Well, I have so much to say and I don’t know where to start. I was planning to write a blog entry about our trip to visit a family where we are concerned about the child and then talk about my run. But, that all happened on Monday before I went to Lushoto, and it is already the end of this week. So, I will write about it briefly.

On Monday, we went first to visit the family. They were very gracious, but their living conditions were not nice and none of the adults in the household (3) had any work. The child seems to be cared for, but the family also did not necessarily see the seriousness of the situation. It was a very difficult situation, because we were trying to explain to the family the concerns we had because their child did not do well on our assessment as well as on the school tests at the end of the first semester.

The parents wanted us to take the child the doctor for treatment, but we needed to explain that the child did not have an “ugonjwa” (illness), but that the child had a disability. At the same time, we did not want to use the word “ulemavu” (disability) because of some of the connotations of the word for people in this culture. These family members wanted us to take the child to the hospital for treatment and thought if she was treated she would improve or be cured. When I was in Lushoto for my dissertation research, I frequently heard the outreach staff trying to explain the difference between a disease that can be cured or treated and symptoms relieved, versus a disability where support, adaptations, and education can improve the situation, but that disability is a lifelong challenge for the individual and the family. The disability will not be cured or eliminated through medicine, surgery, prayer, or the laying of hands. I address the existence of such beliefs in my article (Stone-MacDonald & Butera, 2012).

The big question in my head is, “Who’s place is it to say that there is a disability? Why and for what purpose?” In the US, we use labels to secure certain funding and placements in programs, schools, and classes that address the needs and improve the lives of children and adults with specific disabilities. But what is the purpose of the label in Tanzania and other countries like it? We want the family to be concerned and be willing to participate with us and support the interventions that we believe might help, but where do we draw the line?  We could take the child to the doctor to confirm the existence of the disability and let them tell the family using the ulemavu word or “ulemavu wa akili” (intellectual disabilities) but then they expect the doctor to cure the child or give the child medicine and will expect a simple fix. At the same time, what will happen to a child who needs more than some extra help in school in the large classrooms, even we teachers that care as much as the teachers we are working with? These are difficult questions.

On a lighter note, during my Monday run I had to dodge cows, big cows, not once but twice. I was on the side roads in the neighborhood and despite the lovely houses, there are still farms nearby with animals and raising traditional crops. I really was at a lost for a moment because I didn’t want to get kicked.

In the next few days, I will write a few entries about my time in Lushoto and put up some pictures, video, and some audio from a celebration.

Below is your picture teaser from Lushoto. I took lots of pictures.

A view from the Irente Farm Car Park

A view from the Irente Farm camping area in the Usambara Mountains.

Yesterday, we spent the last day working on new teaching techniques and planning for strategies to address the needs of the individual children. In the morning, Sarah had some other work to do, but dropped me off early at the café to start working. I took advantage of their breakfast and had French toast and bacon. Note the tomato as part of the breakfast. This is reflective of the British influence on Tanzania and breakfast choice.  Of course, there is Kilimanjaro coffee.

Union breakfast of french toast and bacon

Today we went to the school to see the classroom teacher doing tuition, or extra instruction, for children during the vacation. The teachers can choose to teach students from their class and other classes during the vacation or after school during the school year. The parents do have to pay for the service. Also, it is extra help and the teachers encourage the parents of children the teachers are concerned about are to send their children, but if they don’t want to or can’t afford it the children simply don’t come.  In addition, some of the children at the school for tuition are doing very well in school, but their parents want to pay to send them for extra help to make sure they have every possibility to learn. Therefore, the students are mixed in age usually grade 1-3 together and in their abilities ranging for children still learning to read, write, and do math to children who are excelling in their classes.

Tuition lasts from 8-11am. There is some instruction throughout the day, but in general they do a lot of exercises copied off the board. Then, the teacher collects all the notebooks and corrects them.

Checking the notebooks

After tuition, a mother of one of students that we are concerned about came to school and we had a conversation with her. We discovered that the child lives with other relatives and not the mother, so we went into the neighboring village to find the house. After a rough ride on some dirt roads, we found the house and were welcomed by the family. Unfortunately, the primary caregiver for the child was not there and we had to plan to come back next week to meet with that person. The family was so happy to see us and the young girl was there. While they had a very modest home, they welcomed us and set out stools for use to sit on to talk in the little dirt courtyard between the three structures. The girl was so happy when we entered the gate that she started shouting “Mzungu yetu! Mzungu yetu!” and gave Sarah and I each big hugs. It means “our white person! Our white person!” She was very cute.

Today was much like yesterday. We worked on dialogic reading techniques and talked about different ways to support the literacy development of various students, particularly those students we suspect have some level of intellectual disability. Veronica developed a lesson and taught it to Sarah and I and we pretended to be some of the students that they are working with at the school.

Veronica teaching Sarah about Mama Mambo and Lina’s party

We also met with one of Sarah’s friends who has his own Kilimanjaro trek and tour company and we talked about climbing the mountain, costs, best route, safety, and other fun things. We planned a day hike to the first base camp and back for the beginning of July. This will be fun to see some of the mountain and get some exercise. I am really excited.

