It is the little things...

Since I last posted, our team has taken a short weekend safari to Ruaha Game Park, where we saw many animals and even got chased by elephants! While in Ruaha, we received word that my backpack had made its way to Dar finally, but Lynn's has yet to be found. I feel pretty fortunate to have gotten my bag because I only had one outfit with me, and there is only so much borrowing you can do in the group when we all only have about three outfits tops! After returning from the weekend trip, we began to work on our planning for teaching in the schools. I also had a chance to meet with the local village leader to discuss a need the village was experiencing. Basically, for nearly two years, a dispensary (clinic) has been in the works and being built. The village did not have enough money to complete this project, with the bathrooms still needing doors. The doctor from Dar would not be sent until doors were ordered for the bathrooms, because the clinic would not be opened. Project Kesho was asked if there was any room in our bathroom budget to allot money for four doors which would allow the dispensary to open. Their financial need amounted to eighty-five USD. We were able to facilitate this, and within two days doors were being built and a doctor was on his way. This dispensary will serve the local community, in particular providing children with free immunizations and mother's with pregnancy care. Our organization believes that healthy children are more likely to attend school and not miss important lessons due to illness and that children must be healthy to learn at an optimal level. Here are pictures of the bathrooms before the doors and the bathroom doors now hanging in the newly opened dispensary... Thank you bathroom donors!! A little wood goes a long way... In addition to these bathrooms and doors, we will be having our formal meeting with the whole village council to confirm the girl's bathroom budget for the school next week and then officially break ground for these bathrooms. We may have a roast and celebration during that time too. Some projects we will be working on following this summer trip and could begin if there are people interested in helping to support our work: As you have probably noticed from our pictures, the classrooms are devoid of wallhangings or environmental print instructional aides. We have determined that for a mere cost of around six hundred dollars, Project Kesho can supply one of the local school teachers (who is an artist) with paint supplies to paint the walls in each classrom with instructional aides. These wall paintings will include bilingual labels in Kiswahili and English for the lphabet, the numbers, the days of the week and the months of the year. Other subject matter related paintings will be done too. By painting these things directly to the walls, we can avoid posters ripping or getting damaged. A little paint lasts a long time... Finally, I want to share a little about the students and our teaching experiences. We have been teaching these last two days as a team, as we get to know the teaching guidelines, the methodology and the students. We have been working on telling time in English with the students because the Swahili time system is very different than ours. In Swahili time, the day begins with sunrise so one o'clock in the morning is actually OUR 7 a.m. This difference in time system makes it very hard for the children to understand the English system, a system used throughout the world including in business. We have been humbled by the patience, persistence and eagerness to learn that the students have displayed. We are slowly seeing them become more comfortable to talk to us, although they are still very shy. The pictures to follow are being posted in hopes of giving you faces to connect with our work...so you may know the people and so you may see the potential in each child the way we do. You may recognize some of these children from pictures in other years, from pictures I have in my classroom in Washington or from our website. It is wonderful to see some of these children getting older and remaining in school. They are tomorrow for Africa... Please feel free to comment on this blog and to let us know if you think you can help our organization! projectkesho@yahoo.com -Cathi