Farkwa, Tanzania, Tuesday September 30th

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Maria came over to have breakfast with us and to make sure that all was well. She approved of my decision to wear my party dress to school, really brought on at the request of Madam Simbee, who had not seen it. To Maria and me, it seemed appropriate to wear it to recognise my last day at the school. It would be a holiday (for the end of Ramadan) for the following two days and then we would be leaving Farkwa on Thursday.

Alnesti called in to farewell us in case he didn’t see us before we left and he said (and I think with complete sincerity) that I looked like a queen.

The past two weeks in Farkwa had raced by, and yet in a strange way it had also ballooned out to allow so many impressions, feelings and relationships to form. Now, suddenly, it was running towards a waterfall, and once we were over the edge, that was it. Such were my thoughts as we walked up to school.

For the last time we passed the corner where the mud bricks have been fired over the last week, with burning logs and sticks pushed in through holes at the bottom to the space inside where bricks are stacked.

As we turned into the school driveway, we read again the times for the UEFA soccer matches that people might like to watch on Mr Edson’s television. I noticed that the students had been burning off the edges to tidy up the drive, that the lines of broom marks formed scallops showing that many had helped, and that the pink and white flowers in the garden glowed. The silence of the school at work struck me anew. The gentleness and courtesy of the teachers as we each greeted, with respect and pleasure in taking a few minutes to say hello, never rushing, washed over us yet again. The offer of accommodation if we ever cared to stay was enticing. I cared to stay now!

Once over in form one, and Madam Simbee and I were back in business. We had talked about not using the digital camera with every class because it would be so difficult for us to work on so many different projects with the very limited access we would have to the computer. Now, we decided to respond to the sad comment from a student that the form ones had not even touched the cameras. We would do what we could to prepare for the slideshows and Madam Simbee would continue them in the following week. The form twos would have to see their work then too, since it was the only way for us to manage the computer access.

The topics for the projects related to school but cover different ground – cleaning the environment, reading and learning, sport, gardening and farming, helping the builders and lunchtime. The students work in groups and it is interesting for us teachers to note how much we have learnt about lesson delivery, the logistics of large groups taking photos and the different options for using photos to promote English language skills. We have also learnt such a lot about each other and how to work very effectively together.

Once everything was under control and the students could continue without individual assistance, I raced back to the staff room to complete typing up some of the form two work that we had thought was previously done. When I arrived at the office, Keith’s face was grey and he had just been able to sit down after injuring his back again. He had turned around and leant forward slightly to pick something up, and he had been immobilised, nearly fainting and in agony. He looked awful. Despite all this, he had no intention of going home – he said he hoped that he would feel better soon and he had a lot he wanted to finish. It was very worrying.

I stayed and typed, and it was obvious that Keith was in pain as he soldiered on with the tasks that the teachers needed to be familiar with for them to continue using the computer without his support after we leave in two days. Our computer ran out of battery power and so there was a pause for me while the tuition continued, before all the plugs and makeshift wiring could be carefully swapped again. I jotted some notes in my paper diary. There had been some frustrations for me in having no personal access to our computer, since all the battery power left in it at home had been used with school tasks. Nevertheless, we were happy to have devoted it to that use, since with only one computer Keith could not have achieved nearly as much as he has with the tuition in the short time, and Madam Simbee and I would have had to be much less ambitious with our classes.

Madam Simbee surpassed herself with the morning tea and had baked bread – a real treat. She and I were excited by the very positive responses of the form one students who had so appreciated our efforts for them. Madam Simbee’s sister had sent her a tin of cooking oil on the bus, and when she had gone to the stop to collect it, the bus had not come. A couple of students went to stand vigil, and then it was heard that the bus had broken down and the passengers (including Rosie, Ticha, Sebi and little Jarvah) had abandoned it and were walking and arranging other ways home. No doubt the tin of oil was sitting out there with all the other baggage that would have been left behind.

And so the day zipped by – with teachers and a few students learning computer skills and with Keith gradually feeling a bit better. I realised that the priority for me was no longer to be part of it all in the classrooms, but to work with Madam Simbee and the students on the computer. The afternoon was spent with both computers fully occupied, and with both of us as computer tutors. Lunch was held, with students using their own plates and sometimes groups eating communally from a couple of plates, as is the practice in homes here.Some boys swapped their school shirts for t-shirts, to protect their shirts from food and games of soccer.

