Teaching Maths

TEACHING MATHS

            Peace Corps’ project framework in Botswana revolves around the prevention of HIV and AIDS and the provision of support services for those who live with that condition. The Botswana government does a decent job treating the 30% of the population who are HIV+.  It pays for free anti-retroviral drugs for those who need it, meaning that people no longer are dying of AIDS in anywhere close to the numbers recorded ten to fifteen years ago.  That was a very difficult time, as described in the book Saturdays are for Funerals by Unity Dow.

            Peace Corps first came to Botswana in the 1960’s, right after independence.  The volunteers worked in a number of capacities, including as teachers in secondary schools.  In fact, Peace Corps volunteers taught many of Botswana’s current government leaders a generation ago.  By the 1980’s, Botswana’s wise investment of its diamond wealth -- into education and infrastructure -- had begun to pay off.  Therefore Peace Corps decided that it could not justify remaining in the country, and so pulled out.  But fifteen years later, with the onslaught of the AIDS epidemic, Botswana asked Peace Corps to return, this time to focus on making sure that the population, and especially young people, learn about HIV and develop the life skills to avoid the mistakes of the prior generation.  Research had shown that having available the best prevention and treatment measures cannot alone stop HIV.  People fundamentally need to change certain behaviors.  That’s where we come in.

            Stephanie is perfectly suited for this type of work, and she hit the ground running, training counselors at the senior secondary school.  But all of this is not close to anything in my background.  Still, I am making the best of it.  I hope to work with a government agency that makes grants to NGOs on HIV related matters, and in doing so uses a rigorous evaluation process.  Meanwhile, I have been working on life skills curriculum matters at my junior secondary skills, and I have been teaching some related classes.  I have been working with a peer educators group that enjoys drama: we developed and staged a play for the school about two imaginary classmates who engaged in sex for money with truck drivers (this sort of stuff really happens, and even more so: school girls here sometimes have sex to earn prepaid cell phone airtime).

            I have also been helping out with coaching track (athletics).  It is the subject of several prior blog posts, and it is a type of life skills education.  But then, earlier this term, my school head came to me and mentioned that she was down one math teacher.  They are in short supply here, as in the United States. So, she wondered whether I could help out for a term.  I said yes.  I figured that while it is not part of the Peace Corps project framework, still it will help integrate me into the life of the school.

            Since then I have been teaching one section of Form 1 (8^th grade) maths (yes, they add an “s” to it) and one of Form 2 (9^th grade) maths.  There are 51 students in my Form 1 class; 43 in my Form 2 class.  They are of mixed ability, both in terms of math and English comprehension.  While I can speak some Setswana, I teach almost entirely in English.  Halfway through the term, my Form 2 students got their textbooks; my Form 1 students are still waiting for theirs.

            Despite these challenges, teaching maths has been great fun.  Most of my students enjoy the novelty of a lekgoa (white/English speaking) teacher.  I was a good maths student years back and so the syllabus is easy for me to follow.  I am getting better at creating and recording lesson plans and at marking tests.  I try to make the lessons lively, which is different from the didactic style that many teachers here employ.  A set of lessons involved money and one class was devoted to currency exchange rates.  Luckily, I had stored away some South African rand and American dollars, so I brought to school a 20 rand note, a US$20 bill and a 20 Botswana pula note.  I had the students use them to work out different currency transactions.  And, yes, I got all of my money back at the end of the class.

            It has not all been easy.  The students seem to know that I will not use corporal punishment.  It is legal in Botswana and many teachers do resort to it.  Some of the more rowdy students (i.e. boys) have been testing their limits.  In turn I am testing out different classroom management techniques, but I still have a ways to go.  Corporal punishment is a topic unto itself, one that I will not delve into here.  Suffice it to say that Peace Corps volunteers in schools regularly confront it, and it can be disturbing.  Still, our job is not to reform classroom discipline in Botswana, but rather to improve the life skills of the students in the classroom.

            Meanwhile, I take delight that my Form 1 students are solving problems with mixed operations and my Form 2 students are calculating the angles of intersecting lines and polygons.  We will see where things go from here.

