Doing good

The thought that I am doing a good deed here is a powerful motivation.  To come here as someone totally different from the local population, and to serve them with whatever I have is something that makes me proud to be here.  The idea of “doing good” keeps me intact and to a certain degree sane, and the primacy of this thought is even multiplied when my friends and family express their pride in me, or even envy of what I do.

So what is this good thing that I do?  Well, in government documents, academic books, and economic theory, I am here to raise math literacy here.  There is a shortage of quantity and quality of mathematics teachers in Tanzania, and thus, I have been chosen to fill this gap.  On every single KOICA document I sign, I am labeled as a Math Educator.  In the eyes of politicians / economists, I am improving human capital by teaching math, and one day, they may show the development of Tanzania by transforming themselves into dollars and digits in certain statistical measurements.  Yet, if my doing good is evaluated in the language of the government, politicians, and economists, they might as well haven’t sent me at all.  As I grade my students' terminal exam, I am shocked at how miserably failing I am doing in terms for the language I have just mentioned.  It is rare that I see a student with a double digit score, with 100 being the maximum.  The students are simply in the same disgusting level as they were when I first came.  I have always thought and was confident in that I could improve some of these scores.  I didn't think it would be too hard.  I even had the arrogance to have a small "Dead Poet's Society" or "Stand Up and Deliver" moment.  I even made my students recite "a negative times a negative is positive," hoping that one day, one of them would come late to class, see the word “calculus” written on the board, and ask "what is this? Calcooloos?"

In the midst of this extremely depressing thought, I try to remind myself of what my friend Erica told me (as I have mentioned it before in this blog).  And to really butcher her words and paraphrase her a lot, I do think that the extent of the good that I do here is neither measurable nor observable.  Although some of the interactions that I have with my students may be just trivial daily matters, with me being both foreign and well, good-intended, I have a hunch that some of these interactions may mean more than they seem to be.  And if this hunch is true, there are very few ways that I can actually see and observe what I achieve, and thus the only thing I can do is hope that it is true.  Of course, all this thought, in the eyes of certain cynics, is level with sheer imagination.  And in their fairness, I have nothing concrete to substantiate my claims.  Yet, I cling on to them, because without them, I would feel miserable, desperate, and depressed. 
And thus to conclude, I am a hopeless romantic, clinging on to the belief that I am doing good here.  To confess, this joins the ranks with my other important personal convictions: the good, global citizenship, love, and Michael Jackson.

Defeat

I was in presence of a grand defeat today. 

Francisco John – a stellar student, well-behaved, class monitor, and most of all, friendly – was finishing up his exam and on his way out.  Madam Mambo – an interesting figure, rarely enters class to teach, flamboyant, and noticeably in love with enforcing discipline – was going to various classes to cut the hairs of students that were too long.  This is in fact a rather odd disciplinary rule, since all Tanzanians have woolly hair, meaning that they get natural afros, and that their hairs are rarely 1cm away from their scalp.  Just as the two met at the door, a tussle began.  Mambo, using her large body and equally loud voice, told him to sit so that she could cut his hair.  He, in response, tried to sweet talk his way, although his hands were in great motion to deter the attacking scissors of Mambo.  The tussle intensified, and it was as if a malicious knight and a noble peasant were in a clash that would eventually be the village’s legendary gossip.  But to no avail, Francisco succumbed to the mighty force of discipline and the giant asymmetry of teacher-student relation, and did as he was told.  As ordered, he knelt with one knee on the ground, but he also had his head bowed, his right hand holding on to a table, and his left covering his eyes.  It wasn’t so obvious at first but eventually it was clear that he was crying, but in such silence that he seemed more like a statue titled: the crying man.  The smell of his defeat spread throughout the class, and the students were in awe of this great battle that was eventually lost by their village man.  Mambo left the classroom, and Francisco remained a statue despite the condolences from his fellows who narrowly escaped Mambo only because Francisco was an unlucky sacrifice.

I let all this happen because the work of discipline does not belong to me.  I have neither the skills nor the will.  While I believe it is not my right to intervene, I wish that Mambo had just let him go and just teach all the damn classes she’s supposed to.

Baltazaly

Kids at Saba Saba are real kind souls.  They have low grades and low expectations on life, but most are angels.  On one of my first weeks, Yasin constantly skipped my class.  In fact, he skipped many many classes. In response to his claim that he wants to be a police officer, I asked a rhetorical question: do you think the head of the police is a dumb shit?  His change in attitude since then has been rather impressive.

