Friday, February 6, 2009

Goin' Ta Juvy

So I'm not going to be teaching at Rau any more. Today I came in to work, like normal, and I began teaching English with the teacher I was partnered up with. So far everything is normal. Suddenly I turn around from writing on the board and the teacher has disappeared. If I was teaching grade 6 then this wouldn't matter, but I was currently teach grade 5, which has less of an understanding of English and so it is harder for me to instruct them in English. The children copied down the questions on the board and the four options for answers, but then they tried to tell me they were done. I tried to tell them that they weren't done and to choose one of the answers, but they all looked at me with blank and confused expressions.
Once that nightmare of a class was over I headed over to teach grade 6 on my own since the teacher had not yet returned from wherever it was he went to. I handled teaching the grade 6 children fine. When I came back to the teacher's lounge my partner teacher finally returns and he reeks of alcohol. I'm angry that he ditched me to fend for myself so that he could go get his drink on, but at least he's back so I don'ty say anything.
The next two classes I follow him around to classes being taught all in Swahili, which essentially meant me doing and understanding nothing for 80 minutes. The last class before lunch and before I leave is grade 6 english again. As we settle into class a friend of the teacher comes by, this friend is the leader of another volunteer group working at the school, they're building bathrooms for the kids. My partner teacher talks with his friend and with the volunteers, but then he grabs the nearby volunteer girl's butt. The volunteers then quickly leave, but the teacher did this infront of the children, so now they're going crazy and I have to calm them down. Today I couldn't get out of that school fast enough.
With what happened today I've decided to change my placement to a place where I feel like my time will be better spent. I'm going to be working at the Juvenille Hall in Tanzania. Cross Cultural Solutions is the only organization that comes there and I can teach the kids but also I'm there to keep them entertained. If a CCS volunteer doesn't come to the Juvenille Hall, then the children are locked up in a room all day, but when I come by we can go outside to the courtyard or the soccer field across the street. The children are relatively well behaved and they're happy to have someone like me come by, but also there will be a huge language barrier since only a few of the kids know very much English. Just means I'll have to push towards learning Swahili even harder.

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