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Teaching in Tanzania

Swapping a south London suburb for a village in Tanzania, Sarah Wright finds that English grammar isn't the only subject she's required to teach

After qualifying as a nursery nurse, I decided I wanted to gain some life experience by taking a gap year before going to university. I signed up with Changing Worlds, a company that sends volunteers to teach in Arusha, Tanzania, and a year and a half later, here I am.

A life less ordinary
Every morning I am woken by the sound of drums and 900 children singing the Tanzanian national anthem outside Shangorao Primary School. I am living with three other volunteers; we have no running water or electricity so we do our best to look presentable - ensuring our shoulders and knees are covered.

Lessons begin at around 8:30am. I am teaching a class of 118 (do not adjust your eyesight!) 11- to 12-year -olds English grammar. With only 40 minutes and five children to a desk, I am faced with an almost unattainable challenge of trying to make both the children and the Tanzanian teacher understand me.

At 10am, I take a tea break in the staff room, where I try to communicate with the teachers and always have my Swahili phrase book in my hand. The female teachers are all very welcoming, more so than the men, so we try to have a conversation and teach each other words and phrases on a regular basis.

All four of the volunteers take a sports lesson in the afternoon - another 40-minute communication battle. The rest of the day is taken up with marking, lesson planning and day-to-day chores, before the sun sets around 7pm and everything is closed and dark.

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