Under African Skies 2003
Welcome!
On the fourth of July, 2003, Cosmos Education volunteers from around the world arrived in Cape Town, South Africa, to begin their educational expedition. On the 29th of August they finished in Arusha, Tanzania.
Over the 9 weeks the truck travelled overland through South Africa, Swaziland, Botswana, Zambia and Tanzania. Along the route they stopped at schools, orphanages, community centres and with any other interested groups to give fun, inspirational and hands-on presentations on Science, Health, Sustainable Development and Technology.
When they were able to they wrote the following journal entries. We hope you enjoy reading about our work in Africa.
Journal Entries
July 7 July 14 July 19 July 23 July 28 August 4 August 8 August 16 August 27 August 29 TopJuly 7, 2003
We woke up this morning after our second night at the Aardvark backpackers hostel in Cape Town and a very productive day of team building and general fun. We met up with the Kenyan Angels on Saturday night at the airport, and they are just a ball of firey energy. Benjamin and Fezile are here, too, just until today, but it's been incredible to have them around and hear their stories.
We spent yesterday touring the Cape of Good Hope and working out team logistics and team dynamics, discussing a lot of methods for good communication and just generally getting to know each other and our motivations for being here.
It's been incredible getting to know each other these past few days, and the team is already starting to gel so well - I think we've laid a lot of ground work for having a solid, productive summer. It's so exciting to think how much more growth and connectedness can come in the coming weeks and when others come to join us!
We also had a little run-in with some hungry baboons as we were leaving Cape Point - They made off with some of our apples, but other than some bruised egos everyone fared fine.
Today we'll be getting down to the nitty gritty of practicing and honing our teaching modules. Either tomorrow or the next day, we'll travel to some orphanages in the area before we head up north to visit schools (the schools in Cape Town are out of session right now).
Journal Entries
July 7 July 14 July 19 July 23 July 28 August 4 August 8 August 16 August 27 August 29 TopJuly 14, 2003
We're in Kimberley in the Northern Cape, en route to Jo'burg and Pretoria. When last we updated we were training and getting modules together in Cape Town (seems like so long ago!), and since then we've been mostly traveling on the road and trying to link up with orphanages and youth centers along the way.
We've visited two locations so far - one children's home in Pofadder (which, despite its small size and humble settings, has managed to find its way onto the inflatable globes that we're carrying around for our demonstrations and donations), and a home of safety in Upington. The children's home was a great kick-off to our teaching, and we had some great feedback from the child counselor who acted as our liaison there. He said he actually learned something from us and our positive teaching style and wanted to try and implement some of those observations in their own practices.
The home of safety was certainly a challenge yesterday, as we were addressing about thirty children from ages of 14 to 18 who were of varying levels of schooling (some were 17 and had dropped out at Standard 2, and some were up to Standard 8 - Standards are the levels of education in South Africa that are somewhat comparable to grades in the US. Standard 8 children are typically around 14 years old, about the same age as high school freshmen in the US). All the kids were awaiting trial for crimes of varying degrees, and so this also presented a difficult challenge of tailoring our curriculum to address their needs and try and empower them to seek education without turning them off with too much preachiness.
We have two more safe homes to visit today, and an orphanage tomorrow, and then we head off to Kuruman to start visiting schools. Yesterday we took a day off in Kimberley to relax, do some laundry, and visit the "big hole", a famous diamond mine turned tourist attraction..
Other than that, we've been having a fun time getting to know each other with nightly personal stories, dancing on the truck on long drives, and trying to stay warm during these cold South African nights (yes they do have winter here, and it is now!).
Journal Entries
July 7 July 14 July 19 July 23 July 28 August 4 August 8 August 16 August 27 August 29 TopJuly 19, 2003
Kimberly seems like so long ago, many cold cold nights. After the last update our Cosmos teachers went to the first of two places of safety for children awaiting trial.
There were about 8 girls and 75 boys there, between the ages of 6 and 20. We worked hard with these kids, keeping the focus on HIV and AIDS and life skills seemed to be a big priority to the social workers. But we found that the science experiments and more thought provoking concepts, like, "what is matter?", were what really kept the kids' attention. The kids definitely tried to work our emotions, there were stories of rape and murder, and that was hard to take.
