This morning I had hands-down the most fun hour and fifteen minutes of tutoring so far. Given, Stone, Jeremiah, and Obey were so enthusiastic and excited about reading. Given, who on my first meeting couldn’t even identify all the letters correctly, was literally begging me for more stories. I started off by having them take turns reading sentences, and each boy was thrilled when it came to be his turn and pleaded with me to let them continue to read more. Stone is improving – he still takes a long time figuring out all the letters and sounds, but he’s improved so much already. Jeremiah is very energetic but always focuses all his effort on reading. Obey is really quiet, calm, and reserved. He’s very smart, and until today was reading and writing far beyond the other boys’ levels. Given actually did better than him with reading today and nearly equaled him with writing. I can’t tell you how proud I am of Given. I have never seen a teenage boy so excited about anything, let alone reading, and the leaps and bounds he has improved by astound me. I can’t believe how much he has improved. On Monday I assigned him homework, and he did above and beyond what he was supposed to do. He is so ready and willing to learn – it’s a teacher’s dream. The thing that kills me is these boys go home to no books. I think back to when I was learning how to read, and not only did I have stacks of my own books to look through, but my mom took us to the library several times a week. How will these boys ever improve if they don’t have the resources? If Given had just one or two books he could practice with at home, he would improve even more. Is there a way we can get books here permanently for the kids? Having just a small library with some Dr. Seuss books they could borrow for an evening or two would make such a dramatic difference.
One funny moment from English today: Our theme for the week is asking for help and describing an injury, so today I was teaching more vocabulary, like rash, stitches, and bruise. I showed a picture of a bruise I had on my arm once and started saying something like, “You know how when you hit your arm or leg on something, it turns colors? This is a bruise.” This was met with concerned, confused looks at the picture. I then realized that a bruise on my whiter-than-average skin looks a lot different than a bruise on their skin. Sarah asked, “Umm…why is your arm blue?” and Regina answered, “Our skin is black. Our bruises look differently.” The other ladies were really concerned by the picture and asked, “Wait…your bruises actually turn colors like green, blue and yellow????” Which reminds me of another funny moment last week – I said that when the word is “ivory” is used, it means white, and then the ladies suddenly started chattering away in Chewa for a few minutes, laughing hysterically. I heard them say, “The Ivory Coast” and immediately knew what they were laughing at. One of the ladies turned to me and asked, still laughing, “If it’s called the Ivory Coast, then why don’t white people live there?”
My afternoon tutoring session went really well. I finally got solemn, stone-faced Shain to open up, talk, and laugh during our activities. He started giggling uncontrollably when we were drawing things that started with “E” and I drew a really tall stick person, saying it was me.
I went for a very short, slow run to test out my foot…success! No pain! Then I went over to watch kickball for a while. Wednesdays are kickball days for the really little kids, ages three to seven, which is just ridiculously adorable. I started playing with the little kids who lost interest in kickball after a few minutes. I scooped up adorable little Aubly (pronounced Aubrey…Africans often switch the “L” and “R” sounds), who is the tiniest little three year old ever. His little giggle just melts my heart. Then Brian ran over, and soon eight or nine of the other little guys came too, all asking to be picked up and snuggled. It’s nice to feel loved!
Our little choir sang tonight at church. It didn’t sound as nice as it had in practice – Charity is sick and can’t sing very well right now and we struggle without her. It went fine, though – we sang “Lamb of God” and a song that Charity taught us.
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