Kila Kitu Ni Mzuri

Tomorrow there is no school but a book drive at Epico Jahns. All of the parents will come with their kids and bring books for the school. There will be entertainment in the form of singing and dancing provided by the students, food provided by Betty, and decorations provided by us! The girls and I needed to go to town to buy decorations but the thing is that it is hard to go to town after school since it is always raining between 4-7ish. So, we decided that we would take the day off school today (Thursday), go visit and see the secondary school down the road, and then head into town. I am currently at the Cyber in Bungoma because the UI girls have an assignment due soon. We will leave here and go out to lunch, buy decorations and books, go to the market for a few things, and probably just explore town a little bit.  Then we will have to head home to continue making paper name tags for everyone tomorrow that people will purchase for money towards books for the school. It should be a good time getting to meet all of the parents!

School lately has been OK. The level 2 teacher sometimes decides not to show up at school. She will very often arrive up to an hour late in the morning and sometimes not even show up after lunch. This leaves me in charge of the classroom which is often very hectic. It has happened quite a few times now where I feel the students have somewhat calmed down and are used to me being in charge. Still, the occasional student will decide to run out of the classroom to play, or they will beat on each other, or eat random things off the floor... but all in all their behavior has improved. I've found that math is the best thing to teach them when I am alone in the classroom since math is a universal language! They know the numbers in english and can understand me when I'm teaching them. I actually even taught them a new math concept yesterday and they all seemed to get it! Usually when doing addition... let's say 8+3, the students will draw 8 tallies and then 3 tallies and count them all. I was successfully able to teach them to only draw 3 tallies and then to just say 8 and count up 3 more, 9, 10, 11. I was so proud that they could understand what I was saying even if it was such a little concept to make their addition a bit easier and quicker. After that was a success, I tried explaining how sometimes when math is necessary, there won't be paper and pencil available for tallies. So, I tried to get them to learn how to count using their fingers. This was a bit less understood and I eventually gave up to let them do addition races on the board, boys vs. girls, which they love.

Other struggles in school have been watching students be punished for taking too long to finish their work or not having the correct answer. We were doing spelling one day and the students had to come up one by one to spell words on the board. If they were wrong, they were told to kneel on the ground toward the wall. This is when things get very frustrating and kind of tricky. My teacher even has a hard time understanding english sometimes, and like I've mentioned, I don't want to rock the boat or step on any toes. So, I decided to pick my battles with this one and I explained to the teacher that the students should at least be able to face the board in order to see the correct spellings of the words they have gotten wrong. I tried telling the teacher that their spelling will never improve if they are not able to know the correct spellings of the word. I chose not to go into the issues of self esteem and embarrassment... I'll save that for Mama Betty.

I don't have much else to update about. We are staying local this weekend. The girls and I have discussed trying to make pizza one of the days for everyone. We also might get dresses/skirts made in town. Next weekend we plan to travel to Mt. Elgon! I'm excited about that.

There are a few funny or interesting things I've jotted down in my notebook that I wanted to tell you all that don't seem to fit in anywhere else...
-The teachers have asked me what the brown dots are all over my body. I explain that they are freckles and one of the teachers said, "oh yes, decorations!"
-When someone looks nice, people here often tell them that they look "smart. One time at school, I told one of the teachers that we sometimes say "sharp" when someone looks nice. Just a few minutes later, one of the other girls came up and told him that he looked, "spiffy". You can imagine his confusion... he repeated "spiffy???" and then we had to go into explaining that.
-The same teacher as I'm speaking about above was  hiding from some students one day. I'm not exactly sure why but he just didn't want to teach or something and they were all looking for him. Someone must have taught him the expression, "spill the beans" because later on he told us that he was holding on to his beans very tightly so that they students would not find him. We all thought that was pretty funny.
-Many times when someone is welcoming you, they tell you to "be free".
-The girls and I were taking a walk one day and we ran into one of the students from Epico. He told us that he was going home. We kind of walked in a circle and later on we saw him again. We said, "I thought you were going home" and he said, "All ways lead to home," and we all thought that was very cute.

I think that's all, and the girls are done with their assignment so we are going to head out for lunch!

Oh, also, everyone here is very happy about Obama.

Mwishoni Mwa Wiki Picha

A packed matatu. Ariel, Dan, and Colin.

Sangalo Rock

At the top with some locals.