Away Meet

AWAY MEET

            The athletics (i.e. track and field) team at Lotlamoreng JSS progressed in its successful season.  We have a new and dynamic coach to thank for this, although some parents insist that my presence somehow has inspired the team.  After two meets that each extended over two days, our team managed to qualify more than twenty of its members to attend the South Zonal competition, which would feature students from junior and senior secondary schools throughout the southern third of Botswana, stretching all the way from my southeastern corner near South Africa across the Kgalagadi to the border with Namibia. 

The competition took place over two days at the soccer stadium of the Botswana Police College.  The facility was every bit as good as one would find at an American college campus: synthetic running surface, grassy infield for throwing events and runways for jumping events.  The event schedule was similar to that of American high school track meets. 

There was one big difference.  Almost all of the athletes spent two nights sleeping over at area junior secondary schools.  Some overnights could be expected, since schools may be more than a four hours’ drive away from the police college.  But others, including our school, are less than a two-hour drive away.  In America, we would easily bus the students back and forth.  But not here.  Why?  There are two reasons.  First, public schools in Botswana do not provide daily transport to students, and so there are no fleets of school buses available to drive athletes to meets.  This lack of transportation can be a burden: I have students at my school who walk 10 kilometers or more every day, to and from school.  Buses are simply in short supply.  Second, even if there were transport available to and from a meet, the return bus would arrive at dusk or later.  Few parents here own cars, and so students would be left to walk long distances home after dark.  That would create an unsafe situation and our school will not tolerate it.

So, our male and female athletes piled onto a rare government bus mid-afternoon on a Thursday.  The bus then stopped along the way at two more schools to pick up athletes.  I know about this quite well, because I rode along.  The bus dropped us off at 6 PM at a junior secondary school in Lobatse, about 20 kilometers from the police college.  This school, like most in Botswana, has a collection of small classroom buildings, each with windows on two opposite sides.  Someone had written the name of one visiting school on each classroom door.  The doors were left unlocked.  Our students ran around the school, searching for their assigned classroom.  Ours was a dingy place full of metal desks, and the students promptly moved them outside to an outdoor passageway.  The electricity was not working in that block for some reason, so a student was dispatched to find candles.  The students unrolled their sleeping bags or pads on the floor, each choosing spaces near their friends. 

I was then surprised to see two of our school cooks arrive at the classroom.  They came in a pickup truck filled with supplies.  They promptly set up in the classroom a metal frame that sported four commercial grade gas burners.  The driver carried in a large natural gas canister and bags of food.  The cooks hooked up the gas, started boiling water and cooked a hearty dinner for our athletes: beef and vegetables and paleche (a maize meal product that has the consistency of mashed potatoes).  Apparently bringing cooks along is standard for our school’s overnight trips.  Several other schools brought along cooks and food; others (with more resources or less imagination) just ordered take-out. 

After dinner, the cooks boiled more water for bathing.  (The school had no locker rooms or showers.)  Students had packed plastic pails with their luggage.  The cooks poured hot water into the pails.  The students then grabbed their soap and towels and walked outside into the dark to bathe themselves discreetly on the edges of the schoolyard.  I followed along and did the same.  I had to borrow a student’s pail because I did not know enough to bring one with me.    

It was then time for bed.  I was alarmed that our male and female students would sleep in the same classroom.  But our two cooks, along with two female teachers, brought air mattresses and blankets and bunked down amidst the 20+ students.   There was no hanky-panky whatsoever.

So, where did I sleep?  I bunked with two fellow male assistant coaches in the empty next-door classroom.  We each arranged six metal desks to form rectangles on which we placed our sleeping bags and, shortly thereafter, our tired bodies.  It was not the best night of sleep for me.  Some athletes from other schools hooted and hollered for several hours.  The metal desks were not particularly comfortable either. 

Then, at 5 AM the next morning, the cooks awakened us.  They had boiled more water for bathing, and they were preparing breakfast.  Batswana in general keep themselves very clean: they insist on bathing twice daily.  I reluctantly bathed again, outside, in the cold dawn air.  Then I ate my breakfast.  It consisted of bogobe, a tasty sorghum porridge, along with hot Ricoffy, a chicory-coffee beverage.