The second place of safety (Makonde) was even more intimidating. This house was all boys and they were older and tougher. However, we managed . to get through to many of them and by the end of our two hours in the home we had them all laughing and thinking, and many of the boys thanked us for spending the time on them.
We left Kimberly on the 15th after spending the morning at the Thutong Orphanage which sits directly on the edge of the DeBeers diamond hole. There are over 160 children at the orphanage. Half our team took the younger children, ages 2- 10 and did some fun experiments, played the web-of- life game and otherwise managed to keep the kids entertained and thinking. The other half of us worked with small groups of older kids. There were three groups of three teachers and we each taught a learning module so the youngsters all got a broad exposure to our curriculum.
On the way to Kuruman we had a bit of a scare when we saw the car in front of us flip over the side of the road. Amy and Rob and Eddie helped the man who had been flung from the car...he was alive and was taken off in an ambulance after not too long: sad and strange. In Kuruman we met up with Fezile Vutela (Volunteer: UAS 2001, 2002) and met his new wife!
Fezile had set a rigourous schedule for us, and we are finally in proper school environments. In Kuruman we taught in 9 schools over three days. One of the secondary schools had over 1,000 pupils, which was quite a challenge. We have sorted out a very efficient schedule for these situations: We put each teacher with one group of children so we can have 13 groups. After a half hour teaching module the teacher switches rooms and repeats the module for the new class. There is a complex system of switches worked out so that each group of students gets a variety of class types (e.g. HIV/AIDS, water cycle, matter, rights of the child, carbon cycle...).
Although Jeret Matthews is sorely missed, we have replaced the water rocket that Purdue University lent us last year, Rob Becker built our very own Cosmos rocket and it has been a big hit at the end of each school visit when we gather the kids together and send it off with a countdown. Some very interesting things have come to light about the needs of our curriculum. For instance, we have discovered that almost without exception the students do not understand the reproductive cycle of the human body. This, as a basis for health education, is quite crucial. We are adding it to our health and HIV/AIDS/STD class.
Yesterday was to be our last day in Kuruman but we had to stay an extra night - we needed to wait for the police report that would help complete the insurance claims of the three team members whose luggage was stolen from the campsite the night before. Can you believe the bad karma of someone who steals all the clothes and toiletries out of a volunteer teacher's campsite?
.Anyhow, we have bounced back: we are in Pretoria now and all ready for school number 14. We teach in Tswang crater tomorrow and then we shall send more news. Oh, and a Happy Birthday to Nelson Mandela for yesterday.
Journal Entries
July 7 July 14 July 19 July 23 July 28 August 4 August 8 August 16 August 27 August 29 TopJuly 23, 2003
So much has happened since our last stay in Pretoria. We unfortunately lost one of our team members- Kim we miss you! But our group is still getting stronger and is working so well together. After leaving Pretoria, we went visited some amazing schools in Soshanguve. The Phuthanang Primary School was by far the best school we have visited thus far. It was so inspiring to with such dedicated teachers and respectful children. The students took such pride in their school.When we pulled up to the school, students were working in the garden and cleaning the courtyard. In the classroom, the students were anxious to learn and so smart. After we taught, we met with the teachers to discuss what was effective and how we could improve our presentations, content, and style. Even more valuable was to discuss how the teachers and principal maintain such an amazing school. To learn about their teaching techniques, attitudes, and relationships with their students was very interesting. All in all, it was an amazing experience.
From Soshanguve, we drove to Swaziland, where visited Maccorkindales Orphanage. It was late in the day and everyone was a bit low on energy, but we managed to rally and had a great time with the children and were lucky to have our new team member Nicholas (from Zambia) to help us out. Our experience at Maccorkindales did however bring up an
important issue, especially concerning orphanages, which is how to balance teaching and playing when the environment and the children you are working with vary. When we visit a school, we know our priority, which is to teach and spark children's minds. But at an orphanage, kids seem to respond more to a personal connection and affection. So this issue is something we have tried to work out and considering our experience just the other day at the SOS orphanage, we have already improved. At the SOS orphanage, we spent some time to meet the children and to assess the needs of the students. From there we could divide the group depending on ages and interest level, etc and it worked out very well.