Colin and Becca climbing the larger rock next to the one I was on.

Danny and me.

Ladder made to climb higher.

Local guide :)

Hard at work.

My kiddos singing a song and dancing.

Our room in Kisumu.

Our boat we took out on Lake Victoria.

Just a few hippos!

Lake Victoria, the largest lake in Africa, the worlds second largest fresh water lake following Lake Superior.

Fishermen.

Tom leading the driver through the hyacinth.

Monkey!

Our fish feast.

This was taken from out the window of a matatu, the vehicle is in motion and they are just hanging off the outside.

Top of the hill in the rainforest.

Maurice, me, Danny, Becca, Colin, David, Ariel.

What goes up must come down.

Entrance to the bat cave.

Bats!

Mji Kubwa, Ziwa Victoria na Msitu wa Mvua!

One of the books I've read since I've been here is called Timbuktu by Mark Jenkins. He travels through Africa and describes a taxi ride perfectly. I couldn't find the exact quote but he says you have 3 choices when taking public transport in Africa (when you are very scared because the driving is too crazy with too many potholes), you can force the driver to pull over and get out which allows the next, and equally crazy, driver to charge you double since they know you are stranded, you can worry and yell at the driver to be more careful which will probably make them mad and as a result they will drive worse, or you can sit back and relax since you know there is nothing you can do about it. After my weekend trip taking tons of public transport, I have finally learned to do the 3rd.

We took a van from our farm in Kabula straight to Kisumu. Maurice came with us and set up this ride for us so we wouldn't have to take a crowded matatu for the 2 hour drive. He also set up accommodations with his cousin, Patricia (who ended up spending the whole weekend with us) in Kisumu to stay at a pretty nice hotel called Duke of Breeze. When we got there, the first thing we did was head to the rooftop bar for a cold beer. It was, of course, pouring rain, but there was a fairly protective canopy over us. The place was nice and it would have been a good view besides the rain. It was kind of refreshing to be in a bigger city (Kisumu is the 3rd largest city in Kenya), because they are used to us Mzungus so we don't get starred at like aliens. Patricia took us out for dinner to a place called Trevine Soul Food and I had fish and ugali. It was pretty good. Then, the best part of the night happened. I got to take a nice hot running water shower! There were rumors that there might be a possibility of this so I came prepared with all of my toiletries and was so happy to realize it was true! They even had fresh clean towels for us. I was very happy and clean to go to bed.

They have this little 3 wheeled cars that they call tuk-tuks which basically has one spot in front for the driver and he drives not with a steering wheel but with something that looks like he is playing a video game. Then there's room for about3 people in the back, the top is only covered with like a canvas material. Anyway, we took about 3 of them and fit 7 passengers plus a driver...

We woke up early for breakfast at the hotel. They had sausage, eggs and toast which was a nice change up to our usual bread and banana for breakfast. Then we took a taxi to Lake Victoria to a place called hippo point. Before we left for the trip I asked Reuben and Maurice if the boat driver carried any sort of gun for the hippos and they laughed at me for quite some time. They explained that hippos don't usually attack unless they fear that their territory and babies are being threatened and that they don't attack in the water, only on land. I was still a little skeptical since I've read and heard many things about hippos being the most dangerous animal. So, we got in our little 10ish person boat with a hand motor and took off. Our guides name was Tom and he was very very knowledgable and spewed tons of information the whole time. He sat at the front and we had a driver at the back. Right when we took off we saw hippos near the shore. At first we were at comfortable distance and then our driver headed toward them. At this point I was pretty nervous, especially when the guide said they were in pretty shallow water where they could stand. There were 4 or 5 of these massive creatures only about 15 feet in front of me. We were all basically holding our breath and taking pictures (coming soon). The guide starting talking to our driver in Swahili and one of the hippos went under and looked like he was coming more near us. I had to turn away because I was too scared to watch what would happen next. As the driver was backing away, the guide kept saying, "are you scared?" YES "don't worry, we are in the same boat." I'm still not sure exactly what he meant but I got the vibe that he was a little mad at the driver for getting so close and once we were safely away he said that he was sorry for the scare. Not sure if I ever caught my breath the whole ride.