Transportation on Friday morning to the police college was hit or miss.  The few government vehicles and buses carried whoever boarded first.  Teachers and coaches crowded students into their cars.  The few buses then made two or three runs back and forth until all of the athletes got to the police college.  Our cooks stayed behind, but a pick-up truck delivered them to the track about mid-day, along with several pots containing a hot lunch freshly prepared for the athletes.

The meet extended throughout the day on Friday, suspending just after dark, at about 7 PM.  Everyone then had to find their way onto some vehicle back to their assigned school in Lobatse.  When we arrived there, the cooks greeted us.  Once again they had prepared everyone a delicious dinner.  I was tired, so after bathing outdoors, I hit the sack (or more precisely, the school desk).  I slept like a log, until 5 AM, when the morning routine began again.

The Saturday program unexpectedly ended before noon.  Botswana’s serious water shortage had affected the police college, meaning that by Saturday there was no water in the stadium rest rooms.  The organizers therefore canceled the steeplechase event and the finals of the high hurdles. 

Our students did well overall at the South Zonal competition.  Ten of them placed either first or second in their events.  They qualified to compete in the national competition two weeks later. 

Postscript: I also attended the nationals.  They took place last Friday and Saturday.  It was held at a top-notch soccer stadium and the proceedings were very well organized.  Because only ten of our students competed, I did not spend the night with them at the local school.  Our cooks stayed behind as well, meaning that our students survived on take-out food and cold water for bathing.  Unfortunately, our highest finisher in the nationals came in third place, and so none of them will go on to the Southern Africa school championship, held this year in Harare.  I had hoped to get the chance to go to Harare, but since the United States has a less than friendly relationship with Zimbabwe, Peace Corps might not have wanted me to make that trip. 

Barefoot runners in a prior competition rounding the turn in a 3000m race.

The Tarantula in the Bedroom

THE TARANTULA IN THE BEDROOM

            Before we left for Botswana, several people talked to us about the supposed dangers from wildlife in Africa.  Mostly, they revolved around snakes, particularly the black momba.  Well, I have not seen any mombas, black or otherwise, since we arrived.  I have seen a couple of live snakes and a couple of dead ones, but they were neither large nor particularly dangerous looking.

            In training, we learned much about keeping ourselves healthy, given that we are often posted to villages remote from top-notch medical facilities.  The number one ailment that afflicts Peace Corps volunteers worldwide is – diarrhea.  We were warned repeatedly about the dangers of untreated water, unwashed fruits and uncooked vegetables.  Diarrhea, however, is the least of our worries.  The starches that make up the bulk of a typical Setswana meal are made from maize or sorghum.  The maize products are called setampa and paleche, and they have a consistency similar to mashed potatoes.  Sorghum meal is used in making bogobe, a delicious porridge.  These products tend to harden in one’s intestines like concrete, leading to a problem the polar opposite of diarrhea.

            Another common problem for Peace Corps volunteers is malaria.  Luckily, we are posted in the southern part of Botswana where malarial mosquitos are not present.  Whenever we travel north, we need to get a supply of anti-malarial pills that can suppress, but cannot prevent, malaria.

            Snakes, insects, spiders and the like did not take up any class time during training, and they get little mention in our medical handbook.  More ink is used to discuss various parasites that may invade us, or explain how to sterilize a nasty cut we may get.

            Here in Goodhope, we share our house with a variety of bugs, which is not uncommon worldwide.  Occasionally we will see a very large cockroach.  A stray millipede may crawl around on the floor.  Moths and beetles occasionally fly into the house.  Small and very fast mosquitos manage to get into the house every warm evening, biting me until I apply bug juice.  Some beetles (but not those that invite themselves into our house) can grow almost to the size of Rhode Island.  Actually, they can be as large as bats, and they can fly.  We attended a band concert at Stephanie’s school hall in December, and as a blind blues singer sat at her keyboard and crooned, an enormous beetle flew around in circles above her head.  The audience remained in rapt attention – eying the beetle and the danger it might pose to the helpless, sightless singer.

