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September
2008 Newsletter for Jean Wahlstrom and Marvin Kananen
ELCA-GM
missionaries serving in Tanzania since 1998
Dear
Friends,
Marvin, after spending 2 days on the planes and 2 weeks
in Michigan (or was that 2 weeks on the plane and two days in
Michigan), reports his mother is doing well. He says that nothing
happened during his visit that his sister could not have handled,
and yet his presence there was good. Maybe this is where we get the
noun ‘presents’ from, from ‘presence.’ His 94 year-old mother is
back in her apartment at Westlands and life goes on. We hope. Jean’s
mother turned 101 when Marvin was back there.
In September we move to the Form Four graduation, this
year we have 34 students who graduate on September 21 and three
weeks later they enter one of the most important periods of their
lives: National Exams. Some students go in confident and are
shattered; others who seem without hope succeed. The best pass, the
worst do not, but for that 80% between it is hell. They will be
taking a series of ten or eleven exams where if they fail half of
them they can be successful. Then, too, if they got 9 A’s and failed
only Math, they would be judged to be a Division III. If they got 9
A’s and failed history, they couldn’t go on to anything except
science, an A-level stream MGLSS is currently no longer offering.
If, on the other hand, they failed everything but got C’s in
History, Civics, and English with a grade of ‘S’ in Math, they could
go on. It is convoluted. It goes like this: An A is an A, B is a B,
C is a C, D is a D, S (my favorite) is a failure although it is
considered a quasi-pass if it’s in Math (which they pronounce ‘maths’),
an F is a failure and a 0 is a total failure. They then get a
student’s score by adding up the equivalent math grades, a 1 for an
A, 2 for a B, 3 for a C, etc. so that, like golf, low scores are
good.
At A-Level (which we’re not talking about, but it’s an
easier puzzle to explain) they take your top three grades of the
five subjects you are tested on. The top student we had this year
had a B (2) and two C’s (3 + 3), so she had a Division I with 8
points. I hope that was clear. Now, inhale deeply and let us dive
back into the O-Level Form Four results that our students are
striving for. They are judged on all their subjects but only seven
subjects so that a perfect score would be a 7, and the bottom end of
a Division I would be 21, which is 7 C’s times 3.
Are you still awake? Sorry about this. Anyway . . . for
some strange reason it seems important for us to try and help you
understand some of the complexity of the education system here in
Tanzania, even though, after only ten years here, we keep learning
new things.
A word of note for anyone travelling to Tanzania in the
near future: The financial institutions are no longer exchanging US
money at the current rate (1160 Tanzanian shillings to the dollar)
if your currency bears a date earlier than the year 2000. For those
they will give you a rate of exchange of 1000 TZ shillings to the
dollar. They claim they are afraid the ‘old’ money is too easily
counterfeited and so don’t want it. Cynics among us say that it’s
just another way to ‘rip us off’ because the U.S. dollar is the U.S.
dollar. When Africans issue a new bill, they invalidate all the old
currency and somehow suspect the U.S. must be doing the same. So, as
a word of note, that’s it. You get a better rate of exchange on 50s
and 100s than you do on lower denominations and Traveler’s Checks
are given the same rate as a one dollar bill, which is currently
1,000 TZ shillings to the dollar, which you may note is that other
rate of exchange.
Regarding
animal stories: In that time slot when our world gets drier from
lack of rains until the short rains, we will have more animal
stories. This week Jean saw a group of ostriches and a pair of
jackals, Marvin killed a gecko (one of his more favorite animals
when it isn’t trying to sell him some car insurance). And Jean spent
one of the weekends when Marvin was gone at a Jesuit retreat center
(which probably isn’t an appropriate item for this paragraph, but
where else was it going to go). On a note of sadness, our old,
faithful dog Asali died at fourteen years.
Finally, we want to thank you for responding the way you
have done to our last month’s request. We think we have almost all
of the Form Six graduates in the programs that will lead them to the
next phase of their lives. The MGLSS Career Committee policy,
another of Jean’s extras, says we work with OBA and sponsors for one
educational experience beyond MGLSS. Last month we asked you to help
take them to the next step, some in university and some in technical
areas (like accounting or teachers training, etc.). Thank you. This
year’s scholarship class of 2008 will include one lawyer, one public
administrator, one business administrator, one lab tech, a clinical
officer, one doctor, and six teachers.
And thank
you also for several of you that gave to the University Fund without
designation. Each year some sponsors cannot continue into the
second or third year of a student at full payment so OBA uses those
extra amounts to complete the scholarship commitment for that
student. Truly, getting a MGLSS graduate through a higher education
program is a team effort, sort of scholarship by committee!
We offer you love, honor, and respect for letting us and
our students be part of your life.
Love,
Marvin Kananen and Jean Wahlstrom
ELCA-GM missionaries serving in Tanzania
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