There is quite an overgrowth of a water plant called hyacinth on Lake Victoria. It just sits on the top of the water and gets blown over the lake daily. It is a huge problem for much of the sea animals and fisherman. Tom told us many stories of how fishing used to be and how it is now. The industry is almost coming to a standstill and apparently being a fisherman is not such a hard or skillful job on Lake Victoria so most of them don't really know how to do anything else and have never been to school. They need to learn how to farm but it is much harder than fishing. Anyway, the hyacinth is not only a problem for the fisherman but really cut our boat ride short as we couldn't get to a lot of the destinations. After seeing many disappointed fisherman and nude Africans washing on the shore, we stopped in a village to do a "community walk" back to where our taxi was going to pick us up. Tom told us tons of stuff about the history of the village and the plants and animals around. It was a good tour and I was glad to be safe on land.

The Masai market was next and I was pretty much in heaven. Tons of little shops selling artwork, pottery, jewelry, paintings, scarfs, bags and many more things, all for a very low price, especially after bartering. The people do hassle you very much when we walk by their shops. They all tell us looking is free and that they will give it to us for a very good price. I told all the shop owners that I was going to look at everything and then come back which sometimes got me into trouble because they would see me and say that I promised I would come back. We spend a long time there and I think the girls and I could have spent a much longer time, there is so much to see, but the boys were getting restless and hungry so we made our last purchases and left. Later on, Maurice was looking at all the souvenirs and Christmas presents we'd bought, he was surprised and said we had purchased more than any of the other volunteers and that we had probably made their day at the market.

The Beach House on Lake Victoria was where we went for lunch. We got to pick out the fish we wanted and we got 3 big ones for the 7 of us. One was fried and other 2 were covered with a green vegetable and some tomatoes with ugali on the side. It was so delicious, and so messy. You eat with your hands so you just pick apart this huge fish, skin and bones and all and just go for it. We were so hungry and probably looked like a bunch of scavengers digging into this fish. Maurice taught us that the head and the insides of the head are the best part, the eye and all. This restaurant was mostly outdoors so it is kind of like what you'd expect in Mexico, people trying to sell you things while eating. But these things are kind of weird... Strainers, interesting art sculptures, sunglasses, huge posters with soap opera stars and Jesus on them, Jesus pamphlets and more.

Kakumega was our next stop so we took a very packed matatu with all of our purchases and backpacks on our lap and drove about an hour or so. From Kakamega town we had to take a taxi to the place we were staying in Kakamega forest. All 7 of us packed into a fairly large, but certainly not large enough, car and started the trek. It started raining and the roads were getting very bumpy. I was sitting in the back of the car, the trunk kind of, so I couldn't see anything. I later found out that the rest who could see were nervous that we were lost or that we wouldn't make it there. Colin said it looked straight out of a horror movie, lost in the forest. But we made it to the "bandas" that we were staying in. We cooked our own dinner which was a failure and we mostly left it for the cats to eat, played some games, and then slept in our huts.

430 am wake up call for our 5 o'clock sunrise walk through the forest. We were not warned that this would be such a strenuous and long walk up a large hill, but it turned out that way. I hardly looked back the whole time as I was concentrating on getting up the hill, but when I finally got to the top it was amazing. I don't think I mentioned what Kakamega is yet...it is the only remaining rain forest left in Kenya and it was beautiful to see for the first time from the highest point during the sunrise. The foggy mist was in between all the trees and you would hardly know you were so high up since the tree tops just look like bushes below you. It was well worth the early morning work out.

Next, the group wanted to check out a bat cave with a sign that said enter at your own risk. This probably wouldn't have been my first choice as I don't even go into the bat house at the zoos but when in Rome I guess. I put my hood up and zipped my coat and went in. Our guide, David, showed us all the places where the bats hide and then of course we woke them up and they started flying around, one flew right into my face, and that's when I'd had enough. I didn't want to walk out of the cave on my own so I used Danny as a shield in front of me and we made it out safely. I don't know if the bats or the hippos were scarier ;)

We headed back for breakfast and then took another hour or so walk through the forest. We saw tons of monkeys, cool historical trees, a lot of fun edible and medicinal plants, some very pesty safari ants, and lots more.

