Thursday,March  15^th,3:40 p.m.

Hello, Muzingoes!

Hope you are all well…and appreciating ELECTRICITY! (ours was off 3 times yesterday…and my computer needed charging as well as Kindle, Ipod and cell phone!!! EEEKS! My lifelines to HOME were severed! (It was off almost all the day and night…went back on about 5 a.m.)  But, now everything is J!

      I’d planned on catching up with all the days..and then, looking back, I see that God must have known how long it would take for me to post what I’d written…and that the electricity would go off, because I just managed to send it!

      Monday I met with the Headmaster (Dick) and we had a great visit.  I told him of my dream that each of the 67 3 year olds would have a wooden chair to sit in…(we’d need to get 27!) and that they would remove the big pile of “stuff” in the back of the room to give this Crowded class more room…and to maybe arrange to pay somehow a para-pro to come in and assist the teacher.He was in agreement…and happy—and will get back to me with the cost.  He said the para would be about 100,000=125 schillings , or about $50-$65 a month! For a full day….

I also asked if it would be possible to meet with the “baby, middle, and top” class teachers (pre-school) and P1….and he said  YES! How about this afternoon?  I said”How about tomorrow?”  So thath night I had my entire room and bed covered with teaching stuff and sorted through to give each teacher a “teaching pin” , note of encouragement  from fellow American teachers(Thanks, ADK! It meant so much to them!),index cards, pens,pencils, pencil sharpeners, (did I mention that 6 year olds use a half of razor blade to sharpen their pencils?they actually do better than our sharpeners on the quality of pencils they have)”rubbers”,sticky notes, glue sticks,etc)

I gave them each about 6  ,little books(thanks Cynthia!), and their choice of posters. We started with a bottle of water and drink packets to put in them plus some M& M peanuts (Ina…you said to feed them!  They were HAPPY!) They wrote any questions they had to us (My roomie Sue came with me..we make a great team!) and we looked at them while they looked through their goodie bags.

First, I asked them how many children each of them had (ranged from 2- 4) and who took care of them while they were teaching.(Most Grandmothers (YEAH!), one “neighbrs (which could mean “the village” if anything like where we are living) and one has a child in the school and her smallest comes with her.THEN, I asked them how far away they lived (5-12 miles)…and how did they get to school.  All said “bodaboda”…which means they sit side-saddle o n the back of a bicycle!!!!!...the cheapest way to travel other than walking.  Can you see yourself doing that?!

      Questions asked: Challenges: “Given the big number in my class,even the seats also are not enough” (I hope to take care of that somehow!)

“We don’t have enough materials in the class”,

Other: How is the learning here different from that in America?,”How many learners are allowed for one teacher  in class?”,”How do you find our lessons?”,(lots of repetition..and writing from the board after this repetition..Sue and I think this may be the way they learn to read.but they do lots of singing and moving in between);”How can you help us improve our weakness?” ,”What do you like about our teaching and being together?” (They are mostly enthusiastic..though have seen one cane a child….very friendly and appreciative of us being there…and they are our sisters in teaching!)”How much do they paythe teachers”.What can I do as an infant teacher to find that there are no young children on the streets in Uganda and Africa?’ (Smile Africa, where we spent today) is tryiong to help this situation)

Good questions…and we had good discussion!  What a wonderful, enlightening experience.

To sum up my feelings at this point, I am honored to be here among such people as those  I have met so far..and I have met a lot. Shop keepers at the market…including an 18 year old Girl pastor, super friendly “tailors” when Sue bought some fabric, a man and his wife who asked me to take a photo of their sweet  8mo. old baby, and the man who told me I could take pictures of HIS chickens when another man yelled”You give me money for photo”!

There is the wonderful Mother of Pastor Ruth(my hero..Smile Africa)…who today I adopted as my other Mother!  She is making me paper beads with crosses..beautiful.  She was an orphan herself, raised by Muzungos…then with others..a hard life.  She had 10 children, only 2 alive now..and she is so happy to have her “family” enlarged by us.  What a sweet woman!(This all was translated to us by Doris)  I also now have another “sister”,Doris! And even a “brother”, Timothy, who is a field officer for Women..of Hope 4 Kids. I always wanted to have a big family! Just a little bit away. My very special natural  sister Gail is “only” 3,000 miles away in N.Y. Hi,Gail…our family just got bigger!!!Hope you and Freddie are well!

I know this is too long so I will stop. If any of you have any questions, please ask!

Will write tomorrow, if we have electricity!