Yesterday we didn't go to the school, CCS took us on a day trip to the Marengu Waterfalls and Chaanga Village. The area was absolutely spectacular and we learned a lot about the Chaanga tribe and their rivalry with the Maasai tribe.
Today was very rainy, so a lot of the students didn't come to school...there were only 25 students in my classroom. The students that were there were very energetic, but didn't have much of an outlet because we couldn't go outside and half the classroom was wet. The students had to sit 2 to a desk for most of the day because we could only use 3 rows, the other two were in the area where the roof leaks really bad. The school doesn't even have a bucket or anything to try and keep water off of the desks, so they just have to wait for the rain to stop so they can dry it up with old sweaters. The roof doesn't leak in a ton of places, but where it does leak there are big holes that allow a lot of water into the classroom.
When it rains like this the teachers don't let the students use the restrooms because they aren't attached to the main building and the students would have to go through the rain to get there. Emily's teacher let the little kids just go to bathroom on the ground next to the school building, but my teacher refuses to let the kids go to the bathroom. Twice this week a student has needed to go to the bathroom so bad that they have wet themselves in the middle of class. For one it's really embarrassing for the kids to have an accident, but they also don't have any other clothes and the school certainly doesn't, so they have to sit in it for the rest of the day. They also have to listen to their peers and teacher make fun of them for wetting their pants, when they really had no other option. The teacher gets really mad when a kid wets themselves, but she doesn't think about how she's more the problem than the kid was because she won't let them go to the restroom!
I ended up teaching all day today instead of the teacher doing a subject. I brought a book with me from CCS, Juble's Wish, and the kids really enjoyed it. I would read a page and then let them look closer at the picture and tell me what colors they saw and if they could tell what was going on on that page. They giggled at the majority of the pictures because the bullfrog looked funny, but they didn't really understand much about the story. A lot of the kids tend to just zone out in class, so I just call on the students who are paying attention and let them draw or tell me the colors. Most of the kids were paying attention, but they definitely lose focus really easily so I would use different voices to get them back.
Once I was done with the book I thought I was done teaching because the teacher told me she was going to give them homework. But then she just handed me the chalk and said teach them shapes. So I went through all the shapes that they have on their wall and then showed them how to count the points and lines on that shape. This was probably really advanced for them, but I was not at all prepared for that. Then after I had gobe through all the shapes the teacher started writing their homework, subtracting! I still can't figure out why she would want to teach them about shapes and then have them do homework like 19-4! For a change the kids didn't actually do their homework in class, the teacher made them write it in their books and then put them in their backpacks.
After getting picked up from the school and having lunch we had our final feedback session. All of the volunteers that are leaving this weekend sat down with the staff and talked about our experience here and what could have been better. Then we went into town for dinner with everyone before we leave. The girls that aren't leaving CCS this weekend are leaving for Zanzibar in the morning, so we won't see them again. I can't believe our time in Tanzania is almost over...then we head to London!
Thursday, May 22, 2014
Tuesday, May 20, 2014
Day 10
Today was so much fun with kids and going into town!
It was raining a little bit this morning so there were some students missing and it took other students longer to get to school. I taught them more English today and went through the sounds that the letters make again. Initially they didn't really participate, but once I got a few letters into the alphabet they all started making the sounds with me and saying the new words. On certain letters they get really loud because they are amused by the sound, it's really cute. Words that they had a hard time saying, like tortoise, I had them sound out with me a few times and then say I slow and fast. The teacher will still probably pronounce all of these words wrong to the kids though, so they won't actually learn much from me going over them a few times, but it's worth a shot.
After we finished with English we took them outside to play! We went through several songs, Tooty Ta, the hokey pokey, and happy and you know it. They really like the tooty ta song and dance though so we did that one 3 or 4 times. One of the ladies from CCS came by while we were playing outside to check on how we were doing in our placement. When the van pulled up the teacher got a little upset because she thought they were coming to pick us up, it was 10:30 so it would have been way too early. Sarah did the tooty ta dance with us and the kids again before she left, they really loved it! Then we played for a little while longer. Some of the kids wanted to play tag, so Em and I did that while the other kids played on the slide or swings. They all have soo much energy...I can't keep up with them! A few minutes after we went back inside the van came to get us.
After lunch we had another guest speaker, this one was on female genetal mutilation. We were given the option to not have this talk, but all of us wanted to hear about it and know what they are doing to prevent it. We learned that 15% of the Tanzanian population is affected by this, mostly the Maasai tribe still practices this type of "tradition." There are four types of FGM, they showed us a model of the different types and explained what health problems can be associated with each type. The government has made it illegal for people to practice FGM, so if this group catches people doing it they can take legal action. They take in girls who runaway from home before and after this happens to them. One thing we learned that was really disturbing to all of us was that the man decides when his daughter needs to have this done, but the woman actually does it to her. When they are taken to court the woman is the only one who is charged because she is the one who actually did it.
To try to completely eradicate this practice the grcup NAFGM was formed. This group goes it the various Maasai villages and talks to them about why they shouldn't do this to their girls. If they are able to convince them then they take their tools, which are very crude, rusty knives. They also help set up small businesses in the villages to keep them busy so that they won't have time to mutilate their girls. These small business also help them to have more money because they can sell the necklaces and bracelets that they make to the people who visit their village.
After the guest speaker we had a town trip and dinner out. When we went into town Emily and I walked around and shopped a little before meeting everyone at the coffee lounge. While we were walking around there were a lot of people that would follow us and try to get us to buy stuff from them, but we just ignored them or told them we weren't interested and walked away. This isn't anything new, but the other girls had experienced this last week and were really upset by it. We bought a few things, but not much because we still have plenty if time here and tomorrow we are going on a day trip to a place where we can get souvenirs as well.
Dinner was at a traditional African restaurant, complete with African dancing. The food was really good, but it wasn't anything really different from what Andrew cooks for us at the home base. The dancing was incredible! Those girls really knew how to move their hips! All of us were really amazed by the dancing! At one point they brought out a huge snake and started dancing with, more than half of he girls were afraid of it. After we ate they made all of dance with them, which was hilarious! We had so much fun though and everyone got a chance to embarrass themselves! The whole experience was amazing!
Today was really exhausting, but so much fun!
It was raining a little bit this morning so there were some students missing and it took other students longer to get to school. I taught them more English today and went through the sounds that the letters make again. Initially they didn't really participate, but once I got a few letters into the alphabet they all started making the sounds with me and saying the new words. On certain letters they get really loud because they are amused by the sound, it's really cute. Words that they had a hard time saying, like tortoise, I had them sound out with me a few times and then say I slow and fast. The teacher will still probably pronounce all of these words wrong to the kids though, so they won't actually learn much from me going over them a few times, but it's worth a shot.
