A Pre-Climb Climb

Yesterday, I went on my pre-climb climb on Mount Kilimanjaro, motivated by Cory's advice that by doing an "acclimatization climb" I could double my chances of successfully climbing Kilimanjaro.  You may know that Cory has diligently avoided all understanding of things mathematical.  (Motivated, I suspect by having once read the following statement by Thomas Mann: “I tell them that if they will occupy themselves with the study of mathematics they will find in it the best remedy against the lusts of the flesh.”)

Despite his numerical illiteracy, Cory's advice is undoubtedly accurate this time.  I had calculated my chances of success, prior to the pre-climb climb at roughly 0%.  But now, thanks to my efforts yesterday, I can safely say that my newly calculated chances of success have improved to 0%.  My only hope of defying these odds is if the words of Augustine of Hippo prove to be true:

“The good Christian should beware of mathematicians.  The danger already exists that mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and confine man in the bonds of Hell.”  

By the way, this quote, and the 36 years I have know Cory, are the first things that make me seriously consider the possibility of reincarnation.

 












(The similarities are uncanny!)

As a mathematician, although I have not consciously made a covenant with the devil, I have certainly engaged in powerful and sustained efforts to darken the spirits of my students and to confine them in mathematical hell.  So, Devil, if you're reading this--you owe me one!  I expect your help up the mountain.

The one-day climb on Kilimanjaro allowed me to get up to around 11,000 feet of altitude, which is normally 1 1/2 days of climbing for people taking that route to the top of the mountain.  (I was on the Marangu Route--also know as the "Coca-Cola Route".  The route that Cory and I will be taking is the Umbwe Route, so I was not able to familiarize myself with our route but I was able to test out my legs and lungs.)

I am please to report that I had not just a great climb, but a stupendous climb.  A "great climb" being one in which I do not break any weight-bearing bones, and a "stupendous climb" being one in which I do not fall down.  I hope to achieve another great climb with Cory, but have no illusions that it can be a stupendous climb, seeing as how I cannot walk around my house for 6 days without falling down.

 As you can see from the following pictures, there is remarkable variation in the plant life as you gain altitude on the mountain.

The middle two pictures were taken from the same spot on the trail.  The first shows the damage from a 2008 wildfire, while the second shows an area that was not burned by the fire.

I wasn't expecting the surroundings to be so interesting, though I expect it gets barren and dull higher up.  Nonetheless, I will take many, many pictures--the better to annoy my friends with.  (Here that, Devil?  I'm like your second self!)

46664

I find myself reflecting on choices, values and morality these days.  Which may be particularly timely, as we appear to be about to say a final goodbye to a man that seems to have provided us with a remarkable example of the best of humankind.

In contrast to Prisoner 46664, the common goal of the people I see around me currently is to maximize pleasure while minimizing effort.  And these are people who are ostensibly motivated by altruism and concern for others, in that these people are in Tanzania under the auspices of volunteer organizations.  If I sound irritated, it is because I am--which makes me remember what Thomas Macaulay said about puritans:  "The puritan hated bear baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators."

 

(You probably can't read the sign on this sinner, but it says "A Wanton Gospeller."  And, while I'm not quite sure what you must do to be called a wanton gospeller, I am 100% certain that I have done worse.)

So here's a question for you.  Immanuel Kant wrote that "We are not rich by what we possess, but by what we can do without."  How the hell did he avoid being locked up in the nut house?  And, since I agree with this lunatic on this subject, why am I not on a court-ordered psychotropic drug regimen?  Or was a secret treatment employed whereby I was given a post-hypnotic suggestion that I wanted to try every beer in Tanzania?  If the last option is the truth, then I would like to offer my thanks to the health care professional responsible for this innovative and effective treatment.

Here's another question for you.  Is stupidity contagious, or does one person's unselfconscious stupidity simply lift the lid off of the stupidity that people normally have sufficient self-awareness to keep covered?  Of course, I wouldn't ask the question if I hadn't already made up my mind as to the correct answer.  In this case, the answer is the second part of the question.  (Have you noticed that I am not the only one who uses questions to attempt to influence the response and not to acquire information?  I, at least, have the excuse that, in knowledgeable circles, asking questions that influence the response is known as "creative pedagogy.")

