On a more serious note:

Zanzibar’s biggest contributor to GDP is its tourism sector. Life in Jambiani fully reflects that. The beachfront is lined with hotels, resorts, bars etc. The problem in the village (and indeed all of Zanzibar) is that most people cannot communicate in English and most people are not qualified to work in the sector. So what tends to happen is that people from mainland Tanzania and neighbouring countries flood in to take jobs that rightfully belong to the local people. A Canadian couple now based in the village have set out to do something to fix this problem. They’ve set up a tourism institute, which seeks to train people not only in tourism-related trades but also computer skills and Basic English. They’ve formed an alliance with African Impact (AI) on the computer training and English-teaching front so we go to the institute (Jambiani Tourism Training Institute – JTTI) every morning to teach people aged 18 and above some English and help them with any problems they may have in computer literacy. I really enjoy the English-teaching part. The problem with the way the class is run at the moment is that we don’t really follow a set curriculum and volunteers just sort of wing it and teach random bits of English to these people. Added to that is the fact that there seems to be quite a wide competence range amongst the students that isn’t usually considered so some of the students speak good English (and pick up whatever you teach them quickly) whilst others can write things down but can barely construct a sentence let alone engage in conversation. Some of them have a great way of regurgitating whatever you teach them but once you start to probe a bit more, they get stuck, suggesting that they did not really grasp the concept in the first place. So, the other volunteers and I are now in the process of seeing what can be done at least about splitting the class according to competence levels to maximise what each student gets out of the class. It would really help if I spoke fluent Swahili but I’ve gotten around that problem so far by getting the brighter students in the class to translate to Swahili for everyone else once they understand what’s been taught and that seems to be working well. There isn’t much we can do about the curriculum but there is a grammar book lying around the house that we are following for now. I hope for their sakes that the coordinator tries to maintain some form of continuity in how they are educated (its quite frustrating that this hasn’t been well enforced in the past): making sure volunteers communicate what they teach to each other; testing the understanding of the students in a versatile way; giving them homework, etc.  So far the students seem to be responding well to some of the changes we are implementing and attendance has been very good (vs. quite sporadic when we first arrived)

AI is also affiliated with a few nursery schools in the village. We spend a few hours in the mornings with these schools teaching them Basic English. The kids are aged 5 -7. Again there are many problems with how these kids are being educated, especially at one of the two schools that we work with. The first is that there are local teachers at these schools who are supposed to act as facilitators (the kids are essentially educated in Swahili and we just come by a few hours a day to teach them some English). Ideally, the teachers should be helping us by acting as translators, be involved in the lesson preparation phase so that we match what they are being taught in Swahili with the English version. Of course, this doesn’t happen. I’m told the local teachers are volunteers who don’t get paid so what they do instead is feed the kids and do the barest minimum on the education front. It turns out that most of them are not qualified either, which is also worrying. They leave us to do whatever with the kids whilst they mostly sit around chatting with each other. I’m told AI has done it best to ensure that the teachers collaborate well but they just don’t seem to be bothered. We try our best but I’m not sure that will be enough; these kids may learn how to count and say a few words in English but I can’t say that they will have good Grammar if the status quo is maintained. The second problem, quite similar to that mentioned about the JTTI students earlier, is that these kids have different competence levels: some of them a dyslexic and some are pretty good at writing and learning in general. It’s frustrating to see the weaker ones not get as much out of our efforts. The fact that non of us are qualified teachers doesn’t help either but we try to give them as much individual attention as possible and keep the learning as fun and engaging as can be.

Perhaps it’s a bit over-ambitious to want these kids (and the JTTI students) to do well in their English-learning. I feel for a country that derives most of its income from tourism, its imperative. If poverty is to be eradicated from the village then Jambiani people should be competent enough to set up businesses, attract people worldwide to come to their village through good advertising, keep the environment clean (in a green way I might add) and in short become self-sufficient (presently all the hotels and resorts appear foreign owned and as mentioned before even the workers are not from Jambiani). Of course, some of this can be done in Swahili but the bulk of their clientele will be English-speaking, which makes it sort of important that they pick up the language. If we do a mediocre job, it only slows the process of them getting there!

PS. i have bad news: the divas did end up painting loo at the local school but i missed out on the photo opp; i was sent to paint another school at the same time. I'm sure I'll have other equally entertaining news soon though :)