August 25th - Then We Teach ...

Today – the teaching begins, though we're starting slowly ... all 8 of us are going to Precious Vision School for the morning.

First thing after we arrive, we're given a tour of where they live – their slum (next to Bombolulu) – I am still just absorbing the slums – my reactions vary from 1) this very small child sitting in the dirt in just a shirt could be from a Fosterchild organization picture to 2) these are peoples homes, why are we walking through? to 3) wow, there is a girl in a pink party dress that was clearly donated by a family in the west for 'children in Africa' – and it is being worn – buttons missing and torn, but clean … at least at the start of the day ... :-) And yet the kids, from the very first have struck me as just kids – smiles on their faces, mischief in their eyes, looking to have fun and by and large ready to laugh and smile. The adults are harder to read – definitely some resignation and there has to be resentment and also almost amusement that we are here and some appreciation – but it's harder to see, which I completely understand.

Precious Vision is the other school that GVI is starting to partner with, initially by providing activities for the kids in the mornings during the school break. The school is run by Jane, a teacher of over 30 years, who focuses the school on children aged 3 to 6 as she believes that is the critical age for education. (This is backed up by recent articles I read on how one of the best investments developing countries can make is in the health and education of very young children – there is a direct relationship to improved economic and social development.) However, this school is run on a shoe string - if that ... very basic tables and chairs, not enough, no blackboards, very, very few books and supplies - just recycled computer she gets from a local office I'm assuming. In fact they are currently locked out of their building for not having paid the rent – though hopefully they are back in the end of this week (a recent volunteer gave GVI the money for 3 months rent (C$100 per month) which they will give direct to the landlord).

But enough preamble ... there are about 50 kids of a wide age range waiting to be entertained ... and we're off … we broke up into 4 stations – art, sports, reading and maths. In the corner of the yard with a little shade and a few benches, another volunteer and I did maths – I loved it! We were using numbers on cut up pieces of cardboard and fingers and toes to do basic addition and subtraction. Initially we were just trying to gauge their level and what they really knew versus what they had memorized. Our first group were older children and we were impressed – no problem with adding and subtracting, so on to multiplication we went ... though when I was trying to explain how to figure out 7 x 8 =56 I might have made it a touch too complicated ... simple, keep it simple ... :-)

Our next group was larger and younger – we were with addition and fingers and toes for a while. Then, we took math 'active' – we had the kids standing in circles and counting themselves, removing some of them, and counting again – how many boys, how many girls, how many girls with skirts, how many with pants ... that kept their attention for a while but by the end of the morning, the congo line that the sports group was doing just looked like too much fun so we had to join in!

I had a huge smile on my face at the end of the morning - it was a great way to get a little teaching in and start to understand what it will be like. And the kids were great – they really do want to learn. And I was tired when we got back ... and it was only just 12 o'clock. Another afternoon at Olives, a good dinner and to bed early.