Here's yet a third question.  Suppose you were a volunteer from Australia volunteering in Tanzania and that you were taking a tourist outing to visit a "Masai Village."  (It is an actual Masai settlement, but the residents dress up, dance, etc. as a show for the tourists.)  Now tell me, would you, at the end of your 3 hour visit to the settlement, when the rest of your group has been loaded onto the bus and the Masai are wanting to head home, pull out a prepared speech and, reading from this script, declare that you have been touched by these people, that you love them all, that they will always be in your heart, and that if they are ever in Australia, they have a place to stay?  If you are conflicted about your answer to this question, then either (1) I need to sharpen my communication skills; (2) you need to rethink your entire philosophy of life; or (3) you are an actual volunteer living here in the same house as I am. 

In other words, "Please, please, please, intensify that post-hypnotic suggestion about beers."  Or come visit me and reassure me that all the good, sensible, ethical, honorable friends that I have been lucky enough to have made are not figments of malaria-medicine-induced hallucinations but are in fact real people.  Unless, of course, my three Finnish friends in the following photograph are malaria-medicine-induced hallucinations (which seems far more likely than that they are actual friends).  If the latter is true, no need to visit--just convince my doctor to double my malaria medicine dosage.

And lest you suggest that I'm a disgusting old pervert, let me point out that, when their ages are added together, these three girls are nine years older than I am.  At this point, I should also note another portion of Immanuel Kant's philosophy that I embrace--at least as these three friends are concerned--"Always treat people as ends in themselves, never as means to an end."  Right on, Manny!

BACK HOME AGAIN IN INDIANA . . . AGAIN

 "And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive at where we started
And know the place for the first time."

--T. S. Eliot, "Little Gidding"

I have written before about the eerie similarities between Tanzania and Indiana, but the evidence keeps piling up:  These two supposedly different venues are actually the same place!  I pointed out before that in both places, you are never more than a few steps from a corn field or a chicken coop.  But some astute readers have commented that the same could be said of Kansas--so maybe Tanzania and Kansas are the same place, and Indiana is just the holding area for people not cool enough to live in Kansas.

Having driven through Kansas, I can believe that.  Nowhere in Indiana is there a restaurant that is playing "Hoosiers" on a continuous loop.  But there is a restaurant in Kansas--in Hays, Kansas to be exact--that is playing "Wizard of Oz" on a continuous loop.  And nothing says "cool" like identifying yourself with a 70-year-old-movie populated by little people wearing diagonal plaids and bad hairdos.

But, even though we Hoosiers can never be as cool as Kansans, we can match up okay with Tanzanians--at least, that's what I'm going to try to prove.

You've seen my previous evidence.  Now consider this.  "Tanzania" and "Indiana" have exactly the same number of letters in their names.  (Well, except for the fact that "Tanzania" has one more letter, but in Indiana, 7 and 8 are generally considered to be the same number.  [Math may not be our strength.])

And here in my neighborhood, there are big expensive houses right next door to active corn fields.

The gated property, above, and the corn field, below, really are directly across a dirt road from each other.  And a half-block down that dirt road, you will find this pseudo-Swiss cottage.

So, let me summarize.  Over-sized houses, pretentious fashion, and rows of corn, side by side.  That shouts out, "HAMILTON COUNTY, INDIANA!"

And then there's the further evidence that I'm still in Indiana that it's June and the road I need to use to get to my work is under construction.  Actually, it's the road in front of my house.  Since it's a dirt road, you might not think it would get any attention, but that would defeat the acknowledged goal of Indiana/Tanzania road repair--to inconvenience the maximum number of people possible.

First, they ran a grader over the dirt road to push the dirt around.  Then they watered the road to turn it into mud.  Then they ran the grader over the mud.  (If this makes any sense to you, please turn yourself in for a mental health screening.)  Now they are running a roller over the dry dirt.

