Maybe you'll recall that I have been coaching some of my students in basketball and that last July many players from Songea Girls participated in a Tanzanian national basketbally competition and finished in second place. So of course it has been our mission for the last year to prepare for first place. A couple of weeks ago my girls made me proud by winning the championship game at this year's cometition! As a result, at the end of August they will travel to Kenya to represent Tanzania in a tournament for all of East Africa!
Rather than select the best teams to compete in the national competition, because many schools do not have sports teams, Tanzania chooses the best players from many each zone to form a zonal team that competes in the tournament. I thin there are nine zones. The Iringa and Ruvuma regions formed the Southern Highlands zone. Like last year, seven of the nine players on the girls' basketball team from the Southern Highlands were from Songea Girls. As it was not officially a Songea Girls basketball team, I was not their coach at the tournament. Unfortunately, because things were so unorganized this year within the committe putting on the tournament, after my players left to compete, I didn't get any information about it and so didn't get to go see them play. But they know I was rootin for them from Songea and will continue to as they travel to Nairobi, Kenya!
The national tournament hosts all sorts of sports from track and field to table tennis. Apparently they even had a handball division (I think it is like field hockey). Since pretty much nobody in Tanzania plays handball the Southern Highlands girls basketball team entered the handball competition and won that as well.
Also, last week I had the chance to meet the Women in Development/Gender and Development (WID/GAD) coordinator for all of Peace Corps, who was visiting from Washington, D.C. to lead our framework development meeting. She wants to put a picture of my basketball team on the cover of this year's Peace Corps WID/GAD brochure. My girls are going to flip when they find out they will be world famous!
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Should I Stay or Should I Go?
I haven't written to people or updated my blog in a while because I have really been consumed by the decision of whether or not to extend my Peace Coprs service for another year. My 27-month Peace Corps contract is over at the beginning of December. I expected to have made up my mind about 7 weeks ago. For some reason I didn't want to send out my next update until I had made a decision and could tell everyone for sure what I will be doing. But this decision has been much more difficult to make than I anticipated. My emotions about staying in Tanzania versus returning home vacillate drastically from day to day, even hour to hour. One moment I love it here, see the impact of what I am doing and want to stay, then the next I get frustrated and can't wait to go home. Much of the time it is just conflicting simultaneous emotions of loving it here, but deeply missing home. I was never homesick at the beginning, but somehow as Songea has become more and more my home, I am homesick for America.
Even despite the homesickness, I know I could be happy staying here another year. But is it worth it? I could be content here, but I will miss out on other opporunities at home. As much as I have enjoyed my experience here, I know that I do not want to pusue a career in teaching or in foreign aid. I want to pursue engineering, specifically sustainable building design, and so staying another year will not lead me any closer to that goal. I don't think Peace Corps experience is particularly attractive to hirers in the engineering sector, and certainly a third year will not help--I think it may hurt. But then again I hear the job market sucks, so maybe it wouldn't be so bad to just wait out the recession here in Africa. It has worked out well for me so far.
If I COS (close of service) in December I will definitely feel as though I am leaving some things unfinished. First of all, I will not be finishing the school year with my students, which continues until February. I would consider extending just until February, but then I cannot be replaced at my school by another PCV, and my school does not have enough math and physics teachers. Secondly, I feel I still haven't mastered to my satisfaction teaching under Tanzanian circumstances. I have struggled for the last two years to understand the Tnzania education system and figure out how to teach effectively. Leaving now makes it feel that the effort was all for naught. Thirdly, I want to pass off what I have learned to other PCVs and Tanzanian teachers so that they don't have to spend so much time and energy just gathering materials. I'm not sure how best to do that, but I certainly don't think I can do it effectively in the time remaining before December. Maybe another year wouldn't be enough time either.
I believe that in order to be effective doing development work, a person needs to be committed for a long period of time. It takes years to get to know a place and really understand the problems and suggest viable solutions. Not to mention the time it takes to implement solutions. In two years I feel I am just starting to get to know my surroundings. I know that in another year I could do much more, be much more effective as a teacher and PCV than in the first year and a half. I think that experience goes a lot further than fresh enthusiasm. Looking back to how I taught a year ago, I know I have come a long way. I don't want to subject my students to a new PCV teacher so soon.
Beyond teaching, I want to stay in Tanzania to take advantage of all the things I have learned here that I won't use in America. Now that I can speak Swahili, I want to continue to use it and learn more. Now that I know how to get around in this area, I want to travel and see all the amazing things that East Africa has to offer. I would also like more time to invite friends from America to come here so that I can show them my home and explore Tanzania with them. I also have a great community of PCVs in Ruvuma that has been my family for the last year. All of them will be here until 2011, so it seems natural to stay and finish with them. Living in Songea with this community of PCVs and other volunteers from all over the world (Japan, Croatia, Italy, UK, Cuba, South Korea) is an experience I will never have again.
But as much as I love my students and the community here in Songea it is no replacement for my family, which means more to me than anything. In the last two years I have missed graduations, weddings, births, and deaths. I don't want to continue to miss the important life events of my friends and family at home. Devin will be a senior in high school next year and I want to watch him play basketball, run track, and graduate. While I have been in Tanzania I have already lost one grandparent. I don't know how much quality time I have left with my other grandparents, and so every year matters.
