The Tree of Life Nursery and Primary School

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I know this blog is way over do, but I want to thank everyone who has helped by donating whatever they could for the school I have been working at. I really appreciate everything everyone has done and I know the kids will absolutely love everything once it gets here. Since many of you have donated things I wanted to tell you guys about the school I work at and what I have been doing there. I have now been working at The Tree of Life Nursery and Primary School for five weeks and it has been very different than I had expected it to be. First of all, I never really thought I would be teaching classes. Maybe, helping the teachers in class as an assistant, but not actually being the teacher alone in the class. Honestly, if I had known that before I got here I might have freaked out a little bit (or a lot). The first day I started work I was literally thrown in front of a class and asked to teach it. I was standing up there with all these kids looking at me silently flipping out. Ironically, the one thing I never thought I would be doing or like doing is one of the best parts of my job. I have been teaching English and Math to primary six and primary seven. Their ages range from thirteen to seventeen in the two classes. They are really great kids and they learn quickly. I am in class from seven or eight in the morning until three or four in the afternoon. After classes I stay at the school till around six. Out of class I am either playing football (soccer) with the boys or I go and talk with the girls about anything and everything. Another aspect of this job I never really thought about is how easily you can get attached to these kids, especially once you get to know them and what some of them have been through. Many of the kids do not even have shoes to wear to school. Some are boarders, which means they live at school, because their parents have just dumped them there and forgotten about them. Many of those kids have almost nothing except the clothes they came with. A lot of the parents do not really care what happens to their kid as long as they are getting fed so they come to school very dirty and shoeless because their parents do not care about buying them. The kids also do not have access to books that they can read, they share pens in class, carry the notebooks in plastic bags, and cannot pay their school fees. Everything that has been donated and sent here will help and will be appreciated, probably more than in the U.S. because so many people take for granted being able to afford these basic things. If anyone else wants to donate anything they are not using anymore feel free to email me ([e-mail]) or my mom ([e-mail]) and you can get it to us so we can have shipped to the school. Again, thank you to those who have already donated stuff, it is truly a huge help to these kids and to the families who simply cannot afford to buy these necessities for their kids.
If anyone would like to help out more, there is also the option of sponsoring a child. Some of the kids are already being sponsored but there are still plenty who do not have sponsors. Sponsoring a child can be simply helping the family with school fees, sending money to buy school supplies, or sending stuff bought in the U.S. here, such as clothes, shoes, blankets, etc. If you would like to sponsor a child you can email me directly and I can put you in touch with the school and the child's parents.

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