So, what you are seeing in this picture is pretty much the finished product of the road work.  And, while I admit, it may not look as nice as an Indiana road, I think that deficiency is more than offset by this fact:  I believe this work will be completed in my lifetime.

Are you convinced now that I really am still in Indiana?

I see that all but one of you are nodding "yes."  But there is still one skeptic left--you know who you are!  And it is to you that I address this last item.  Review the following picture very carefully.

Just in case you missed it, if you look closely at the sign, you will see that this place offers rental "appartment" and--even more importantly--each such "appartment" is "varnished with everything."  Now, it is possible that these are varnished apartments, but I'll bet my money on "furnished" apartments.  Meaning that this sign uses truly bizarre spellings of words--absolute proof that we are dealing with Hoosiers. 

Oh, and one last thing.  President Obama will be visiting Tanzania this coming week, so he has been the subject of a couple of conversations I've had with my Tanzanian acquaintances.  And, to a person, they are all convinced that he was not born in this country.  Gotta be Hoosiers!

Doing What You Love

This morning in the Juvenile Jail as I was preparing my lesson on "order of operations" when solving math problems with adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing and parenthesis, it struck me: "My God, I really love to teach!"

This observation will not come as a revelation to my closest friends.  I'm sure over the years they have all noticed my inclination toward the stacked deck, the false shuffle, the card up the sleeve and the marked cards, not to mention the swindle, the con, the grift, and the three-card monte.

(This is a picture of Jim and Cory at the Casino in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa.  As they appeared in their own imaginations.)

Hey, why are you looking at me so funny?  What's wrong with what I said?

Oh, now I see.  I guess my dyslexia must be acting up again.  When I wrote, "I love to teach", I'm afraid I reversed a few letters.  Obviously, what I had intended to write was, "I love to cheat!"  That sounds much more like the Jim Dobson you know, doesn't it?

Sadly, though, I was expected to teach this morning at the Juvenile Jail.  Which raises the question, "Haven't those children suffered enough?"  I have to say, there was such a gloomy, negative attitude in the classroom from the first minute, it was hard to accomplish anything.  Fortunately, when the students came into the classroom, they were able to mitigate my aura to a substantial degree.  We did pretty well with the "order of operations" problems, despite the fact that my dictionary doesn't have a translation for "parenthesis" or for "operations into Swahili.  So I just tried to pronounce the English words with a Swahili inflection.  (Which raises the question, "Haven't those children suffered enough?  I mean really!")  Which is sort of like trying to talk to an Italian by speaking English except for adding "i" at the end of every word.  Strangely, even when you speak really, really loudly as you do that, Italians still rarely understand.  Gosh, they must be so dumb!

Anyway, my pidgin-Swahili, pidgin-mathematics teaching was somewhat successful.  Actually, I am being too modest.  It was tremendously successful.  If you define "tremendously successful" as the students figured it out on their own and explained it to each other and only laughed softly at my strange version of their language.  I will assure you, I am quite comfortable with that definition of "tremendously successful."

Tomorrow, as a reward for their tolerating me, I am taking them a surprise--fresh mangoes.  By the way, here is an appropriate SAT analogy problem:  Fresh, ripe mangoes for trees within 10 miles of the market :: mangoes sold in your finest grocery store.  The correct answer is:  Your favorite Ben & Jerry's ice cream :: the carton the ice cream comes in.

Of course, I do worry about the health of my students, so it would only be right that I eat a few bites of each mango before I pass them out to the kids.  And, because I actually am more conscientious that I pretend, I promise to learn the Swahili words for "morbidly obese" before they become applicable to me.  Which may mean I need a time machine, come to think of it.  Who knew that fresh fruit and avocados as big as your head could produce a weight gain?

And, no, the avocado is not nearsighted.  If you look closely, you should be able to see that those are reading glasses.  In truth, this avocado is a follower of this particular blog.  And a little smarter than the average follower, no doubt.  Or, at least he was before he became a fat deposit around my midsection.

