1st Day at St. Andrew's!!

Holy moley, was I nervous this morning! Got up at 6:30am to shower & eat. We all piled in the vans to be dropped off at our placements. What a ride! You could have lost a filling on these roads in the village!haha We stopped at several places & volunteers got off-mostly nursery schools & elementary schools. The kids are SO cute!! One gal, Ann-Michelle was completely ravaged by the kids when she got out. They were clinging to her arms & hanging off her. It was so funny! She was exhausted at the end!
Sam & I were last to be dropped off at St. Andrew's. It's no ordinary school, that's for sure. It's just 2 rooms upstairs in some old building-no sign at all. It was such a wake up call! We really had NO idea of what to expect.
There are 2 rooms- one for Form 1 which is 1st year students & another room for Form 3. There's Andrew's office & a smaller room used for study.

Our staff member, Sara, came in & introduced us & said stuff in Swahili & left. ANdrew took us in his office to show us books that they were "supposed" to be learning from. NOT! None of the kids have books at all. Sam & I observed for the day, going back & forth between the rooms & talking a little bit to the kids. Some were timid & apprehensive about us, others you could see the joy & excitement in their face. They were excited to meet us. I looked at some of their notebooks-their handwriting is very nice!

Sam & I compared notes & tried coming up w/ ideas of what to start with tomorrow. It really was amazing. We only saw 1 teacher named Stanley who really didn't "teach" at all. Their method is to write on the blackboard the lesson or test, then have the kids COPY it in their notebooks. They are not asked questions or called upon to do anything verbally. If you asked them what they just wrote, our guess is that they would not know AT ALL. They are simply copying & NOT comprehending anything. Very enlightening for us!!

Towards the end of our time, I went to the Form 1 class to say hello & talk more. I said,"Hello! How are you?" They all replied "Hello! Good!" Maybe something else was exchanged & I clapped & said "very good!" & they all started clapping! So I clapped along in rhythm & started "dancing"-oh my word did they get a kick out of that! It was so funny. So they started to loosen up. Then came the flurry of questions- How old are you? Where are you from? Are you married? What will you teach us?,etc,etc! They were very engaging! They told me to get Sam & I said they should make him dance too. LAUGH! So I said goodbye & they all blew kisses-so sweet! I said bye to the Form 3 class & they too got excited & blew kisses.

Tomorrow ought to be interesting! Sam & I are just going to start w/ the alphabet sounds & vowels cuz we assume they don't know much since they only copy.Whew! So, I think they will loosen up around me & have FUN! I'm sure I will cry when I leave. Already they are special kids.

later~
Jes