On the Home Stretch

I’m on the home stretch. I have really found my rhythm with the projects. Last Monday I moved into a primary classroom from the nursery school. This class is a mix of 7-10 year olds so one teacher is responsible for teaching 35 children at three different levels. The children are good students and well behaved. They have learned to be patient. Routinely a lesson is taught to one level and as they copy their work from the shared books, the lesson begins with the next level, and so on! Some of their reading and writing assignments have been to copy and learn the words to songs that I am teaching. The songs that I have been using with the pre-schoolers over the years are perfect for this age as they learn to speak English.

My walk to school is taking a bit longer these days as many of the locals like to say hello and give the Tanzanian handshake as I pass by! The town we are volunteering in is mix of shacks next to large gated homes with all the amenities including ‘house girls’ to do the daily chores, security and plenty of water for the green lawns and flowers! In the mornings you will se the children who are living in the shacks filling their water bottles from the irrigation ditches. These are the same ditches where the cattle and goats graze.

One of the most interesting sites in this is town is the local cement factory! Apparently this was backdrop for the original Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory! It is quite site as I walk to town and from our volunteer house at night.

On Sunday October 18th the volunteers who have been working at the One Nursery and Primary school went to the home of Gloria and Obed, the headmasters at the school. We enjoyed lunch and the afternoon with their family. (I have been working in Gloria’s classroom since I switched.) It was also nice to see their home, and spend time with their children. Their two year old hid from us at first as she is quite afraid of ‘mzungus’, (white people) but later practiced her counting skills in Swahili & English!

We continue to have frequent power outages as they ration electricity. Most of the cuts happen in the evening and weekends – just when we are back and could use the light for lesson planning or the Internet, if it happens to be working. Most of the power is hydro electric and Saturday we had a great deal of rain. If the rains continue it will be good for power, but the roads are so poorly drained they easily flood and wash out.

This will probably be my last post! I’ll be in touch when I return!