Feb 24, 2010

Mwalimu and Watoto

This is Mary, the Shinda School's headmaster's second child.  She was tough as nails, and in true middle child fashion did not take any guff from anyone.  It was confusing to my Western eyes at first, that all children regardless of their gender had short hair.  However, when the complexities of bathing when you don't have running water were presented I understood the ease and practicality of short hair.

Speaking of hair, y'all are seeing my natural hair color dried in the breeze, and no makeup.  I still can't believe I went that long without fixing myself up.  When my Mama came to take me on safari at the end of my teaching sojourn, after pouncing on her, I immediately pounced on some mascara.

 These are all of Mr. Kimaro's children- Betty, who was 6, Mary, 8, Rose, 9, and Wisdom 10

Rose is actually Mr. Kimaro's niece from Kenya, who lived with his family. Tanzanians seemed to have a certain, um, bias against Kenyans. Rose, was as sweet and mild-mannered as you could get, yet I was told to watch her.  Why?  Oh, because Kenyans are "shifty".  This was told to me in various forms by pretty much every Tanzanian I encountered, which I found rather hilarious.

Betty was the youngest and smallest of my students, and barely spoke a word. Sometimes, she had tea with her father, the other teacher and myself during the mid-day break, while the other children had their porridge outside. This is because she is "petticated", as Mr. Kimaro put it.  An English word invention of his own, it means exactly like what it sounds like.  Sometimes, I catch myself using it in conversation and receiving askance looks.

My favorite teaching tool became the spelling bee when I discovered that Betty could beat everyone in both classes in spelling.  She rocked out the bees!  The best part was when she won this is what the class looked like!  They were so excited, that they would carry her in the air, like she had just scored the winning touchdown, chanting "Bate-tee! Bate-tee!".  Adorable!

Mtoto (child) and Mwalimu (teacher).

11 comments:

  1. Ahhh! I love these! Please keep sharing your time in Africa. Just amazing. Getting all teary over here looking at all those beautiful grins. (And you still look beautiful totally bare-faced - I don't want to hear it!)

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  2. I agree - I want more, more, more Africa!!!

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  3. Oh my goodness, how wonderful and amazing that you had that opportunity! And my heaven's, you're gorgeous wihtout makeup and with windblown hair! Seriously, you are. Deal with it :)

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  4. These are beautiful! You have such an amazing heart! We need more Samma Faye's in the world. xoxoe

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  5. Love hearing about this part of your life...what a life changing experience your time in Africa must have been!

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  6. That's so cool! Love the spelling bee story - and interesting, I never knew why both males and females had short hair. And yes - please keep sharing your stories!

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  7. First of all, you are GORGEOUS sans makeup and hair products! These sweet faces just totally brightened up my day. I can't even imagine how this experience must have changed you and how incredible it was. Yay for sharing!

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  8. This is so so so amazing. I love reading about your adventures in Africa. What a brave step you took to go there, but I am sure it was incredible, and obviously life changing. I want more stories! And pictures, those smiles are infectious.

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  9. I need to get caught up on the backstory here, but just based off of this post, this looks just amazing. What an experience!

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