The Morality of Molarity

I have now finished the first two weeks of school. Well, I have been going to campus with the intention of going to class for two weeks, but the majority of my courses just started last week and we’re still working out the details for the Kiswahili class. All in good time I suppose. As far as I know at the moment, I will be taking Soil Mechanics, Engineering Geology, Basic Analytical and Physical Chemistry, a chemistry practical, African Women Writers, Economic History of Tanzania, and Kiswahili, of course. Coming from the quarter system where four courses can be quite the load this seems like a lot, but most students take seven or eight classes so I’ll give it a shot. Just another component of my efforts to blend in. Ha.

The schedule itself is a bit mystifying. It’s kind of a miracle that all of my classes fit together. Most students have every class for every semester laid out for them by their chosen degree program, so they are generally spared from piecing together their schedules. But as I am taking classes from four different colleges, it was kind of a toss up. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t so disappointed when a physics class didn’t end up fitting into my schedule. I went for African Women writers instead. In addition, classes don’t exactly follow the same-time-per-day pattern that I am accustomed to at Seattle U. For example, my history lectures are on Monday at 11am and then on Wednesday at 7am in two different lecture theatres. The seminar times have yet to be decided. With seven erratic class times to sort out, I think I will be walking around with my timetable for a few more weeks before I have it all committed to memory.

Classes themselves are… different. In my soil mechanics class I mentioned in the last post my professor continues to reference god’s omniscience at least once per lecture, and to single me out whenever he mentions something having to do with colder climates, usually by calling me “our lady.” On the bright side, a couple more girls have showed up. In my geology class I really am the only girl, though the class only has 25 or 30 students total so it’s a bit less intimidating. It seems like it should be a pretty good class, except for somewhat of a dueling professors situation. There is a second, more senior professor that shows up periodically to “oversee” and “assist” the relatively young professor actually teaching the class who I like quite a bit. Not only does this younger professor try to encourage class discussion and participation, he’s also quite easy to understand. On the other hand, this additional professor tends to mutter into the board in a heavy accent, blatantly interrupts the younger professor to explain things (more often than not to discuss concepts we had finished about ten minutes prior) in a different way, and answers any questions the younger professor poses for the students himself. The Tanzanian social and academic hierarchy basically means the younger professor just has to let this other guy do whatever he wants, though some frustration was clearly visible. I wasn’t surprised when one of the other students told me the class hadn’t liked this older professor in a previous courses and is hoping he will show up to GY252 as infrequently as possible. I agree.

My chemistry class will be quite the experience for a number of reasons. It has about 250 students so there is not a lecture hall on campus large enough to accommodate everyone. This means I need to get there early if I want a seat, otherwise it’s sitting in the aisle or standing along the wall with 50 or so other students. With such a large class it can also be a bit difficult to hear, and I generally have to listen extra carefully anyway because the professor has a pretty heavy accent. He has particular trouble with his “l”s and “r”s (very common in Tanzanian English) and getting “molarity” from something that—to me—sounds like “morality” is even more difficult in the rustle of 250 other notebooks and bodies. From what I’ve experienced so far, UDSM doesn’t seem to cap classes at a certain capacity or to offer multiple sections of classes that are sure to be enormous (like this first year chemistry course required by multiple departments). Granted, their online registration program is still not up and running for this semester, so I guess I should be hoping that I don’t get shut out of the class after attending lectures and tutorials for a week and half. The practical is also a bit of an adventure. There are over 50 students in my section and the strategy necessarily adopted for taking minibuses of pushing one’s way into any available bit of space also seems to be applied to waiting for and using lab equipment. Combined with the fact that the lab coat doesn’t make the already warm lab (especially the air-tight room housing the analytical balances) any more bearable, I have the feeling the chemistry practical will not end up being my favorite four hours of the week. All part of the experience I suppose. I have, however, met some very nice chemistry classmates. Even though they are also new to the campus as first year students, they have kindly helped me to find various classrooms, push my way around the lab, and procure copies of the lecture notes. There are so many students that the chemistry library ran out of books, so a thick stack of lecture notes will be my text for the first half of the semester. At least it only cost me about two dollars!