We needed to take a taxi back to Kakamega town so Patricia called the same taxi that took us there to come pick us up since we knew he had enough room for us all. After waiting about an hour, he showed up in a very different car. It was a small car that could barely fit 5 people and he brought his 4 year old child along. Patricia did some yelling in Swahili (she is a very loud and outspoken Kenyan, clearly from the city) and told us he still wanted the same price. We all argued and agreed it was ridiculous since we would really have to pack in for a long, bumpy and unsafe ride back. We also had paid him extra the night before since he had done a nice job through the rain and dark. He really wouldn't bring the price down, probably because he knew we had no other way. Even though we were only arguing about a dollar, it all adds up when we have to pay for many taxis over the weekend. He finally brought it down and we took a very long, smashed, and uncomfortable ride back into town.

We were all very tired and a little grumpy from our long weekend and the last thing we wanted to do was take a 2 hour, crowded matatu ride back to Kabula, but it was our only choice. Being back at our home never felt so good! The girls and I got into comfy clothes right away and are now sitting in the living room complaining about our aches and pains from our hikes, hard beds, and smashed car rides. Tough life :) pictures soon.

Hakuna Matata

Habari? That is a usual greeting which means, how are you? Mzuri is the response which means fine. You can also say Mzuri sana which means very fine. If you ask someone how they are in English they will always say they are fine. When we walk along the streets the kids will see us and start yelling "how are you how are you!!!" With some of the kids, it is easy to tell that they don't understand what they are saying because they will say "how are you I'm fine thank you" all at once or a combination of that. Asante is thank you and Asante sana is thank you very much.

School has been about the same since I last wrote. It is interesting, exciting, and frustrating all at once. Sometimes lunch runs late and so the kids don't get back into their classrooms until 230 when they get out at 3. The level 2 and 3 teachers will decide to combine classes, I'm not really sure why... It seems like more of a hassle to carry chairs outside and into the other classroom and then to have 60 plus kids packed inside one hot room where nobody is paying attention... It just doesn't make much sense to me. That is until I realized that they just have one of the students read off words around the room while the others repeat and the teachers are socializing or sleeping. At this point it is out of my hands because I am not going to try and control 65 toddlers who don't understand the language I speak.

Mama Betty gave us all a speech when the UI students got here about how Epico is basically our school. The US student teachers built it, basically run it year round, and supply all of the materials. She said the teachers there are just people they employ but that it is our school and we are to do what we think is best. So, if we feel something is going wrong, we are to let Betty know and she will try to take care of it. I'm struggling with this as there are 3 weeks left in their school year and I feel like rattling off a list of things that I disagree with in their school to Betty isn't really going to solve anything. Clearly, this is a less developed society including the education system and things will come with time. Additionally, if I go in saying all of the things I know better and the things I think are right versus what they do, I would come off pompous and I feel uncomfortable with that. I've discussed with a few of the other teachers and we've come to somewhat of an agreement that we should suggest things to the teachers, let them know there are other options besides what they are doing and let them choose for themselves. However, I feel that some of the reality is just that it is indeed the last 3 weeks of how hook, examinations are done, graduation is planned, and everyone is just ready for break. I'm starting to come to the realization that the things I experience and do in the school while it is in session is more for my learning experience and knowledge to bring back to the states to be able to have a different perspective. Providing a little bit of input, allowing the students to interact with a person of a different culture, providing materials, and eventually fixing up the classrooms a bit is what I am able to give to them. I look forward to tutoring remedial students once school is out and visiting the orphanage.

Being a teacher of a classroom with preschoolers means I have a lot of breaks since the children do as well, and it is actually a break since these children are used to being unsupervised and on their own. So I go into the library where there are usually a group of teachers who are also on break. The older grades work a bit differently where the students stay in their classrooms and the teachers move around to teach 1 or 2 subjects. The UI girls who are working in these rooms have found that this makes for a lot of wasted time as "African time" means teachers can show up whenever they please, or not at all. Anyway, we've had many discussions with the teachers in the library about our differences in culture. We've discussed things such as marriage, polygamy, domestic violence and wife battering, same sex marriage, adoption, divorce, and simple things like holidays and the tooth fairy. The teachers have never acted rude or seemed to have a closed mind. They just listen and realize we live in different worlds. While we were discussing Halloween, Ariel showed them a picture of her dog dressed in a pirate costume. As you can imagine, they burst out in laughter. Not only is the concept of pets funny to them, but dressing a pet in a costume was just too much. I had quite the discussion with my preschool teachers about the immunizations and medications I needed to get to come to Africa. They were confused and seemed a bit offended by this conversation. But, I've always been honest with the people here and if they ask me questions I answer them truthfully. I don't feel Iike anyone would gain or learn anything if I bent the truth a bit to protect their feelings. I just tried explaining that there are different diseases in African that we aren't used to.

