New Student Selection
Last Friday we had over 400 students on our campus vying for a spot at the entrance exam to Orkeeswa Secondary School. After a long day of matching students with their actual home (we can only select students from three villages) we had narrowed the field to something like 268. So, last Saturday and Sunday, most of us were back at the school helping to proctor and grade entrance tests for these students. They took two different tests and we took the average score to help rank them. Needless to say, that was a tiring process! Then, yesterday and today Peter, Rapha, Thomas and Robert sat down one on one with about 70 students (the top 70 from the test) and interviewed them. Lisa and I ran screaming into the night…and wound up in Arusha…well away from the selection process for a while! Sorry for those guys who have now worked like 20 straight days. From here we will narrow the selection down to about 40 student who will get a "boma visit" to determine the relative wealth of the family as we only take the hardest cases. Then…it's time to make the selection of the 30-35 students who will be our next class! It's exciting. When I think about the personalities we will get….the skills….the stories… the future woodworkers (of course!)…
Hike to the Waterfalls
Since we were not helping with the interviews this weekend, Lisa and I ran away to Arusha. In fact, that's where I am right now! Yesterday, we hiked to a waterfall just outside of Arusha. The trip was organized by a local club called Tuende (meaning….Let's Go!) The waterfalls were beautiful…a far cry from the dust of the road it took to get there. There were lots of other volunteers and NGO workers on the walk…mostly female…representing Australia, Germany, Holland and the US. From my experience this is a fairly good representation of all volunteers around this area. The trip took about six hours and we lounged around afterwards!
New Volunteers
Starting today three new volunteers will trickle in to help English. Amy from Ireland arrived last night. Andrew from California will arrive next week and a third gal (name escapes me right now) from Canada will be coming the following week. Apparently they are all good cooks…which is really more exciting than their teaching abilities! They will all live together in the other volunteer house….no running water or electricity…oh wait, that sounds more like ours lately! Don't worry, we've already begun to consider ways to trick them into coming up and cooking for us in exchange for….well, we're still working out those details.
Track and Field Tryouts
This past week Lisa has been busy auditioning students for the track and field competition. We'll take most of our students to compete against the international schools around Arusha. We always do pretty well in the distance events (go figure) and javelin throwing (again, go figure) but struggle in the sprints and shot/discuss. We're hoping for big things this year though from our little guys! (ahhh…)
The Tarp in the Back of the Truck
I have to tell you about the epic tale of the blue tarp. We've all been riding to school in the four door pickup ever since school began this term. The favored ones would ride in the front, safe and sound, listing to music and drinking Champaign (kidding about that Champaign thing….) while the rest of us suffered the dust and cold temperatures in the back. I would end most days covered in a thick layer of dust from head to toe that would take a long time to get washed out….not to mention rob us of precious water. Well, that all changed the day I brought a big blue tarp to cover ourselves with. The first day I was the only one covering myself with it. Most of the other teachers looked at it with contempt. On the second day they were all under it with me….laughing and telling jokes. By the third day when I went to climb in the back, they told me there was no room and I would have to sit in the front! Perhaps I created a monster. The bed of the pickup, covered in a big blue tarp, had become way more, um, awesome, than the front. More jokes, stories and songs were shared back there in the past two weeks than in all the other weeks combined. Interesting phenomena. I'm still waiting for acceptance from the group to get back in…
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