Teaching at Orkeeswa and Falling in Aardvark Holes

These past two weeks we taught at Orkeeswa. I taught Form 1 (equivalant of Freshman) Chemistry and Form 2 Agriculture. Lisa has been helping teach the pre-Form English immersion. The student's primary concern, by in large, is this national standardized class they have to take at the end of Form 2. If they don't pass, they don't go on for more school. It's really interesting for lots of reasons! First, they want to take notes! Second, they want to have more time to work with the teachers. They also seem, at least one of the forms, to be very resistant to doing in class activities. The perception seems to be that they need very detailed notes that they can go study in order to pass that test. Lisa has also had some interesting times with the pre-form English students. This past week she and the other teacher taught the students words such as fart, diarrhea, etc... You know the good ones! They also showed E.T. this past week... the first movie for most of the students! They were excited, scared and everything in between! They thought E.T. was real and possibly living in the States!

Anyway, we also tried to run again this past Wednesday. If this is going to be a tradition I wish my body would just hurry up and get in shape. We were only about 10 minutes into the run when the Land Rover with the other teachers passed us. Our friend Junior decided to try and "catch" the vehicle on the way by. No one is sure what he really meant to do! But, as he was running up just behind the bumper, he tripped in a huge aardvark hole and fell face forward in a huge cloud of dust! He just hopped right up and said "oh, I think that I made a bad choice" and kept going. I can't remember when we have laughed that hard.

We also went to two students' houses this past week. That is probably best left for another blog. It did offer some great insight as to why you don't assign homework, etc... as there is very little light in the houses and the students also have a lot of work to do.

Last week we attended a track meet at the International School of Moshi in Arusha. Imagine 90 Maasai students and their parents showing up and running/throwing/jumping! We dominated the distance events (go figure), but didn't fare so well in short distance or field events. However, put a spear (javelin) in their hand and they shined! We won the sportsmanship award and received a big trophy. You would have thought we won the whole event - there was dancing and singing! It was cool to be part of the festivities. In fact, many of the parents of the other students from different schools stopped and took pictures of our students and parents!

We are doing well...finding it hard to make connection with family and friends back home due to poor internet connections.