Random thoughts that I wanted to share!

Here are some funny/interesting moments from the past couple of weeks:

-We drove by a graveyard on the way to one of the secondary schools. It was not at all what I expected, because I figured it would be just like ours...I mean, graves are graves... All of the gravesr were CRAMMED into the gated space. Most of the graves are above ground. They are a mound of dirt, covered by rocks, which is surrounded by a cage-like structure that has a sign on the front saying the name, date of birth and date of death. Unlike in the U.S., they clearly do not put an emphasis on the way that the graves/graveyards look. We try to make the look presentable and not like there are a bunch of people buried there. But in the graveyards here, theres is simply no hiding it. I think the graves are above ground because the ground is so hard, it would be difficult to dig 6 foot holes.

-On our way to work one morning when we had fewer people to drop off, Taps tooks a SHORT detour so that we could see the grave of El Negro of Banyoles. This is the body of an African man who died in 1830 whose grave was robbed. The body was taken and displayed for years and years in museums in Spain. It finally was able to be returned to Africa in October of 2000 andhis grave site is in Gaborone. It was a really fascinating story and I was so excited that some of us got to see it!

This is the sign-really hard to read-that was in front of the grave. It told the story of this man and his body's journey from Africa, to Europe, and back to Africa where his body now rests in a park in Gaborone.

Grave (above ground, like most of the graves that I have seen)

I was surprised because for a kind of monument grave site, like this, I thought that it would be a nice-looking, stone, engraved grave site...obviously not the case!

-We have gotten used to the little kids in Old Naledi running up to us and yelling "Makoa!" We all have kind of started to answer to it like it is our name...haha

-Tshego, a girl we work with at SAPSSI, told us that two women were talking across the street while we were walking by and little kids were running up to us to check us out and greet us. The two women were saying to eachother, "When we were kids and white people would walk by we would run inside and hide!" We thought this was hilarious :) And I love the fact that we had Tshego to translate that for us.

Tshwarangano Primary School in Old Naledi

Something that has been more eye opening than anything since I have been here has been the time I have spent at Tshwaragano Primary School in Old Naledi. The students' ages range from 5 to 12 or so. This is one of the largest schools in Botswana, serving over 1200 kids. There is no playground. They have rocks, lots and lots of large rocks, and LOTS of dirt. Luckily for the school they don't need a lot of time for playing because these elementary-age kids don't really have anything that we call a recess. Their job is to go to school and fit in as much as possible in those hours. They can play sports and participate in other social activities after school and on their own time. I don't know about anyone else, but as a future teacher and someone who has been in a classroom with 4th-9th graders who have the attention spans as long as pencil erasers, and who NEE a little bit of time to run and play and socialize and laugh, I am amazed that the teachers remain sane, let alone get any information across to their students. Just from being around these kids for a few days, you can see the energy just exploding out of them. They run wherever they can-to the water tap, to another classroom, anywhere, just so that they can release some of their energy and PLAY, even if its just for a minute.

We were able to spend a little bit of time at this school every day, not because it is affiliated with SAPSSI, but there was not much for us to do in the morning. We asked if there was anything we could do, specifically in Old Naledi, to help out it some way. Thankfully, Nono helped us arrange so that we could go into the school and help the teachers serve food at meal time, which is from 11 to 11:30am. We all went into separate classrooms-mine was the lowest level with students ranging from 5-7 year olds. My teacher was very sweet and welcoming and had the students greet me in unison-very cute :) Like I said before, the students are 5-7 years old, but my teacher pointed out that her class has a 9 year old boy. I asked why a 5 year old and a 9 year old would start out in the same grade level. She said that sometimes the parents just don't enroll their kids in school at the normal age. So even if a student is 9 years old, he or she will start at the first level, where 5, 6 and 7 year olds are starting.

My job, when I walk into the classroom, is to sit at the front of the room, and once older students deliver two buckets of food, I distribute it to each student in my class. On the first day the students were served something similar to poridge. I spooned 2 large spoonfuls into each students bowl as they came up, one by one. The teacher served each student 3 or so piece of steak from a can that, to be perfectly honest, looked and smelled like something we feed our dogs in the U.S. The kids are MORE than happy to have any of it. Something that I immediately noticed was what I was spooning their food into. Some students have worn, metal bowls, some have plastic bowls. Some students eat off off tupperware lids or out of pencil cases that they likely found to use as a bowl. Only about 2 or 3 students in my classroom had spoons to each with. The rest of them ate with their tiny hands...mind you, there we eating poridge. These kids shovel food into their mouths and are quick to get in line if they are able to get an extra scoop for seconds. They literally lick their bowls and hands until they have gotten every ounce of food possible. My teacher told me that there is never enough food, especially for these kids who are growing so much at this age. She also said that a lot of the kids in her room had not eaten since the day before at school, at this time. Some kids come up to the teacher, telling her that they feel sick. However, after meal time they are up, running around and playing with huge smiles on their faces. The teacher said that it is probably because they haven't eaten in at least 24 hours. I couldn't stop thinking, "if some of these kids ONLY eat at school, what do they do on the weekends or on school breaks?" It is sickening to think about. The experiences I had during my first week at the primary school hit me harder than anything I have seen in Botswana so far. These kids are just like the kids at home. They are losing their teeth (one little girl with huge dimples was missing her two front teeth and she LOVED to show me-see picture below), picking on one another, giggling, being shy, singing songs, showing off for guests, etc. They are normal, seemingly happy kids. The thing is, it is really hard to feel BAD for these kids. I mean, you can feel bad for the devastating situation they have to live in. But rather, I don't know how you can't be so inspired by and almost envy their happiness. The fact that a lot of these kids don't eat NEVER shows, until you watch them eat. They are sooooooooooo JOYFUL! and SO full of life. Like I said before, nothing has touched me the way these kids and the way they are living their very young lives have.

