Tomorrow I will leave to Livingstone, Zambia to see Victoria Falls along with Jayne and Marinda. It had been awhile since I have blogged and acutally wrote something so I thought I should update because I know I will have tons to talk about when I return from the Falls.
The past week has been good, it has flown by. We spent our time at Tlamelo and in the classroom. I am loving working in Standard 5. I know that I say it all the time, but the kids really are so amazing. Getting up in the very very cold early morning is difficult but by the time I am in in the classroom with the kids I am loving it! Today was another great day in the classroom. Which was nice becuase I won't be back there for a week.
It was a great day, but my my greatest fear in the classroom happend as well: the teacher left and put me in charge to teach for the rest of the day. I am okay with helping teach and teaching math - a subject I get - but I don't know the lesson plans (if there are any) what to teach next, what the kids have already learned or anything. My role is sort of to give indivudial help and attention to the students, possilby teach math, and then to mark (grade) their work. However, today I taught it all. I showed up to the classroom and the teacher told me that she had to go home to get something and then go to the bank. She told me to teach them the next topic in their Religion, mark their math, and then do their English assignment with them! So today I wrote notes about Buddhism and how is started, graded math homework, and helped all the students read in partners and answer questions. It was quite the challenge to teach them about Buddhism. Since the school can only afford limited books, I write directly from the book onto the chalk board - it takes awhile. Then I taught them about the notes - in this case Buddhism. It makes it difficult, becuase I don't know that much about Buddhism, but on top of that the notes are all in English and the students are still practicing to read and comprehend in English. I spent a lot of the lesson just explaining what certian words meant - like palace, corpse, meditate, nirvana.... yes all those words where in the lesson. None of them knew what a palace was - when I told them that it was a very very big house, like a castle or a mansion, one boy, Jecks, asked me if it was as big as the classroom. It really shows where these kids come from; the classroom to them would be a very very big house - a palace.
A couple of the boys - Thapelo and Jecks especially - have both told me that they really want to learn how to read and speak English correctly. They have asked me to sit down and help them. I tell them that the best way to learn is to practice - keep reading. So today I had Jecks sit with me and read me the notes that he took. I could see how learning could be very difficult for many of these kids. They are having difficulties with reading the notes... comprehsion and understanding are not top priority with them - reading it is. I hope to sit with them more often and give them personall attention to help them read. They really want to learn - it will probably take some time outside of class for them, but I know they are craving indivudal attention. For the English assignment I had Jack come in and help me. It was a partner assignment and one kids, Tebogo, didn't have a partner. It was really nice to have him help. Since my class is mostly boys they all really like Jack - they talk football together. The students did partner reading and I tried to partner students that could help eachother read. Some of the kids are amazing, like MooSix, he is an amazing reader and could really help the students as well.
As you can tell I really like the classroom - and my students. They make me smile and laugh so often. I want to bring in my camera to get more pictures of them, but it is such a distraction in class. Ocasionaly I see some of my students out around in Gaborone, like at the combi station and they always come up to me to say Hi. It is a great feeling - today we ran into MooSix before school at the station.
The past week has been filled with great times as well. Since we arrrived back at UB from Maun on Monday we didn't go to Old Naledi until Tuesday. Which was acutally a holiday here, Sir Seretse Khama (their first president)Day, so Tlamelo and the Old Naledi Education Centre was closed. So we gave away our lunches to the kids we did see, since they were not going to eat that day, and came back to UB. Wednesday and Thursday I taught in the classroom and then Friday we all worked at Tlamelo. I know we still have a few weeks with the kids, but I can already tell how much I am going to miss them. Heck, I miss them on the weekends! And we even see most of them at church!
Friday we were all pretty down, missing the 4th back home. I know that Jack and I had a hard time with it. Since it is such a huge celebration at the lake and we had never missed it, it was weird being away. I think this was a day that we were all a little home sick - I was. My mom took some great pictures of the lake festivities and of all our freinds - so at least we were there in spirit! To celebrate here me and some of the others went out to eat at the Riverwalk Mall. We at at Spurs (?) and I had a ground beef burger vs. minced beef, which is what they have everywhere here, so it was quite the celebration!