Our experience in Swaziland was amazing. In fact, Swaziland itself was amazing. We were lucky to have Vusi and Wandile- both from Swaziland- to help us out. They were amazing, just like Swaziland. What a
beautiful and unique country. We were particularly struck by the country's sense of community and pride in thir culture and history.
And the schools were amazing, most are funded by Britain and South Africa. The kids were so impressive. Rob and Amy taught about DNA transcription and translation at the Nazarene High School in Manzini and how it relates to AIDS and the kids totally understood and were so excited about it. At St. Theresa's High School, we once again encountered amazing students. Jess spoke to the President of the science club, Renee, and was particularly touched about her work in the school and her ambitions for the future.
Friday was quite a day because the truck broke down. Poor Eddie! But once again, the team rallied and still managed to visit the four schools planned for that day. Vinchoe and I were also able to go to Swazi Radio, where we were interviewed, and to Swazi Times, who published an article the following day- yeah Comos!
Saturday we were lucky enough to visit both an SOS village orphanage that we visited last December and a country wide science fair! So Swaziland was great and we are now excited to teach in and around Pretoria and Soweto this week.
We send our very best,
Karen and the Cosmos Team.
Journal Entries
July 7 July 14 July 19 July 23 July 28 August 4 August 8 August 16 August 27 August 29 TopJuly 28, 2003
Today, the Cosmos Education (CE) crew arrived back to the capital city of Pretoria.Having been here before, the crew easily accommodated themselves to the fast paced life of the Pretoria-Johannesburg area. Checking e-mail, washing laundry, and resting (in beds!) became an immediate priority.
On Monday, two members of the expedition headed towards Soweto (south of Johannesburg) to set up appointments for the hectic and tiresome days that have since followed. Upon their arrival on Monday evening, the crew learned of their tightly-packed schedule for the following days. Moreover, the crew grew by three members with the arrivals of Carol, Damian, and Benjamin! Having traveled long distances to Pretoria, the new members were quickly greeted and accommodated by their Cosmos peers.
Tuesday began at 4 am with members showering and preparing for three schools, two in the Soweto area, one in the Pretoria township of Shoshanguve. In attempts to avoid the rush hour traffic, the crew headed from Pretoria towards Soweto at 5 am. This was subsequently followed with a visit to Shoshanguve at 8 am. At the end of the day, the crew headed back towards Pretoria to converse of the day's success and to prepare for the days to follow (all of which have began at 5 am).
Wednesday and Thursday have been characterized by an extensive amount of effort and time put forth by all group members. Waking up at 5 am and having dinner at 7 pm have almost become routine. On Wednesday, the crew covered three more schools in Soweto and worked extensively to set up appointments for Thursday and Friday. In each school, the crew dealt with a warped combination of academic promise and extreme poverty. In spite of this feeling, the crew put forth their best, making each of their presentions as interesting and as effective as possible.
Thursday, today, the crew was presented with their greatest challenge yet. Having awaken at 5 am, the crew headed once again towards Soweto to present at five different schools. Among these, the crew presented at one high school, three primary schools, and one school for the mentally disabled. Again, the same feeling of having created great change through science education was shared by all members. In a sense, Soweto has brought forth best of all members of Cosmos Education.
Tomorrow, the day will start with visits to six schools in Soweto. Our visits will mark the end of our time in the Pretoria-Johannesburg area (Gauteng Province). After which we shall head towards Limpopo province to visit the remote village of Tohoyandu. From there, we shall head Northwest towards the Botswana - South African border.
It shall be a long and tiresome trek but in the end, it will all be worth our time and efforts.
For more info stick to your computers,
Vincho &Ray
Journal Entries
July 7 July 14 July 19 July 23 July 28 August 4 August 8 August 16 August 27 August 29 TopAugust 4, 2003
We're finally in Botswana now, heading toward Francistown - we've got a school scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. The landscape was drastically changed as we crossed the Limpopo river (border of SA and Botswana) to the dusty roads and flat landscapes spotted with Baobob trees and huge termite mounds. We bush camped for the first time last night by the side of the road and truly under African skies with brilliantly lit stars.Friday was our last day in Soweto, and we split into three teams and visited six different schools that day, including four primary schools and two secondary schools (whew!). We had great discussions with the
students and teachers after each of our presentations. We've been getting great feedback from teachers, who really appreciate the work we're doing and would like more time and more support from us. One desire that a particular teacher expressed is for us to be able to provide materials for students to bring home to educate their parents as well. We're hoping to be able to give more support to the schools and teachers as our organization grows.
