Got up, had breakfast, went off to the market bought 60 kilo's of of manikaro zapota aka chikoo fruit, 45 pairs of flip flops in various sizes and a dvd player, headed back for the volunteer house and then on to Little Po to assist the teachers at the school....or so I thought...
When I got to the school with the other volunteers we realised that due to one of the teachers being sick and a couple having moved on the school was short of teachers and before I knew it the dreaded words were being said out loud; 'you are just going to have to go in at the deep end' to say I was scared and nervous is an understatement, why? because if you hadn't guessed it already it meant I was going to be teaching a class all by myself!
Before I knew it I was being lead by about 20children ranging from the ages of 4 to 11 years old to 'my classroom'. I had never seen so many excitable children in a long time and yet on the opposite end of the spectrum there was I who was dreading getting to the classroom, I can honestly say if I could have dragged my feet I quite possibly might have I was that terrified.
When we got o 'my classroom' a part of me was put at ease as I was in a very informal idyllic surroundings but most importantly with children who were so eager to learn and talk to me. My classroom was on the grounds of a Buddhist temple surrounded by tree's in the middle of the village.
The children in my class were at beginner level and so I thought where better than to start with the ABC song and then on to "A" is for apple, "B" is for ball etc, the children were very good and am sure were thinking 'come on Mina fast forward, we already know this stuff' or something to that effect and so I quickly moved on to do a bit of a sing song and I have to say the kids were brilliant, they knew all the rhymes and songs I was taught and had almost forgotten at school and eve taught me one or two! The lesson ended with a bit of test on double digits something that they had not learnt and something for me to build upon next time.
Never having taken a lesson before I can completely relate to how rewarding it is to teach children. My achievement today was teaching the children that word or he following parts of our hands; thumbs, fingers, toes and nails. When I write this I can understand how small an achievement this may come across but allow me to put it into context. These children are only able to go to school in the afternoon after they have got up helped with the household chores such as cooking, cleaning, feeding siblings and then on the farm feeding the animals and so when the children are late for school and say that they were late because they were feeding the cows that is what they have been doing, when a young girl was fighting to stay awake in my class which was not a quiet one, I knew that she was pretty exhausted carrying out the work of an adult and then getting to school to get an education. Despite all of this the children are determined and happy to be at school and most importantly are getting an education despite the lack of any real materials or resources because all we were working with today were the children's individual chalk boards - detention for me because i didn't even have one of those...I hope I have given you some insight as to how little there is at this school, yet the children are all able to speak some pretty decent English.
At the end of the school day we handed out the chikoo's which the children were most grateful and happy to receive.
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