At this point I may not feel as though I have finished making a difference at Songea Girls, but I have to remember that I have accomplished a lot during this time. I didn't join the Peace Corps to save the world. I joined the Peace Corps becauase I wanted a little adventure. I wanted to travel. I wanted to learn a new language. Mostly I wanted to see the world from a different perspective, from the perspective of the people of Sub-Saharan Africa. As it turns out, I've gotten a glimpse of the world through many more perspectives that I ever anticipated; from hanging out with Japanese, Croatian, Serbian, Italian, and British volunteers in Songea, from visiting a couple of Europoean decent who have a farm near Songea and whose family has been in East Africa for generations, from staying with a family of aid workers from Scottland, from talking to missionaries who are doing amazing things throughout Tanzania, from getting to know other American volunteers and meeting Americans who have lived all over the world.
Last week I attended a workshop to help construct the goals and objectives of the Peace Corps Tanzania education project for the next five years. As I anticipated, being a part of the workshop motivated me to stay and strive to reach my potential as a Peace Corps volunteer. But I expect to be swayed the other direction next week at my close of service conference where I will meet with all of the remaining PCVs who arrived in Tanzania with me almost two years ago. Of the 33 of us who came together, only 23 remain. Maybe 3 or 4 will extend for another year. Will I be one of them? I don't know. I figure I have about a week to decide. We'll see.
Even despite the homesickness, I know I could be happy staying here another year. But is it worth it? I could be content here, but I will miss out on other opporunities at home. As much as I have enjoyed my experience here, I know that I do not want to pusue a career in teaching or in foreign aid. I want to pursue engineering, specifically sustainable building design, and so staying another year will not lead me any closer to that goal. I don't think Peace Corps experience is particularly attractive to hirers in the engineering sector, and certainly a third year will not help--I think it may hurt. But then again I hear the job market sucks, so maybe it wouldn't be so bad to just wait out the recession here in Africa. It has worked out well for me so far.
If I COS (close of service) in December I will definitely feel as though I am leaving some things unfinished. First of all, I will not be finishing the school year with my students, which continues until February. I would consider extending just until February, but then I cannot be replaced at my school by another PCV, and my school does not have enough math and physics teachers. Secondly, I feel I still haven't mastered to my satisfaction teaching under Tanzanian circumstances. I have struggled for the last two years to understand the Tnzania education system and figure out how to teach effectively. Leaving now makes it feel that the effort was all for naught. Thirdly, I want to pass off what I have learned to other PCVs and Tanzanian teachers so that they don't have to spend so much time and energy just gathering materials. I'm not sure how best to do that, but I certainly don't think I can do it effectively in the time remaining before December. Maybe another year wouldn't be enough time either.
I believe that in order to be effective doing development work, a person needs to be committed for a long period of time. It takes years to get to know a place and really understand the problems and suggest viable solutions. Not to mention the time it takes to implement solutions. In two years I feel I am just starting to get to know my surroundings. I know that in another year I could do much more, be much more effective as a teacher and PCV than in the first year and a half. I think that experience goes a lot further than fresh enthusiasm. Looking back to how I taught a year ago, I know I have come a long way. I don't want to subject my students to a new PCV teacher so soon.
Beyond teaching, I want to stay in Tanzania to take advantage of all the things I have learned here that I won't use in America. Now that I can speak Swahili, I want to continue to use it and learn more. Now that I know how to get around in this area, I want to travel and see all the amazing things that East Africa has to offer. I would also like more time to invite friends from America to come here so that I can show them my home and explore Tanzania with them. I also have a great community of PCVs in Ruvuma that has been my family for the last year. All of them will be here until 2011, so it seems natural to stay and finish with them. Living in Songea with this community of PCVs and other volunteers from all over the world (Japan, Croatia, Italy, UK, Cuba, South Korea) is an experience I will never have again.
But as much as I love my students and the community here in Songea it is no replacement for my family, which means more to me than anything. In the last two years I have missed graduations, weddings, births, and deaths. I don't want to continue to miss the important life events of my friends and family at home. Devin will be a senior in high school next year and I want to watch him play basketball, run track, and graduate. While I have been in Tanzania I have already lost one grandparent. I don't know how much quality time I have left with my other grandparents, and so every year matters.
At this point I may not feel as though I have finished making a difference at Songea Girls, but I have to remember that I have accomplished a lot during this time. I didn't join the Peace Corps to save the world. I joined the Peace Corps becauase I wanted a little adventure. I wanted to travel. I wanted to learn a new language. Mostly I wanted to see the world from a different perspective, from the perspective of the people of Sub-Saharan Africa. As it turns out, I've gotten a glimpse of the world through many more perspectives that I ever anticipated; from hanging out with Japanese, Croatian, Serbian, Italian, and British volunteers in Songea, from visiting a couple of Europoean decent who have a farm near Songea and whose family has been in East Africa for generations, from staying with a family of aid workers from Scottland, from talking to missionaries who are doing amazing things throughout Tanzania, from getting to know other American volunteers and meeting Americans who have lived all over the world.
Last week I attended a workshop to help construct the goals and objectives of the Peace Corps Tanzania education project for the next five years. As I anticipated, being a part of the workshop motivated me to stay and strive to reach my potential as a Peace Corps volunteer. But I expect to be swayed the other direction next week at my close of service conference where I will meet with all of the remaining PCVs who arrived in Tanzania with me almost two years ago. Of the 33 of us who came together, only 23 remain. Maybe 3 or 4 will extend for another year. Will I be one of them? I don't know. I figure I have about a week to decide. We'll see.
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