This week was pretty uneventful compared to last. I made some posters/teaching aids for teachers at Kisongo and felt like I was back in school again doing math and drawing things I didn’t know I could draw (example- a cross section view of the eye). At Ngulelo this week we did lot of coloring and reading. Both of which seem to be a favorites for the children. Coloring is always an event because once one child shows you their picture everyone wants to show you. Also they know we won’t give them a new page to color unless they finish the first so if they get ‘tired of it’ they will just scribble over all of it which drives me crazy! On the other hand, reading is one of my favorite things to do with them. They all seem to be so in love with it to. There are times when I will be reading to the younger kids and older kids to come by to listen to stories that are past their level but they don’t care. I have been trying to work with children individually to have them read to me since they do not get a lot of one-on-one time in the classroom. They always pick at least three books if not more!
I have gotten to take children off site a few times one of which being last week which I forgot to mention. Athuman (15 I think) has been having some trouble with his eyes so Trisha and I took him to the Mt. Meru Hospital to get them checked out. This was interesting because the hospital is a compound of a bunch of one story structures all connected by outside sidewalks. We went up to check in to see the eye doctor and it cost 3,000 Tsh which is about $2.30. They do the eye exam outside where everyone is waiting and therefore everyone is watching. Their eye chart is the capital letter E in all different directions and then you point to which direction it is facing. When you do go into see the doctor it is one large room and different doctors in different corners. I saw one doctor doing the test where they flip different lenses and say ‘better at one or two’ yet it was very old school and they had to manually switch the lenses into a pair of glasses that the child was wearing. This is one time I wish it was appropriate to take pictures as I know my grandfather would have appreciated seeing it.
Another outing I went on was on Friday when I sponsored the Standard VI students to go to the airport for a field trip. They learned about how the airport functions and how an airplane itself functions as well as talking with a meteorologist and learning about all the different weather machines and how it plays into the functioning of the airport. There were eleven children and two teachers that went and none of them had ever been on an airplane before. The teachers (both twenty-five years old) seemed just like students themselves asking questions and paying full attention, etc. etc. I was very impressed at how well behaved the children were (which happens a lot here- these kids behave better than kids in American on most occasions) as they were not talking or messing around with each other while someone was talking with us, they all paid perfect attention. I guess I have taken for granted the fact that I have been on numerous airplanes in my life and this is the first time any of them even sat on one. I did, however, learn a few new things myself that day.
Now that I have been here three weeks (I can’t believe it’s the middle of my stay here already!) I have a better understanding of why these kids are here and about some of their stories so I hope to better portray that to you. There are about 40 or so children that Living Water Children Center (i.e. the Kimaro family) has guardianship over. Living at the center in Ngulelo there are 25 children. These children either go to school at the center (baby class up to Standard II) or are sponsored to go to St. Jude’s School and all range in age from 2-17. The rest of the LW children go to school and board in Kisongo at Yakini Primary School. There are about 90 kids at school here and those that aren’t LW children pay for tuition and boarding. This school has all grades from baby class up to Standard VII. The children then go off site for secondary school (the first group of five will do so in January).
Unlike the children I worked with in Kenya most of these children are not orphans. It’s easiest to think of this situation as a group home like we have in the states. These children are better off here than at home for numerous reasons. Some families cannot afford to raise the children or do not have their life together enough to do so. Two of the oldest girls were arranged to be married at age 12 to men much older than and were brought to the center to escape that. Each child has a story and before I leave I will probably not know even half of the stories. I have met three different sets of family members to children at the home when they have come to visit them. One time was the mother and brother of one of the Josephs. The mother has a lot of issues and slept around a lot etc. and Joseph has been asked if he wants to return home after being here for some time and he refuses and prefers to live at the center. It was a very awkward visit because he clearly did not care to see his mother and did not even know his brother. Few words were exchanged which seemed to be the norm with the other two visits as well. Another girl, Unisis’s, older and younger sister came to visit and brought some snacks that she sat with them and ate and then went about her playing. The third visit was from Christopher’s father who apparently is an alcoholic and that’s one of the reasons he is at the center. The father was chopping firewood for the center which I saw as his way of trying to give something back to them. Christopher told me his father was there and clearly knew who he was. So sometimes it is a little hard to understand what is going on and why a child is there if they have parents etc. but I just bask in the fact that they are happy and seem to be better off here and at least I can love them for a few weeks!
Okay for my random Tanzanian things of the week…
-child getting onto a dalla-dalla holding what I thought was a doll then realized when it was very close to me that it was a live chicken!!
-a man having about 25 chicken all tied together by their feet in two bundles and having them placed under the back seat in a dalla (lots of clucking, again I was a bit surprised!) and then deciding not to take the dalla so they were returned to the side of the street
- a man in a bar/restaurant carrying around a basket with nail polish and such things and painting women’s feet for a fee while they ate or drank (I passed when me came by us before leaving)
- cops chasing a car down the street, kicking in the window, punching the guy, pulling him out of the car, punching him again, throwing him in the backside, another cop hijacking the car and then all driving off in it
- attending an outdoor market where they sold everything from goats to vegetables to kitchen dish sets to clothes and shoes
- I got my dress/skirt back from the fundi and even though there was a large language barrier when ordering them they turned out surprisingly amazing and fit so perfectly! Yay! Pretty sure she used no pattern either which amazes me.
-ordering chips (French fries) and being given a rolled up newspaper (which soaked up a lot of grease!) with chips and a little bit of cabbage on them too
- had many interesting dalla rides: being incredibly close to complete strangers, being asked to kiss one of the conductors (Trisha and I both declined), stood up for an extended period of time in the doorway, and at one point reached about 26 people in one van
- the power keeps going out most nights from about 6:00 PM until 11:00 PM which is prime time to use power so most of those nights I am asleep by 8:30 PM – wow!
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