Letter 18, November 19th, 2003, End of the Year

Dear Fam,

One year of teaching over, I can hardly believe it. The terminal exam for Math was yesterday, so officially, I'm done for the year. There are still about 6 days of proctoring exams for other subjects though, before school lets out. In the meantime, I'm grading exams, cleaning my house and getting excited about thinking about next year. The results for my Form 1's weren't so good, but I'm still optimistic that with some remedial work next year, they'll be just fine. My mood was definitely improved when almost everyone I talked to in Form 11 had somewhat positive things to say about their National Exams in Mathematics. I cant wait to see these results in January, as Math was the one subject that made a lot of girls have to repeat Form 11 last year. But beyond the results it makes me very happy to see those girls thinking so positively about how they did. It makes me think that maybe I've made at least some positive impact on how they feel about Math, or maybe this is just an extraordinary groups of girls in Tanzania. The general consensus in this country is that "girls are just no good at Math". Anyway it's nice to end the term on an upbeat note, after the past weeks of frustrations in preparation for these exams. It drives me nuts that the exams are the only thing anyone cares about here. There is so much more to learning than that.

So exams are finished on Monday, and then I'm off to Lindi on Wednesday to do Thanksgiving with the new, current and departing volunteers. After that, I think I'm going to Msimbati (the beach get away near Mtwara) for a few days before flying to England to see some of you for Christmas.........

It will be nice to take a break before going to my Mid-Service Conference in January and then start teaching again.

My love to you all, and have a Merry Christmas........

Love Jessica