Yesterday, I was about to proctor an exam, but once the students were seated, four didn't have seats.  It turns out they were the perennial skippers, and thus, had no chair nor table.  Bartazaly, unfortunately, had to join these students because Francesca only had a table, and Bartazaly only had a chair, and I asked him to be a gentleman and offer Francesca the chair.  As I was trying to figure out what to do with the seatless students, I eventually asked the help of Madam Mambo.  She is a keen enforcer of discipline, and manages to whip the students with vigor that comes from her rather large body and despite the flashy, lacy, tailor made dresses she wears.  She saw these students, and scolded them for being terrible students, and told them to take the exam on the floor.  A rather simple solution, I thought, but Bartazaly was obviously upset for being wrongfully accused, and all of this happened because of Mr. Kim who speaks like a five year old!  Bartazaly eventually got his chair back and the exam commenced.  I felt bad for Bartazaly, so I went over to him, fixed his collar, and gave him a pat on the back and a little squeeze on the shoulder just to feel a little less guilty.  As I was walking away, he called me, and handed me my small bag that holds a my blackboard eraser and a couple of chalks.

I was a bit upset that he stole my stuff, but was more shocked at the promptness of its return.  Bartazaly is a good egg.

Follow the Yellow Brick Road

The hot topic of the week is: how to get to Dar es Salaam.

Of all the places the Korean volunteers get dispatched to, Mtwara is notorious for providing the tough life.  Infrequent water, electricity, and the lack of things to do have made Dar es Salaam the second home for past Mtwara volunteers.  As the student vacation approaches, we are all planning to head to our second home.  Some are physically ill, all are mentally ill, and some just want to have a dang shower.

The problem is that the KOICA office has now designated Mtwara an unsafe place to travel, and thus, all bus transportation between Dar es Salaam and Mtwara is prohibited.  The decision is in fact rather just, as it takes 15+ hours to cover just 450 km after rain.  Sometimes, a bus gets stuck in the muddy road, and the passengers have to spend the night until something larger comes along to pull the bus out of the ditch.

Here are some of the options that we've discussed so far:

1. Take the plane (expensive, but the most likely option)

2. Go up to Kilwa, then take a boat to Mafia, and then to Dar.  It'll take two days, but at least you'll visit the hotspots of the "Swahili Coast," or whatever.

3. Go to Songea via Tunduru, and then take a bus to Dar.  It'll take two days as well, but the cheapest legal option.  It's also a rather stupid idea.

4. Ask a lift on a cargo boat.

5. Email a cruise ship company to plead our case, and hope it drops by Mtwara port on its way to Dar es Salaam / Zanzibar.

6. Follow the Yellow Brick Road.

HAPPY!

is a rather common female name in Tanzania.

She is also a little girl that lives next door, and is known for not greeting people and crying a lot.

The walls (or maybe it's the roof/ceiling) here are thinner than those of Dupre Hall, so a moderately loud conversation next door is comfortably audible.

At the moment, Happy is crying like crazy, and it seems that her mom is so sick of it that she's making fun of her.  It's a pretty funny thing for a mom to do, but this is tonight's entertainment!

Memorable Quote

Several teachers of Saba Saba are indeed terrible educators.  Many of them simply do not go to their classes.

Today, there was a 6 hour long meeting about the matter.  Fortunately, being a foreigner, I receive zero damage slipping away in the middle.  I do, however, think that attending these meetings help me understand my school and the people I work with, and indeed it did!

The Second Master was reading the notes from student meetings, one of which rightly accused one of the teachers for not coming to class this year.  He replied,

"They're deceiving you!  It's only May, and thus this year is not finished yet!  How could I have not entered my classes for the whole year if the year is not over yet."

MLE vs MOM

Last week I had a severe case of a swollen throat.  Normally, life would continue, but being a teacher, I decided to take the week off from classes.  It was such a memorable time, as I received such wonderful attention.  First of all, Kyungbok, God bless her, bombarded me with tea, medicine, juice, fruits, and porridge.  Then my Headmistress came herself and gave me three chunks of kingfish.  Then a number of my students came to greet me.  They are all such wonderful people.  I was touched.

With a sudden influx of free time, I had this sudden impulse to solve a question that I wanted to answer while I was in college. The question at hand stems from an exercise in the Mathematical Statistics textbook.  It asked something along the lines of:

There are n numbers, from 1 to n, and a student chooses 50….

And then the question continues, but the question involved using the given 50 numbers to estimate the n.  There was a minor debate between me and the professor in regards to the method of estimation.  The professor suggested the most likelihood estimator to find n, which was basically the largest number in the sample of 50, while I suggested the method of moments, which was to find the average of the 50 numbers, and then multiplying by two.  It seemed that both were decent methods, but the quest for accuracy remained in my mind, until today.  The question, therefore, is

In order to find n, is it better to use the MLE or the MOM?

Wow, this post is extremely nerdy.  It turns out the MLE is better!  But seriously, who cares!  So with that, I end this post.