First Two Days Teaching

Yesterday i began teaching classes at the Kweli Learning Centre.
Every Monday I will teach
2st Grade Math, Bible, & English
1st Grade English

And Tuesdays I will teach:
1st Grade Bible & Math
2nd Grade Phonics

When I first walked into the classroom on Monday morning i was so nervous! My worst fear? That they would not understand me!
They learn their subjects in English, but they still don't know very much English. But everything went extra fine! The second graders understand the most English, so to begin the week teaching them was very good for me!
We played around the world during their math lesson and they absolutely LOVED it. apparently one of the kids went home that night asking their mother if they could play it! Teaching the 1st graders is a little more challenging.
Today, during their Bible lesson i could tell that they really were not understanding me too well. When you teach math they are used to hearing the same words over and over... they know those. But Bible brings in a lot of foreign words. I had one of the teachers explain things in Swahili from time to time... just to get the point across. They were not completely lost though! :) or else that would have been very bad.
Today i had some math problems on the blackboard for them to come up and work on... the 1st graders loved that!
I am really really enjoying teaching.
And I enjoyed it today when one of the 2nd grade students came up to me during recess and said "Teacher, I remember." And pointed to her head and said "Anything you think," (then she pointed to her mouth) "say" (then she held out her fists) "or do that does not please God." And i said "What is that called?" "Sin!"
It is rewarding when they understand and apply what you are teaching them. I am really enjoying it! Who would have thought phonics would be fun! :)
It is also really cool to put to use a lot of things i learned in my teaching classes at Pensacola. I took a whole class on teaching phonics. which i used very much today! and yesterday i used a book that we had to teach from in my Teaching Bible class. different other things are popping up too! its really cool :)

A Week in Morogoro

This week we traveled to Morogoro, Tanzania. It is about 8-10 hours away from us and about 2 hours from Dar Salaam. Two missionary couples are working together through the donation of a wealthy Christian man from the states to start a camp. It is called Camp Highlands. This past week was camp training. So Brad and Tricia brought 5 of their best young adults to Morogoro. There were all together about 150 Tanzanians there.
When we got there I had this overwhelming feeling of, what am i going to do all week?? The week consisted of meetings, worship services, more meetings, training, and more things that required sitting for long periods of time listening to Swahili. I felt like i was going to be totally useless the whole week. So I asked Tricia if there was anyway i could help around the camp. So we went and talked to one of the missionaries.
The next day my week of serivce began in the kitchen. There were about five Tanzanians in there working on the food. And Tricia brought me back there and asked if I could help out. So i peeled abour 100 potatoes, cut peppers, washed and dried plates, cups, pots, and spoons. But the most interesting thing i did was with coconut. They had me sit in this little tiny chair thing, on the side of it was something that looked like a spearhead with spikes on it. They used that to shave the inside of the coconut into a basket. It was really really hard, but they make it look so easy! I did three of them in the amount of time it took him to do 6! :) but it was definitely an experience that I enjoyed.
I was also able to help out by watching some of the missionaries' children throughout the week. Two missionary couples live on the camp campus, but a bunch more came to support the camp and their young people. Altogether there were.. five missionary couples, one man, and two single lady missionaries there from the surrounding ares probably within a 10 hours traveling distance. It was really cool to talk to them all. Most have been in the country for at least 10 years, with the exception of Brad and Tricia. I was able to talk for awhile with the camp manager and his wife and just ask them questions about their strategy for getting young people to come to camp. One of the missionary couples have started an orphanage in Dar Salaam.
I really enjoyed the week in Morogoro, even though I didn't get the same thing out of it as everyone else. I was able to serve and help out as i could.