After we finished with English we took them outside to play! We went through several songs, Tooty Ta, the hokey pokey, and happy and you know it. They really like the tooty ta song and dance though so we did that one 3 or 4 times. One of the ladies from CCS came by while we were playing outside to check on how we were doing in our placement. When the van pulled up the teacher got a little upset because she thought they were coming to pick us up, it was 10:30 so it would have been way too early. Sarah did the tooty ta dance with us and the kids again before she left, they really loved it! Then we played for a little while longer. Some of the kids wanted to play tag, so Em and I did that while the other kids played on the slide or swings. They all have soo much energy...I can't keep up with them! A few minutes after we went back inside the van came to get us.
After lunch we had another guest speaker, this one was on female genetal mutilation. We were given the option to not have this talk, but all of us wanted to hear about it and know what they are doing to prevent it. We learned that 15% of the Tanzanian population is affected by this, mostly the Maasai tribe still practices this type of "tradition." There are four types of FGM, they showed us a model of the different types and explained what health problems can be associated with each type. The government has made it illegal for people to practice FGM, so if this group catches people doing it they can take legal action. They take in girls who runaway from home before and after this happens to them. One thing we learned that was really disturbing to all of us was that the man decides when his daughter needs to have this done, but the woman actually does it to her. When they are taken to court the woman is the only one who is charged because she is the one who actually did it.
To try to completely eradicate this practice the grcup NAFGM was formed. This group goes it the various Maasai villages and talks to them about why they shouldn't do this to their girls. If they are able to convince them then they take their tools, which are very crude, rusty knives. They also help set up small businesses in the villages to keep them busy so that they won't have time to mutilate their girls. These small business also help them to have more money because they can sell the necklaces and bracelets that they make to the people who visit their village.
After the guest speaker we had a town trip and dinner out. When we went into town Emily and I walked around and shopped a little before meeting everyone at the coffee lounge. While we were walking around there were a lot of people that would follow us and try to get us to buy stuff from them, but we just ignored them or told them we weren't interested and walked away. This isn't anything new, but the other girls had experienced this last week and were really upset by it. We bought a few things, but not much because we still have plenty if time here and tomorrow we are going on a day trip to a place where we can get souvenirs as well.
Dinner was at a traditional African restaurant, complete with African dancing. The food was really good, but it wasn't anything really different from what Andrew cooks for us at the home base. The dancing was incredible! Those girls really knew how to move their hips! All of us were really amazed by the dancing! At one point they brought out a huge snake and started dancing with, more than half of he girls were afraid of it. After we ate they made all of dance with them, which was hilarious! We had so much fun though and everyone got a chance to embarrass themselves! The whole experience was amazing!
Today was really exhausting, but so much fun!
Monday, May 19, 2014
Day 9
I can't even believe where I am right now, I'm so in awe of the things I've seen in the last 10 days! This past weekend we went on a safari and saw so many animals...I'm in heaven!
So, Friday morning we decided to walk from the home base to our school, it was about 2.5 miles. Emily and I walked with two of the othe volunteer who were at a school down the road from us. The walk was rally nice and gave us a bit of the experience that our students have to go through everyday. The teacher said that the farthest one of the kids walks is 6 kilometers, that would never happen in the states. Here they have to pay for school, there is no free education, they have public and private school.
After school on Friday we had lunch at the home base and then got picked up for our weekend safari! The lodge we stayed in was amazing! We had hot water, the electricity never went out, and the food was fantastic. We went to two different national parks for our safari, Ngorongoro Crater and Tarangire. The parks were very different, one was a grassland area where we saw zebras and buffalo, the other was more of a forest area where we saw elephants and giraffes. The whole weekend was just so amazing!
Today the weather was pretty good, it only rained a little bit, so most of the kids were at school. We got to school about 20 minutes earlier than usual and ended up going to a bible study type session with the teacher. Every morning the teacher, the pastor, and some of the people who work at the church do a 10-15 minute study session or devotional, they sing a song, then go over a couple of bible verses and pray. The teacher translated everything for us so that we would know what the verses were and everything the pastor was saying. It was neat to see their bibles, everything looks so much different, but they still sound similar.
The kids learned math and English today before we left and Swahili after we left. In math they learned the same thing, adding vertically, but she took a couple of the students aside and worked with them on adding small numbers. There are about 6 or 7 students that are really struggling with addition, these are also the kids that struggle with counting. The teacher wrote out separate problems for the students to do that were a lot easier than what the rest of the class was doing, but most them still didn't get it. While they were doing their math problems the teacher and I checked their homework, the same ones that were struggling with addition are struggling with English and Swahili. One little boy writes everything upside down or backwards, the teacher gets mad at him and makes him redo it, but he still brings it back with everything wrong. Then there are other kids that have really good handwriting, those are the ones that are always paying attention in class and the first to raise their hands when we ask questions.
After they finished math I taught English. Emily and I talked over the weekend about what they should be learning in English based off of what they were learning in Swahili, so I taught them the sounds that each letter makes. I wrote two words with each letter and then had them make the sound of the letter with me and then say the word. As usual only half the class participated, the others just stared or talked to the kids around them. Going through the sounds was really difficult because of the way they say certain words, so the words they say funny I would say slower and get them to say a little bit better. For instance jug, I had the hardest time the first couple of days trying to figure out what they were saying! So, I wrote the word and then did the sound for j, they pronounce words with j more like Spanish than English, then I sounded out jug and had them do that...I was pretty amusing. A lot of the kids were giggling through the whole thing, but they were paying attention and really loud when I would have them make the sounds or say the word. After English we were going to play outside, but the van came super early to pick us up so we were only outside for a few minutes.
After lunch today we had batik, which is a painting style that is really popular here. It doesn't take too long to do, but there is a lot of work that goes in to it. The first thing you do is draw something in pencil on cloth, I drew elephants. Once you have drawn what you want you have to make sure it is dark enough, then they wet the cloth and paint it using oil paints and a sponge. They did the background first, then you have to dry it out over a charcoal fire. Once the painting is dry they put wax on around the drawing and then you use black ink to fill in the drawing. The wax keeps the the black ink from spreading outside the lines of the drawing. Then it gets completely waxed over and once it dries you have break the wax off. To get the wax off you have to crumple the painting and rub it together until it's mostly wax free. Then they iron it with a charcoal iron, this gets all the wrinkles out and makes the cloth hard. After that we make corrections and then sign it. Then they iron it again and it's all done! We started at 2 and didn't finish until 5:15! It was so much though, it didn't even seem like it took very long at all.
The rest of the day was free time, which we spent siting around talking and looking at pictures from the safari. This whole trip is flying by so fast, we have done so much already and we have a full week this week!
So, Friday morning we decided to walk from the home base to our school, it was about 2.5 miles. Emily and I walked with two of the othe volunteer who were at a school down the road from us. The walk was rally nice and gave us a bit of the experience that our students have to go through everyday. The teacher said that the farthest one of the kids walks is 6 kilometers, that would never happen in the states. Here they have to pay for school, there is no free education, they have public and private school.
