More About My Kids

The kids here love to play with our hair. I heard it a lot from the other girls who volunteer at preschools w/ young kids. They literally hang off them & are constantly in their hair. My guys are older & kind of know better but they're still curious! I've had some kids sneak up behind me for a quick "feel". It's so funny. I don't say anything. I remember when I was in kindergarten, there was a black girl in my class & I felt her head too. Ü



Here's a quick intro about my kids:

the girls:

Neema (a smart older girl)

Edina (was so happy when I remembered her name on the 2nd day)

Angel

Ashura (cute muslim girl)

Mwajuma

Saada (twin)

Saida (twin)

Theresia (sweet smile)

Marieth (pretty girl)

Neema Titus (older, smart girl)

Sarafina (smart)

Rosemary (fabulous singer)

& the boys:

Prosper (a wise guy but smart)

Jovina (doesn't know much English)

Tumaniely (smart boy who tries hard)

Samuel

Frances (so sweet, nice smile, quiet)

Gift (I could NOT understand his name on my 1st day! He kept saying "Jeeft" so I asked him to spell it. OH-GIFT!!)



Names here are cute- often times the parents will name their kid after an event or something that has to do with their birth. For instance, one of our managers here is Moses Polepole (pole-ay pole-ay), which means slowly. His mom said it took forever for him to come out. HAHA! We have a few local volunteers here helping too, which is cool. There're about 4-5 young men from Moshi who are going to college that help out at the placements. One's name is Living. We all think it's pretty cool.



I took pics of my kids already & will take more this week before I leave. They really like to ham it up for the camera!



In class, I've also shown pics of home & Alaska which they loved. One girl looked at a picture of Eshe in my living room, pointed to the area around her & said quizzically, "carpet?"- yes, that's carpet. Ü Some simple things they aren't aware of-it's interesting.

Neema said, "One day I come visit you in America". I could cry. I really hope she does one day. These kids are so awesome. I'm sure I don't realize yet what kind of impact they have & will have on me as I go on with my days. It's so special. I really hope to help the school in some way after I go home. I'd love to get them some African English texts. That's interesting too- they would not benefit as much w/ an American English text. Lokoing at the ones they have here, they have relevant stories & names, such as "Juma is getting tested for HIV today".... which is normal in their culture. Makes sense, right?



So, for the rest of my short time with the kids, I plan on going over a, an & the, adjectives & identifying parts of a sentence.



Sam gave me a wonderful idea. I had told him I wanted to have the kids write me a paragraph telling what they've learned so I can keep it. He suggested I address envelopes & stamp them so that they can write me & MAIL it to me! Then I'd gradually get mail from them next month. How cool is that?? 6 girls want to write me so far. I'm so excited.



Another thing I wanted to mention is that the school in general is SO disorganized. The days are never the same. Sam & I never know what to expect when we get there. Lately, we've been getting dropped off at 7:45am. They start at 8am w/ prayers. Stanley leads them in prayers & song. Sam & I are in another room so we can't see them but I love listening to them. They're SO enthusiastic! Sound great too. That lasts til about 8:30am. So we usually teach 8:30-9:30ish, take a long break, then teach 10am-11:30am & the van picks us up. Some days we're starting at 8:15 & picked up at 12pm, Monday they actually taught til 9:40am so we sat all that time! It's so weird. Today, they didn't teach & Sam & I began at 8:30am after prayers.



The head master, Andrew, is almost never there. That's just as well cuz he's the one who gives the stick beatings. We learned that on the 3rd day. As we began, some kids were trickling in the room w/ long faces. One girl had tears in her eyes & kept rubbing her hands. It was so sad. But that's the way things are done here. Sam heard someone say something about cursing, so they're not hit for no reason. Still, it was hard to see the girl so upset.

So that's a little bit of what it's like at school. I've gotten into a comfortable position there & love them already. It'll be bittersweet on Friday. :(
Jes