My Turn As The Student

When we arrived at the Mahabusu (Juvenile Jail) this morning, one of the boys (an impertinent teenager--or am I repeating myself?) greeted my translator, Elizabeth, with the greeting, "Shikamoo," which is the appropriate greeting for an old person.  I was across the room, but I heard it (and saw Elizabeth--who is only 25--take a playful swipe at the boy).  So, I called out, in Swahili, to the boy, "Innocent [his name, showing that irony does exist in Tanzania], you do not say 'Shikamoo' to her; you say 'Shikamoo' to me.  You are a bad boy!"  Of course, he laughed as did many of the other children. 

Then, taking advantage of the lighthearted moment, the only girl at the Mahabusu, Anna came over to me and said, in English, "No class.  I teach you  .  .  ." and then explained to Elizabeth that she would teach me how to weave a bracelet, so we should not have class. The other students laughed and cheered.   I'd like to think that I know when I hold a losing hand--and I'm pretty sure this was one such time.  I agreed to be the student today.  I must say, Anna was a good teacher.  Patient, helpful, willing to minimize her focus on my mistakes.  Damn, I hate being around a good example!  People might expect me to pick up some of her good habits.

The idea of weaving a bracelet involves getting a number of strands of yarn and then hand-tying each strand with each other strand, row after row, until you have a band of the desired length.  Here's a picture of the process being done by someone who knows what he is doing:

This is a much more complicated pattern than I was given to work on, but the idea is the same.  I think these kids' experience with teaching Europeans/Americans to do this is that the foreigner works at it for couple of minutes, laughs, and gives it back to the kid.  Well, now they've learned something new about us foreigners.  Namely, that some of us have obsessive-compulsive disorder.  I found the whole business of repetition and pattern creation to be very soothing.  Kids kept coming by, looking at my work, and saying, with varying degrees of amazement, "Really good!"  And I would thank them and then add (all of this happening in Swahili), "I have a very good teacher."  Which Anna got a kick out of, of course.  And when I told her that now I was a craftsman with good skill (fundi kwa akili nzuri), she enjoyed that immensely, and announced to the other kids what I had said.

So what does the end result of this process look like?  Well, it depends on whether the work is being done by a kid or by a fundi kwa akili nzuri.  As you look at the next picture, try to guess whether these were made by my or by a 15-year-old kid:

Have I told you lately how smart you are?  Because you are absolutely right.  These were made by a 15-year-old kid.  (The impertinent kid mentioned at the start of this story, as it turns out.)  So what does a bracelet made by someone with three college degrees and 63 years of life experience look like:

Actually, that's an exaggeration.  This is what a bracelet made only half by that mature and highly educated individual and half by Anna looks like.  However, I can say with absolute certainty that the two mistakes that are visible in this bracelet were mine and mine alone.  (I like to think of them as my "artistic signature").

After we finished for the day and left the Mahabusu, Elizabeth told me of a conversation she had had with one of the Irish volunteers (see my post "I Hate It When I'm Right").  By way of back story, I'll mention that these four Irish volunteers showed up on Monday with no translator, not a word of Swahili among them, and no lessons planned.  They suggested that they would just observe on Monday and then be ready Tuesday to step in, which was fine with me. 

Come Tuesday morning, I asked them what they would like to do, and they said they'd like to teach a lesson on English.  Since we normally have two lessons each day, I said fine, you teach a lesson on English and I'll teach math for the second lesson.  Then, after they had stood around talking to each other for 10 minutes while the students sat in the classroom waiting for a teacher, they came in and immediately foundered and sank, with no survivors.  They just were thinking they could wing it, and discovered the hard way what a bad teaching technique that is.  I offered to take over and go with my lesson--I really wasn't trying to embarrass them; that's why at the beginning I asked what they wanted to do--but it did not make me sad for them to discover the difference between playing at being a volunteer and putting in the work that this job deserves.

Anyway, I have the impression that these volunteers think I'm a real taskmaster with a dim view of anything that borders on play or fun.  I would describe my persona at the Juvenile Jail differently, but I wouldn't quibble over their characterization. 