Finding course material actually seems like it could be one of the bigger challenges of my semester. The campus bookstore only stocks ten to twenty copies of only some of the books used for classes, so when they run out (remember the vast majority of classes have at least 50 students) or never stocked what you were looking for in the first place (I’m zero for five at this point) you’re just sort of out of luck. Basically we make a lot of copies and I think I’ll need to hunt around some bookstores in the city center for a few novels. My geology professor actually gave us electronic copies of a couple books which has been great for me, though it poses new challenges for the half of our class who don’t have computers. Though making copies involves tracking down who managed to get a copy of what and is therefore rather inconvenient, at least it’s not expensive. Really, there is simply no way the most of the students could afford to pay hundreds of dollars each semester for textbooks.

I think the class that I am most eagerly anticipating at this point is African Women Writers. Not only is it my only class taught by a female professor, but I think it will be fascinating to learn about feminism from an African perspective and to observe how my classmates react to the course material. Though the class is for third (meaning final) year students, I got the impression that this class is likely the first exposure to feminism for many of them. While I’ve encountered women’s development and empowerment groups in the five months since I left the US, I’ve certainly never heard them use the word feminism. Given the eastern African male-female dynamic and a misunderstanding of the word in general, feminism isn’t a popular or positively viewed concept in this part of the world. So I can’t wait to hear what my professor and fellow students have to say. One challenging aspect of the class, however, will be the professor’s comments about the United States. I’m not sure where she has been or for how long, but she has spent enough time in the US to think she knows a lot about American culture and to make several blanket statements that I felt are misleading or simply incorrect. Thus far we have only had one lecture, but in that hour she told the class that feminists in America are most concerned about abortion, that lesbians hate men, and that American Christians are okay with sinning by staying together before they are married because they believe they can simply repent. She made these statements at various points in the lecture to illustrate the differences between American and African cultures (lumping all African culture together was her method for comparison, not mine). Unfortunately none of these statements were accompanied by an explanation to contextualize them at all and so I felt like the professor was basically saying, “look how absurd America is.” I suppose that could have been her objective if she truly doesn’t know anymore about these issues than what she abruptly shared with the class, but I guess my initial take on her personality and the fact that she is a feminist literature professor made me expect a bit more critical thinking. Of course, there is plenty of Tanzanian culture that I do not understand or have not yet been exposed to, so the students probably didn’t receive her comments in the same way I did. At this point I’m just curious to see what the professor will say in the future and if there will be any way for me to share my own perspective as well. I didn’t quite feel comfortable enough to raise my hand just yet…

While almost everyone has been friendly and helpful, I am a bit unsure of how the actual friend-making process will go. Thus far, the vast majority of my conversations with people have felt like very one-sided sessions of me explaining the differences between the US and Tanzania. This is certainly fair, and I might be asking a Tanzanian exchange student in the US many of the same questions, but I kind of feel like this enhances my strangeness rather than making me seem like any other student. I guess I wasn’t expecting to continue to stand out so much. Really, it has only been two weeks so I suppose I just need to be patient. Improving my Kiswahili will also help me to make friends as all conversations outside of class (and many in class as well) are in Kiswahili. I’ve had a few small conversations in Kiswahili with classmates so far, but my language skills (and confidence) are still lacking enough that I usually address people in English. If I want to make non-awkward friendships or join study groups, this will have to change.

I suppose if I really get to feeling lonely I could give Baraka Luther a call. Now, I don’t actually know him, but as I was walking home one day this week he approached me, held out a small piece of paper, and said, “here please.” Thinking it was a flyer for some group or event I took it and said asante, only to read a bit further down the road that it had his name, phone number, email address, and the message, “I need to be friends.” Uhhh… Had he specifically been waiting for me to walk home or does he have a supply of these notes that he just hands out to people who look interesting? Being approached like that made me pretty uncomfortable. I generally feel quite safe in my neighborhood during the day (and I haven’t yet been out at night), but that incident made me aware of just how much I stand out. Baraka is probably just looking for a friend to practice English with, but feeling like I’m being watched or at least noticed by everyone I pass is a bit disconcerting. Needless to say, I haven’t felt tempted to call or email him yet.