Becca and I went into town on Friday afternoon because she had to go mail a few things at the post office so I thought I'd check for grandma and grandpa's package. It was the first time I had independently gone to and back from town on my own so it was exciting. We got a matatu from Kabula to Bungoma. The matatus seat about 10 to 12 people comfortably and safely but they do not leave unless there are at least 15 or more people on it. This means they put a wooden board in between the aisle for people to sit, many sit on each others laps, the passengers are squeezed very tightly, and it is like a mini van where the doors slide back so the matatu crew (people who try to get people to come on the bus and who collect money) will stand on the edge and have their heads and bodies out the door. It is about 50 KSh one way which is less than a dollar. So we got off and had to walk a good distance to the post office. It started raining and we were racing the clock because it was supposed to close at 4. I knew there were 2 options regarding the closing time of the post office since I highly doubted they would close at 4 on the dot: since it was Friday they would have closed hours early, or they don't worry about the time at all and close when people leave or when they feel like it. Thankfully it was the second option. We got there around 355 and didn't end up leaving until about 445 with the relaxed pace of the workers. I think there were only 1 or 2 other customers besides us. Becca mailed a big packet of letters which she had to put literally 30 or more stamps on. It was pretty funny, her and I sitting there, licking stamp after stamp to put on this envelope. My package had not arrived but Reuben advised me to leave them my name, po box number, and phone number so that they could call me when it arrived. Becca and I walked back to where the matatus park in the rain and after being fought over by the many drivers who wanted us in their van, we got in one, waited for it to fill up, and got back to town.

Saturday, we all planned to go back to Sangalo rock. Reuben told us that most of the cars were broken and he wasn't sure if we would be able to get a ride. We decided to just walk there. We would take a matatu about halfway to Bungoma and then get off at the street we needed to turn on to walk toward the big rocks. Reuben said it was too far and Maurice said we would die before we got there, laughing at us, but Colin was confident it wasn't too far and we all decided a walk would be the best way to get there anyway. We had nothing else to do with our Saturday. So we took off with backpacks of water, Maurice yelling to us that he knows we will call for help before we get there. It was a nice walk and we estimated that it only took us a little over an hour and a half. As we expected, the local kids followed us to the rock and led us up. This time, the kids were a bit older, I think they said they were in class 7. Last time, the kids were much younger. I remember Svetlana said she would never forget my face when I first saw a small boy make a jump from one big rock to another that I thought was a little too risky. He was about Drew's age and I just freaked out about it. The kids this time led us up a way that was a bit more strenuous, or maybe it was the long, hot walk before that which made it seem that way. We found the church again but this time we were a bit earlier so they were all still singing and praying and very into what they were doing that they hardly seemed to notice us. I climbed up a medium sized rock with some of the locals, Ariel, and Dan while Colin and Becca climbed up the large rock next to us. While we were sitting looking at the scenery, I got a call on my cell phone from Maurice wondering where we were. He was surprised to hear that I was sitting on the top of a rock. However, he kindly offered to pick us up when we were done which we gladly accepted. It was a great trip.

I've been very restless lately as there is not much to do. I've now read 4 books in these 2 weeks. I'm thankful for the school library and that they let me borrow books. So I've been trying to keep myself busy. I cleaned the hut again today and also cleaned my finger nails and toe nails, yuck. I watched Christine, one of the daughters, cook Ugali the other night. It is literally just ground up maize with water. Tonight, we all helped make chapati, just flour tortillas, and then Becca, Ariel, and I bought ingredients to make guacamole which we ate with the chapati and it was really good! Everyone enjoyed it. Becca brought Nutella with her which Maurice loves. He couldn't believe that I didn't usually buy Nutella and eat it everyday. They had dessert chapatis tonight with Nutella but I could not participate because I was too full!

We've been talking about future weekend trips and I think we will travel to Kakamega this upcoming weekend. A British couple came on Friday to stay here for a few days. They are the parents of a girl who taught here years earlier. They also traveled here in 2010 and have come back to help a few villages around here through their church. Anyway, they are in Kakamega now and will be back tomorrow so we will ask them about what to do. I've also done a bit of research since I've been appointed travel planner by the group, which I'm OK with.

