Touching Moments

Life feels so worth while here. There are so many touching moments each day, so many smiles, and so many firsts. At the primary school for grades 1-3, the children just stood around us at recess, hundreds of curious eyes looking up at us, hanging on our every movement. They spoke no English yet, and we spoke very little swahili, but we managed to make a huge circle and play Duck Duck Goose. We also played follow the leader, and let me tell you, there is something exhilarating about running around doing silly movements and jumping up and down, and having over 100 children following your every movement and giggling.

Also, did you know that pineapples do not grow on trees? We certainly did not, nor had we ever seen a banana tree before today.

My friend Meredith's mother is an astronaut, and she brought lots of pictures of space shuttles and space, so we are teaching one lesson on space to each class. We taught our first today, and it was wonderful. The kids leaned forward in their seats, smiling slightly as we told them about what floating is, picking up a small kid to demonstrate. We all crouched down, and everyone shouted "3, 2, 1, Blastoff!" jumping high into the air with uproarious laughter. The children loved the pictures, and so we gave away some of the pictures at the to the students who could answer questions about space. They held the pictures and just stared at them, while the other students begged to see as well. Meanwhile, the teacher was intently taking notes in the back, and when Meredith gave her pictures too, she just lit up, absolutely fascinated by what she had learned. The students are very good at memorization and reading, but they don't usually get to sing songs or pretend to be astronauts in class, and they loved it.

We taught a computer class to the kids in the afternoon, and the children could hardly contain themselves. The giggled when they learned about clicking. Dragging was a little harder, but they begged to keep practicing typing even when we had run over our half hour. The laptop was like nothing they had ever seen. Again, I wish we had a laptop for them. Growing up knowing about computers would help these children's futures so much. It is the connection to the rest of the world that would open up nearly infinite doors for them.

On another note, they killed a chicken for us today. We were extremely flattered, and a bit taken aback to open our dinner and see a chicken's head sitting there. The directors were very proud to have killed the chicken for us, but we insisted that we loved beans, rice, and potatoes. They thought this was strange, but chickens are expensive here, and animals do not have to die for us.

We all brought colored pencils and markers, and in the evening we let them draw. The children loved coloring! They only get pencils in school, so coloring and drawing were very exciting. The kids drew lots of pictures and kept asking to draw more. It would be wonderful to get donations for crayons or colored pencils for the classroom. The kids and teachers would be so happy.

Exhausted as usual, struggling to keep my eyes open to finish this,

-Laura