Biology Lessons & a Volleyball Lesson

Dorcus makes amazing breakfasts every day, and I am so thankful! On this day, 10/28, she prepared mandazi, eggs, toast, watermelon, and coffee. I walked to the high school and met Steven, another biology teacher. I took pictures and sat in on his lesson about genes, phenotypes, and punnett squares. Just like the math lesson the day before, I really enjoyed listening to this teacher! It reminded me how much I love learning about biology and how excited I am for chiro school. 

I helped Rogers teach his PE lesson and apologized because I had missed it the day before due to the primary staff's devotion running later than I had thought. We taught 80 students basic volleyball skills. But first, Rogers instructed them on how to draw a volleyball court on the concrete basketball court. They did not have lines painted, and so they used chalk! The skills we taught them were passing, setting, and serving. We did not make it to hitting, which I am assuming was because of time and the number of kids. When I started talking about passing, Rogers told me, "No, not just pass. It is called a dig pass." And apparently, calling it setting was also incorrect. Volley pass is the correct term. Overhand serves are called smash serves. The only term that I said correctly was "underhand serve". Sorry Rogers 😂! 

I went to the staff room for break at 10:00am, when they usually take tea and eat porridge or mandazi. Instead of saying "drink tea", they will say that they "take tea". I sat by a woman named Genevieve (pictured below), and she said that she teaches 94 senior 1s. "That's crazy!" I told her, and she just shrugged and replied, "Well, this is Africa." 😂 I forgot if she teaches English or Kiswahili. Easy mix up 😂. She was very sweet and told me that she could just tell when I walked in that I would be friendly and adaptable. I thanked her and told her that I feel as though every situation needs to be approached that way in a new country in order to make friends and learn! 

After meeting Genevieve, I walked to another biology class. This one was with Bwamik, an s1 teacher. He had over 80 students in his class, and what I liked about this specific lesson was that he took the class outside to make it interactive. They were learning about parts of a flower, and so he had them all grab hibiscus flowers and peel them apart as he spoke. One observation that I've had when sitting in on classes is that the teachers will say some sentences but stop right before they are going to say the last word. And then their student will fill in the blank basically. This keeps the students engaged and thinking on their toes and allows the teacher to gauge their understanding of the material. For example, Bwamik would say something like, "We are calling this part the?" or "And the water flows through the?"and the students would have to respond saying, "stalk", or whatever completed the sentence. I've definitely had teachers that did that in America, but it just seems to happen like every fifth sentence here. 

The road that runs past the high school always has people walking, especially kids. Below is a video that I captured walking back to the guest house. 

Because it did not make sense for Dorcus to make me three meals a day when no other guests were at the guesthouse, I started eating lunch and supper at the house with Andrea, Haril, Damalie, Dezi, and Joziah. I also met Mary, the housekeeper for the directors, who helps clean, cook, wash, and take care of the kids while Andrea and Haril are working during the day. Mary is a gem. She is so patient and gentle. Below is a picture of Mary doing Dezi's hair with Fortune on her lap. Fortune is Mary's one year old.

When Dezi got back from school that afternoon, she wanted to do my hair. I told her that she could as long as no bug spray was involved 😂. I taught Joziah how to write the letters J and O, and I decided that next time we would need to do letters inside, sitting down at a table. The ants outside were more exciting than someone telling him to draw lines and circles on a piece of paper. I helped make tacos and guac for dinner, read bedtime stories to the kiddos, went back to my apartment, and headed to bed.