First Three Days At School

Habari!!! (Some sort of greeting you can use all of the time!)

We are loving working with the six native teachers here at the school called Mawenzi, named after one of the two peaks on Mt. Kilimanjaro! There are 5 classes, which range from pre-school to Class 3, which is a little like Grade 4 in the US. Each class has 20-something pupils, and they can be many different ages! In class three, we have 11 year olds and 7 year-olds. All of the kids are so cute and love to learn! When we enter the room, they stand and say. "Welcome, Teacher Tara. Welcome, Teacher Melissa."

Teaching has been fun, but we are still trying to figure out the level of the students. It seems like they memorize a lot - might not know the reasoning behind the rules. We are hoping to help Class 2 and 3 better understand multiplication while we are here. And who knows what else! For instance, we are now teaching science and doing a unit on reproduction! With one textbook, we must teach them which animals lay eggs and which "reproduce." And all of the body parts. Oh my!

We are also teaching PE to all the classes because all the kids want to have us! Ha ha. We taught them Red Light/Green Light, Hokey Pokey, Simon Says, Over the River and Relay Races so far. Please let us know if you have any other ideas for us! When they are playing, they push each other roughly! "That is not what we do at East Middle School!"

We feel so bad that we only brought enough materials and prizes for our 50 students. The school is so small, that we didn't realize we would see all the students, all of the time. Hopefully, we can spread our goods somehow! They love the pencils we brought and REALLY LOVE the stickers...although now the whole packet is missing.

Their schedule is interesting. We start class around 8.... or 8:15.... or 8:20! And we teach until their first break at 9:30ish. Then we have a 30 minute break! Then, we teach another call for an hour, and then a 40 minute break! Then we teach for another hour and followed by lunch for an hour! Then we teach for an hour and then they have "homework time." They don't necessrily do their homework then, but maybe they can....we aren't sure yet! Can you tell we are still trying to figure out the daily routine?

We love how enthusiastic the kids are! Sometimes, it can even be a little overwhelming, but we aren't used to elementary school ourselves anyway! Today we learned how to say "Kaa Chini," which means stay in your seats (or else they run up to you yelling, "teacher, teacher, teacher...."! They stayed by their seats today, but still stood when answering a question!

Monday night, our school coordinator Maggie took us across the border to Kenya! It is literally, 100 meters from the pub where we had drinks. She was friends with the policemen and so we were able to sneak over! Then, she drove us thorough Rombai Forest, which has VERY interesting trees, to one of the five base camps of Mt. Kilimanjaro. So cool!! We hope to do our own mini-hike this Saturday.

And last night, we had our first Swahili lessons with Godfrey. We are definitely beginners, with little potential for progress, but we are having fun! We stick to learning one word, not sentences - even though everyone is really trying to teach us! We will have class tomorrow night, Friday and three days next week, so maybe we can improve more than we think!

I would say goodbye right now in Swahili, but I don't know it! Oh wait...Melissa does! Kwa Harie!