Our team was pretty exhausted after our run of schools through Soweto, but we were ready to trudge on. Our next stop was a bit out of the way in a villag outside a town called Thoyohandou, which the team visited in December. The drive was to be 8 hours into the night on Friday to the northern tip of South Africa. We then got up early on Saturday and drove in search of a small village in the mountains, so that we could return to Mudzudzidzi Primary, and visit the children there. We had a bit of trouble finding the right village and ended up climbing the wrong mountain and getting stuck in traffiic on the small dirt road due to a funeral for one of the local secondary school teachers, who had died in a car crash. Hundreds (maybe thousands of people) had come and were walking up the hills in droves to the funeral site, and there we were, feeling very out of place but at least trying to be respectful.
Finally, after a bit of work (and thanks to Eddie), we pulled into Mudzudzidzi, and despite it being Saturday, we managed to pull a bunch of children together and teach some lessons, play some games, and meet up with one of the teachers from the school. We talked with some of the older students who lived in the village about HIV tests, and did some fun chemistry and electricity experiments with the children. It was certainly a long day and trip to get there, but also very worthwhile.
Sunday (yesterday) we headed toward the border of Botswana and camped out in the bush. There were cows mooing a plenty as we slept, but it was nice to be in the peace and quiet after so much time in the city.
Now for a few days in Francistown and then on to Victoria Falls/Livingstone.
Until then, Cheers to all!
-Alex and the Cosmos Crew
Journal Entries
July 7 July 14 July 19 July 23 July 28 August 4 August 8 August 16 August 27 August 29 TopAugust 8, 2003
A warm hello from beautiful Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe!In the last update, Alex mentioned that we were in Francistown, Botswana, preparing ourselves for more exciting teaching experiences.
So, in continuation of our African saga:
Tuesday morning was spent at the Tati River Lodge, Francistown. Since our one school for the day was scheduled for the afternoon, we had a leisurely morning to read, relax, and do laundry. When everyone had finished washing their clothes and had hung them on a line to dry, a warm breeze picked up and was starting to work itself into a mild frenzy. As it so happened, our campsite was situated in a dust bowl with only a few tufts of grass and several scrawny trees to hold the soil together. As the wind continued to blow and my face became increasingly encrusted with dust, the nicely laundered clothing ended up dirtier and dustier than one would have thought possible. Making a mental note to myself to refrain from doing laundry until reaching areas with lusher vegetation, I followed the rest of the crew into the truck and we chugged into town to Our Lady of the Desert Primary School. The school was nested in a quiet neighborhood. Children dressed in brown training suits with yellow borders were accrueing in the well-kemped courtyard. After our usual high energy introduction, we split the kids into five groups and taught each group two modules.
The modules included topics such as electricity, waves, chemistry, and HIV. I had decided to talk about some basic HIV facts, although I felt somewhat uncertain about what to address. At 40%, the HIV prevalence in Botswana is the highest recorded in any country. Whether this meant that the students were by now well versed in HIV facts or not, I did not know. I ended up talking about the immune system and its relation to HIV in a cursory fashion since I was pressed for time. In the end, I felt somewhat dissatisfied with my teaching effort. This dissatisfaction was completely compensated for by the informal chat I had with students following the module. I had asked several girls about their day-to-day concerns regarding HIV. They responded very frankly, stating that they were in fear of being raped (this was in reference to the commonly-held notion that one can be cured of HIV by raping a virgin). The two older girls who had been talking to me about their fears stood alongside the truck as we pulled away, beseeching us not to forget them.
The following day, we had three schools and an orphanage scheduled.
