6/27/17
It’s been
a full month and a half for me. If you know college Bladow, you probably aren’t too surprised. And you’re probably not too surprised that my
coping mechanism tends to be to add another thing to my schedule like a
half-marathon to force myself to train, decompress, and relax!! So, that’s exactly what I did.
Firstly, a brief update on what I’ve been up to. I helped coordinate a provincial wide
science fair competition for high school students. It required more visits to
the Provincial Capital, Pemba, than I would have hoped. As much as I love a
top-notch beach, it’s a sickening joke when you
travel 6-9 hours one way for a 1-2 hour meeting, end up spending all day Saturday
grading homework and tests, and then spend another 6-9 hours to return home on
Sunday just in time to lesson plan and start teaching on Monday… The science fair went well overall
and an improvement from last year. There were still plenty of issues especially
concerning the dichotomy of self-importance that gets tied up into titles and
positions of power. Simply put, the governess of Cabo Delgado (my province)
came to our science fair! Which is one of the coolest doopest things and a phenomenal
opportunity for the students to speak to their governor. Unfortunately, because
of much of the hierarchal systems in place, the focus shifted from an event for
students to an event for the governor.
With that said, each year is a step forward and hopefully
next year we can focus on perspective shifts –
especially considering how all of the funding comes from a US aid organization
that focuses on HIV & AIDS testing… We
received the funding with the idea that it’s a
provincial wide event where HIV tests can be performed and prevention can be
discussed and explored. We had 0 HIV tests done. All of our HIV activities were
cancelled because of the governor’s
schedule. The words HIV/AIDS was mentioned once in a one sentence thank you to
the organization that funded the event… Step
by step we will make improvements. So, this year went better than the previous
year and next year will be another step forward. Vaccani vaccani (little by
little)
And now stepping into June, I had a conference about community
library programs which was an absolute blast. The neighborhood kids are quite
accustomed to visiting my house and playing around (very much to the dismay of
my housemate – bless his heart). So, I
already have plenty of students ready and available to learn and participate in
a literacy program!! They might not know that yet – but hey, they’re
always excited to play games and from my days of mentoring programs I am
strongly lacking my educational games (saudades pa – I miss it quite a bit).
And all in all, my stress reliever has been my half-marathon
training! I went to Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, and had an absolute blast. I had
no service, no Wi-Fi, and no ability to withdraw USD (the currency of Zimbabwe
oddly enough). Disconnect to reconnect as they say. It felt amazing to not have
anything to worry about or weight on my mind. I also went white water rafting
and on the first Class-5 rapid we all got thrown from our raft, which was exhilarating
and refreshing.
Well, a shorter post this go around! Thanks for reading and
hopefully this post was a little less dramatic and negative than the last.
With all my heart,
~Daniel Bladow
The only moment you can live is the one that is happening now.
