Money

The teachers went on strike last Wednesday, which means fewer private English lessons and more classes for us volunteers. This job is totally draining, because the students don't really respect volunteers as much as they do their own teachers (understandably so).

Some teachers are not on strike, but still there are some classrooms which might not have a teacher for hours. It's reassuring, though, that those students with the most motivation to learn often go up to the board and give a lesson from the book and assign homework to the class.

I knew that reading English was difficult for many students, but yesterday I noticed something that I found to be a little disturbing. I was going over the homework with the 3rd graders, so I wrote the assigned passage on the board. The students kept asking to come read it and have the class repeat each sentence back.

I noticed that the reader would not always touch the pointer to the word he/she was saying. When I decided to move on and started to write a new passage for the students to read, one girl ran up to me and said, "Madam, we haven't learned to read that yet." It turns out that they had all just memorized the passages they they had to, and were hardly actually reading at all.

Last night I felt sicker than I have in my entire life. Should have paid more attention to my healthy guide to Africa book when it said 'don't eat frozen dairy products' (in this case, chocolate milk). Luckily, the two other volunteers really helped me out a lot, and took very good care of me. They made sure I took my medicine and had water and stayed in bed, etc. I really owe them one.

Speaking of volunteers, 5 more are showing up on Friday afternoon, which means we will have a full house - there are 8 beds total. Anyway, the ones I was with and I will all go on a weekend trip while the others are getting settled in. It will be interesting to see how the group dynamic will change this coming week.

Also, I can pretty much just never buy anything. As soon as I tell someone I'm going to buy bread, or someone sees me with a grocery bag, they always ask me for some. I completely understand, but it does make me feel a little uncomfortable. Once I give one person a gift, everybody might ask me, so I either have to say no, share the whole loaf of bread, or just never buy anything. Or do so in secret.

I can't believe I'm only spending 5 more weeks here. This week has really flown by. At the same time, thought, I feel like the best thing I can do for the Eguafo orphanage is to send money over on a regular basis. The organization runs solely on donations, so it's a sad fact that there are some nights when no food is available. Not that I'm pushing anything, but if you do happen to want to make a donation, just type 'Sankofa orphanage Eguafo' into Google and you should be able to find the website.

I'll be sure to keep you updated on the adventures of the next couple of days!

Yoo, yen ko!

Emily