Conversations with Barnabas #3

Welcome back to Conversations with Barnabas Bear. A couple of items up front, the conversation is fictional (hopefully that was obvious) but are pulled from some of my conversations and observations during my time here in Tanzania.  The main purpose of these is to help everyone get to know the people in Tanzania a little bit better while having a little bit of fun.  I would love some feedback on these so I know if I should continue and if so what types of conversations Barnabas needs to be having.  The stories are told from Barnaba’s point of view and because of that they are in English though I try to reflect some of the problems with the English translation.

Meet Neema (which means Grace) and Chiku (which means chatterer or in some dictionaries it says canary).  They were along the dirt road Dad walks for exercise.  They were out herding the goats and cows for their family.  They are sisters and are about a year apart.  Chiku on the right is 10 and is in Standard 4 in school while Neema on the left is the older one at 11 years old but is in Standard 4 also because she was held back a year when the parents did not have the money for school fees before government required students to be enrolled.

Because we have four people who will be speaking I am going to use a suggestion from one of my readers and put the first initial in front of what people say to hopefully make it easier to follow along.

B:  “Mambo Vipi”  This is a standard greeting to younger folks because it is considered cooler.  It basically means what is happening.

N and C:  “Poa, Shikamoo”  Poa is like saying fresh and Shikamoo is a greeting to dad because he is so much older he deserves respect for having lived so long.

D:  “Marahaba” which has no translation other than it is the response to shikamoo.

N:  “howryou”  yes that is how they say the phrase how are you.

B:  “good and you”

N:  “salama”  This is a common phrase used in greetings and responses in the valley area.  It is from the Arabic for peace but is used in many ways to represent peaceful greetings.

B:  “so how many goats and cows do you have this week”

N:  “I don’t know”  While this is going on Chiku is mainly giggling in the background.

B:  “have you counted today to make sure you bring them all back”

N:  “They will stay together”

B:  “but you could practice your counting for school by knowing how many you have”

N:  “Why”

B:  “because you are having trouble in math class the last time we talked”

N:  “I still am but we are doing division now, why would practicing how to count help”

B:  “why do you have trouble with multiplication?”

N:  “Because I struggle with arithmetic”

B:  “Why did you struggle with arithmetic?”

N:  “because I don’t know what the numbers mean”

B:  “maybe if you counted things you would understand more about what the numbers mean”

N:  “I don’t think so it is all just on the board and I have to learn to memorize more of it”

D:  “Trust me,  you have to understand what the numbers stand for so adding and subtracting will make more sense and that will help you to understand multiplication and division and those will help you to understand things like angles and how to find x later on”

C:  busts out laughing at dad’s attempt at Swahili

D:  “I am very good at math and the reason is I learned each step and understood it before I tried to grasp the next one”

N:  “I don’t ever see you doing math”

D:  “You were on site the other week when I was doing a calculation on how much power it would take for a pump to push water uphill from the river to crop areas”

N:  “I was not sure what that was about but those things you drew on the board did not look like math to me”

D:  “Those were equations.  I needed to figure out one equation to know what size pump it would take to get the water to move up and the other equations were to determine how much electricity we would need to generate to run the pump both for the day and to start it up because it takes a lot more watts or electricity to start a motor that was standing still”

N:  “They are going to have electricity at the river.  I have always wanted to see electricicty”

D:  tries to pull his hair out but there is not enough so he just buries his head in his hands and shakes it.

B:  wanting to avoid a lengthy discussion on what electricity is from his dad jumps in, “You can see the system that generates electricity at our site and you can also see some of the items that use electricity like a light bulb.”

N and C:  “Yes I want to see it.”

C:  “Our neighbors go to the preschool and they said you had a tv”

B:  “yes we showed them some counting cartoons on the tv.  They are from Ubongo kids and now they have Akili and Me videos as well”  The link to their website is here:  http://www.ubongokids.com/

C:  very softly like she is afraid she would be heard out of turn.  “What is a tv and what is a video?”

D:  smiles as he waits to see Barnabas explain this one.

B:  “A tv uses electricity to show moving images that have been taken.  Like when Dad takes a picture and then shows it to you on the back of the camera.  The tv specializes in moving images that have sound.  Some of them are real images and some are cartoons that are drawn.”

N and C:  both are silent for a moment while their mouths hang open.

B:  “Hey dad can they come watch one of the educational cartoons at the house?”

D: “I have a better idea, I will see if we can show them to your whole class at school one day.”

N:  “Really that would be great.”

B:  “but you will have to count along with the video”

N:  “I am going to practice right now with the cows,  come on Chuki lets count.  You do the goats and I will do the cows.  Then we can both do the donkeys.”

With that both the girls ran off and started counting very loudly.  Dad gave me a wink and a high five and we started walking again.