Which leads back to the conversation Elizabeth told me about.  The Irish volunteer asked Elizabeth something to the effect of, "The children really like him [referring to me]," to which she agreed, and he went on, "Why do they like him so much?"  She indicated to me that she didn't try to answer that.  So the volunteer went on, "They laugh so much with him!  I wish I could understand what he is saying."  I'm guessing that he was talking about the mood in my classroom, because even as I am working them hard, I am also teasing them and joking about myself.  On Tuesday, for the first time, instead of referring to them as "my students" (in Swahili), I referred to them as "my scholars", which is entertaining just to hear a foreigner speak such an odd word as "scholar" as well as being somewhat overblown language in general.  The best thing for me about hearing secondhand about Elizabeth's conversation is that, if you had asked me, "Do the children think you are special?", I would have been taken aback by the question.  I had never considered it; I just try not to be my normal pain-in-the-ass with these kids.  (I'm not kidding here.  I just try not to provoke the "oh-shit-here-he-comes-again" reaction.)  So getting this indirect feedback from what a stranger sees when watching the children interact with me is very encouraging.  I am so perfectly positioned to have the most tremendous fall from grace!  And I can do it.  Because I am indeed A Craftsman With Good Skill!!!

BACK HOME AGAIN IN INDIANA

When I prepared to come to Africa for the summer, I expected that it would not be exactly like home.  I even suspected that certain aspects of it might seem a mite "foreign."  So now, it is with great relief that I can tell you an important discovery:  My time here in Moshi, Tanzania is just like being in Indiana!!!

Really?  You're going to be like that?!  I can see from your expression that you're 110% sure that I am wrong.  Because when it comes to me and the truth, you assume that I will always make the extra effort to get farther away from truth than seems humanly possible.  Well, this time you're wrong.  It really is just like Indiana here.

Exhibit 1.

 As I have mentioned previously, I have a bunch of chickens living in my yard (as well as a commercial chicken farm across the street).  Which means that every morning, I am greeted by a chorus of "cock-a-doodle-doo's" from a bunch of roosters.  So how is this reminiscent of my home in Indianapolis?  Well, if you pick any random New Yorker--let's say, for instance, Spike Lee--he will tell you that everyone in Indianapolis keeps chickens in their yards and gets up at the rooster's crow.  (Although Spike may dispute that, like here in Moshi, I also have a flush toilet in Indianapolis.)


Exhibit 2.

This picture shows the "Finnish mud cake" that two of the Finnish volunteers made for us last night.  It was delicious, by the way, tasting a lot like a big brownie.  So how does this make me feel like I'm still in Indiana?  Well, not the cake so much as being in a group of only Finnish people.  Because we can all agree that Indiana is almost exactly like Finland.  Too cold in the winter.  Too hot in the summer.  Surrounded by neighbors with (well justified) feelings of superiority.  And, of course, the most obvious similarity of all.  Full of people who speak a language that cannot be understood by anyone else in the world. 


Exhibit 3.

 "Whoa!", you are saying right now.  "Where did he get that picture of Indiana in July?"  Wrong.  But a totally understandable mistake.  Nothing says Indiana like a picture of a corn field.  And, of course, the ever-present Indiana banana trees mixed in with the corn.  But the truth is that this is a picture I took this morning about 5 miles outside of Moshi.  Hard to believe that two places so many miles apart could look so eerily similar.  (It really freaked me out at first, I'll confess.)  If it wasn't for the fact that their corn is already 7 feet tall, I'm not sure I'd ever cleared up my own confusion about being in Tanzania  .  .  .  I mean, Indiana  .  .  .  I mean Tanzania.

 Exhibit 4. 

 And now, the most compelling evidence of all--also photographed this morning on my jog from Moshi to the entrance to the Kilimanjaro National Park.  As I got up above 4000 feet above sea level, here's what I saw:

Yes, that is exactly what you think it is.  Row after row of coffee plants.  (If you look closely at the nearest bush, you can see the red coffee beans.)  Coffee is a major crop in the highlands of Tanzania, just like in the highlands of Indiana.  In fact, although I have never been on the grounds of Highland Country Club in Indianapolis--at least, that's what the Governing Board of Highland has paid me handsomely to say, and I'm sticking to that story--I am confident that the "rough" of the golf course there consists totally of coffee plants.  I'm sure that there are readers of this blog who can confirm that fact, except for the problem that admitting to reading this blog would be grounds for expulsion from that--or any other--country club in Indianapolis.