On Saturday we did end up going to a little $th of july celebration put on by the U.S. Emabssy. It was at a primary school near by and it was really nice. It was just like a cookout with hotdogs and hamburgers. They had red, which and blue everywhere and fun stuff for kids to do. It felt like we were back home - somewhat. It was really nice to see all the other people living here from the U.S. and amazing to see how many kids were there. Makes me wonder how long people have been here, and what they are doing. We were late there so we didn't have much time besides for eating. We also went out to Oodi Weavers in Oodi Saterday morning. We picked up out tapistries and they are amazing. Mine is a lanscape with the sun and elephants. It will be a great way to always look back on my summer in Bots.
Three of us went to the open baptist church in Old Naledi on Sunday. In the past we have all gone and picked up little kids in the village to go to church with us, but today we were running late. Church was nice, even though it is just outside on the ground with plastic chairs and between to trailors it is wonderful to be outside with the big African Sun and hearing all the wonderful harmonizing songs. The sermon was actually given my a man from the U.S. He was there visiting and they let him be the guest pastor. After church we went to Riverwalk for lunch and some shopping... nothing too exciting, but it was a nice relaxing day.
Tomorrow I leave to Zambia on the overnight bus. We have to wake up real early tomorrow to go and buy our tickets. It should be an amazing experince - I can't wait!!! Our trip is acually being extended one day because our bus couldn't leave when we wanted it to so we have to look for accomidation for one extra night. We have planned a day trip into Chobe Game Reserve. It is known for its elephants - the Chobe elephants - so we should see some good game. We will have a drive safai in the morning and then a afternoon cruise with dinner. We will also have at least two days to explore Victoria Falls and Livingstone and then one of the days I will be bungi jumping! I will try and upload some video. We are staying at Jolly Boys in Zambia.
Look forward to hearing all about Victoria Falls... I know I will have a ton to write about and too many pictures!
The past week has been good, it has flown by. We spent our time at Tlamelo and in the classroom. I am loving working in Standard 5. I know that I say it all the time, but the kids really are so amazing. Getting up in the very very cold early morning is difficult but by the time I am in in the classroom with the kids I am loving it! Today was another great day in the classroom. Which was nice becuase I won't be back there for a week.
It was a great day, but my my greatest fear in the classroom happend as well: the teacher left and put me in charge to teach for the rest of the day. I am okay with helping teach and teaching math - a subject I get - but I don't know the lesson plans (if there are any) what to teach next, what the kids have already learned or anything. My role is sort of to give indivudial help and attention to the students, possilby teach math, and then to mark (grade) their work. However, today I taught it all. I showed up to the classroom and the teacher told me that she had to go home to get something and then go to the bank. She told me to teach them the next topic in their Religion, mark their math, and then do their English assignment with them! So today I wrote notes about Buddhism and how is started, graded math homework, and helped all the students read in partners and answer questions. It was quite the challenge to teach them about Buddhism. Since the school can only afford limited books, I write directly from the book onto the chalk board - it takes awhile. Then I taught them about the notes - in this case Buddhism. It makes it difficult, becuase I don't know that much about Buddhism, but on top of that the notes are all in English and the students are still practicing to read and comprehend in English. I spent a lot of the lesson just explaining what certian words meant - like palace, corpse, meditate, nirvana.... yes all those words where in the lesson. None of them knew what a palace was - when I told them that it was a very very big house, like a castle or a mansion, one boy, Jecks, asked me if it was as big as the classroom. It really shows where these kids come from; the classroom to them would be a very very big house - a palace.