After school on Friday we had lunch at the home base and then got picked up for our weekend safari! The lodge we stayed in was amazing! We had hot water, the electricity never went out, and the food was fantastic. We went to two different national parks for our safari, Ngorongoro Crater and Tarangire. The parks were very different, one was a grassland area where we saw zebras and buffalo, the other was more of a forest area where we saw elephants and giraffes. The whole weekend was just so amazing!
Today the weather was pretty good, it only rained a little bit, so most of the kids were at school. We got to school about 20 minutes earlier than usual and ended up going to a bible study type session with the teacher. Every morning the teacher, the pastor, and some of the people who work at the church do a 10-15 minute study session or devotional, they sing a song, then go over a couple of bible verses and pray. The teacher translated everything for us so that we would know what the verses were and everything the pastor was saying. It was neat to see their bibles, everything looks so much different, but they still sound similar.
The kids learned math and English today before we left and Swahili after we left. In math they learned the same thing, adding vertically, but she took a couple of the students aside and worked with them on adding small numbers. There are about 6 or 7 students that are really struggling with addition, these are also the kids that struggle with counting. The teacher wrote out separate problems for the students to do that were a lot easier than what the rest of the class was doing, but most them still didn't get it. While they were doing their math problems the teacher and I checked their homework, the same ones that were struggling with addition are struggling with English and Swahili. One little boy writes everything upside down or backwards, the teacher gets mad at him and makes him redo it, but he still brings it back with everything wrong. Then there are other kids that have really good handwriting, those are the ones that are always paying attention in class and the first to raise their hands when we ask questions.
After they finished math I taught English. Emily and I talked over the weekend about what they should be learning in English based off of what they were learning in Swahili, so I taught them the sounds that each letter makes. I wrote two words with each letter and then had them make the sound of the letter with me and then say the word. As usual only half the class participated, the others just stared or talked to the kids around them. Going through the sounds was really difficult because of the way they say certain words, so the words they say funny I would say slower and get them to say a little bit better. For instance jug, I had the hardest time the first couple of days trying to figure out what they were saying! So, I wrote the word and then did the sound for j, they pronounce words with j more like Spanish than English, then I sounded out jug and had them do that...I was pretty amusing. A lot of the kids were giggling through the whole thing, but they were paying attention and really loud when I would have them make the sounds or say the word. After English we were going to play outside, but the van came super early to pick us up so we were only outside for a few minutes.
After lunch today we had batik, which is a painting style that is really popular here. It doesn't take too long to do, but there is a lot of work that goes in to it. The first thing you do is draw something in pencil on cloth, I drew elephants. Once you have drawn what you want you have to make sure it is dark enough, then they wet the cloth and paint it using oil paints and a sponge. They did the background first, then you have to dry it out over a charcoal fire. Once the painting is dry they put wax on around the drawing and then you use black ink to fill in the drawing. The wax keeps the the black ink from spreading outside the lines of the drawing. Then it gets completely waxed over and once it dries you have break the wax off. To get the wax off you have to crumple the painting and rub it together until it's mostly wax free. Then they iron it with a charcoal iron, this gets all the wrinkles out and makes the cloth hard. After that we make corrections and then sign it. Then they iron it again and it's all done! We started at 2 and didn't finish until 5:15! It was so much though, it didn't even seem like it took very long at all.
The rest of the day was free time, which we spent siting around talking and looking at pictures from the safari. This whole trip is flying by so fast, we have done so much already and we have a full week this week!
Thursday, May 15, 2014
Day 5
I'm never coming home! I love this country so much!
Last night it didn't rain nearly as much as the night before, so I was able to actually get some sleep! The power only went out once durning the night, but I was already awake because a wild dog was barking near by. me and I were also able to get warm showers today...yay!! We hadn't had warm showers since we have been here, the water has been like ice. Having to take cold showers is really not a huge deal considering where we are, it really puts things into perspective.
Today all of the students were back in school, which made it so much more fun! When the classroom is full more of the students participate in the various activities and songs. Whenever the teacher says something to the students and she tells them to repeat, they all shout it back at her really loudly. She does this with the class a couple of times, then if she thinks one kid isn't participating she calls him out to say it alone. When she wants them to answer questions individually she tells them to raise their hands, their hands shoot into the air and they start snapping and saying "teacher, teacher." If she has them write on the board she always makes sure the answer is correct before asking the entire class, I think the only response they know to "is this correct," is "yes, Teacher."
Today they started out with science, they were doing parts of the body, so I did "head, shoulders, knees, and toes with them." They already know the song, but a lot if them mumble through it and don't know where their toes are or their head, so I got them to go slower through the song So that they might figure out each part a little easier. Then the teacher started asking them what parts of the body they know and having them point to it, if they were wrong she would correct them and then have the entire class point to that part of their bodies and say how many of them they have. When they did fingers and toes they would count them out a couple of times. Through all of this I was sitting with the 2 year olds in the class, pointing to each part and repeating it several times, that way they weren't just sitting there doing nothing. I'm not really sure that they should even be learning that yet, they really need to learn how to talk first. There are now 3 of them in my class that are 2-3 and just sit in the classroom all day either being disruptive or completely silent. Two of them will do stuff wapiti me, like pointing at their head or mouth, but the third one just hits his face and speaks gibberish.
While the students were doing their science homework, Emily and I met with the pastor of the church. He didn't speak a word of English, so the teacher had to come sit and translate. The pastor talked to us some about when and how the church was started there. Then he showed us around the school and church, the church looks small from the outside, but it's really huge when you walk inside. They said that they don't have many people yet, but they are growing. The church opened in 2007 and the school opened in 2010. One thing that Emily and I both thought was strange was how the pastor kept telling us to come stay in their guest house, it's much cheaper than CCS. We just kept saying thank you to him and maybe next time, it was just so awkward. Then he invited us to come to church on Sunday, which we had to turn down because we are going on a safari! He showed us the few resources that they have at the school and talked to us about how the students come from really poor families and the teachers have to fix their clothes when they get tears. The conversation with him was pretty strange, Emily and I were both just sitting there waiting for him to ask for money. Which, if a person at the school asks for money, we have to come back and tell the ladies here, Sarah or Mama Fatuma, and then we would get moved to a different school.
Once we finished talking with the pastor, we got both of the classes together outside and taught them a song. The song is called "tooty ta" and we sing a line and then the kids sing it back. I hadn't heard of it before, Emily knew it from one of her education classes. I took a video of the kids doing the song and dance with Emily and their teacher, it was so cute. Most of the kids participated, but as usual some of them just stood there or wondered off and started doing something else. We went through the song a couple of times and then they had to go back inside for more lessons. When they have to do things like make a circle or walk back inside, they have these little chants that they do, I tried to video them but it didn't come out as well as out "tooty ta" video.