My class :)

My little friend, showing me her missing teeth

The little girl in the middle was the one who was trying to punch the boy on the left. It is hysterical that they will have this horrible, mean look on their faces, and then turn around and melt an outsider's heart with their big smiles and overall adorable-ness. The little girl on the right is probably my favorite. She is BEAUTIFUL and is soooooo sweet. She has this sugary sweet little voice and always is sure to say "Dumela" (hello), "Thank you" (after I put food in her bowl) and "Goodbye" (before I leave). She is precious, as you can see by her sparkling smile :)

The kids wash their dishes at the end of each day. The teacher pointed out that they don't wash them until after school because they don't want to waste any time during the school day. A few of the students are responsible for going to the water tap and washing out the big buckets that the food arrives to the classroom in. One day, as Kate and I were waiting outside to get Jenny from her classroom, we saw the student who were cleaning out their class buckets scraping any bits of leftover food into their mouths as they washed them out with water. These kids probably consider themselves lucky because they have access to the tiny bits of food that are left in the buckets.

If the following story doesn't give you a sense of these kids and their incredible, loving attitudes then you probably should just stop reading my blog... :)

Chris was in a classroom with some of the older students on our first day at the primary school. He sat down with some of the kids and one young man told him that he wanted to share is food with him. Chris tried to say no, saying to the student that it's his and he should just eat it. But this boy insisted that he share is food with Chris. Even though this kid didn't even have enough food for himself. he shared it with a stranger who he had known for no more than five minutes. So Chris ate with him, with his hands, because obviously he didn't have any untensils. This story will NEVER leave my mind. I am so changed from my 30 minutes each day at this school. It has made me more thankful and greatful for anything that is put in front of me and for everything that I have.

Being at this school has been quite a learning experience in terms of learning about education, even though I am not there for a very long time each day. My teacher is a yeller. She yells A LOT. Not necessarily in an angry way, but her voice is raised all the time. She is constantly yelling "Be quiet! Stop talking!" in a very stern voice. She says these things so often that the kids mock her. When I was in the room one day and they could tell that it was starting to get too noisy for her liking, they said together, "Be quiet! Stop talking!", just the way she would. It is pretty amusing actually :) Also, to get the kids to be quiet or to listen she bangs her hand on her wooden desk. Kate told me that, in her classroom, when she was alone in the room and wanted the kids to quiet down, a student brought her over to the teacher's desk and showed her how to bang on it-modeling what the teacher does. I don't think I could even do that to try to gain control of my classroom. It is so harsh and rough, but then again, thats kind of how the teachers are.

The kids are under control most of the time. A little too under control though. They are kind of like little robots. They stand up, sit down, recite phrases, songs, and answer "Yes Teacha," all in unison. Most of them are SO charismatic. However, for how sweet some of them are one minute, I am extremely surprised by the amount of violence. I even witnessed on TINY little girl in my class pull back her arm with the threat of hitting one of her classmates (who happened to be a little boy). The kids definitely learn to use intimidation.

Something that this school does not have is substitute teachers. Jenny, Kate and I have all experienced some part of a teacher being absent. The first day, Jenny's teacher left after Jenny got there, and long after 11:30, when the lesson was supposed to start back up, the teacher was no where to be found. Jenny ended up teaching for almost a half hour, wondering the entire time if and when her teacher would come back. Finally, Kate, Chris and I went looking in the main office for the teacher and found her. The next day, Kate walked into her classroom and found that her teacher was not there that day. She had to figure out something to do with them until another teacher could come in. The teacher from the room next door finally decided that he would check on the class ever so often. I experienced the lack of teachers when I walked into my classroom and I saw all of the students sitting at their tables, and also, 20-25 students crammed into the back of the classroom in chairs. My teacher told me that a teacher was absent, so they simply combined classes. It seems chaotic to us, but at the school, it doesn't really seem to phase anyone-they just figure it out as they go. Yikes! I can't imagine how stressful that would be to deal with those situations on a regular basis.

There is a little girl in Kate's room who the teacher calls her little puppy. She is probably 8 or 9 years old. She follows the teacher around all the time. She is pretty much completely non-verbal. She definitely has some communication issue, but obviously these schools do not have the resources to cater to students who have special needs. Of what I have seen, there is no special education available in the public schools. The teacher just lets this little girl follow her around and not participate. She is not doing this child ANY good by letting her just get by. She is doing nothing to cater to this child's needs, besides giving her the attention that she is clearly in need of. I am sure this girl will move from grade to grade, where the teachers will just let her get by because they don't know what else to do with her. I feel so frustrated for her and so many students in her situation. Once again, the problem here is lack of resources, lack of people.