The first school in the morning was a primary school. The kids had been in exams that week, and we hoped to provide a fun yet educational diversion. Karen and I had decided to try taking smaller groups of students and holding discussions with them about leadership and HIV, instead of doing our usual presentations. One of the groups was quiet and difficult to engage, but the other group was livelier and brought interesting ideas and good energy to the discussion. In the afternoon,
Karen and I replicated this format at a secondary school. She had gotten a group comprised primarily of girls, and seemed to be engrossed in deep discussion some hundred feet away from my group. My group consisted almost entirely of 16 year old boys, half of whom were class clowns. Our conversation started out with an attempt at explaining the nature of the human immunodeficiency virus, followed by a fairly detailed explanation of the virus' mechanism of invasion of the CD4 cell. Sensing some restlessness however, I decided to steer the discussion in a different direction. I asked them about their feelings on the lack of availability of antiretroviral medication, rape as a means to cure oneself of HIV, and gender roles. The latter two topics set off a torrent of opinions; hands were flailing in the air as the students tried to have their voices heard. Several boys were adamant in their belief that rape resulted from girls being scantily clad, and put forth that it could be prevented if women were to be more liberal in providing sex. We then moved on to connect such perceptions on women to HIV prevalence, and the conversation took on a more productive character. K.Joe and Kogiso approached me later with questions about rape and virology, in addition to the usual questions about Kung Fu (I am half Japanese, and am expected to be a Kung Fu expert by most kids we visit). Kogiso really wants to become a scientist, and is looking forward to going to the university.
That evening we drove to Nata in Northern Botswana, and camped in a beautiful site adorned with palm trees and lined with beach sand. The following day Jess managed to arrange two schools for us to teach at in the morning. Late in the morning, after the teaching, we headed toward the Zimbabwe border. Once crossing the border, we found ourselves surrounded by beautiful bush, teeming with wildlife. At one point, the truck slowed down, compelling me to look out of the window. An elephant was crossing the road, walking at a leisurely pace while being followed by a swarm of fork-tailed drongas. In the evening we pulled into the legendary town of Victoria Falls. To be continued...
Amy and the Cosmos gang
Journal Entries
July 7 July 14 July 19 July 23 July 28 August 4 August 8 August 16 August 27 August 29 TopAugust 16, 2003
Last we heard from Amy we were in Vic Falls, taking a chill weekend off - some of us went and enjoyed the splendors of Chobe national park (saw all kinds of giraffes, buffalo, kudu, and herds of elephants - oneespecially cheeky elephant tried to fake charge our truck and nearly had Karen running out of her seat!). Others in the group took a luxurious day off at Vic Falls, doing laundry and catching up on some rest before one of our most hectic weeks yet.
On Monday we visited five schools in Livingstone - two Secondary schools and three primary schools and were quickly awakened to the high level of education in Zambia, as well as the number of great resources available here. At the last school, St. Mary's, we experimented with some new formats - in addition to the normal splitting into smaller groups of 40-50 students for modules, both Chris and Karen took even smaller groups of students (about 10-12) for even more focused discussions about HIV/community development and leadership.
Jess and Stella took a group of girls and had a long discussion on HIV/AIDS and sexuality that lasted the full hour and a half. Part of our development this year has been experimenting with what works best in schools with the time that we have, given team member's teaching styles and students' learning styles.
We also met up with two teaching groups at that school who we will contact in the future - one was the Zambian Association of Science Educators, and the other was a group of Japanese math and science teachers who run a similar program to ours. Hopefully our network of
school-related organizations is growing as well as our network of schools.
After Livingstone we moved on to Lusaka, where we've been for the rest of the week, visiting 16 more schools, youth centers and homes. It's been somewhat difficult being in Zambia at this time, because a lot of the schools have had a nationwide teacher strike, and many of the schools are giving exams at this time. Still, we were able to schedule a number of visits, though many of them were in between exams or after the exams for the students for a particular day, and so we tried to make the lessons a little more chill or interactive, or cater them to what the school asked for. At Lusaka Boys, the school asked for a biology prep for their older students, so Rob and Amy taught their HIV virology module and helped the students get ready for their exam and also put their knowledge into practical perspective for solving a real world problem.
