One of my PCV friends just told me that monthly updates is more more than adequate for a Peace Corps blog, so I guess I don’t feel too bad that I’m pushing two months.
At the beginning of the trimester I had all of my students write me letters. The 6th graders wrote about what they had done over the trimester break, and the older kids wrote about what they wanted to be when they grow up and their goals for the new year. A lot of soccer playing, dancing on New Years, and dreams of being a teacher or a nurse. It got me thinking about their futures and hoping that someday one of them- I’m only asking for one- will somehow contact me and let me know what he or she is up to. The absolute highlight of the letter writing was one of my sixth graders. He told me that over the break he had gone to America, had dinner with Barack Obama and played soccer with all the white kids. In the midst of reading (and brieftly responding to) three hundred letters that were all quite similar, I laughed out loud when I got to his. (The neighbors gave me a sideways glance.) Love the creativity.
Things at the elementary school are going really well. I forgot my camera in village, but the kitchen and latrine are built, and the garden is planted. Cucumbers, lettuce and onions have even pushed up (that doesn’t sound right in English, what do we say…sprouted? budded?) from the ground, and some tomatoes are in a nursery at one of the big gardens in village. The kitchen building has an overhang to protect the front porch area from the sun, and inside there are three places for modern stoves called “foyer ameliore”. Traditionally women cook with a pot balanced on three stones above the wood, but this lets most of the heat escape and is very inefficient. Recently there has been a big push to put mud around the stones, basically creating a chiminey that brings a much larger percent of the energy to the cooking. Our kitchen building has three such fire pits enclosed by cement. High tech indeed.
Fractions in sixth grade, exponents in seventh grade, and vectors in eighth grade. I’m also going to try a small group test in eighth grade. I’m kind of nervous about trying something so new, but hopefully it will be a learning experience for us all. I’ve been with these same kids for three years now, so they’ve gotten used to the fact that I’m not quite like their other teachers.
95 and sunny here. Hope all is well wherever you’re reading this from. And that you East coasters are digging out all right. Happy Valentine’s Day!