Here is his website and I will be happy to talk to him about climbing for you if anyone is interested.

http://www.just-kilimanjaro.com/index.htm

This week has been very fun so far sitting in the café and working with Sarah and Veronica on teaching them more about disability, behavior management, and intervention strategies for teaching children with disabilities in the classroom. When school starts again in July, Veronica is going to start working with various children from who we believe need extra help in a resource room model using various techniques and materials/manipulatives we have discussed. Today, we talked about functional behavior assessment and various intervention techniques such as chaining, task analysis, prompting, use of authentic activities, shaping and using models. We are focusing on strategies to support reading, writing, and math instruction first. We did also discuss the importance of adaptive skills and vocational skills, but most of the children we are working with have learning disabilities, so their adaptive skills are good, but need support with academics.  After some instruction yesterday, Veronica used a picture book as the basis to create a lesson and I was very impressed. She did a great job. We brainstormed some other days to add to her ideas and general ideas for improving the classroom for all children. We will talk to the classroom teacher about this sometime soon, maybe Friday.

As several of you know, I don’t drive in the Boston area because it scares me. I won’t drive in Tanzania also because it scares me more and they drive on the other side of the road, I can’t get used to that. It takes me weeks each time I come to remember to get in the passenger side on the left. But, I still need to do something to be useful since Sarah is doing all the driving. So my job is to lock and unlock the house. We have a very secure door with a key lock and two padlocks, one at the top and one at the bottom. But, because I am so short, I had to buy a stool so I could reach the top padlock. So today’s picture for your enjoyment is me unlocking the door. Yes, we can all laugh at me, I think it is cute. Sarah pointed out that I am on my tippy toes as well.

This is me stretching to unlock the door.

For non-Swahili speakers, Mzungu is the term for white person. Sarah and I have been working at this cafe that this week we have nicknamed Mzungu heaven because during the day the clientele is almost exclusively white. Yesterday there were two busloads of volunteers enjoying coffees and milkshakes. Supposedly they make a wonderful espresso milkshake. I love the chicken shwarma plate salad and the cafe americano. The wood fired pizzas are great too. Keith and my father would say I am not suffering enough.

There is not much new to report today. But, we have had a very successful few days of work this week. Today we had a difficult meeting and Sarah was fabulous!! She was kind and sweet and encouraged the participation of all present. We have been camped out at the Kilimanjaro Union Café.

http://www.kncutanzania.com/union.htm

It is a café owned and run by the Kilimanjaro Native Cooperative Union and they serve coffee, espresso, lattes etc. and yummy food. They brought in a master barista to design this and it is a great café. They have wifi, but we use our USB modems because it is cheaper overall and faster internet. Here we are working. No, we cannot see the mountain from the cafe. But, I can bring back wonderful coffee beans for you if you email me.

Sarah and I working at Kilimanjaro Union Cafe

June 11, 2013

On Thursday last week, we went to the Jaffrey Academy in Arusha to see a private school that is preK through form 4 (on the British system, form 1-4 is the four years of high school). Originally, it was a Shia Muslim school, but now this school serves any child that wants to come and the family can pay the tuition, but many at the school are either Tanzanians of Indian descent or Tanzanians who are descended from Middle Eastern immigrants (often Omanis) a long time ago. When we were sitting in one of the second grade classes at the beginning of the day I was trying to figure out what was different and then I realized that all the children, including the girls had hair, long hair frequently. In the village schools for hygiene reasons, all children (including girls) keep their head shaved until they are old enough to properly care for their hair and keep it braided and clean.

At this school, there is a dynamic teacher and head of the special needs unit who has been working tirelessly for years to build the unit and to fight for the inclusion of her students in the general education classroom. She has been very successful in included several students, but also working in her unit with evidence based practices such as picture communication symbols and pivotal response training.

She has been working with her students on various vocational and life skills such as gardening and bead making. Here are some of the fabulous bead works and a need bag that her students made. She gave some of this to me as a gift and some I purchased because I liked it so much.

Sally will be selling similar jewelry at the IASE conference in July in Vancouver.  Sally is also the International Teacher of the Year for CEC. She is really AWESOME!

Yesterday we continued to make progress as we are nearing the end of the school term. We sat with the teachers as they completed the questionnaires regarding students for whom we have some concerns and want to gather additional information. This week we are also doing parent meetings.  Today, we finished the questionnaires with the teachers and we did several interviews with parents of the same students.

We are all ready to start the interviews

We are using a second assessment questionnaire modeled after the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales, but it has been adapted to be culturally relevant. We are using this questionnaire with the teachers and parents and comparing answers.  So far, one very interesting idea that has come out to me is when we ask the parents questions about school concepts, they say they really don’t know and when we ask questions about things a child does at home, they really don’t know. There is definitely a separation between home life and school. It seems cultural but it also seems that parents trust the work of the teachers or are just doing so much to take care of daily life that they let the teachers handle school. On the other hand, the teachers have almost 160 students each day in classes 1 and 2 and just do not have the time to connect with all parents.

A teacher completing the questionnaire

Today was very successful and we were thrilled with the number of parents who came. Wednesday and Thursday school is closed so that class 7 (the last grade in primary school) can do their exams. We will visit two organizations those days where Sarah has connections and are trying to look at the options for referral and support for students with various needs.