Hope all is well at home! Have a fun Halloween :)

Maisha Ni Nzuri!

Hello all! And hello to the students at Whittier Elementary as well :)

As I'm sure most of you have expected, I am getting used to the school and feeling a lot more comfortable. I am going to stay in level 2. We actually only have 3 weeks left after this week teaching in the classes. These schools go year round so they begin a new grade in January, go to school for 3 months and take a 1 month break then repeat until they end their grade in mid November. Once we are done teaching we will still have plenty of things to do that count toward our teaching hours such as visiting the orphanage, helping with the chicken coop, tutoring children and who knows what else. So, it would be silly to join a new classroom now and I am really starting to love my level 2 children.

To make this all easier for me, I've asked for lessons ahead of time. Then, I jot down a few Swahili words that I feel will be helpful for teaching. I also take notes during the day in class for words to look up later that might be helpful (sit down, listen, please stop, no pushing). I have also drawn myself a seating chart to be able to learn their names. I know just about all of them now.

Madam Carol and I have recently figured out that our students do not know colors. So, yesterday afternoon I went into town to get a poster and some markers. I made a rainbow with things that belong under each color (red apple, yellow sun, blue sky, etc). I also looked up a song to teach them about colors. Today we spent the whole morning reviewing colors and then they did an assignment. Most of them improved! I'm happy to be feeling like I am a helpful body in the classroom.

The routine at school is as follows:
Monday, Wednesday, and Friday around 8 the students all gather in the school yard to sing songs, sometimes get a bible verse read to them, hear announcements from the head teachers, and raise the flag.
Level 2 will come into class around 830 to get started, usually with language arts. There is a time table but it is followed very loosely. A bell is rang when subjects are supposed to change. The mornings also usually include math. Physical activity starts at 950... Sometimes the teachers go out and lead them in activities, other times the kids just run out and play on their own. I have played various games with them. I'm interested to try and play soccer with them but I think I would just be embarrassed.
The level 2 students have this break until 11 so I usually go into level 3 classroom with some of the other teacher and have chai and a pastry type food.
From 11 to 12 the subjects vary from science, life skills, social/environment, music, and creative arts. Like I said, it is very flexible.
Lunch is from 12 until 2 so I always have a lot of time to either play with the kids, go back to my hut and take a nap, eat lunch, read, write, etc. It has been nice to have company during this time now that the UI girls are here.
Lunch usually doesn't get cleaned up until 2:15 which leaves only about an hour until school is out for level 2. At this time the class finishes up odds and ends types of things or practices their sons (which I believe they will sing for their parents at the level 3 graduation ceremony). The students play outside and either wait for their older siblings to get out of class at 430, walk home, get picked up by their parents, or take the one ICODEI van that drives up to 45 minutes away to take some of the kiddos home.

Tea time is always interesting. Many teachers come in to chat and ask me questions about the US. One teacher was inquiring about the weather. He was very worried about the winter cold and wondered if he would be able to survive and adapt if he came there. I told him he would be just fine as long as he had some warm clothes. He also said, "so mothers don't have babies in the winter?" I wasn't sure why he might think this but he said he thought he babies would die because they would not be able to adapt to the cold weather. He was funny. Other teachers have been surprised about the way marriage works, divorce,and religion in schools. They also think that all couples have one boy and one girl only and that there is something special we do in order to ensure that.

While I was in class one day a small boy who is just one of the teachers children came into my class to find me and handed me a white doll. He apparently thought that doll belonged to me. The kids thought it was very funny.

This weekend we plan to stick around here since it is the UI students first weekend and they would like to go to church. In the weekends to come we've discussed going to Kisumu to shop and take a boat on Lake Victoria, Kakumega where there is a forest with many animals, Mount Elgon to climb and see more animals... I think we can get a tour guide there, safari at Masi Mara, and possibly do a bike ride through Hell's Gate National Park. Since we will be around this weekend we will probably go to Sangalo Rock again, this time I will bring my camera!

Hope all is well at home. Congrats to mom on the football pool. Comment on my blog or send me an email if you'd like to know anything else! Liz-furmanski@uiowa.edu

Wanafunzi Wangu!

A few snapshots of my students!

