I are making a home with a crazy quilt and a mosquito net, a gas stove and an in-shower water heater, a falling over refrigerator and makeshift laundry lines in the corners. Our walls are white and our furniture heavy brown wood. Things are simple but of good quality, cheap has a different meaning here. I feel like cheap means simple and not needing to be replaced often, whereas I am used to cheap meaning flimsy and tossable (though there is no shortage of that sort of cheap at the road side stalls or in the hands of the people who knock on your windows when you're driving). We're having a grand old time trying to figure out how to keep the floors clean and our tummies full without the usual Aiya (spelling?) to do it for us. We wake up each morning in the dark and though we're a bit groggy for a few moments, we are so happy to see each other. We wander through a busy street, wade through a new language, study people in staff meetings and at fruit stalls and then put our heads together to try to make sense of it all. This blessing is the Red Thread, the steady line that runs through the story as all else changes. We get to catch a glimpse of each other walking our lines to lunch, vent frustrations at the homework policy or the unwieldy mess left in our closets by a previous teacher,  and overflow with the excitement of successes and unique noticings from the day. What a trip to be each other's closest friends, constant companions, truest loves and to get to see each other in the staff lounge!
We are each delighted by our classes, our students have seen so much of the world, are hungry to learn and are unabashed in their response to our theatrical classroom shenanigans. During morning meeting we sing to the ukulele each day, they chase my imagination with wide eyes as I lay out an idea through a story then pick up where I left off, asking when all is said and done if they can write or read more on the topic! I'm not saying that they don't have their struggles, managing many languages, many transitions, unusual attachments due to multiple moves, wide cultural differences, and a life sheltered within a vibrant but very distinct culture. Though the origins of my students range from Tanzania, to California, Bolivia to Pakistan, many of them have lived in multiple countries and can't quite answer the question "where are you from? " There is a strong push to make a home in the school community that can soothe the confusing edges of roots spread so wide.
In my math curriculum yesterday I was supposed to teach money, of course the objective and manipulatives were geared towards American money, in the states that's kindergarten work. But many of my kids didn't know which one is a penny or a nickel, and why should they? We went through with the objective and practiced identifying and counting and the like, but for homework I decided that they should bring in money from their countries. Everyone came in clutching little envelopes full of coins and we exploded from there. We ended up with a coin museum (see pics), we researched and presented values, did rubbings of pictures, felt shape and weight and celebrated a truly 'global economy.' Tomorrow the other second grades and Zak's class will come in and see our spontaneous World Coins Museum!! Since I'm now behind on the curricular objectives for taking the time to do this we probably won't go into comparing values and making economic judgements, but the possibilities are endless and it was so fun and rewarding for us all to take what the world says we should know and carry it to an authentic place. I am learning so much about the limitations of assumptions because the experience of the people that I'm sharing my days with are so varied.
Well, gotta take the underwear off the back of the couch, 'cause we're having guests tomorrow! (we have to hang clothes inside or Mango Flies will lay their flesh burrowing larvae in them. What an adventure!

Thanks for reading, love to you all!!