SCHOOL VISIT:

WRITTEN BY HALIDI A. HAMISI (BGY PARTICIPANT FROM MAJENGO SECONDARY SCHOOL – KILIMANJARO - TANZANIA)

The stay in Denmark led the group to visit and meet teachers and pupils/students in different schools.

In the schools, the discussion was focused on different issues concerning:

Education system and schools in Tanzania.
The living condition and culture in Tanzania including food, religion, housing, daily life and economy.
Democracy and political situation in Tanzania.
The teaching profession in both countries.

LYSABILD SCHOOL: We had a warm welcome from the headmaster of the school at the teacher’s room where we had a short talk with him. During the session, the group was divided so that they can visit different classes at a time. We visited grade 2, 4, 5, 6 and orange class which is a special class for the slow learners (students who are not able to be in normal classes).

There were many questions from the pupils in different classes. Some of the questions which were asked were:

(i) What type of food do you eat in Tanzania?

(ii) How do you deal with the deseases like malaria and HIV AIDS in Tanzania?

(iii) Do you have wild animals in your country?

Generaly the pupils were happy seeing us at their classes because they wanted to learn more things about Africa.

Apart from answering different questions from the pupils, we also taught them different Swahili songs like :

Mabata madogodogo, yanaogelea (small ducks are swiming),

We Yakobo walala amka wende shule (hey mr Jacob you are sleeping its time for school).

We also taught them some swahili words such as:

Asante(thank you),

Kwaheri (goodbye) and

Karibu (welcome)

NORRESKOV SCHOOL:

WRITTEN BY IDDI S. MKIRAMWENI (BGY PARTICIPANT FROM MJIMPYA SECONDARY SCHOOL – KILIMANJARO - TANZANIA)

There was a warm welcome at the school where we met the headmaster who was waiting for the group at the staffroom. He was very happy for our visit to his school. The other teachers also responded posively.

At this school we were divided into groups and distributed into different classes. We visited grades 9.b, 8.a, 2.b, and 0.b, at the first lesson, grades 8.b, 7.a, 7.b, and 8.b, at the third lesson and lastly during the forth lesson we visited grades 7.c, 9.a, 5.a, and 9.c.

A lot of questions came from the high grades 9, 8, and 7 and simple questions from the

classes 5, 2, and 0. Question from high grades were:

(a) About our shools, how long does one take in school to complete education. They were given brief explanation. Teachers being close to students in Tanzania was also a leading topic as they wondered about us being cained by teachers while they are not even punishments.

(b) They also asked about the duration it takes to learn about Law and Engineering in the universty.

(d) The issue of AIDS also became a topic in their classes, because some students thought all Africans are affected.

Question from grade 2, 5, and 0 were:

(a) They asked about how we celebrate christmas holidays ?

(b) They also asked about the food we eat and drinks ?

This question were answered and they seemed satisfied. Apart from that we sang songs to them and tought them some of the songs which we sang together. One of the songs was:

Kiswahili

SIMAMA KAA

RUKA RUKA RUKA

SIMAMA KAA

English

STAND UP SIT DOWN

JUMP JUMP JUMP

STAND UP SIT DOWN

We translated the words in the song to English and they understood them easily. This song was specially taught so that we could keep them active when we were telling them things concerning Africa and Tanzania in general.

They were interested with us and decided to teach us some songs in Danish, it was difficult but we enjoyed.

Actually the teachers of the school and students were very much interested with our visit totheir school and asked our group to come again for the visit. It was also interesting to our group because we saw a lot of differences between our schools and theirs, especially in terms of teaching materials that they use projectors, they have enough books and good learning environment and their teachers are social to students compared to most schools in Tanzania.

It was a nice visit at the school.

KLOVER SCHOOL (MENTALLY HANDCAPPED CHILDREN):

WRITTEN BY HAMISI H. KAITA (BGY PARTICIPANT FROM MAWENZI TRC – KILIMANJARO - TANZANIA)

We visited the school and we had a warm welcome from Birgitte Brandt in their staffroom where she gave us an introduction of the school. She told us that the school was started in 1990 for pupils who were mentally retarded (handcapped). The school has 150 pupils and 100 teachers with assistances teachers. She told us that mental dissabilities are caused by different things such as inheritance from the parents, pre-mature babies, brain problems, alcohol and many more.

The teachers teach the pupils how to take care of themselves such as general cleanless, how to cook,

physical exercises and different studies like physics, biology and mathematics. The teachers have

extra work of teaching each student per time due to lack of concentration in studies for a long time.

We were then into five groups and went into different grades such as A4, B4, B5, B6, B8, 9, and 10, where we told the pupils things about Tanzania concerning culture, food, family, education system, the national flag, the national parks, mount Kilimanjaro and the national currency.

The pupils asked us some questions like:

How old are you? How many times do you celebrate holidays in a year? What type of

soft drinks do you have in Tanzania? How do you celebrate christmass? Did you come

with gold to Denmark? Why do you say you are poor while you have a lot of minerals

in your country? What type of food do you eat? What type of animals do you have?

We had an oppprtunity to teach them different Swahili songs and words such as simama kaa (stand up sit down), we yakobo (Mr Jacob), karibu (welcome), and asante (thank you).

Finally we had an opportunity of going around the school compound and we saw different blocks

and departments like home economics, needle work, library and physiotheraphy department.

Actualy we learned many things from these pupils.

DYBBØL SCHOOL:

WRITTEN BY HEMED H. KILUVIA (BGY PARTICIPANT FROM J.K. NYERERE SECONDARY SCHOOL – KILIMANJARO - TANZANIA)

All Tanzanian Students met at Dybbøl school at 8:00 in the morning except one student who was sick and she stayed at her host´s house. After arrival, the vise principal, Mr Frands collected the student of grade 1 to 3 at the school hall, they were about 80 students. Then the Dybbøl students sang two Danish songs, then the vise principal invited the Tanzanian students to sing Kiswahili song together with Dybbol students. After the three songs, one of the students from Tanzania known as Mariagoretti D. Shayo, sang the famous African song to the Dybbol students which was composed by the famous Tanzanian musicians known as J. SISTERS. When the song finished, the vice principal asked the students to go to their respective class rooms. Then the Tanzanian students got a short introduction from vice president about Dybbol school. After that the Tanzanian students were distributed in different classes.

There were three groups. The first group having Mariagoretti, Mussa and Halid went to grade 5D in music class. The second group which had Hamis, Iddi and Kaita went to grade 6A in nature studies under the assistance of teacher Tina Skivild. The third group went to grade 7D in Danish class under the assistance of teacher Berit Bak and the Tanzanian students were Hemed, Ramadhani and Mr Shirima. When the first period ended, the students went out for a break of about 15 minutes. After the break we were divided into new three groups and we went to other three diffferent classes. First group went to grade 8C that was Biology class under the assistance of Tina Skivild and the Tanzanian students were Hamis, Ramadhani and Hemed. The second group went to grade 4A in music class under the assistance of teacher Per Jorgensen and the Tanzanian students were Kaita, Mariagoretti and Iddi. The last group went to grade 9D in Danish class under the assistance of teacher Camilla Eriksen and the Tanzanian students were Halid, Mussa and Mr.Shirima.

During the Tanzanian presence in the classrooms, the Danish students asked different questions like how we live in Tanzania, which language do we use, what is our culture, what is our main foods, what is our religion and others. The Tanzanian students responded positively to the questions. When the periods ended, we took our lunch and then went to the playing ground. We played football match with student of grade 9 where the Tanzanian students won 4 against 2.