So my first day, I arrived at 10 am and went to the teachers room, which is a room about the size of a dorm room for all 7 teachers. Every teacher has a desk (including me!) This is a picture of the list of teachers which was pretty exciting for me to see.
After getting situated in the teacher's room, I went down to my first class. After introducing myself, I had a COMPLETE mind blank. I literally could not think of anything to do for the next hour, despite my perfectly laid out plan in my notebook. Luckily with every class it got easier, but it was absolutely terrifying. I told the students my age and they were SHOCKED. I told them to raise their hand if they were older than me, and about 30 people total did. I did an activity with them where they are in partnerships, and one person has a piece of paper and a pencil, and closes their eyes. Then, I drew some shapes up on the board, like a big square with a circle, and a heart and a line in it, and their partner had to explain how to draw it. They were all laughing and having a good time, and they wanted to make SURE that their partners weren't cheating, so they would cover each others eyes. Here's a picture of them. One kid put a bag over his head so he couldn't see. OH, and whenever they need my attention, they say "teacha, teacha come here" (which is where the title of this post came from)
At 4 o'clock, my day was done and I came home. After dinner we watched the movie Sister Acts with Whoopi Goldburg which was hysterical.
On day 2 I got a little bit of african culture. All of my classes went well, and I did an activity that had all of the students laughing again. My goal for this week was to teach the basics of conflict resolution, while also making the students feel comfortable with me and each other. Ok so at lunch time, I had brought my own sandwich, but one of the teachers decided that I MUST try ugali. http://i-cdn.apartmenttherapy.com/uimages/kitchen/2009_02_09-Ugali.jpg. If you go to that link, you will find a picture of the one and only ugali. It's made from flour, maize and water. Quite the combination. I tried to explain to them that the reason I didn't eat much was because I wasn't used to it, but I think I offended them. Today, I was served ugali again and i've learned that not eating their food can be an insult, so i tried as hard as I could to eat as much as I could. So this was my first run in with some of african culture I'm not QUITE used to. The second dilemma came across during the tea break in the morning. Every teacher gets a cup of chai, which is actually quite good. The only problem is, if you drink it, it makes you have to pee, like any other liquid. And you'd think this wouldn't be a problem, but when you are at a school with no electricity, it certainly is. The first day I got away with only taking a couple sips, but yesterday I made the mistake of drinking my whole cup. And of course, a few hours later I had to pee so bad I couldn't hold it any longer. The bathrooms at the school are called pit latrines. They are literally a pit in the ground, with two cement blocks to put your feet on. So I walked over the the pit latrines, right past the head master who was talking to about 20 parents of the students, and they all turned and watched me walk over. There are 4 doors, each leading to a pit latrine, and the problem was none of them were labeled. I know there is a male and female bathroom for both students and teachers, but I had NO idea which one was the female teacher bathroom. The parents continued to stare at me and I contemplated which one to choose, and of course, the first one I chose was locked. So I looked like an even bigger idiot. Luckily the second one was not, so I went in, went to the bathroom, came out and walked back VERY quickly. Next week I'm going to attempt to figure out which one I am supposed to be using.
Today went very well, and I asked all of the students to ask a question about conflict resolution, and to give me feedback on how I am doing so far. The answers I got were heartwarming, touching, depressing and shocking. I will share some of their responses in my next post, but I think this one is getting a little long. I am going to leave you with a video of one of my classes singing for me. Tomorrow I will fill you in on how the walk goes, and I will give you more information on how you can donate if you would like to. I have plenty of time to collect the money, so don't worry about that. Oh and I have never been one to check for typos, so I apologize if there are any typos in this post.
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