Anyway, I'm sure the combination of the words "coffee growing" and "Indiana" need no further linkage.  While Tanzanian coffee is generally highly regarded, there can be no question that Indiana grown coffee is known by gourmets around the world as having a reputation that can only be matched by Indiana grown wine. 

I Hate It When I'm Right!

My post of two days ago consisted of what I do best:  Carping and Whining; Whining and Carping.  My object of my excessive complaining this time was the uncoordinated, ineffective and relatively trivial efforts of the many foreign organizations that are here, dipping a toe in flood of poverty and scarce resources that is drowning this country.  Of course, since it was me, I made it sound like the Keystone Cops meet the Three Blind Mice.  Because I'm like Chicken Little--always ready to spot a cloud inside a silver lining.

You know this, of course.  You read my posts with the same outlook as when talking to your paranoid schizophrenic relative at Thanksgiving--to see how loony my theories will be this time.  As well you should.  If things were really as bad as I make them sound, they we'd all need to be medicated.

So you can imagine my shock this morning at the Juvenile Jail when the man in charge came into the classroom with a middle-aged white man.  This fellow, who I will choose to call Peter, introduced himself to me and explained that he organized volunteer trips for students from Ireland and that he had a large number of volunteers arriving this weekend, and eleven of his volunteers would be working in the Juvenile Jail starting next Monday.  Well, there are currently 17 children and teenagers in the Juvenile Jail, and the organization I am with is providing 3 or 4 volunteers every day.  The man I have chosen to call Peter indicated that 4 of his volunteers would be there each morning and 7 each afternoon.  We are normally there from 9:00am until 1:30pm, so that should work out okay, to the extent that having two shifts of 7 or 8 volunteers each day won't be overkill for working with the 17 children.  It at least is better than having all 15 volunteers there at once.

I must the fellow I met was very nice and I'd expect the same of his Irish students.  I will do my best not to reveal my real personality to them.  It's just such a huge example of wasted volunteer resources and lack of coordination between organizations.  Just as I was talking about.  God, I really, really, really hate it when my lunatic ramblings turn out to be right.

On the positive side, my plan to have the children in the Juvenile Jail love me so that I can turn them into an army of little cut-purses who will make me rich is proceeding even ahead of schedule.  As I mentioned earlier, I memorized their names over the weekend, and on Monday I was able to match names and faces, so that I have been able to refer to them by name all week.  Of course they are delighted.  And yesterday my interpreter had to go to another work assignment with other volunteers, so I was teaching on my own in Swahili.  I stumbled from time to time, but I got everything explained in the end--and it was a lesson on working with decimals and fractions, so I would have stumbled trying to explain it in English, too.

 So this morning when the interpreter and I started the class, the students told the interpreter (a young Tanzanian woman), "Don't say anything!  He doesn't need you!"--as a joke; she is very popular with the kids; but they got a kick out of being able to say the "we" (the students and I) did fine without her.  At lunchtime, the kids had rice and (a few) beans, which I have noticed is a bestseller there.  One student invited me to have some of his lunch.  He's one that I have an especially strong relationship with because I have been working with him on some math concepts he will need to catch up in school when he is released from the jail.  So I took a couple of bites, and proclaimed how much I enjoyed the food.  So a second student gave me his spoon and plate of rice and beans, and I took another couple of bites.  Then many more students called out to me to share their food, and I told them "Nimeshiba sana!", which is the Swahili expression meaning "I am full of food" that I had misused previously.  (Proving the point that I tell my students, "Don't be afraid of making mistakes.")  They all thought that was hilarious!  If only I were so clever in English.  :-(

So, all in all, I'd have to say it would be a lot easier for things to be worse than for things to be better.

D'oh!  Please, please, please, don't let me be right again.