Pretty much right after we went back inside, it was time for us to leave. We always get back to the home base around 12 and have an hour to do whatever until lunch. Today, a lady from the neighborhood came to show us different fabrics we could choose from to have custom made pants or skirts made. I decided to get some pants made because they look super cute and comfy. The lady didn't have the fabric with her for pants, so she was going to drop some off to Sarah and then tomorrow we can pick out what fabric we want. A few of the other girls here bought the pants in town and they said they are really comfy. We will get them next week, so I'm excited for that!
After lunch we had a feedback meeting about our placements, the home base, and town. Two of the girls were really upset about their placement because their teacher hasn't been there in two days and the kids are impossible to control. One little boy in their class peed in the dirt today and then all the little kids started making mud pies with it and throwing it at each other! Neither one of the girls wants to go back tomorrow, but they don't have much of a choice...they might end up leaving early and just walking back to the home base. Some of the other girls were talking about how awful their class is and how when they tell the kids to do something they just say no and do something else. Emily and I were just sitting there shocked, our kids are so well behaved! I even showed them a picture of my class today and everyone was shocked because the students were sitting in their chairs working on homework.
For dinner tonight we went out to this barbecue restaurant in town. The food was so awesome! It was seriously the best thing I've had since we've been here! We got barbecue chicken and fries, I was in heaven! Emily and I were there with three of the other volunteers who had been there a bunch of times before. They ordered this alcohol called konyage, it's similar to vodka, but much stronger. I could feel it after like two sips, so I drank it super slow and only had one! One of the other girls had 4...I don't know how she was still standing! Emily and I ended up leaving there around 9, we had a taxi driver there with us, so he took us home and then went back to hang out with the others until it was time to bring them back.
Today was such a great day! I'm so excited for tomorrow! We leave for our safari at 1:30!!
Last night it didn't rain nearly as much as the night before, so I was able to actually get some sleep! The power only went out once durning the night, but I was already awake because a wild dog was barking near by. me and I were also able to get warm showers today...yay!! We hadn't had warm showers since we have been here, the water has been like ice. Having to take cold showers is really not a huge deal considering where we are, it really puts things into perspective.
Today all of the students were back in school, which made it so much more fun! When the classroom is full more of the students participate in the various activities and songs. Whenever the teacher says something to the students and she tells them to repeat, they all shout it back at her really loudly. She does this with the class a couple of times, then if she thinks one kid isn't participating she calls him out to say it alone. When she wants them to answer questions individually she tells them to raise their hands, their hands shoot into the air and they start snapping and saying "teacher, teacher." If she has them write on the board she always makes sure the answer is correct before asking the entire class, I think the only response they know to "is this correct," is "yes, Teacher."
Today they started out with science, they were doing parts of the body, so I did "head, shoulders, knees, and toes with them." They already know the song, but a lot if them mumble through it and don't know where their toes are or their head, so I got them to go slower through the song So that they might figure out each part a little easier. Then the teacher started asking them what parts of the body they know and having them point to it, if they were wrong she would correct them and then have the entire class point to that part of their bodies and say how many of them they have. When they did fingers and toes they would count them out a couple of times. Through all of this I was sitting with the 2 year olds in the class, pointing to each part and repeating it several times, that way they weren't just sitting there doing nothing. I'm not really sure that they should even be learning that yet, they really need to learn how to talk first. There are now 3 of them in my class that are 2-3 and just sit in the classroom all day either being disruptive or completely silent. Two of them will do stuff wapiti me, like pointing at their head or mouth, but the third one just hits his face and speaks gibberish.
While the students were doing their science homework, Emily and I met with the pastor of the church. He didn't speak a word of English, so the teacher had to come sit and translate. The pastor talked to us some about when and how the church was started there. Then he showed us around the school and church, the church looks small from the outside, but it's really huge when you walk inside. They said that they don't have many people yet, but they are growing. The church opened in 2007 and the school opened in 2010. One thing that Emily and I both thought was strange was how the pastor kept telling us to come stay in their guest house, it's much cheaper than CCS. We just kept saying thank you to him and maybe next time, it was just so awkward. Then he invited us to come to church on Sunday, which we had to turn down because we are going on a safari! He showed us the few resources that they have at the school and talked to us about how the students come from really poor families and the teachers have to fix their clothes when they get tears. The conversation with him was pretty strange, Emily and I were both just sitting there waiting for him to ask for money. Which, if a person at the school asks for money, we have to come back and tell the ladies here, Sarah or Mama Fatuma, and then we would get moved to a different school.
Once we finished talking with the pastor, we got both of the classes together outside and taught them a song. The song is called "tooty ta" and we sing a line and then the kids sing it back. I hadn't heard of it before, Emily knew it from one of her education classes. I took a video of the kids doing the song and dance with Emily and their teacher, it was so cute. Most of the kids participated, but as usual some of them just stood there or wondered off and started doing something else. We went through the song a couple of times and then they had to go back inside for more lessons. When they have to do things like make a circle or walk back inside, they have these little chants that they do, I tried to video them but it didn't come out as well as out "tooty ta" video.
Pretty much right after we went back inside, it was time for us to leave. We always get back to the home base around 12 and have an hour to do whatever until lunch. Today, a lady from the neighborhood came to show us different fabrics we could choose from to have custom made pants or skirts made. I decided to get some pants made because they look super cute and comfy. The lady didn't have the fabric with her for pants, so she was going to drop some off to Sarah and then tomorrow we can pick out what fabric we want. A few of the other girls here bought the pants in town and they said they are really comfy. We will get them next week, so I'm excited for that!
After lunch we had a feedback meeting about our placements, the home base, and town. Two of the girls were really upset about their placement because their teacher hasn't been there in two days and the kids are impossible to control. One little boy in their class peed in the dirt today and then all the little kids started making mud pies with it and throwing it at each other! Neither one of the girls wants to go back tomorrow, but they don't have much of a choice...they might end up leaving early and just walking back to the home base. Some of the other girls were talking about how awful their class is and how when they tell the kids to do something they just say no and do something else. Emily and I were just sitting there shocked, our kids are so well behaved! I even showed them a picture of my class today and everyone was shocked because the students were sitting in their chairs working on homework.
For dinner tonight we went out to this barbecue restaurant in town. The food was so awesome! It was seriously the best thing I've had since we've been here! We got barbecue chicken and fries, I was in heaven! Emily and I were there with three of the other volunteers who had been there a bunch of times before. They ordered this alcohol called konyage, it's similar to vodka, but much stronger. I could feel it after like two sips, so I drank it super slow and only had one! One of the other girls had 4...I don't know how she was still standing! Emily and I ended up leaving there around 9, we had a taxi driver there with us, so he took us home and then went back to hang out with the others until it was time to bring them back.
Today was such a great day! I'm so excited for tomorrow! We leave for our safari at 1:30!!
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
Day 4
It has been raining so much here today and all of last night!
The power here is pretty sketchy on a good day, so a day like today the power is out more than it's on. Throughout the night last night the power would come on and off, since I'm a light sleeper I pretty much woke up every time the fan turned off! We woke up super late this morning and had to get ready in 15 minutes...so no showers. Although, it was nice to finally get some sleep, every day I've woken up around 3:30-4 in the morning and couldn't fall back to sleep.