            One night last week, Stephanie switched on the light in our bedroom as she turned down the bed for the night.  She lowered the bed net that we sleep under.  The bed net is treated with DEET, and it means that we can sleep soundly without mosquito bites and without the sound of bugs buzzing around our heads.

            She noticed something brown on the floor in the corner of the bedroom.  It was about six inches across, with eight hairy legs and a thick body.  She yelled to me in the other room, and I ran in to see what it was.  Thinking quickly, I ran back into another room and grabbed a can of Doom, the most popular insecticide in Botswana, supplied by Peace Corps to volunteers.  The creature had not yet moved.  I sprayed it with Doom.  It moved away from the corner, along the edge of the floor, and then stopped.  I sprayed him again, and he clattered away again, always on the edge of the floor.  I repeated this another two times.  The creature seemed not to be doing well. So I used the bottom of the Doom can and crushed it right there on the floor.  I killed it, and then I dispatched it into our trash bin.

            What was it?  We assume that it was a spider related to a tarantula.  It was big and had eight hairy legs, which is good enough for us.  We asked people at our work place the next day.  Tarantula is a European term and it is not used here.  I was told our visitor was a tseru spider, and they can be nasty.  Stephanie was told that it is a spider that sprays a caustic liquid onto nearby animals.  In humans, it causes painful blistering and skin infections. I looked on the web, and it also could have been a highly venomous baboon spider or a relatively harmless rain spider.

            How did it get into our bedroom?  Probably through a window.  Our bedroom is the only room where we keep the windows open, even at night.  During the summer, it is the only way that we can sleep.  To keep bugs out, we use screening that we brought from America, and we apply duct tape around the casement window frame to keep it in place.  But the duct tape does not work perfectly, and we need to peel back the tape to adjust the casement window openings from time to time.

            Some may ask about the safety of using insecticides like Doom.  We are not sure exactly what the ingredients are, although it uses pyrethroids, which is derived from natural sources.  Doom, like most products we buy, comes from South Africa.  We have noticed that there are many fewer safety and environmental controls placed on consumer products here.  So, while we have some ambivalence in using products like Doom, there is no way that we are going to avoid using them when needed.

            Since that episode, things have been quiet here on the bug front.  Now that fall is coming, we expect to have fewer of them visit us indoors.  Let’s hope that is the case.

Internet: From Your House to Ours

INTERNET: FROM YOUR HOUSE TO OURS

            Ever since our arrival in Botswana more than six months ago, one of our goals has been to stay connected to our family and friends back home.  The prepaid cell phones we received upon arrival came with SIM cards from a network with no inexpensive way to call the United States.  During our two months of training in Kanye, our children tried to figure out bargain ways for them to call or SMS (i.e. text) us. Because of the six to seven hour time difference (Botswana does not switch to and from Daylight Time) and our busy schedules, our calls and texts were few and far between.

            Then there is the matter of internet access.  While we came to Africa with laptops and a shared iPad, we were not sure what to expect.  Certainly our host family in Kanye had no internet connection.  We availed ourselves of one of the local internet cafes from time to time.  We were warned about programs loaded onto some public computers that could record password information.  So, when we could, maybe every other Sunday afternoon, we hauled our laptops to those internet cafes that would allow us to connect our computers directly to the internet via an Ethernet cable.  The connection was often slow.  Wi-Fi did not seem to be available.

            Most of the volunteers in our group are in their 20’s, and most are much more dependent upon computers (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, etc.) than the two of us.  Still, the lack of computer access was a challenge for all of us.  I think that Peace Corps had at least two reasons for us to live largely without computers during training: to force us to spend concentrated time learning about a new culture, and to make us appreciate more how people live today without internet access.

            I do not want to leave the impression that Botswana, or the rest of Africa, is devoid of the many advances in computer technology over the past thirty years.  Far from it.  In some ways, Africa leads the world in the use of mobile technology.  I get a text on my phone every time I use my debit card at the supermarket.  I can transfer airtime and money credits from one mobile device to another.  I buy prepaid electricity credits from a neighbor who owns a special hand held device.  He takes my money and prints out a receipt with a 16-digit code.  I enter that code onto a keyboard on the “smart meter” installed in my kitchen.  The screen on the meter acknowledges the code, and then displays how many kilowatt-hours of electricity credit I just bought.  Over the next few weeks, I can watch the kwh’s decline with use, and the meter even emits small red flashes when an appliance is using heavier amounts of electricity.

