Other impressions of my long day of teaching. My hosts howled with laughter as I related the events of the day. I forgot to mention to you that in one class, still learning how to do the greeting to them, I somehow got myself in a continuance of the "hi, how are you" questioning and they just kept on repeating the answer – it was like a game of "who’s on first" Finally, I just said "please, sit down!" :> Another hilarious moment: near the end of day a huge bumblebee – and I have to tell you they are HUGE here. One comes and buzzes around my window every morning (this is to add to the chorus of very loud crows who caw their greetings to me.) Anyway, this bee came hovering around the entrance to the classroom and finally, of course, came into the classroom right at me. Needless to say, I dodged this rather large insect much to the delight of the children. Nonchalantly, one got up and swatted it down for me. This is common place for them and to see a Mazunge afraid of one, must be hilarious for them. Their accent is quite strong and we often play a game of "pardon me?" with mainly myself asking them to repeat themselves multiple times so that I can figure out what they are saying! One funny moment was when we were discussing differences in means of transportation between Kenya and Canada and they kept saying to me "sheep" – I finally said, ok you ride sheep…. only to be later corrected on the board that what they had been saying was "ship" ha ha, we had a good laugh as I told them that I had seen many forms of transport around here, but had yet to see people riding to work on sheep! I forgot to tell you (to add to the long list of insects I am encountering), I had a lovely greeting as I went for my shower. A large spider awaited me right before the shower stall. It looked like a good sized dock spider. Now, it is not my practice to generally harm these creatures, but the thought of sharing my bare feet with a spider of unknown origins was a bit too much for me and I’m afraid I zapped and squashed it into spider heaven and quickly donned my waterproof sandals before entering the stall.
HIV/AIDS awareness is embedded into the curriculum at all times. English stories they are studying tell stories about people suffering from AIDS. They talk about prevention and how it is contracted in science class – it is in every subject taught in school. Also, issues about education - for example, they talk about the fact that some children cannot go to school due to work that they must do for the family. These kids are very well informed and it is a widely held belief here that the war against AIDS must, must, must begin with this level of education. One of the great questions the kids asked was whether we had tribes in Canada – and I went on to tell them that the Native people of Canada had tribes. This in turn, led us to a discussion to the history of Canada and how the Europeans brought with them smallpox that wiped out huge populations of the Native people. We thought about the comparison of this with AIDS – and that though they were very different situations that there were some similarities. Stories of the effect of AIDS are everywhere here. Two mornings ago, I chatted with Opea, the lovely waiter who takes care of my breakfast. He was asking me about Canada and whether life was so difficult as it was in Kenya. He was sad that I was going to be staying only a month and I said, well perhaps I will come back and he said, who knows if he would still be here. I asked if this was a decent job to have and he said yes, of course, but that life was rough. His dream was always to become a doctor but he has no financial means to do so. He graduated from secondary school through sponsorship and had great marks, but had no way to pay for further education. Secondary school is not free and many kids must stop education after primary if they have no sponsorship. His parents both died of AIDS when he was twelve and has had to fend for himself ever since. He is twenty now and obviously frustrated that he must be a waiter making not enough to save anything with no means of getting on with his education. He said that the scholarships tend to be awarded to privileged students and that "unable" students as he called himself, were never even considered for scholarships. I asked him about the possibility of loans and he said yes, that was a possibility, but you still had to come up with some of the funds. I told him to not give up – to fight for a way to continue his education, he was still young enough to do so. But it makes you appreciate the system we have in Canada where students may leave school with huge student loans, but they still have that chance to get ahead in life. If any of you know of any organizations that could be approached in Canada for funds for a situation like Opea’s – let me know. It would be lovely to get him in touch with a way to really go after his dreams.
HIV/AIDS awareness is embedded into the curriculum at all times. English stories they are studying tell stories about people suffering from AIDS. They talk about prevention and how it is contracted in science class – it is in every subject taught in school. Also, issues about education - for example, they talk about the fact that some children cannot go to school due to work that they must do for the family. These kids are very well informed and it is a widely held belief here that the war against AIDS must, must, must begin with this level of education. One of the great questions the kids asked was whether we had tribes in Canada – and I went on to tell them that the Native people of Canada had tribes. This in turn, led us to a discussion to the history of Canada and how the Europeans brought with them smallpox that wiped out huge populations of the Native people. We thought about the comparison of this with AIDS – and that though they were very different situations that there were some similarities. Stories of the effect of AIDS are everywhere here. Two mornings ago, I chatted with Opea, the lovely waiter who takes care of my breakfast. He was asking me about Canada and whether life was so difficult as it was in Kenya. He was sad that I was going to be staying only a month and I said, well perhaps I will come back and he said, who knows if he would still be here. I asked if this was a decent job to have and he said yes, of course, but that life was rough. His dream was always to become a doctor but he has no financial means to do so. He graduated from secondary school through sponsorship and had great marks, but had no way to pay for further education. Secondary school is not free and many kids must stop education after primary if they have no sponsorship. His parents both died of AIDS when he was twelve and has had to fend for himself ever since. He is twenty now and obviously frustrated that he must be a waiter making not enough to save anything with no means of getting on with his education. He said that the scholarships tend to be awarded to privileged students and that "unable" students as he called himself, were never even considered for scholarships. I asked him about the possibility of loans and he said yes, that was a possibility, but you still had to come up with some of the funds. I told him to not give up – to fight for a way to continue his education, he was still young enough to do so. But it makes you appreciate the system we have in Canada where students may leave school with huge student loans, but they still have that chance to get ahead in life. If any of you know of any organizations that could be approached in Canada for funds for a situation like Opea’s – let me know. It would be lovely to get him in touch with a way to really go after his dreams.
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