Driving to the schools today was very difficult because most of the roads are dirt and with all the rain last nigh, there were streams running along the sides. The driver, Papa John, was able to get every one fairly close to their schools but parts of the roads couldn't be navigated or else we would have gotten stuck. Luckily Emily and I have a good location so we didn't have to walk and farther than usual! We still slipped a ton walking from the van to the classroom...but we didn't fall yay!
We were told from the beginning that when it rains here a lot of the children don't go to school, but I'm not sure either one of us expected so few kids there today. When we got to the school at 8:30, start time, there were only 7 kids there. The school has a tin a roof, so a lot of rain water fell into the classroom over night and the teacher had to spend at least 30 minutes cleaning off all the desks and mopping up the floor. Emily and I hung out outside with all the kids and played around as much as we could. As we were waiting outside a few more students came, but we only go up to about 20-25 students for the day.
Today was a pretty rough for me at the school. The students that were in class were so distracted and tired all day. They have to wake up at 5 or 6 every morning to walk to school, but when it rains they have to wake up even earlier to come to school. They started out with math today, they did more addition, but they still don't really understand the way it works. The teacher will write out a problem on the board like 2+1 and then tells them to draw how many circles equal each number and then count the circles. The problem is that thy don't even understand that 4 would need 4 circles, they draw one or two. While they were working on their math homework, which is really just class work, the teacher went to help the other class...at which point all of the kids in my class went nuts and wouldn't listen. This one little boy turned around and tore up another kid's work and then two of the boys started somewhat fighting. I kept saying "acha" stop in Swahili and "kaa" sit down...but they really only listen to their teacher and just ignore me. Then, in what was probably the best part of the day, one of the students asked for help on a problem, I showed him how to count it out on his hands as well as with the circles that teacher wants them to draw. We went through several problems and a lot of his issue is that he skips numbers, which I think is because the only time the do numbers is when they count from 1-100 in the morning and the 20 minutes they spend on math every week.
When it came time for me to teach them more English I tried to go over some of what I taught them yesterday, but none of them would respond to what I was asking. The couple of students that would respond would whisper their responses, which I'm not sure if it was because they were shy or if it's because they aren't sure. At first I tried to do the planets song because that was what one of the teachers had requested, but the teacher doesn't even know the planets and it was incredibly difficult for them to understand. For me to teach them something I have to say it and then the teacher will say for them to repeat, so when the teacher doesn't even know the planets it makes it that much harder to teach the students. I eventually moved on to flash cards that had pictures of different things that they say with each letter. That entertained them for a little bit, but they lose interest really easily. I pretty much completely lost them once the porridge was brought in, after that point all they did was stare at the bucket until it was time to eat.
Back at the home base we had two guest speakers, one to talk to us about the health problems that the people here face and the other to teach us some Swahili. The lady that came to speak about the health issues is a doctor at the hospital near us as well as a nun. She has worked in hospitals all over Africa helping with various break outs and epidemics.
One of the biggest medical problems in this area is malaria, people here catch malaria like the flu. She told us that while they cannot escape malaria, they can become immune to certain strains after they have had it a couple of times. They have a lot of programs to try and help combat malaria in children and pregnant women, but once a child is over the age of 5 there isn't much they do for them. What they do for pregnant women is to give them a bug net to sleep under while they are pregnant, then when they have the baby they get a net for it as well. The other thing that they try to do to lower the rate is to tell people to close their doors and windows between 4pm and 10am because the mosquitoes that give malaria bite at night.
The other big illness here is HIV/AIDS, about 5% of the population is infected, which is lower than 5-10 years ago. 1/3 of the people infected with the disease are 15-24 years old, but many people that are infected don't know. In most cases it takes 5-10 years for someone to become diagnosed with HIV because the testing is just not there. What usually happens is that the person keeps having to go to the hospital to be treat for different things and the doctor eventually picks up on it and asks the person if they are okay with being tested. The country has made it mandatory for all pregnant women to be tested, so that if they are positive they can be put on the anti-viral drugs and lower the chance of the baby having HIV. They have also changed blood donation so that only bigger hospitals are allowed to take donations becaus they have the technology to be able to test the blood for HIV. They have implemented a ton of programs to help combat HIV; programs in schools to educate teenagers, various places for free testing, putting condoms in places like bar bathrooms and hotels, as well as programs similar to hospice to help take care of the families of people affected. They are able to help the people who have full blown AIDS find orphanages for their children and pay for their education and uniforms, so that the sick person can worry less about what is going to happen to their child when they die.
After the health talk we had Swahili lessons. We had the same Swahili teacher as last time, so he had us go through introductions again and practice a little bit of conversation. Then he went into classroom terms...which we all really need! He taught us words like sit down, be quiet, jump, look at the board...all kinds of things that we will need. A lot of we're wondering why he didn't teach us that first! So many of the volunteers have unruly classesnd can't do much with the kids because they don't listen. Emily and I are really lucky because our students are actually learning and they do listen most of the time. Now that we know some Swahili words we will be able to get their attention better, there are so many times where I'm telling the kids to look at me and pay attention. I'm so excited to test out these new words with the kids...hopefully I don't butcher them too much to where they won't understand me! We have had them laugh at us because we say stuff so completely wrong!
The food today was really good! This morning we had eggs, fruit, bread, and this hush puppy type thing. I'm not much of a breakfast person though so I never really like breakfast here except for the crepes. For lunch we had chicken, rice, and some funky green mush, as well as fruit. The cook made me some special chicken that didn't have tomato all over it, it was so good! The rice was really awesome though...I actually went back for seconds! The funky green mush easy really gross, but I figure I have to try at least a bite of everything. For dinner we had pasta with ground beef and fruit...soooo good! Only 6 of us ate dinner at the the house tonight so we had enough food for all of us to be able to get seconds! Tomorrow night we are eating dinner in town as a group, one of the ladies that works here, Sarah, is going with us.
If anyone has any tips or idea of songs we can teach the kids let me know! We need as many suggestions as we can get!
The power here is pretty sketchy on a good day, so a day like today the power is out more than it's on. Throughout the night last night the power would come on and off, since I'm a light sleeper I pretty much woke up every time the fan turned off! We woke up super late this morning and had to get ready in 15 minutes...so no showers. Although, it was nice to finally get some sleep, every day I've woken up around 3:30-4 in the morning and couldn't fall back to sleep.
Driving to the schools today was very difficult because most of the roads are dirt and with all the rain last nigh, there were streams running along the sides. The driver, Papa John, was able to get every one fairly close to their schools but parts of the roads couldn't be navigated or else we would have gotten stuck. Luckily Emily and I have a good location so we didn't have to walk and farther than usual! We still slipped a ton walking from the van to the classroom...but we didn't fall yay!