            Back to the internet.  We did not want to make long-term plans for internet access until we learned of our placement.  For instance, if we were to live in a village without electrical or telephone lines, then certain solutions would not work.  There are three mobile telephone companies doing business in Botswana, and each company’s coverage varies somewhat.  We would not want to make a commitment to one company if its signal did not reach our home.

            We ended up getting placed in Goodhope, a village of 6000 about 90km from the nearest large town, Lobatse.  That might not sound promising for any sort of internet connectivity.  But we got lucky.  About fifteen years ago, Goodhope became the host to a number of regional government offices.  Botswana is divided into ten districts (similar to states or provinces), and some of those districts in turn are divided into two or more sub-districts.  We are part of the sprawling Southern District, and the Goodhope sub-district offices serve its sub-region with a variety of offices: land registry, public health, agriculture, planning, public works, education, etc. Then there is the five-year-old Goodhope Senior Secondary School (Stephanie’s work base), a massive boarding school housing 2400 students.  All of these institutions all need internet connectivity. 

            This means that mobile phone service is excellent in Goodhope from all three companies.  The landline telephone company even has a regional office here.  We considered our options.  We could get a small device, an external modem, which fits into the USB slot of a laptop.  A SIM card slides into the modem, and then the computer has internet access over the selected mobile phone network, just like a smart phone in the United States.  As in America, the mobile phone companies advertise 3G speed over their networks (4G is not an option here).  Unfortunately, the reality is that in places like Goodhope, the speed ends up being more like 2G.  We also talked with a more experienced volunteer about another option: DSL (called ADSL here).  It is available in some locations, but not all.  Its speeds are faster and more reliable than 3G, and in some cases may be fast enough to download videos.  It is more expensive than 3G, but we were told it is well worth it.

            So, about a week after we arrived in Goodhope in November, I began my quest for DSL.  The sign outside the local telephone company building said that it had customer service hours one day a week: on Wednesdays.  So the following Wednesday, I trudged the 30 minute dusty walk to the office, only to find it was closed up tight.  I did some other errands and came back later but the office was still closed.  The place looked more like a switching center with some telephone poles in the lot – it did not look much like a customer service place.

            So, on November 30, I took a combi to Lobatse (usually about an hour’s trip).  I visited the telephone company office there and told the representative that I wanted to get DSL for my home in Goodhope.  There was an application form in front of her, and I took one to fill out.  She told me that I couldn’t fill it out, at least not yet, that I had to apply first for a regular telephone line.  She said that a technician would come to my neighborhood and determine whether telephone and DSL service was possible.  Since our village has no street names, let alone house numbers, it is difficult to locate houses.  The application asked for our plot number, which I did not know.  I did the best I could giving directions.

            Then I began to wait anxiously.  I felt that perhaps the process would speed up if I could locate my plot number.  I could not talk with my landlord about it (that’s a whole ‘nother story), so I traveled one day to the Land Board office.  In Botswana, every citizen is entitled to several free plots of land: one for cattle, one for planting crops, and one for building a house.  In a country almost the size of Texas and with only 2 million people, there is a lot of land to go around.  The Land Board administers a very rigorous application process for land seekers.  The Board is a combination of a planning office, a land court and a deed registry.  I walked into the office and asked for help to determine my plot number.  Apparently copies of deeds are not publicly available, but I was directed to the survey group.   A helpful trio of young men got out a survey plan of my neighborhood, and we were able to determine that my house plot was one of about two or three lots.  Since Goodhope is now a sub-district center, the village has been subdivided into many lots, but most of them remain undeveloped.  Hence it is hard to determine from a survey exactly which plot is mine.  Undaunted, the survey crew announced that they would visit our house the next morning to determine the exact plot number.  And the next morning they arrived in an SUV: a driver, two surveyors and an assistant.  Armed with a survey plan, they quickly found some nearby concrete bounds and determined our plot number.

