Upendo Nursery

Here's a little bit about my placement:

I am a teacher at the Upendo Nursery, a small 2-classroom building walking distance from the dorm I am staying at. It has 14 kids right now between the ages of 3 and 6 but should have closer to thirty kids by next week. The kids here are adorable! They are these tiny little munchkins who run up and hold my hand as soon as I am in sight of the playground outside the school. They go to this school because they can't afford to go to the more expensive schools in town - they only pay $1 a month so that they can get porridge at lunchtime. (If they can't afford that, the family that runs the nursery pays for it with their own money.) The family is a preacher, his wife and their son Daniel who is the children's primary teacher. He is great with the kids, sometimes I wonder if he really needs our help but he says he does.

The work itself is pretty kickback - I teach them the alphabet, sing songs, and play with them. I guess I didn't know what to expect but working with them is pretty easy, I get to the school in the morning around 8:30, start lessons at 9:00, teach until about 10:15, and then let them play in the yard while we (Hilary, my fellow volunteer from Santa Cruz) go have Chai with Daniel. The children have their porridge served around 11:00 and then we walk them home shortly thereafter. I know I am having a great time with the kids but then I feel like I am not doing enough or not being utilized enough. I'm trying to do additional things like conduct Engligh lessons for some of the adults and helping Stacey with her work stuff. I still feel like I am constantly doing things and am exhausted, but I don't know how much of that effort is truly beneficial to anyone.

I actually got yelled at yesterday by one of the staff at dinnertime because almost all of the volunteers did not attend a scheduled 30 minute presentation about the Tanzanian education system. In front of everyone she said how disappointed she was and then she called out my name and said that as the leader, this was on me. (I didn't attend the presentation either because we had a 2-hour window before the presentation and Stacey and I needed to go into town to buy with our own money the paint and supplies we needed to paint Stacey's school.) Needless to say, I was upset; this seems to be the main issue I have with this volunteer program - it is way too structured and you have no real free time to do any personal items, much less any real work. I understand that you have to structure a full day of activities for the 18 and 19 year olds among us but for us adults, just give us the latitude to be effective.

Anyways, I have to run back to the ranch for another meeting but I really can blog for hours straight, there is so much to say (I think Stacey is writing about our trip to the Masai village right now so stay tuned for that - it's great stuff.) We hope you are all doing well and I can't believe how sad Millie looks - I think we'll have to bring her back an elephant tusk as a bone for her to chew on.

(I just found out today that the Colts and the Bears would be playing in the Super Bowl - how awesome is that! And a special thank you goes out to Win-Champion who is tivo'ing 24, my favorite TV show for me.)