We were told from the beginning that when it rains here a lot of the children don't go to school, but I'm not sure either one of us expected so few kids there today. When we got to the school at 8:30, start time, there were only 7 kids there. The school has a tin a roof, so a lot of rain water fell into the classroom over night and the teacher had to spend at least 30 minutes cleaning off all the desks and mopping up the floor. Emily and I hung out outside with all the kids and played around as much as we could. As we were waiting outside a few more students came, but we only go up to about 20-25 students for the day.
Today was a pretty rough for me at the school. The students that were in class were so distracted and tired all day. They have to wake up at 5 or 6 every morning to walk to school, but when it rains they have to wake up even earlier to come to school. They started out with math today, they did more addition, but they still don't really understand the way it works. The teacher will write out a problem on the board like 2+1 and then tells them to draw how many circles equal each number and then count the circles. The problem is that thy don't even understand that 4 would need 4 circles, they draw one or two. While they were working on their math homework, which is really just class work, the teacher went to help the other class...at which point all of the kids in my class went nuts and wouldn't listen. This one little boy turned around and tore up another kid's work and then two of the boys started somewhat fighting. I kept saying "acha" stop in Swahili and "kaa" sit down...but they really only listen to their teacher and just ignore me. Then, in what was probably the best part of the day, one of the students asked for help on a problem, I showed him how to count it out on his hands as well as with the circles that teacher wants them to draw. We went through several problems and a lot of his issue is that he skips numbers, which I think is because the only time the do numbers is when they count from 1-100 in the morning and the 20 minutes they spend on math every week.
When it came time for me to teach them more English I tried to go over some of what I taught them yesterday, but none of them would respond to what I was asking. The couple of students that would respond would whisper their responses, which I'm not sure if it was because they were shy or if it's because they aren't sure. At first I tried to do the planets song because that was what one of the teachers had requested, but the teacher doesn't even know the planets and it was incredibly difficult for them to understand. For me to teach them something I have to say it and then the teacher will say for them to repeat, so when the teacher doesn't even know the planets it makes it that much harder to teach the students. I eventually moved on to flash cards that had pictures of different things that they say with each letter. That entertained them for a little bit, but they lose interest really easily. I pretty much completely lost them once the porridge was brought in, after that point all they did was stare at the bucket until it was time to eat.
Back at the home base we had two guest speakers, one to talk to us about the health problems that the people here face and the other to teach us some Swahili. The lady that came to speak about the health issues is a doctor at the hospital near us as well as a nun. She has worked in hospitals all over Africa helping with various break outs and epidemics.
One of the biggest medical problems in this area is malaria, people here catch malaria like the flu. She told us that while they cannot escape malaria, they can become immune to certain strains after they have had it a couple of times. They have a lot of programs to try and help combat malaria in children and pregnant women, but once a child is over the age of 5 there isn't much they do for them. What they do for pregnant women is to give them a bug net to sleep under while they are pregnant, then when they have the baby they get a net for it as well. The other thing that they try to do to lower the rate is to tell people to close their doors and windows between 4pm and 10am because the mosquitoes that give malaria bite at night.
The other big illness here is HIV/AIDS, about 5% of the population is infected, which is lower than 5-10 years ago. 1/3 of the people infected with the disease are 15-24 years old, but many people that are infected don't know. In most cases it takes 5-10 years for someone to become diagnosed with HIV because the testing is just not there. What usually happens is that the person keeps having to go to the hospital to be treat for different things and the doctor eventually picks up on it and asks the person if they are okay with being tested. The country has made it mandatory for all pregnant women to be tested, so that if they are positive they can be put on the anti-viral drugs and lower the chance of the baby having HIV. They have also changed blood donation so that only bigger hospitals are allowed to take donations becaus they have the technology to be able to test the blood for HIV. They have implemented a ton of programs to help combat HIV; programs in schools to educate teenagers, various places for free testing, putting condoms in places like bar bathrooms and hotels, as well as programs similar to hospice to help take care of the families of people affected. They are able to help the people who have full blown AIDS find orphanages for their children and pay for their education and uniforms, so that the sick person can worry less about what is going to happen to their child when they die.
After the health talk we had Swahili lessons. We had the same Swahili teacher as last time, so he had us go through introductions again and practice a little bit of conversation. Then he went into classroom terms...which we all really need! He taught us words like sit down, be quiet, jump, look at the board...all kinds of things that we will need. A lot of we're wondering why he didn't teach us that first! So many of the volunteers have unruly classesnd can't do much with the kids because they don't listen. Emily and I are really lucky because our students are actually learning and they do listen most of the time. Now that we know some Swahili words we will be able to get their attention better, there are so many times where I'm telling the kids to look at me and pay attention. I'm so excited to test out these new words with the kids...hopefully I don't butcher them too much to where they won't understand me! We have had them laugh at us because we say stuff so completely wrong!
The food today was really good! This morning we had eggs, fruit, bread, and this hush puppy type thing. I'm not much of a breakfast person though so I never really like breakfast here except for the crepes. For lunch we had chicken, rice, and some funky green mush, as well as fruit. The cook made me some special chicken that didn't have tomato all over it, it was so good! The rice was really awesome though...I actually went back for seconds! The funky green mush easy really gross, but I figure I have to try at least a bite of everything. For dinner we had pasta with ground beef and fruit...soooo good! Only 6 of us ate dinner at the the house tonight so we had enough food for all of us to be able to get seconds! Tomorrow night we are eating dinner in town as a group, one of the ladies that works here, Sarah, is going with us.
If anyone has any tips or idea of songs we can teach the kids let me know! We need as many suggestions as we can get!
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
Day 3
Today was a very exciting day in the classrooms, we got to teach!!
The students started off the morning going through the alphabet over and over, like a chant "capital letter a, small letter a" throughout the whole thing, about 10 times. When they are going through the alphabet or event numbers, one student stands at the chart with a stick pointing to the letter and shouting it out, then the entire class shouts out the letter or number. So, they do this until the teacher is ready to start morning devotional, which is what really starts class, then after devotional they go through it another 10-15 times. I think it's a great way for them to learn the alphabet, but at the same time so many of the children aren't participating in these exercises and the teacher can't tell as much because the ones that are participating are shouting at the top of their lungs. I'm not sure what a better way would be for the teacher to get all of the children involved though, when there are 45 students in the class room and if one struggles another shouts out the answer, it makes it difficult for them to be able to know where the child is at without testing them...which they don't do.
I started out my lesson by teaching them "my name is..." and "I am .... years old" that way I would be able to learn some of their names and also figure out the age range in the classroom. I was really surprised to find that some of the children don't know how old they are, nor does the teacher (I asked in English and Kiswahili.) From what the teacher told me and what we have learned from CCS, some families don't know the month or day that their children are born, sometimes they know the year or the season. So, that makes it difficult for them to know where a child needs to be...they end up deciding based on the height of the child. I was able to figure out that the children in my classroom average 5-7, there are a couple of 3 and 4 year olds, as well as a 2 year old.
