Malaleni

July 20, 2015 – Malaleni

The buildings

Today was our first real day of ‘work’ at Malaleni.  We were originally told to be there at 10:00, but once we found out that the students didn’t start arriving until 3:00, we decided to wait a bit.  We went to the Distance Ed office and spent a few hours checking emails, reading Facebook, catching up the news, looking for touristy things to do, etc.  It is amazing how much you depend on Internet.  We do not have access to it at all at Butjani and it can be very sporadic at the office.  It’s showing me how much I rely on it and proving that I can do without it J.  We arrived at the Achievement Center around lunch time.  One of the teachers, Mike, showed us Khan Academy.  I have used this program with my Gr. 7/8 students and they (for the most part) enjoyed it.  Here at the Center, the teachers have seen remarkable progress for the students.  They had to pay a large amount of money to put it on their server, but now they are able to access it without Internet.  After this, we just hang around for a bit, had our lunches and waited until the students came.   Once the students arrived, they were served lunch, which is part of their program.  It is interesting watching them while they are eating.  Teens in Africa are the same as teens in Canada.  They are loud, funny, and like to tease each other in both countries.   For most of these students, this lunch is the last meal that they will receive until breakfast time tomorrow, so they make sure they eat up.   

Lunch time

After lunch was finished, the younger students headed to a classroom for Bible study and the older students went into the hall for their Bible study.  There were about 30 teenagers in the hall.  One of the teacher’s led the Bible study.  The topic was “Whenever you do something, you must put God first.”  He talked a bit about it, but then wanted input from the students.  No one wanted to say something first, so he had them each say something about what they thought about the topic and they had to do so in English.  Most of their responses were quite basic in that they said the same thing in that they pray to God all the time and when they wake up and when they go to sleep.  At the end of the talking, the teacher then said that some of them were lying.  The students laughed because they knew he was referring to the fact that although some of them had said they pray all the time, they knew that this wasn’t always true in their lives.  He recognized the fact that they knew that it was important and he encouraged to continue working on putting God first.  These questions had to be done in English and so it was interesting to see the difference between those who have a good grasp of the language and those that struggle.  Those that struggle would get very antsy and self-conscious, but all of them would try and say a few words. 

Bible study

The directors at Malaleni would really like to see the students become more comfortable with English and so that is one of their goals.  Much of the teaching is done in English and there is a lot of English help provided. 

After Bible study, time was up and so the students went home.  Julia and I also headed home. 

Travelling on the left side of the road with a stick-shift has been going well.  The only issue that I am having is that my car has a loud clanging sound under the steering wheel whenever the road is especially rough.  (Any ideas Dad?? J)

I was surprised at how quick I was able to get back into that routine.  Traffic is still busy here, especially in terms of pedestrians and animals moving all over the road.  We try to avoid travelling at night as it is hard to see everything that is around you.  The roads are in decent shape, although some of the shoulders can be quite rough.  On the way to Manaleni, there are huge speed bumps, and I’ve bottomed out a few times on them, so I have to make sure I am going very slow. 

Tomorrow we hope to go to Manaleni and do some tutoring with the students.  I am looking forward to this.  If you want to read more about Manaleni Achievement Center, just look for it on Facebook.