Some of the less standard visits have been to Nicholas' school, Chainama College of Health Sciences, where we had a few breakout dialogue sessions with some of the first year students studying Environmental Health and Medicine. Our visit at African Directions, a youth center that focuses on local youth mentoring each other, ended in a fun and raucous drumming and dancing session that had Vincho, Stella, and Suzo dancing up a storm as usual. Some of our team also returned to Cheshire Homes yesterday, which is a home for physically disabled youth - a brief visit that I can't do justice here since I wasn't in attendance.
Thanks to our two great media contacts, Cleopatra and Safira, we've also had some great press with ZNBC here, including a spot on the local news that featured Nicholas, Jess, Stella, and Vincho, as well as a live broadcast this morning on a morning show here. Some of us stumbled into the TV studio very groggy eyed and without a cup of coffee, in our systems, but those who spoke represented very well. . .
Ah, and last but not least, we have a changing of the guard here in these current and next few days. We have Chris, Karen, Rob, Carol, Damian, Stella, and Ray all leaving us, but lots of energy from Hakeem, Claudia and Marcus coming in. We're heading off to Mpika tomorrow, where we'll also pick up Bridget and more energy!
Still truckin',
alex and the cosmos crew
Journal Entries
July 7 July 14 July 19 July 23 July 28 August 4 August 8 August 16 August 27 August 29 TopAugust 27, 2003
Since our last message posting, we've met more friendly people, traveled more straight and turning roads across Africa, and most importantly, taught many more children in both primary and secondary schools. This update should bring you right up to speed with the Team's most recent adventures.Three new team members (Claudia, Hakeem, and Marcus) joined the UAS 2003 team in Lusaka the 14/15th of August and were quickly brought up to speed on the wide backgrounds of the existing group, what subject each member enjoyed teaching, and the content of the teaching material that was being left behind for the science teachers. Having arrived without any luggage, Marcus and Claudia quickly realized that they could survive without new clothes but not without the space and aeronautical teaching material donated by various space agency education and communication divisions. Both bags and one box were eventually recuperated, but it took a few days of living in smelly clothes, borrowing personal items from various team members, and less schools receiving their material!
Over the past ten days, we've had very special experiences (as happens on every expedition) with students from Lusaka Girl's School, Kabulonga Boys and Girls School, Munali Girls House, St. Patrick's School, and Chitukuko Basic. These experiences include: an abundance of handshakes with children, screaming happy kids completely surrounding various team members, photos and video opportunities with everyone, memorable African songs sung by children, and many many late departures from schools because of never having enough time to answer all children's questions. The children and young adults are just as inquisitive and keen as any kids we've seen! We also had a very emotional and rewarding experience at Cheshire Homes for physically handicapped children. Once again, we wished for more time - particularly at the last location - but look fo rward with much anticipation to seeing the children next year.
One wonderful opportunity before leaving the capital of Zambia was a television interview with the whole team at ZNBC TV (Zambia Television). Their Saturday morning show started at 7am and had a few national cultural and political commentary celebrities. This was followed by the international news, when we learned from within the Zambian TV studios that there was a power outage in N. America! Our host was Cleopatra, who asked various questions including the purpose of the expedition, and what it means for Zambians to have our international group present and teaching in their schools. After a photo shoot outside their studios, we thanked Cleopatra and Sephira for the opportunity to present Cosmos Education to their country. (It was certainly helpful for us to arrive at schools over the next few days with their teachers mentioning the interview on National tv.) ZNBC looks forward t o having us again next year on their morning show for an update. After having completed the schools in Lusaka, the team moved on to Mpika, where we taught at Mpika Basic, Mpika Boys High School, and Musakanya Basic.
We arrived at our first school just after picking up Bridgit, who took a four-day nightmare bus ride from Nairobi to Mpika, and who will join us from Zambia to the end of the trip.
The schools were all a pleasure to teach in, and included our passionate and hands-on teaching modules: Marcus' theory of flight, Claudia-Jesso-Amy's HIV/AIDS and virology, Hakeem's importance of science to development and the importance of waves, Alex's Basic Waves class, Eric's Water Cycle and Chemistry classes (including the always-explosive flying potatoe rocket), Vincho's Carbon cycle, Suzo's Solar System and Sense of Scale, and Ray and Nicholas' class on epidimology. With this interdisciplinary set of ourses, all schools were very happy that we came back to visit them. Let us not forget that teaching material was left with each school for them to learn from and use in their classes once we leave them.
