Friday, July 19. 2013

Well today was a busy day and another full of adventures.  

It started off with my new room mate arriving at 12:15 AM.  She is from the United States and along with three other people will be staying here for a month.  After she arrived, my brain was trying to tell me that it was morning time and so it was another hour or so before I fell asleep.
Just like the other mornings this week, I headed over to the school to help out there for the morning.  The bell rang (and by bell, I mean one that you shake with your hand) and all the students lined up.  We sang the national anthem http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDPsv5p7i7E, a very beautiful song, prayed the Lord's Prayer and sang another song.  Then as the students were walking to their classrooms, the principal comes up to me and says "Teacher Tuwela and Teacher Sarsih aren't here, can you teach for them?"  Of course I said yes - there was no way I could resist.  My first question was "What do I teach?" and when the answer was "Umm, I'm not sure what they are learning about.", I knew it would be an interesting day.

Some students working hard

 I didn't know any of these students, there were no sub plans, there is a language barrier and I was teaching two grades at once with one grade being unable to read and the other grade just learning how to read.
So I started the day off with Bible and told the story of Noah.  We drew a picture of Noah's boat and the rainbow.

 After this, we switched to math.  where they did some subtraction questions.  Then I was lost - I had no idea how much they could read, what stories they read, etc so I sent them outside:) I had a few minutes of rest and quiet and then rounded them all up again.  There is no bell and so I literally had to go to everyone and tell them to come in.  Some of them did not want to come in, and then when they came in because there were extra students and a different teacher, it took a bit for them to get settled.
I then filled the rest of the morning with having breakfast, copying done word from the board, talking about days of the week, learning a song ("Only a boy named David.") and having lunch.

Drawing a picture of Noah.

Hmm, what should I draw?  

The kindergarten class.

Kinda blurry - but a very cute kindergartner

Helping each other

 Since the students were not used to me, there was a lot of quiet, sit down, you need to work . . .  I had a few tears, some of the kindergartners biting each other, a student who had an accident and lots of hugs and smiles.  I respect those Grade 1 and kindergarten teachers a whole lot more after today!!

For lunch, three loaves of bread and container full of brown beans was given to me.  I had no idea what to do with this, so I asked the students.  They each got 2 slices of bread and then the brown beans (which were runny) was put on the side of the plate.  They then used their bread to soak up the brown beans.  They loved this meal and the 15 students had no problem gobbling it all up.  After lunch, they went outside for another break.  This was a whole school break, so the bell was used to gather everyone together.  After lunch, I taught Art.  For art, we attempted to create a landscape scenery.  They had to put glue on the bottom and then put sand on top of the glue.  Some of them were successful and some of them were not as successful but they all were enjoying it.  At 2:00, the students were dismissed.  However, this does not mean that within 15 minutes there are no students left at school.  Instead, there sometimes are still students playing at school at 3:30 - it all depends when they feel like going home or when their taxi arrives.

Some of the students wanted to help me clean up, so they swept the classroom for me.  Their broom consists of stiff grass tied together.  

Pictures are not the best quality - but it gives you an idea of what they are doing. 

Sorry, you will have to tilt your screen.  

Once school was over, my feet were aching.  I could tell that I had not been standing for this long all day.  I then headed to the college and spent a few hours working there.  

Tomorrow is a ladies conference here at the college and so once I was done at the college, I went over to the hall and helped decorate it.  They use lawn-chairs for the attendees, but they have some cover they put over them and it makes the place look quite fancy.  We also put table clothes on the book tables and decorated the podium and the stage.  Once we were done, it looked very nice.  I'm looking forward to the conference tomorrow.