power struggles

 We are all creatures of habit...

Just outside of Geology Ververt monkey celebrating Tanzania's independence day (9 Dec) and enjoying their morning breakfast of moths.  The moths appeared in abundance the morning after the big rains.

We are adapting and feeling like we have a regular schedule at the university and in our apartment.  I’m teaching about 5 hours of geophysics a week and Roberta about 3 hours of geochemistry. (I’m catching up for lost time.  There was no scheduled class on geodynamics, but it was decided to have one, given I was in town and could teach!)  Each of these classes has its own unusual challenges.  For my class it may be the students who have the most difficult part; the concept of Bill teaching Geodynamics would just make Sash and Laurent cringe to think about those poor students.   [But, don’t worry there are only 13 minds that are getting such a perverse view of geophysics.] Roberta has some 30+ students (who are getting a great course on geochemistry), but teaching about s- and r-process production has not gone smoothly.

A weather front came to town this week. Monday brought some early rain (and later in the day a new laptop for Roberta), by Tuesday AM we were thankful that the intense overnight showers were, just that – overnight.  Not so on Wednesday.  The sky looked fairly ominous in the morning; we thought it was going to rain, but it didn’t on the way to work.  By mid morning Wednesday we got a good downpour finishing with clear skies overhead and clean, fresh air.  However, there was more to come. 

Geochemistry/Geophysics class room.

By four o’clock Wednesday afternoon it was time to teach geodynamics. But let me take a few steps back.  When we arrived at the office on Monday we were faced with trying to work in our office without air conditioning.  The week before we all experienced problems with loss of electrical power in different parts of the Geology building; it was a highly random process in its distribution and re-occurrence.  Monday was our day for no power in the office.  Fortunately for us, Peter stopped by and invited us down to the computer lab where things were almost normal.  We happily worked there during the morning hours and by the afternoon we had power back in our office. 

Roberta went off to teach just before 11 AM, it was going to be a regular chalk and talk.  A little later Peter came by with a hand-sized plastic box filled with pieces of bananas, mangoes and pineapple and a few toothpicks.  He said lets have a break.  We sat and talked about electricity, seismology (he had been a few seats away and was working on some seismic data from western TZ), and one of the students in the lab.  He kept offering the lady some fruit but she was not interested.  She was here getting her MS degree, whereas normally she is teaching at the University of Dodoma, Peter proudly announced.  He then said, she’s my granddaughter.  I was dumbstruck.  Peter is only in his early fifties!

There are many different ways to get into the Geology building....

Loss of power is just one of the teaching challenges.  You just don’t know when the lecture is going to be a chalk-n-talk lecture or if you might show some visuals. Richard (who will finish teaching the geodynamics course later in the semester) solved the problem by showing up with a brand new 50-meter extension cord.  Now we could at least find one outlet in the corridor from which we could run the projector and laptop.  Folks here are resilient; they don’t get upset, they just figure out how to adapt and continue.

So, it was off to Wednesday afternoon class with a threatening sky.  I must be some thirty to forty minutes into the lecture and heavens become unzipped. It was an official tropical rainstorm and the frogs were taking cover.  Continuing the lecture was a struggle as the noise from the rain outside forced me to stop.  Then students started marching their desks way from the windows and for a few second we lost lights in the room; the elements were taking over.  Fortunately, by about six, when I was finishing, the rain calmed down and we were able to brave the walk home with umbrellas.

We arrived home to no power and it was going to stay that way for the next 44 hours, coming back on by Friday lunchtime, but by then the fish in the freezer needed some breathing room and so too a few other items in the refrigerator.  The really good thing about not having electrical power was.., I forget, but the thought will come back to me.  At least the storm dropped the humidity and Wednesday night was nearly cold enough to want a sheet to cover you at night. 

The week finished on a high note, as there seemed to be full power back in the Geology department, the apartment, our teaching was over for the week and we could resume cooking and showers in the apartment. The electric stove and water pump were sorely missed.  To celebrate I prepared a dinner of tortellini covered with a garlic, butter and olive oil sauce, corn on the cob, sautéed green beans and red bell peppers and accompanied by a South African Sauvignon Blanc.  By nine o’clock we forget the week's challenges and headed off to bed.

morning view from our apartment