For Kristin and I, this weekend was safari time. Now I was definitely excited about the opportunity, and I was so happy to be going, but what we experienced was far beyond what I’d expected. We made the nearly seven-hour drive to the Masai Mara reserve, bordering Tanzania. During our first drive on Saturday evening, the whole thing started to hit me. The scenery around us was one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen in my life – with open plains stretching farther than our eyes could see and huge thunderheads splotched across the bright blue sky (not to mention the giraffe silhouettes dotting the horizon). We got to see just about everything on the reserve, from lion prides feet from our car, to a baby rhino and a heard of elephants – again, literally right outside the window.
Being at a resort for the weekend was a really strange experience. It was a really nice place and everything, but it was difficult not to think about how different life is for locals. The Masai people live in dung-huts with stick barriers creating a little village around them – and of course, back in Nairobi, the overcrowding and pollution is inescapable. It was a good breather, and a chance to mentally re-load, but we were so excited to get back home to the kids Monday afternoon.
Being back, this has been my second week helping “Auntie Joyce” at the nursery school. She teaches about 25 two, three, and four-year-olds from IAA and the surrounding villages in a dirt floor tent that’s set up at the end of the soccer field that’s here on site. I have so much respect for what she does!
The kids start school at 8:30, and after repetition of words, the alphabet, or flashcards, there’s time for “writing” before their chai tea break. All of the toddlers are at completely different learning levels. Many of them barely understand any English and speak even less, and while some can pretty accurately write out the alphabet or numbers from one to one hundred, others sit and struggle with drawing the letter “A”. Of course, teaching and communicating is much easier when you speak the same language as the student, but with lots of trial and error, I can’t explain the feeling of success when one of them pulls through!
This morning, I headed down to the nursery around 10, hoping to be of some help, and it turned out that Joyce was getting ready to head out with the big kids to their performance in a nearby city for African Children’s Day. She asked if I’d be able to stay with the kids, and after my “of course!” I made a quick dash for backup. Sara and Kristin joined me shortly after and we tried to lead the kids through words and vocab, the alphabet song (much cuter Kenyan style), and some writing. After chai, we broke out a giant coloring book and faced some exciting challenges being a few pages short. By the kids’ lunch time at one, we were all exhausted and trying desperately to keep them under control while breaking up disputes, drying tears, and “teaching”, though its debatable whether they actually learned much other than that when the muzungus (white people) are the ones doing the teaching, there isn’t much order!
We found ourselves making lots of use of the words “kuja happa” (come here), “hapana” (no), and “keti” (sit). After lunch the kids living at IAA had their naps and we headed back out to the field to have the village kids do the same. We rounded them up in the church, and with determined “wee wee, lala!” (you, sleep!), we attempted to get them to nap but definitely didn’t do a very successful job. Sara went to ask if the children were to head home at three or three-thirty, and Daniel told her, “the language is very difficult and the children are tired – let them go free!” Only two of the kids had fallen asleep.
Well, regardless of whether or not they were tired – I know I was exhausted. I find myself praying for patience throughout the day, especially when orders to “make a line” or “be nice” only result in the kids repeating what you say, having no clue what it means. I feel like they’re teaching me a lot more about myself than they’re probably learning about the English language, but hey… maybe that’s a good thing.
No comments:
Post a Comment