11/5 Obama!

Wednesday November 5

Obama won! 

Everyone here is thrilled. The Tanzanians love Obama, so much so that we have many cars with Obama bumper stickers and Jack even saw one bus with Obama's face painted on the back. They all feel connected to him because of his Kenyan heritage, even though Bush did some good things for Tanzania as well.

I wasn't on breakfast so I slept in until 7 - that was great because we were both just exhausted from the safari yesterday. I found out this morning that I would be helping out in the afternoon with the English and computer class from 2-4.

And this morning I left Jack with the preschoolers so I could go give the 3rd grade letters to the Standard 2 class. Carolyn has them in the mornings in Serengeti house for some tutoring before they go to school. I handed out all of the letter with the pictures of the maple leaves as well as the laminated pictures of each American 3rd grader You should have seen their faces! They couldn't believe it - letters and pictures to THEM - with their names on it. I had to run and get my camera. It was priceless. I wish I could have brought a letter and photo for each and every child!

After lunch I found I had a new job - to help with the English and Computer class. These 10 students have been taking this class since July and all live within a 2 hour+ walk from here. Can you imagine some of them walk over 2 hours to get to this class? Just amazing to me. They want to learn English!!

Lindsay and I had them in the Volunteer House around the table. First we split them up into groups of two and had them practice their greetings. They had to have a conversation with each other, practice several times and them get up in front of the class and repeat their conversation. They are all so shy and speak so softly - we kept having to remind them to speak a little louder. They speak the same way in Kiswahili so it's not surprising. 

Then we had them practice their vocab words having to do with travel (airport, taxi, road, boarding pass etc). We had them write them all down and then write a sentence with each - I think there were 10 words in total. Some are definatly better than others - to be expected - and it was a little frustrating because they were at such different levels. Most of them were about 18 years olf (+/- a year or two). One of the things I asked them all was what they wanted to be - what they wanted to use their English and computer knowledge for. The responses were great - a prime minister (a young woman), a safari driver (also a young woman, a teacher, a pilot etc. I love that they have dreams! And that they realize that learning more will and can help them!

We also put in a movie for them to watch - but after about 10 minutes I realized that it was too fast paced and they couldn't really understand it very well - so we went back to the table and studied the words some more because they are going to have a quiz tomorrow.

At 4 I tried to skype Scott's class - but alas there was no internet! So scratch that for today - will try again tomorrow.

Was on for bath/ egg & toast snack and not for dinner - which was a bummer because dinner was chapate which we LOVE! They are like pancakes made out of flour, water, sugar, salt and lots of oil. They are just so good and the kids have them only on Wednesdays and Sundays.