Once we got introductions out of the way I had them go through the alphabet and do the letter-word association (I don't know the teacher terminology) and tried to figure out what they were saying. For instance they say "T is for totois" which I couldn't figure out for the life of me, so I asked the teacher to draw it...it was a tortoise! We went through each of the letters a couple of times, until I felt like I had an understanding of what the words were, then I tried seeing if they knew any other words that started with various letters...they didn't. So, I tried saying "A is for apple...or A is for ant" but they didn't really understand it, so I found a book that had the pictures. What I did then was to walk around the classroom and show the kids the picture of each thing and have them say it back to me, at first they were really quiet and would whisper the word...but then when one boy shouted out ant and got a high five, all of them were shouting. There were some letters that were really difficult for them to say new words with because of the way they say the letter or how they see the picture. It took a really long time to get through the entire alphabet, but once they did I had them all stand up and sing songs for a couple of minutes.
After the songs I wanted to see what they think the word they're saying means, for instance "u is for umbrella" I had a girl come draw an umbrella on the blackboard...she drew a box. When they would draw something wrong or not know how to draw it, I would draw it (very poorly) and tell them this is an elephant or an umbrella, just whatever the word was, and then the student would redo it and tell the class "this is an umbrella" and the class would respond with "that is an umbrella." Having the kids draw really got them energized and wanting to participate and be the first one to have their hand up to draw. At one point I drew an elephant I think and all of them were laughing and telling the teacher in Swahili that I was funny, which made my day!
Probably the best part of the day at the school was getting the little 2 year old to talk and smile. The teacher old Emily and I yesterday that this little girl comes in every day and sits in the corner with her head on the desk and they can't get her to do or say anything. So, I made it my goal today to at least get her to smile. She is really too little to be in the class that she's in but they don't make the children go to the proper class, if they don't want to go to the class they are supposed to be in, they can just stay there and be quiet. So, this little girl just stays quiet all day, she doesn't stand up when they do prayer, dance or sing along with the songs, or even eat the porridge they serve. I decided to just make funny faces at her until I got a reaction...it took a solid 10 minutes to even get her to crack a tiny smile. Once I got her to smile and wave I started tapping my fingers in a pattern on the desk and she would copy me. Later on when I was teaching the letters and words I would go to her desk just like the others and ask her to say the word and then give her a high five even if she didn't get it right. Then when I was finished with teaching I sat down at the teacher's desk, which is where this little girl sits and she just started jabbing away and playing with my hair...at one point she grabbed my arm, licked it, and then bit me! This kid has like shark teeth...they hurt! Luckily she didn't bite hard enough to make me bleed, but I did get after her as much as I really could, by telling her no and making her keep her hand in her lap for a few minutes...essentially timeout. All in all it was a really positive day at the school.
Once we finished at the school and had had lunch we had a man come and talk to us about the Tanzanian education system...which I must say, is a very bad system. So, all of the people here belong to a tribe and the kids learn and speak the tribal language until they start school. When they start school, it is conducted in Kiswahili, a language they have never heard. Until they are 14 they are taught completely in Kiswahili except for 80 minutes a week, when they learn English. Then they have to take a test to see if they will get to go on to secondary school or, if they fail the test, not be allowed in public school. When they go to secondary school, everything is taught completely in English, except for 80 minutes a week where they learn Kiswahili. So, this system is setting their
students up to fail and not be able to go to college because they never have a chance to master a
language. The speaker talked to us about how the students just get to a point where they don't care about school because it gets too confusing. He was a teacher here in Tanzania for 12 years until he was fired in 2003 because he wrote a letter to the Minister of Education explaining the struggles that kids face and how confusing it for them to have to relearn everything at each level. He feels that the government needs to change the system so that children are strictly taught English in school, that way they have a chance to master the language. Which in all honesty I have to agree with.
After the education talk we had the opportunity for free time or to go into town. me and I decided to skip town and end up going to a pool not too far from our home base with another girl. We just sat by the pool and relaxed for a couple of hours...it was so nice. The pool was really nice for this part of the world and it was a great way to get out of the heat! The three of us had a blast doing nothing :)
I have to say, I don't know how tomorrow is going to beat the day I had today!!
Monday, May 12, 2014
Day 2
Today was our first day in the classrooms volunteering...it was very eye opening! The schools here are all private and receive no government support, which makes it difficult for them to be able to pay teachers. Most of the schools rely on volunteers from CCSand the community to teach the children, which also means that there are no general guidelines for what the children need to learn, everything is done at the teacher's pace.
The school day starts at 8, but many of the children don't arrive until 8:30 or 9, so the teacher (her name is also Emily) has them count from 0-100 several times before leading them in devotional, prayer, and songs. At the start of the day all of the children are packed into one room, sitting two to a desk and some standing. However, after devotional the tougher children go to the classroom next door with a volunteer teacher, who is also the pastor's wife, and go through the alphabet and numbers again. The older children then get to sing and dance for another 15-20 minutes until hopefully everyone has arrived.
Emily and I separated with the classes, she went with the younger children and I stayed in the class with the older ones. The older class has an actual teacher as opposed to the volunteer teacher for the young kids. My job today was to just observe how she taught the class, so that tomorrow I will be able to teach a lesson in English. Today the children mostly worked on math, doing simple addition and writing/identifying numbers 0-30. I was amazed to see how big the learning gap was between the children in this class, there were some kids that knew how to write and read the numbers, while others could hardly say numbers at all. Once they finished math they moved on to English by singing the alphabet through several different ways including, big letter and little letter, letter/word association, and the alphabet song. Again, the teacher doesn't help them through it, just tells them to continue.
Many of the children don't participate in the counting and alphabet activities, which makes it difficult for the teacher to be able to assess them. The teacher, Emily, knows that some of the kids are struggling, but she says there isn't much she can do because they don't have enough teachers and only get volunteers rarely. The students can also just get up and go home whenever they want and the teacher cannot stop them. I got to see this first hand today when a little girl came in crying non-stop, disrupting class...Emily sent her home for the day! There were also two young children in the class that refuse to go to the other classroom. One of the children is a little girl who doesn't speak, wave, or acknowledge people at all, and refuses to do school work...she just sits and stares all day long! The teacher told me that she hasn't found anything yet to get this little girl involved in class, so she just sends home work every night and hopes that the child is doing it and not her parents.
Whenever they learn new thing or even review things, the teacher calls it out, then has them say it with her several times. Everything that these children learn is through repetition by the teacher because they don't have text books, which has pretty much turned the children in to parrots. When she tells them to sit down they all shout out "we are sitting down" which I found hilarious...you wouldn't see that at home! The repetitive nature of the teaching here seems to limit the children's abilities to learn how to read and write because all they do is copy what the teacher says without having the tools to back up that knowledge. The learning/teaching style is completely different than what we grew up with.