A couple of the boys - Thapelo and Jecks especially - have both told me that they really want to learn how to read and speak English correctly. They have asked me to sit down and help them. I tell them that the best way to learn is to practice - keep reading. So today I had Jecks sit with me and read me the notes that he took. I could see how learning could be very difficult for many of these kids. They are having difficulties with reading the notes... comprehsion and understanding are not top priority with them - reading it is. I hope to sit with them more often and give them personall attention to help them read. They really want to learn - it will probably take some time outside of class for them, but I know they are craving indivudal attention. For the English assignment I had Jack come in and help me. It was a partner assignment and one kids, Tebogo, didn't have a partner. It was really nice to have him help. Since my class is mostly boys they all really like Jack - they talk football together. The students did partner reading and I tried to partner students that could help eachother read. Some of the kids are amazing, like MooSix, he is an amazing reader and could really help the students as well.
As you can tell I really like the classroom - and my students. They make me smile and laugh so often. I want to bring in my camera to get more pictures of them, but it is such a distraction in class. Ocasionaly I see some of my students out around in Gaborone, like at the combi station and they always come up to me to say Hi. It is a great feeling - today we ran into MooSix before school at the station.
The past week has been filled with great times as well. Since we arrrived back at UB from Maun on Monday we didn't go to Old Naledi until Tuesday. Which was acutally a holiday here, Sir Seretse Khama (their first president)Day, so Tlamelo and the Old Naledi Education Centre was closed. So we gave away our lunches to the kids we did see, since they were not going to eat that day, and came back to UB. Wednesday and Thursday I taught in the classroom and then Friday we all worked at Tlamelo. I know we still have a few weeks with the kids, but I can already tell how much I am going to miss them. Heck, I miss them on the weekends! And we even see most of them at church!
Friday we were all pretty down, missing the 4th back home. I know that Jack and I had a hard time with it. Since it is such a huge celebration at the lake and we had never missed it, it was weird being away. I think this was a day that we were all a little home sick - I was. My mom took some great pictures of the lake festivities and of all our freinds - so at least we were there in spirit! To celebrate here me and some of the others went out to eat at the Riverwalk Mall. We at at Spurs (?) and I had a ground beef burger vs. minced beef, which is what they have everywhere here, so it was quite the celebration!
On Saturday we did end up going to a little $th of july celebration put on by the U.S. Emabssy. It was at a primary school near by and it was really nice. It was just like a cookout with hotdogs and hamburgers. They had red, which and blue everywhere and fun stuff for kids to do. It felt like we were back home - somewhat. It was really nice to see all the other people living here from the U.S. and amazing to see how many kids were there. Makes me wonder how long people have been here, and what they are doing. We were late there so we didn't have much time besides for eating. We also went out to Oodi Weavers in Oodi Saterday morning. We picked up out tapistries and they are amazing. Mine is a lanscape with the sun and elephants. It will be a great way to always look back on my summer in Bots.
Three of us went to the open baptist church in Old Naledi on Sunday. In the past we have all gone and picked up little kids in the village to go to church with us, but today we were running late. Church was nice, even though it is just outside on the ground with plastic chairs and between to trailors it is wonderful to be outside with the big African Sun and hearing all the wonderful harmonizing songs. The sermon was actually given my a man from the U.S. He was there visiting and they let him be the guest pastor. After church we went to Riverwalk for lunch and some shopping... nothing too exciting, but it was a nice relaxing day.
Tomorrow I leave to Zambia on the overnight bus. We have to wake up real early tomorrow to go and buy our tickets. It should be an amazing experince - I can't wait!!! Our trip is acually being extended one day because our bus couldn't leave when we wanted it to so we have to look for accomidation for one extra night. We have planned a day trip into Chobe Game Reserve. It is known for its elephants - the Chobe elephants - so we should see some good game. We will have a drive safai in the morning and then a afternoon cruise with dinner. We will also have at least two days to explore Victoria Falls and Livingstone and then one of the days I will be bungi jumping! I will try and upload some video. We are staying at Jolly Boys in Zambia.
Look forward to hearing all about Victoria Falls... I know I will have a ton to write about and too many pictures!
2 comments:
It sounds like you are really loving being with and teaching the kids in the classroom. I bet they really like you of course who wouldn't you are wonderful. Have fun and be safe on your trip.
Great to hear of the work you are doing. Keep up the great work. Have a safe trip to Victoria Falls.
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