After the afternoon session, the final assembly for the day was held. There would be no school for a couple of days, and the form fours were on their last day before exams. All that remained for them would be a short ceremony in the morning, when they would get together for some singing. Madam Simbe ushered us out to say goodbye. The head prefect suggested that the students might like to say some words, and Lukas spoke. He thanked us for all that we had done, and said that we would be welcome again, and the way he expressed his thoughts with such quiet dignity and in careful English seemed to epitomise the combination of respect grounded in the culture of the community and the potential of education. The mood was broken by Madam Simbee, who couldn’t help joking that we would have to come back because now I was even dressing like her. We both made short speeches, and then it was time for the students to depart.

Our tasks were not finished, so we kept going until the sun was dropping in the sky. At last Keith agreed that enough was enough, but he arranged to come back in the morning. There were CDs to be burnt for various recipients in Australia, translations of scholarship agreements into Swahili to be done, the filing system to be tidied up and a slide show to be completed under supervision. A session with Mr Chalala needed to be fitted in.

I wanted to see the folds of blues of the mountains against the sky before it was too dark, and to admire the various enormous rocks dotted about, with the last rays of the sun illuminating them against the muted earth. We were not quite in time for all of that, but we did enjoy the company of the three boys who escorted us and carried everything. We made very slow progress due to Keith’s back, which was hurting a lot.

Rosie and Ticha told us the dramatic tale of their time in Dodoma. It had taken a long time to queue to see the doctor, queue to pay for a blood test and to receive a needle, queue to have the blood test, wait for the results, queue to see the doctor to have the results explained, queue for medication to treat Jarvah’s typhoid, and somewhere in all this was another queue to pay the doctor. Jarvah seemed to be improving and Sebi had been kind to him at the hospital. On their return trip from Dodoma, the bus had indeed broken down, in the middle of the road, just over the crest of a hill, where luckily chocks of wood or stone were keeping it stable. With no immediate hope for repairs, everyone had set off to walk the ten kilometres to the next village. Ticha said that it was dreadful in the heat, and that after five kilometres of Rosie carrying Jarvah and Ticha carrying Sebi, who wouldn’t walk, with little water and no fruit or food, they were desperate. Luckily a ute came by at that point, and they were able to pay for spots on it. It was even going to the Mission at Farkwa, close to their home. As they related their stories, it was great to see them happy and relaxed after happy endings on all fronts. Thank goodness that they had acted on their instincts in taking Jarvah for tests.

While the family had been away in Dodoma, and we had been at school, there was an incident which sounded very scary, fuelled by drink. A very drunk man, wanting to collect a very small debt from Gracia, had come over, and when she had refused to give it to him in that state, he had started to rough her up. Her brother, Asimio, had intervened and he and his friends had chased the man off. Word came that the man was returning with a knife to threaten or attack Asimio, so he hid and his mother said that he was not at home. The family put in a complaint to the magistrate about the behaviour. In the end, the man had run off but he has a consequence waiting for him – he must pay each of the five men that he fought with 5000 shillings, and he must give Gracia a goat. It was an interesting example of immediate local justice, and also of people not taking the law into their own hands.

Another contrasting story that we heard, took place a few years ago, when Ticha operated a transport vehicle. He had been summoned to take a man, shot in the back with an arrow while he was eating, to hospital. By the time Ticha arrived the man was dead so he went for the police. Meanwhile the villagers had caught the killer and clubbed him to death. By the time the police arrived they had two bodies to deal with and also a whole village complicit in a crime.

After sitting again for a while, Keith was in pain and he was also disturbed at not knowing what was wrong or how to prevent a recurrence of the problem in his back. He thought over all his movements and guessed that the problem was with a muscle and not the spine. Considering the effects of nine hours in a chair teaching computers, of carrying Sebi, and many hours on bumpy buses was not very productive, and he resolved to contact our friend, Michel, in France, to ask him to arrange an appointment for him to see a physiotherapist when we returned to Toulouse, in four weeks.

The student lunch (ugali) is cooked in the open air kitchen in the school grounds.

One of the things we won't miss much - the toilet