Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Okay, I was just now sitting here, minding my own business and starting my blog, when a COCKROACH ran right across my kitchen table that I’m sitting at!!!  What a gutsy little critter!   I screamed and jumped up.  You will be quite proud of me, however.  I got about four paper towels wadded up and grabbed him and smashed him (I hope) before he could run away.  That’s HUGE for me!

All right, back to my blog…

It has rained quite hard here off and on since last Friday!  My street and the connecting street are all dirt and shredded wood chips in places.  It’s hard to dodge mud.  You should have seen my feet this morning trying to get to school!  At least today I smartened up and wore sandals with straps to help me walk through the mud and water.  As I was standing by the side of the road waiting for the school bus, a van drove by and splashed me all over with dirty water.  I was looking quite interesting by the time I made it to school.   

I'm hoping tomorrow the sun is shining.  I want to go swimming!  The only bedding I have is a sheet.  I was so cold last night that I wore my winter pajamas to bed (I brought them for Korea) and got up in the middle of the night to put socks on.  I have louvered windows, and I can't really shut them.  They are stuck.  It was cold at school today, too.  This is the first time I've felt cold since I left home.  I even discovered my sweats and little blanket I bought for the plane in my suitcase and put them on today when I got home.

On Sunday, Kenneth wasn’t able to go to church, so I didn’t have a ride again.  Samwel had hoped to go to church with me, so I called and invited him over to listen to last Saturday’s General Conference talks with me on my laptop through the internet.  We watched them for 2 ½ hours.  We both really enjoyed the words that were spoken.  At the end, he asked me if I could email him copies of a couple of the talks, which I did.  Then he asked if we could end with a hymn.  It turned out to be a very nice Sunday, in spite of not being able to go to church and pouring rain.

Tuesday, the missionaries came over to meet with Samwel and Grace.  A couple of days earlier, Samwel told me he was writing down questions he had that I felt I couldn’t answer as well for him as they could.  He knew he only had 45 mins. with them and didn’t want to waste their time.  He’s been trying really hard to prepare himself.  And, I was so proud of him the other day.  He had only had one cigarette in 16 hours and didn’t bring any with him for the whole night when he came to guard the house and me.  So he really went for more than 24 hours without a single cigarette!  For someone who is a chain smoker, that is really an accomplishment.  He’s trying so hard!  They both enjoyed the lesson and are hoping to be able to meet with the missionaries again next week.

I started teaching algebra in Class 4 with Job’s class yesterday.  That seems to be a hard concept for 4^th graders to grasp.  By the end of today, they were doing better, but they still aren’t solid.  I hope one more day will help them to be more confident in their ability to do the work. 

Yesterday, it was so dark in the room because of the rain, and the one light in the ceiling doesn’t work, so the kids couldn’t even see what I had written on the board.  I literally had to read each problem out for them to copy down!  Since I’ve been here, I’ve only seen a light on one time.  Today, in fact, while I was teaching, there was a loud crack up by the ceiling.  I found out later that there was an electrical short that had occurred.  It was pouring heavy rain, and I guess it had poured down through the thatched roof to the wires.

Last week when it was raining, the ceiling in the staff room was leaking quite a lot.  A teacher grabbed a large teacher’s compass and stuck the point into the ceiling.  He put a bucket under it, and the rain poured down into the bucket.  By the looks of the ceiling,  with its stains and holes, this isn’t the first time this has taken place.  I’ve observed that Kenyans just do whatever they have to to make something work.  Frequently, they don’t have erasers (“dusters”) for the chalkboard, so one of the kids will just use their school sweater, a piece of wadded-up paper, a piece of a sponge, or whatever they can find to erase the board.  I still don’t quite get their system on that, but the teacher rarely erases the board as he goes; some student just jumps up and starts erasing while he’s teaching.  It’s not always the same student, either – it seems it’s just whomever feels like doing it at the time.

Which reminds me… They don’t have a bell system like we do.  A student in Class 5 watches the clock (the only one I’ve seen in a classroom, in fact), and takes a hand-held school bell outside the classroom door and rings it every 35 minutes.  Usually, the teachers keep right on teaching for a little longer and then just walk out of the room.  Eventually, another teacher will come in and start teaching.  “African time” is so laid-back.  I’m still not used to that!

Today, I got to school a few minutes after class had started because the school bus that I ride was late.   The wooden door was stuck because of the rain, and it had swollen shut.  I had to knock on Peter’s door to let me in.  When I practically fell into the class, all the kids got big smiles on their faces and started clapping for me.  Every time they do that, it just melts my heart! 

The other day, Kenneth told me that Leila (his daughter in Class 6) had said the kids thought I was a really good teacher, and that they had always had a hard time with math until I came.  I don’t know how they could say that because I haven’t formally taught in Mr. Mwangi’s Class 6 yet other than to show them one or two little things maybe a little differently than he had taught them.  I usually just walk around and help them individually in his class.  Either way, it still made me feel good that they thought that about me.  It’s always nice to hear that what you are doing in teaching makes a difference for someone.

I have been teaching or helping in Standard 4 (Class 4) with Job, Standard 5 with Peter, and Standard 6 with Mwangi.  I’m most comfortable with Class 5 probably because that’s the age I was teaching when I retired.  Also, I feel more connected to Peter because he was the one teacher I was supposed to be working with.  Because of their schedule changes each day, I felt I could be of more help if I also worked with Class 4 and Class 6, as well, so I didn’t have so much time just sitting around doing nothing.  I’ve also planned on teaching P.E., but between testing and the rain, I still haven’t done that.

I forgot to mention about the teacher’s staff room when I was comparing school systems.  I may have mentioned this before, but teachers don’t have their own classrooms.  Therefore, they don’t really have their own supplies.  They have to take chalk with them from room to room and have to hope there is a duster there for them.  They have broken-down desks and chairs in the “lounge”.  They each have a small wooden cupboard to store their papers.  They never seem to have any paper or other supplies.  There’s one cheap calculator that they all share, and one little stapler. 

The other day, I needed a paper clip.  I had to go to the accountant’s office.  He told me to wait there.  He then went to the Head Mistress’s office and got me two paper clips.  I gave him one back.  That’s the FIRST and only paper clip I’ve seen here.  They look very different from ours.  Here is a picture of what it looks like.

One thing I really like about the teachers here… They always greet each other in the morning with a handshake and a “Good Morning”.  They literally walk all around the room to do that!  They greet me that way as well.  It’s nice to be acknowledged.  I hate to say it, but that doesn’t always happen in our faculty room at home.  You could be there, have someone come into the faculty room, and they might not even acknowledge your presence.  I like the Kenyan way better!

Well, it’s time for bed.  I hope everything is going well in your world.

Kadi