We then made our way to Shiwa Ngandu, where we taught three primary schools. For those readers who have not been on the trip, these three schools are completely in the bush, with the children walking through the forest from their huts every day to attend school. The language barrier was non-existent this year because of the warm and talented teachers who translated every sentence for us, as we adapted our teaching methods to accommodate the time required for language translation. Those readers who have been on previous expeditions know that this is also the location of the Kapishya Hot springs - the closest thing to tropical paradise in Zambia that we know - and boy are the Expedition Team members ALWAYS happy to be here! Not only do we try to empower the local teachers and inspire the children, but we also have the relative luxury of spending many hours in a 40 degree natural bath, nestled in luscious greenery. Because it is at the end of the bumpiest road in Zambia (lasting just under one hour to drive), it makes it all the more enjoyable. We had two evenings filled with cleaning clothes, eating, and sleeping.
This is also the location of a luxury resort from where clients are flown to join various Game Drives in the local area. After having spotted the aircraft used for transportation, it was suggested that we speak to the pilot to see if s/he would donate some time to have kids fly with him - quite a memorable experience that would complement the theory of flight for the kids. This is something that we will have to explore for next year, unfortunately, as the pilot left with clients and didn't return in time before our departure.
From Shiwa Ngandu, we made our way up to Mbeya, where we finally acquired an internet connection since leaving Lusaka. We spent the day in Mbeya introducing ourselves to the Southern Highland High School. After having broken up into three classrooms (35 each) to teach our up and coming young leaders and scientists, we sat down with most of the teachers (about ten) and described the education teaching material that we were leaving them. As most of the time, it was a very successful and rewarding exchange, with both parties engaging in the discussion about science curriculum in Tanzania (and Africa). As we do with most of the schools, we can't offer any promises of coming back next year with more material, but we tell them we will try. They asked us very good questions (How can the children here make a difference for Tanzania or Africa? What more can you leave us?) Eric, Marcus, Claudia, Hakeem had many examples to offer in answering their questions, and invited them to critically comment on our visit. After having spent time with the Headmaster of the School, we agreed to look forward to teach them again next year.
Over the past ten days, the team has had to say difficult goodbyes to Rob, Karen, Carol, Damian, Chris, and Stella. Amy also left us this morning. On the positive side, we've been giving very warm hello's to Hakeem, Marcus, Claudia, Bridgit, and soon to Peter, Elias, and Kevin. The group is very thankful for all the work everyone has put in, and look forward to continuing the exceptionally rewarding experiences with the children and teachers.
Be safe. We'll send our next update in about another ten days. Sorry for any mistakes, the internet connection is going down in 10 seconds! BYE !!! From
Cosmos Ed. UAS 2003.
Jessica
Journal Entries
July 7 July 14 July 19 July 23 July 28 August 4 August 8 August 16 August 27 August 29 TopAugust 29, 2003
It has been a long road since Mbeya when last we wrote about our adventures and our classes.After saying goodbye to Amy in Mbeya we had to make a decision- wait for Kevin to arrive or move on as planned and hope he finds us? While we thought that one out our team spent three hours at the Southern Highlands Secondary School in Mbeya. The teachers stayed around long after school was out for conversations and networking.
We left Mbeya finally around 5pm, confident that Kevin- the resourceful- would find his way to the team. We drove long after dark, camped out and then arrived midday Saturday in Baobab Valley. The Baobab Valley Camp has seen better days- could be that we find Eddie there sometime soon, tending to and entertaining overland crew instead of being overland crew. And not a bad spot to settle down if you ask me.
We dropped our gear at the camp and drove on to the small village where we had spent a day on UAS 2002. In the year between the village has developed in amazing ways. There is a tree nursery, a small neat brick school house and a trained teacher is on her way in a few months. The UAS 2003 team spent half a day with the children in and out of the school house. After Vincho received permission from the village elders we settled in and started a very practical curriculum. We taught health and hygiene, web of life and then we drew planet Earth and Africa. Bridget, Suzo and Vincho taught in and translated everything into Swahili, those girls have amazing energy and we could not have communicated at all without them.