            By the second week of December, I hadn’t heard from the telephone company.  I decided to take a combi into Lobatse to check up on things.  I thought that having my plot number might speed things up.  At the customer service office, I met with the same lady as I had before.  I told her that I now had a plot number to add to my phone service application. She said that it really wasn’t necessary. I asked when a technician would come to my house to determine feasibility for DSL.  She said that is would happen soon.

            Nothing happened soon, but something did eventually happen.  On December 20^th, when Stephanie and I were at the other end of town meeting with the agricultural extension officer (part of our get to know the community assignment), Stephanie got a phone call from the telephone company: an engineer was in his car heading toward our house.  He would be there in 20 minutes.  I immediately excused myself and ran home -- in the heat.  There was no way we wanted to miss any opportunity to get DSL.  Sure enough, the engineer arrived at the landmark my application had set out for him, and I pointed out our nearby house.  He told me that he would scout out telephone lines in the vicinity and get back to me.  About 20 minutes later, he came back with the good news: there was good enough telephone connectivity nearby to enable DSL.  He said that he would report back to the office in Lobatse, and then I would get a call to come into the office, fill out an application, and pay a deposit.

            That began another waiting period.  December passed into January, and January into February, without a call form the phone company.  We were busy with other projects, so I did not have the time to follow-up.  Only in mid-February did I get around to calling customer service.  A very nice lady told me, after checking my file, that in fact I could go in and pay my deposit.

            Late in February, I took a combi to Lobatse, paid a 200 Pula deposit ($25) and filled out a DSL application.  Then, a week later while at work, Stephanie got a call that an installation crew was on its way.  She called me to get home ASAP (my school is much closer to home than hers).  I was in the middle of teaching a math class, so I couldn’t leave just yet.  When the bell rang, I bolted out of the classroom and ran home.  I arrived just as not one, but two trucks, each with a crew or workers, arrived at my house.  The foreman greeted me, and then looked toward the horizon in all directions, searching for telephone wires.  He announced that there were no telephone lines nearby and that we were not eligible to get DSL service because they do not install new telephone poles for that purpose.  I protested that there were electrical poles right up to my house, but he answered that the telephone company does not share with the electric utility (which turns out not to be really the case).  I said that someone from the telephone company had come out in December and verified our eligibility, and that I had paid my deposit just a week prior.

            Telling the man that I had paid the deposit did the trick.  He said, “well, since you have paid a deposit, I guess we’ll have to make an exception.”  So, the next thing I know, I am inside the house guiding one work crew.  They quickly wire the house for a telephone line, running it out through an air vent, under the soffit, over the roof drip edge and up to the roof peak.  The other crew took off somewhere.  I had to go back to teach another class.  When I returned about an hour later, the second crew had returned.  In the midday sun, one worker was digging a hole in the ground just outside our gate.  He was using just a spade.  He was down almost a meter by the time I caught up with him.  He quickly finished that hole, and then moved on to start another one, maybe 80 meters away.  I wanted to continue watching this amazing feat, but I had to go back to school for a meeting.  When I returned, two hours later, I found two telephone poles in place where the holes had been dug.  A wire stretched from my house, hooked to the new poles, and connected to a preexisting telephone wire maybe 150 meters away.  [See the attached photo showing the edge of our grass-free yard, with the first new pole in the left foreground, the second new pole behind it slightly to the right and the third (pre-existing) pole in the background, center.]  Stephanie had come home somewhere during the installation to share in the excitement.  When I returned, she was watching some workers finish up with the installation of our wireless router and landline telephone.  The router configured instantly to our laptops, and then we had fast DSL internet service.  In our home.  At last.

            We celebrated that evening by checking up on internet sites we had not visited for six months.   We made a list of apps that we wanted to download.  We made plans for Facetime calls with our children.  It was great. 

            Two days later, we got hit with a bad electrical storm.  It threw the main circuit breaker in our house.  There was a power surge and, yes, it fried out new internet router.  Without going into details, the telephone company rep came out the next business day with a loaner, and the day after that, with a replacement router.  We are happy as can be.  We can make Facetime calls.   We surf the internet And there is an added bonus: calls to our new landline phone from America are cheaper than to our cell phone.

New Telephone Poles: Our Gateway to the World