Pamoja Week at HOPAC Actually Came Out of Disunity

Pamoja Week at Haven of Peace Academy actually came out of disunity.

When missionaries move overseas, they expect to learn to navigate the new culture of their host country. What they don’t usually expect is that they will also need to learn to navigate the cultures of other missionaries.

Sometimes this is hilarious. For example, I have fond memories with British or South African friends as we laughed ourselves senseless over our cultures’ varying uses of terms such as “hooter,” “fanny pack,” and “shag rug.” Depending on where you are from, you may be horrified that I just wrote such words on my blog.

Other times are not so funny. Like, for example, when you are trying to run an international school, and the Brits and the Americans have very different ideas of what makes a good school. One prominent example was when my friend Lauren (also an American) and I went to the (British) high school principal and told him that we wanted to plan a graduation ceremony for the graduating seniors. He looked at us as if we had just said we wanted to take the students on a trip to the moon. Because in England, there are no high school graduation ceremonies. Students don’t graduate–they just pass or not pass exams.

And that was just a small conflict. Back around 2004, the debate over American versus British curriculum almost made the school implode. It was like the Revolutionary War all over again, this time in Tanzania.

So anyway. Back to Pamoja Week. About 10 years ago, Gil and I took over the high school Student Council. Another (American) teacher had started it a couple of years previously, but hadn’t gotten very far because the concept of Student Council is also very American, and the British principal didn’t know what to do with it.

But when Gil and I took over, the high school principal just happened to also be American. Woohoo! (This is another important thing for missionaries to learn: You’ll eventually get your way if you just wait long enough for everyone else to leave.) So, great. We got Student Council off with a bang. And what does every good American Student Council plan? Spirit Week, of course!

Our American high school principal immediately agreed: Of course we could do Spirit Week! Why not? Except that the elementary school principal was British. And he had never heard of Spirit Week. His interpretation was Holy Spirit Week (after all, HOPAC is a Christian school), so down in elementary school, they had a special emphasis on the Fruits of the Spirit that week. He was fairly disturbed that up in high school we were dressing up with our clothes on backwards and throwing marshmallows at students’ peanut-butter faces. Because in England, you don’t have fun at school. (Hey–their words, not mine.)

This caused some–ahem–interesting discussions. Gil and I, in our stubborn American-ness, couldn’t understand why we couldn’t do it our way. The right way, of course.

It all came to a head during a rather tense “discussion,” when Kandyl Kotta, the Student Council president (who was thankfully neither American nor British, but Tanzanian), politely told off all the adults in the room. She basically told us we needed to get a hold of ourselves and act like adults.

Yeah, we were pretty ashamed of ourselves.

It was also Kandyl who suggested that we change the name of Spirit Week, since the name itself was causing a lot of confusion. We brainstormed ideas, but in the end, it was Kandyl herself who suggested the winner: Pamoja Week. Pamoja is the Swahili word for together.

And so, like so many other things at Haven of Peace Academy, Pamoja Week became unique to HOPAC. At first, Gil and I tried to stuff it into the American “Spirit Week” box by ending the week with a “homecoming” type event with a big soccer game on Friday night. Except, try as we might, we never could get a team to come play us for a night game. Instead, a couple of years later, the crowning event of Pamoja Week became International Day, an event that had already been in place since the school’s inception. They fused together perfectly.

Ten years later, how fitting that the week that caused so much division is now a celebration of our togetherness. How fitting that the week we celebrate our togetherness ends in a day where we celebrate our unity in diversity.

Last week, the Medina family celebrated our last Pamoja Week and International Day. With us leaving, I’m worried that the story behind it will be forgotten. Which is why I wrote it down today.

Pamoja Week and International Day, 2019

I taught her in fifth and sixth grade! AHH! It was so awesome to have her there!

And more nostalgia….The Medina family at International Day Over the Years (in no particular order)