Stroll to the Banana Man

(again, please forgive my formatting, and enjoy the journey!)


On my walk to the banana man just out of town
I pass a line  broken bottles turned upside down
Once the welcoming vessels for a friendly drink
now warning to passers by "don't you even think!"
Still the sky thinks its welcome to fill these broken cups
only people and birds are not allowed up







                                                                                Just a dusty mile past this unwelcoming wall
                                                                                sits another broken site that speaks to it all
Once this playful train tooted "come and learn!"
now a neglected old crack that matches the spurned
Haven for beginning, where the roots are grown
and where the light of investment is not enough shown
I think of my students all shiny and fed
and worry 'or the cracks in where these children are led




                                                     
And then to the wisdom of an eons-old world
where progress is throwing but tradition's not hurled
And hands still know how to shape bricks from the sand
and heavy loads are still rolled by men on the land
From these building blocks of dust, a skyscraper will rise
as tradition and modernity wrestle up towards the skies

This dance makes its music but along with this beat
the waste that it produces lays roadside in heaps
Its sad, litter happens all over the earth
but here it overflows with growing capital girth
Where tree and grass wrappers are what's usually shown
their plastic replacements are also thoughtlessly thrown








I stroll down the road, walking, looking and stopping
then pause at a tree of pants to do some clothes shopping
These garments are stretched to show what they can hold
no shame in a bottom here, its round, proud and bold!
But really, the duds here don't grow on trees
hand-me-downs are shipped from 'round the world to meet Dar's dress needs











Just before I reach the trusty banana man
as I'm wondering if this place is a full or empty hand
With its keep-out fences and its forgotten schools
its age old productions and its brand new rules
I surrender to to the discord that trembles in me
that the tragic and the divine draw a dichotomy
To be here you must live with the trash on the streets
and the gracious gift of mangos hanging ripe in the trees

OIE (oddities of international education)

At a later date in a more lively state of mind I could elucidate several strange facets of the world of international education, but in this brief moment between dinner and sleep I thought I'd share two small curiosities that could happen only in my current situation:

1. Have you ever thought about the nuances of international curriculum? You would think that there would be math books in every shape, form and language- especially since a profit could be turned from such a production. Alas, just as in schools across America, here at the International School of Tanganyika we use Every Day Math, whose Ameri-centric bent becomes more apparent with each worksheet. In a county that uses Shillings, most commonly 10000tsh, 5000tsh and below, I am teaching quarters, nickels, pennies, and dimes. The thermometer worksheets are all in Fahrenheit, almost everywhere else in the world uses Celsius, and my very British team-mate has whited-out each time that it says "ballpark" in the estimation lessons because "America is the only place where baseball matters." I didn't realize the span of America's influence on the world until I left the country, there are second graders in Tanzania learning our currency system (of course I adapt it to include culturally relevant information, but they are tested on the dollar). My teammate can white-out every American term she can find, but we're using the curriculum of the red white and blue. Does this mean that we have the most progressive ideas, the most aggressive marketing, or simply the most comprehensive math book production? In my experience, Every Day Math is not the most well-engineered math program, but here it is  for better or worse, coloring my international classroom with even more America than I already inherently bring.

2. I am doing DRA testing to prepare for report cards (which, for those non-educators who have made it this far without leaving out of boredom, is a reading level test). I have this big cardboard box full of little flimsy books of varying levels of difficulty with corresponding fluency and comprehension trackers. Each day I lug it to a table outside of my classroom that we reserve for kids who need a quite place to work where the mosquitos will lend a natural consequence for all of the "bugging" they've been doing inside of the classroom walls. A child sits across from me and reads about a frog who learns a lesson, or a kid who collects rocks and I mark their mistakes and record their cute answers to "what do you think will happen next?" I was carrying on with this tradition today as usual when I noticed that the ground was covered with little gray bug wings about as narrow as my pinky toenail and three times as long. It looked as if there was a world war of the faeries or a cannibalistic termite ball on my front stoop in the night. They were everywhere, a literal carpeting of flimsy semitransparent bug wings, but no bugs! I was trying to focus on the accidental "why"s instead of "where"s and scrupulously tick off the words per minute, but my mind was inexorably repulsed and attracted to this curious sight. After wading through several student tests, I crunched my way over the forgotten battleground of disembodied wings to my next door neighbor's room and got the scoop: so before the rains here these winged maggots rise on the change in pressure, they swarm and are knocked to the ground by the showering of waterbombs. The rains are pretty ravishing here so I guess they just nail the poor things to the side walk. Their bodies are either eaten by birds and ants or are collected by people and fried for the protein. I have no idea why these poor little creatures find it necessary to come out at precisely the most deadly time there is, I don't even know what the things look like because all I could see for miles was the winged carnage they left behind, but I am certain that the entertainment that this fairytale occurrence provided me during an otherwise tedious task will fly beyond this stagnant wreckage to the hungry minds of you... my faithful readers and confidants!

Thank you for listening! Do share a response or two, I long to hear your voices!