26 January 2014

Weeks go by so quickly and this one seemed to fly particularly fast.  There was great rejoicing on Monday at the secondary school as the results of the 2^nd year national examination were announced.  Our school is in 3^rd place out of 353 schools of the Central Zone, so that is a really big achievement and makes the students (and teachers) feel really good.  The three top students from our school attained an average for all 11 lessons of over 90%, an amazing average.  For sure there will be even more wanting entrance to our school as the results show the possibility of a good learning environment.  As it is now, I have 83 students in the two English classes that I teach!

We have had quite a bit of rain this week, almost five inches.  Tuesday evening there was a heavy rain and on Wednesday I heard that a bridge on the main road between here and Morogoro was washed out.  That meant that no road traffic from Dar es Salaam to anywhere in central or lake areas was passing.  It made it kind of nice to get on the main road near here, which is usually a long wait because of trucks and other traffic.  We heard that on Friday the bridge got fixed, and yes, there were trucks on the road again yesterday.

The rain made us cancel the class with the little scholars on one day, and another day I rushed them home early as the clouds began to show signs that the skies would open soon.  A couple incidents with them this week made me think.  One day I was going to throw away two cheap ballpoint pens because the ink was finished and they didn’t write anymore.  One of the little girls asked me if she could have them, and of course I gave them to her.  When I asked her what she was going to do with them, she told me that they play with them, building houses, etc. along with little pieces of wood that they pick up.  No Barbie dolls so they make do with worn out ballpoint pens.

Another little girl has been coming with her older brother for some months now even though she hasn’t started school yet.   Sometimes she sits quietly and draws but other times she’s in the older kids’ faces, never sitting quietly, but doing a good job of disturbing them.  Because she’s so smart, she’s picked up lots of English words even though she can’t write nor read.  She’s been telling me that she is starting kindergarten this month and so, since school started for the kids, I asked her if she’s going to school.  She told me that no, she isn’t, and the reason is that her mom doesn’t have any money to buy her a uniform.  I’m sure that eventually she will get a uniform and start but she is such a smart little girl and will be missing some of the early learning that would benefit her.  She’ll catch up, however.