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Published: June 19th 2011
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Beanies!
It was raining and the boys had the cutest beanies on! I want one! 6/17 @ 3pm - friday - oh, elizabeth
This week seemed to fly by. I can't believe it's already Friday, that means tomorrow is good food day in Arusha, horray! Today was fun but definitely interesting! I woke up to rain (and as I've said before, the roads are dirt, so mud in rain!) and its a 20 minute walk to the school so that was...fun? Got there and the kids were everywhere, the rain is always exciting to kids. There was a group of about 5 boys that all had these gorgeous little beanies on, I want one!!! So Friday's are play day, but the highest class has exams every friday through june, so I gave the exams to half the class. It was on spelling and grammar, and the test goes like this - they each have these notebooks for testing, and I copy from a notebook a hand-written test onto the 'chalkboard' (ha!) and the kids have to copy down the questions from the chalkboard and than answer the questions. The best part was that the hand-written notebook said "Middle Class Gramma Test" - "copey the picture and name the picture". Hahahah, classic - of all words to mis-spell, its grammar! - and copy, but grammar is just classic !! So the kids take one test and than its break time, but the rest of the kids play all day - dancing and singing songs in english that theyve just memorized the sounds but have no idea what they are acutally saying!!
Some of the kids taking the tests do amazing, Anderson (one of the greatest kids I've met in my life) got 100%!! Baraka, another amazing guy, got 95%... these two guys are best friends and are the top of the class by miles... I would LOVE to see these kids sponsored and attending an english speaking school where they will be able to continue their journey. They are full of potential and are some of the brightest kids I've ever had the pleasure of getting to know, let alone teaching and being a part of their experience. Sponsoring a kid is acutally a bit more than I had thought - it costs about $500 US dollars per year, and the length of the sponsorship varies - but it includes sending the child to an english speaking school- St. Vivian, not far from where I am living, and I really enjoy visiting there. It includes school uniforms, books, and food while at school, and a school bus so the kids dont have to walk 40 minutes! (the school buses are dala dala's painted yellow with the school name on it- classic!) They also send you updates on the child and all that jazz... plus, I can personally give you all the goss on each of the kids, pictures and stories and their writing and all of that!! Anyways, I know its quite a chunk of money, but if anybody is interested, please please please don't hesitate to contact me. There are quite a few students who should be in a higher class than the orphanage has, and these kids are full of potential and deserve the chance to escape the poverty cycle. I would LOVE to see these kids get sponsored, so if anyone wants to be a part of this, holler at cho girl!!!
Oh, yesterday, Eliza, a 2-year old at the orphanage who is just gorgeous, but completely lost- always just looks so confused and has no idea what's going on.. but shes a crack up. She pees her pants everday, and remember, diapers are definitely not part of life here, so we know not to pick her up after about noon... but yesterday, she carried her shoes over to me so I would put them on for her... so I lifed up her pants from around her thighs (thank god) because as I lifted them so they wouldnt be in her shoe, POOP came flying on the bottom of her pants... it was liquid and soooo disgusting. I had to run around the side of the building nearly vomitting! Poor girl, she just stood there but she didnt tell anyone or even show signs of that disaster! So I had to get myself together and go fetch a bucket of water so she could put her foot/leg in there, and to wash down the area that was covered, uck! So Anna, the teacher, said oh she lives very close... I'll just call her sister to come get her, anna looks around - yells "Shufa!" (one of my students) and sends shufa running into the neighborhood to tell the sister -- that's an african phone call for ya! It was classic... anyways, Eliza was fine and went home but oh, the poor thing!
A new girl came to the orphanage on Thursday, she was placed there through a placement program, so she's not living with me but will be working with me. Her name is Elin and she's from Sweden, never really traveled so this has got to be pretty shocking for her. She's very very sweet though, I like her! She's having a hard time adjusting here, but I've assured her that it gets better with time. She's only staying 4 weeks which is a bummer, but its still good to have her here for a bit. My other Swedish friend Julia is leaving Tuesday, sooo bummed, I loved her! Atleast I have a place (or two) to stay when I go to Sweden -- those of you who know me well know that its near the top of my list! The Scandanavians love it over here -- every white person I've met here so far are Scandos!
Got to run - hope you are all happy and healthy.
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