Our relief at seeing him must have been quite overwhelming, the poor guy sat on the plastic chair sipping his juice and smiling nervously as we beamed at him and tried desperately to remember our Swahili. It cant have been too bad though, he showed up again today-with 9 other people! They have a Kenyan teacher who does basic maths, literacy and English with them so we assumed we would be assisting her. Instead I ended up taking the weakest students with Connie (the bearer of potato gifts) and the others took the more able students.
It was quite daunting teaching adults, its a fine line between being clear and being condescending. It was also eerily quiet: no screams of pain or roars of "Madam, meeeee!" They were all so eager to learn but too shy to speak out loud. We did some basic addition and then an introduction to English greetings. My Swahili lessons came in handy, I was able to write everything in both languages which really helped. It also helped to break the ice: I pointed out that my Swahili is at the same level as their English so we can teach eachother. They were laughing at my clumsy mistakes and it seemed to make them less nervous about making their own.
The class was really cool, it really made me appreciate all those years of being stuck in a classroom. It must be so intimidating to try and get by in society when you can't add up your wages or read official letters, write a cv, read a newspaper...Makes you realise how much of your education you take for granted. The classes are going on every night for the next 3 weeks of Easter holidays, then once a week after that. I'm really excited about it but I'm not really sure where to start. Anyone with ideas or advice, please fire them this direction!
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| Computer class |
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