I had several dozen pictures of the children from last Summer. I handed them out and you would think the kids had just seen themselves on the Hollywood big screen, they were so excited and proud.
A day of relaxing and laundry on Sunday. Some of us drove to a nearby game park with Eddie and got attacked by TseTse flies while we watched elephant and zebra and giraffe out the truck windows. The cats evaded us. Sunday night Suzo slaughtered a goat that the Maasai bought and the whole of Baobab Valley camp were treated to a tremendous meal of roast meat.
Monday was a long 14 hour drive North towards Arusha. Eddie is a trooper. We passed Maasai herdsmen, small agricultural farms and eventually caught sight of Kilimanjaro. What a spot to spend our last several days. Once we arrived at the Snake Park in Mesarani we, at long last, found Kevin Hand. It is amazing to see Kevin, we all have new energy and we are all excited to spend time with him in the schools.
Tuesday was one of the best days of teaching I have had all Summer. We spent the entire morning at the International School of Moshi-Arusha Campus. This is another return stop for us and we had a great conversation with the principal about a long term relationship between Cosmos and the ISM. There are many possibilities here. We each enjoyed our classes with the very well educated children. I had a very honest and open conversation about the social ramifications of the spreading AIDS epidemic with my all girls class.
To round out an amazing day we spent the second half at the Arusha Modern Secondary School as the guests of Captain Chadha. The Captain is an impressive and imposing school Chairman and he treated our volunteers to almost two hours of his time after our teaching was over. We discussed the state of education in Tanzania, the cultural strains on the Indian and Maasai communities and how his school is managed in reaction to those strains. He asked us for a commitment to return for a third year and for some specific resources and in exchange he offered to import some educational materials for us in the future and to be our host next year. He invited us to spend a week on his campus, sleeping in the dorms, teaching his students in the evenings and traveling to the local schools during the days with Arusha Modern as our command central. How generous and humbling.
We had some incredible students in our classes at Arusha Modern. One child in particular, named Nina, blew us away with the depth of her understanding and the complexity of her questions. I think Kevin might have died and gone to heaven when she started speculating about how life could have started from the dust cloud of a star.
On Wednesday we went to Captain Chadha's Primary School and spent 4 hours there. In the afternoon we started to prepare for our trip's end, buying tickets and making plans.
Thursday was our last day of teaching. At 8am we visited the Edmond Rice Secondary School. The campus for Maasai and local children is an impressive paradigm for alternative education in Africa. Here the students are taught standard class curriculum as well as vocational training and agricultural work. The farm/school is powered by the methane produced from the latrines and the cow herds, the food is all home grown and the buildings and furniture are all made right there in the wood shop and brick kiln. WOW.
In the afternoon we went back to my favorite spot in Tanzania, the Mkombozi Centre for Street Children. We taught some curriculum, we sang songs, we danced and when it was over I had to hide on the truck so the kids wouldn't see me cry.
UAS 2003- 56 days, 85 schools, 5 countries.
What an amazing group of people i have been blessed to get to know this year.
From the bottom of my heart i want to thank you - Karen, Amy, CPBL, Kim, Rob, Nico, Ray, Eric, Alex, Suzo, Neema, Stella, Bridget, Vincho, Carol, Damian, Hakeem, Marcus, Claudia, Benjamin, Fezile, Ntabisane, Wandile, Vusi, Saphira, Kevin - and, of course, Eddie- and finally, all the children we met and learned from.
Thank you to our funders and supporters, thank you to the schools who welcomed us.
Thank you,and gosh- goodbye.
Jesso
Journal Entries
July 7 July 14 July 19 July 23 July 28 August 4 August 8 August 16 August 27 August 29 TopIn Kenya, Cosmos Education Kenya is Registered Society No. 26710.
In the United States, Cosmos Education is a Project of The Tides Center, a 501(c)3 non‑profit organisation.
In England and Wales, Cosmos Education UK is Registered Charity No. 1100278
Cosmos Education Zambia is registered under the Societies Act in the Republic of Zambia, Registration No. ORS/102/35/3017.