Whew! What a Monday! Today was a bit crazy, but not too bad, besides the changing tutoring times and canceling it several times this morning while T ran around trying to find the correct people and paperwork to update our visas (we’ve been here a whole month!), and I gathered up all the ladies, their materials, and taught them how to teach the children who were coming. All before 8:45 am. J However, the morning went splendidly, although our tutorees were a bit bummed that we had to cancel tutoring, but we needed to hightail it out of campus to get our visas renewed so we wouldn’t be kicked out of the country! hahah
Anyway, here’s how the field trip worked forty third graders joined us and were in small groups to go to eight stations where they did household chores by hand, as their current unit was on machines and how they make our lives easier. So our English students taught the kids to do the following tasks (in English) by hand: making nshima, eating nshima and relish, watering the garden, shelling and shucking maize, washing clothes and hanging them on the line, shelling peanuts, sweeping (their brooms are a bit different), and pounding maize. It was a fun morning J including: finding lost items for children, having several third graders hold my hand, leading kids from house to house, teaching the wives how to explain/teach, and enjoying myself immensely as I could work around throughout the stations and see everyone in action. Great job SB! What a great idea! And I am so glad I could be a part of it!
After an introduction to the kids and a thank you, T and I scooted off with C, the office manager at the LCCA (I think sometime like that…) to try to renew our visas. We arrived a month ago and have until the 9th to renew them, and since tomorrow is a holiday, we needed to go today. After getting to the building across town, they informed us that we need to come on Wednesday; but hey! we had fun seeing a different part of town. We will try again Wednesday. (And in case this blog comes to a complete and utter and confusing stop on the 9th, you will know that T and I did not get the paperwork completed on time and were sent to prison for two years….. Just kidding. I actually got an email from the American Embassy today saying they do just that, though.)
On the way back to the campus, we stopped at Zambia’s top hospital to check on one of the campus worker’s daughters, who was admitted yesterday with malaria. Wow. It is amazing to see how blessed we are with healthcare in the States. I would not want any of my family or friends going to that hospital. Yes, I’m sure they practice medicine just fine, but seeing how rundown some of the facility was, I did not want to think about the level of care there. They don’t have a computer system, so we went exploring through several different wards of where C thought the girl would be, and this is a big hospital. After an hour of searching, we found her, lying on a mattress on the floor in a ward, not looking so well. We only had time for a quick help before they hurried us away because we did not come during visiting hours. They didn’t really have hospital rooms, just areas in the wards where 8 or so beds would be separated by a curtain from another 8 or so beds. I smiled at as many people as possible because I know a smile can make someone’s day, but the whole time I just wanted to get out of there….Now I really hope I don’t get hurt here!
Alrighty, so returning to campus I took a quick nap (the hospital did not have good effects on my immune system today) and skipped lunch before preschool. Wow, little kids can be hyper. T and I are making strides in some areas (covering more curriculum, teaching them about Jesus, having them sit quietly and raise their hand before going to the board, and sometimes the handing in of materials), but in other ways, we still have a far way to go (sharing, hitting, apologizing, not screaming “Teacha! I’m done!” every 5 seconds as this quickly gets reiterated by all the students, holding on to materials when the teacher is collecting them, taking toys out when it’s not that time, trying to follow the teachers into the guest house area when preschool is done). It is SOOOOO evident that the kids are learning, though. And they just get excited because we’re Mzungu teachas! J Or at least I think, coming from a trained high school math teacher…Any pointers for us high school teachers? Send em over. J
To clear my mind after preschool, I took a bike ride through the compound again. Shouts of Mzungu continued filling the air! Today, however, more kids came out to slap my hands, and a girl named Dora who was on her bike challenged me to a race. I won. J Several other kids tried to run after me and catch me, and there were a few who were successful as I had to jump off my bike and walk around the pothole filled with water that’s the size of a small pond covering the entire intersection. They’re so cute.
Evening brought dinner (Delicious! I was starving!), collecting all the materials from this morning’s activity (THANK YOU to all the kids we enlisted help from to carry it all back—there were about 12 of em!), giving some of the items away as thank you’s (There were 3 blue buckets and 2 red buckets, and the red buckets were turned away and traded TWICE! What do these women have against red?), and lesson planning, although we spent the first half of the night not knowing if we were going to teach tomorrow or not, as it’s Women’s Day. We shall see….
No comments:
Post a Comment