Kids asking me to take pictures of them.

Some level 1 kids. The boy in the middle is named Evra and he is very cute. I always find him looking at me from outside the classroom, we are friends now!

Some of my level 2 kiddos! Clarence is the one on the bottom with the big smile, he is a goofball. Derrick is top right and he is very smart. To the left of him is Dickson who is also very smart and fun.

A little bit of the sun set from last nights drive back to the village from town.

Matatizo Katika Shule Lakini Mwishoni Mwa Wiki Mzuri

School has remained a bit frustrating. The level 2 teacher was absent on Friday and the level 3 teacher was supposed to combine classes but instead asked me to take over the level 2 class after lunch. I thought it wouldn't be a problem since it would only be for an hour or so but I was very wrong. The students couldn't (or chose not to) understand me and were acting crazy. They were beating each other up, crawling under tables and running around the classroom. One of the students asked me if they could leave the room which I assumed to mean use the toilet, but once I said yes, the whole classroom ran out the door. I had to call them all back in and try to get them to sit down for instruction. I eventually went out to get another teacher to come in since I could not control the class and he just told me to let the students leave. The school does not have very effective discipline since hitting children in school was only outlawed 4 years ago... So they have not come up with anything else so far. After I talked to Mama Betty about my day, she thought it was pretty funny, which I guess it was, but said that they were not supposed to leave me alone and I should let the head teacher know if I have immediate concerns during the day. The same teacher was late this morning and they asked me to watch over the class until she got there, I said noooo, thank you!

Besides the discipline, there are a few other things that I disagree with in the classroom. The level 2 teacher has the tables grouped with more advanced students together and less advanced students together. She expressed to me that she could not understand why the less advanced table was so much slower than the rest of the class. A few of those students have even been held back and are still behind. I asked if they had studied learning disabilities and she said they had and that there were a few teachers at the school who were specialized in these areas (I have never seen these teachers). I don't think they do anything for students whom they suspect have a learning disability besides hold them back. I'm not sure this teacher really understood what I was talking about or has a grasp of the concept of a disability. When we were doing math races in the board, the student who gets the problem wrong or does it slower than the other gets "wake up, (their name)!!" Chanted at them... Which is started by the teacher. Some get very upset and the teacher tells the students to say it again. This instance and a few others are particularly frustrating because it is not my place to tell the teacher what to do.

I have asked for the lesson plans a day ahead of time so that I can prepare and possibly teach myself a bit of Swahili about the lesson. I will try this for a few days and then I will need to decide and discuss with Betty if my presence in the level 2 classroom is more of a distraction than helpful. I have been approached by the older grade teachers who request that I come into their classroom so maybe that would be a better option, but I don't want to give up right away.

Saturday, I jumped in for a ride to a nearby town, Sangalo. There are very large, mountainous rocks here that weeks before, Svetlana and Rob had went to climb. They ended up wandering off on their own and losing each other. This place has no trails and can be a bit dangerous so it wasn't the best thing that they lost each other. A local small boy who was playing around on the rocks helped them find each other (I doubt there were very many other Mzungus on the mountain). I was also about to rain so this boy, without saying a word, led them the fastest and safest way down. Svetlana and Rob took pictures this day and decided as a thank you to bring some prints to the boy. So, that is why I was going along for the ride, Svetlana needed to go take the pictures to this boy's house. This was also an opportunity for Colin and I to see where this place was so that we could go another weekend. Svetlana, Colin, Maurice and I drove the car there and found the boys house. I thought we were going to leave right away but Maurice had some pictures to deliver as well and showed them to the boy to find out where to bring them. It turns out that we needed to climb over the mountain to get to this girls house. I was so glad this was the case because it was absolutely amazing. About 10 or so local kids led us over the rocks. I held my breath almost the whole time watching this kids make life endangering jumps from rock to rock. The thing is that these rocks are basically their backyard playground and it seems they know what they are doing. We came across a church in one of the caves where people were worshiping and fasting. A man preached to us for quite some time but I didn't mind because we were sitting on a rock overlooking the whole town and it was beautiful. The kids led us back down and it was a great trip...even if there was a stick stuck in the car key hole from someone trying to break in.

We went to church on Sunday which was nice..and long. But they welcomed us very openly and are thankful for everything we do.

The U Indiana students got here tonight so now I have two roommates! I'll write again soon.