The school Emily and I are working in is very structured as opposed to the absolute chaos that our fellow volunteers had to endure. Some of the other volunteers are working in the nursery school at the prison, they have over 100 children! Probably one of the biggest issues that all of the volunteers face is that their is no real structure to the day at the school, the children just run around and don't pay attention to what the teachers say. Which really should be expected given the age range in all of our schools is 2-6, it's almost impossible to keep that many kids interest for that long of a time frame. We are trying to come up with some games or songs to teach the kids that will get them up and doing things, so far we have decided on head, shoulders, knees, and toes...but after that I have no idea!
The food today was a little bit better than yesterday, but I'm still pretty confidant that I'm gunna lose a bunch of weight lol. For breakfast they served creeps, omelets, fruit, and papaya juice. I couldn't eat the omelets though because they had tomatoes and pepper...my two biggest food allergies! However, the creeps were amazing, I could have eaten like 10 of them...but I only ate 2. Lunch was spaghetti and meat balls, except the meat ball was a veggie ball, it was pretty tasty. We also had beans and rice, salad, and fruit with lunch. The beans and rice and the spaghetti were again really plain, they don't use any herbs in the spaghetti sauce and no salt in the beans (they needed it!) . Then for dinner the cook made pizza, one with veggies and one with spicy chicken. I ate the one with chicken, but took most of the chicken off and just ate the bread. So, I had to take a ton of Benadryl today just that I could be able to eat lunch and dinner!
Our cultural activities for the day included Swahili lessons and a trio into town to exchange money and go to the store. The Swahili lessons were taught by the director of one of the schools down the road, he works with all of the CCS groups to teach us conversational Swahili. We learned introductions again as well as how to say where we are volunteering and what we are doing at the schools, none of us were able to keep the conversation flowing because we kept looking and second guess what we were supposed to say. Which really that's the same with learning any language, you never have confidence at first. For now everyone is just practicing Swahili with their roommates and not really trying to use it anywhere else. When we went into town we were able to walk around a little bit, our guide showed us how to figure out where we are if we get lost and where to meet the van when we get picked up. We also got a chance to buy some small souvenirs and bargain with the people, which I'm not very good at so I let Emily do the bargaining. She actually ended up helping several of the girls bargain and would tell them to walk away if the people wouldn't negotiate, it was a lot of fun :)
The day today was pretty exhausting, I think I'm still a bit jet lagged, but all in all it was an awesome day!
The school day starts at 8, but many of the children don't arrive until 8:30 or 9, so the teacher (her name is also Emily) has them count from 0-100 several times before leading them in devotional, prayer, and songs. At the start of the day all of the children are packed into one room, sitting two to a desk and some standing. However, after devotional the tougher children go to the classroom next door with a volunteer teacher, who is also the pastor's wife, and go through the alphabet and numbers again. The older children then get to sing and dance for another 15-20 minutes until hopefully everyone has arrived.
Emily and I separated with the classes, she went with the younger children and I stayed in the class with the older ones. The older class has an actual teacher as opposed to the volunteer teacher for the young kids. My job today was to just observe how she taught the class, so that tomorrow I will be able to teach a lesson in English. Today the children mostly worked on math, doing simple addition and writing/identifying numbers 0-30. I was amazed to see how big the learning gap was between the children in this class, there were some kids that knew how to write and read the numbers, while others could hardly say numbers at all. Once they finished math they moved on to English by singing the alphabet through several different ways including, big letter and little letter, letter/word association, and the alphabet song. Again, the teacher doesn't help them through it, just tells them to continue.
Many of the children don't participate in the counting and alphabet activities, which makes it difficult for the teacher to be able to assess them. The teacher, Emily, knows that some of the kids are struggling, but she says there isn't much she can do because they don't have enough teachers and only get volunteers rarely. The students can also just get up and go home whenever they want and the teacher cannot stop them. I got to see this first hand today when a little girl came in crying non-stop, disrupting class...Emily sent her home for the day! There were also two young children in the class that refuse to go to the other classroom. One of the children is a little girl who doesn't speak, wave, or acknowledge people at all, and refuses to do school work...she just sits and stares all day long! The teacher told me that she hasn't found anything yet to get this little girl involved in class, so she just sends home work every night and hopes that the child is doing it and not her parents.
Whenever they learn new thing or even review things, the teacher calls it out, then has them say it with her several times. Everything that these children learn is through repetition by the teacher because they don't have text books, which has pretty much turned the children in to parrots. When she tells them to sit down they all shout out "we are sitting down" which I found hilarious...you wouldn't see that at home! The repetitive nature of the teaching here seems to limit the children's abilities to learn how to read and write because all they do is copy what the teacher says without having the tools to back up that knowledge. The learning/teaching style is completely different than what we grew up with.
The school Emily and I are working in is very structured as opposed to the absolute chaos that our fellow volunteers had to endure. Some of the other volunteers are working in the nursery school at the prison, they have over 100 children! Probably one of the biggest issues that all of the volunteers face is that their is no real structure to the day at the school, the children just run around and don't pay attention to what the teachers say. Which really should be expected given the age range in all of our schools is 2-6, it's almost impossible to keep that many kids interest for that long of a time frame. We are trying to come up with some games or songs to teach the kids that will get them up and doing things, so far we have decided on head, shoulders, knees, and toes...but after that I have no idea!
The food today was a little bit better than yesterday, but I'm still pretty confidant that I'm gunna lose a bunch of weight lol. For breakfast they served creeps, omelets, fruit, and papaya juice. I couldn't eat the omelets though because they had tomatoes and pepper...my two biggest food allergies! However, the creeps were amazing, I could have eaten like 10 of them...but I only ate 2. Lunch was spaghetti and meat balls, except the meat ball was a veggie ball, it was pretty tasty. We also had beans and rice, salad, and fruit with lunch. The beans and rice and the spaghetti were again really plain, they don't use any herbs in the spaghetti sauce and no salt in the beans (they needed it!) . Then for dinner the cook made pizza, one with veggies and one with spicy chicken. I ate the one with chicken, but took most of the chicken off and just ate the bread. So, I had to take a ton of Benadryl today just that I could be able to eat lunch and dinner!
Our cultural activities for the day included Swahili lessons and a trio into town to exchange money and go to the store. The Swahili lessons were taught by the director of one of the schools down the road, he works with all of the CCS groups to teach us conversational Swahili. We learned introductions again as well as how to say where we are volunteering and what we are doing at the schools, none of us were able to keep the conversation flowing because we kept looking and second guess what we were supposed to say. Which really that's the same with learning any language, you never have confidence at first. For now everyone is just practicing Swahili with their roommates and not really trying to use it anywhere else. When we went into town we were able to walk around a little bit, our guide showed us how to figure out where we are if we get lost and where to meet the van when we get picked up. We also got a chance to buy some small souvenirs and bargain with the people, which I'm not very good at so I let Emily do the bargaining. She actually ended up helping several of the girls bargain and would tell them to walk away if the people wouldn't negotiate, it was a lot of fun :)
The day today was pretty exhausting, I think I'm still a bit jet lagged, but all in all it was an awesome day!
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