As I write to you now, Marilyn and I are back in Arusha at the Impala Hotel anxiously awaiting the arrival of our team at 1 am tonight! We have made the long 8 hour drive from Lushoto starting at 9 this morning after a short meeting with Mama Munga, the provost of SEKOMU who has been away in Sweden. She was excited to hear about our work and we were thrilled to share with her how great her students have been and how much we enjoy teaching them.
Marilyn and I are pretty exhausted from this week of teaching. Our focus was on differentiated instruction and how to use inclusion in the classroom when working with students with learning disabilities. It is a mouth full just typing it, you can't imagine how difficult and exhausting it can be teaching it to university students who speak English as their second language. The SEKOMU students do a marvelous job at retaining the information and helping each other understand the content and directions. Since we will be in Zanzibar this weekend, teaching was commenced a day early. The students have two projects to work on; developing a screening tool for early childhood identification (THANKS LESLIE SMITH FOR YOUR INSIGHT) and a "Disability Brochure" to go along with outreach materials. We have been impressed with the students written responses, reflections, and assignments so far, so we can't wait to see what they construct over the weekend.
Next week is going to be jam packed! Our K-State Service Learning Team won't know what hit them! We have two days to practice the screening tool and get a planned nailed down for Outreach, then will be practicing the screening tool and using the Book in a Bag materials at a variety of schools and the Irente Children's home. We have plans to have a "story telling" session with Mama Ndemu (the head of the Orphanage who told us her stories last summer for our books). Over the weekend we will relax and spend some time at Irente Farm and Irente View Pointe. After some down time we hit it full force again with a few days of outreach in local villages. As of right now, the plan is to visit two different villages, with two different groups of University Students and the Irente Rainbow School Outreach Team. <<<>>> Upon visiting the villages, the outreach team has volunteers already set up in the villages. The volunteers are, right now, in charge of seeing out the outreach program. They help bring families to the Lutheran Churches where screening are conducted and parents are given information about various disabilities and strategies that can be used to help make their child's life more successful. We have high hopes, that we will be able to train the Irente Rainbow School Outreach staff, our SEKOMU students, and the volunteers in the different villages to use the literacy materials we have prepared for the 7 published story books we have supplied. The hopes is also that a consistant group, visits the villages once a month to give the volunteers and parents a new book and a new set of materials to go along with. The carry out and follow through are going to be essential and is something that Marilyn and I both worry about since we will not be here to manage how things are run. We and praying for the best!!!
To lay to rest some of our anxieties we had the most amazing experience yesterday while visiting our friends Susan and Tom at the Irente Children's Home. They are housed in a home just down the road from the home, so we had a driver take us to their place for lunch and a visit. They will be leaving on Monday to go back to Pennsylvania for a while to visit friends and family. While we were sitting around their living room, Neema, one of the older girls (6 years old) who has lived their since birth came by to peek in the window. We quickly invited her in, as she remembered us from last year. She sat down in between Marilyn and I and wanted to be apart of our conversation. Marilyn made the suggestion to show her the books since Neema was of age to start reading. We pulled out the alphabet book first and her little eyes lit up! She immediately started turning the pages and reading each of the words both in English and Swahili. Once she was finished with her she started looking around and asked for "more", so Marilyn pulled out Kisa Cha Tembo na Mbu (The Elephant and the Mosquito). Neema immediately started giggling and Courtney Smith's wonderful cartoon-like illustrations. She began looking at the words as well, and sounding out the letters. Susan was so impressed with Neema's ability to sound out and read the words. She was shocked more so, because Neema has never read aloud to Susan who has worked with her often in both Math and Reading when she is home from boarding school. Neema continued to light up and read the words with my help. She seemed to love the praise from us when she would read a word correctly and once she finished with the Elephant book again asked for more. We continued to read through the rest of the 5 books and enjoyed seeing how excited she was to read them..... the best part about this whole story is yet to come :)
Tom, Susan, Marily, Neema, and I sat down with Susan and Tom's house keeping, Veronica and her almost 2 yr old son, Thomas to eat lunch that Veronica has prepared. While enjoying the wonderful Wali (rice), Pineapple, vegetables, and sauce we noticed something remarkable. Little Thomas, who had been watching Neema's every move while she was reading our books began to point at a little picture book of his own, mimicking what he had seen Neema doing just a little whole ago. It was amazing to see the power that books hold. Here was this toddler, who was pretending to look at the book and its pictures and then try and say the word of the picture. It was just simply the best feeling, both to see our books bring joy to children, and spread awareness of just how important reading and literacy is! We never really know where the materials that we bring over to Tanzania end up, but we know that when we put them in the right hands they are put to good use. Even though the publishing and fundraising took a lot of effort this moment over lunch made it all worth it! To reflect on it now, brings it all back into prospective why it is we work all year to come back to this beautiful country! Tanzania has so much to offer in terms of agriculture, landscape, tourist, and overall spirit, that we hope we can offer our short team services to better educational efforts for children with disabilities. We have big plans for next summer and can't wait to share some of those once some other things fall into place!
We hope you have enjoyed reading and we look forward to sharing our adventures in Zanzibar this weekend! Marilyn and I are setting off at 12:40 this evening to go greet the team at JRO International Airport. After a short snooze, we have appointments for massages in the morning. We figure, we have worked hard hard hard this week and are deserving of some much needed pampering :) After our massages, the team and I are off to Zanzibar. We catch a flight at 1 and will be there by late afternoon. We are staying on the north part of the Island right on the beach. It will be a nice introduction to Tanzania for some of the first-timers on our team :) Pictures will be up soon so check back in!
Hope all is well in the "states"
God is good! Continue to pray for our success, health, and well being!
Until next time, Kwaheri!
P.S. I appologize in advance if there are some grammatical and spelling errors in any (but especially this) post. I am extremely tired this afternoon and looking forward to some good nights rest in Zanzibar!
The following are some pictures of our time at SEKOMU
This is our walk to work every morning/afternoon! How beautiful are the Usumbara Mountain of Lushoto, Tanzania?? Do the trees look familiar??? These are pictures in the Hawks Sewing Needle book we've published!
Brand new building that was being built last summer when we visited. We are teaching on the ground floor across from the auditorium :) Magnificent!
Students working with the "Books in a Bag" materials :)
Working on constructiong differentiated lesson plans using Kisa Cha Tembo na Mbu
Lesson plans using Sungura na Maji
Tiered instruction presentation by a group of students!
Marilyn and I are pretty exhausted from this week of teaching. Our focus was on differentiated instruction and how to use inclusion in the classroom when working with students with learning disabilities. It is a mouth full just typing it, you can't imagine how difficult and exhausting it can be teaching it to university students who speak English as their second language. The SEKOMU students do a marvelous job at retaining the information and helping each other understand the content and directions. Since we will be in Zanzibar this weekend, teaching was commenced a day early. The students have two projects to work on; developing a screening tool for early childhood identification (THANKS LESLIE SMITH FOR YOUR INSIGHT) and a "Disability Brochure" to go along with outreach materials. We have been impressed with the students written responses, reflections, and assignments so far, so we can't wait to see what they construct over the weekend.
Next week is going to be jam packed! Our K-State Service Learning Team won't know what hit them! We have two days to practice the screening tool and get a planned nailed down for Outreach, then will be practicing the screening tool and using the Book in a Bag materials at a variety of schools and the Irente Children's home. We have plans to have a "story telling" session with Mama Ndemu (the head of the Orphanage who told us her stories last summer for our books). Over the weekend we will relax and spend some time at Irente Farm and Irente View Pointe. After some down time we hit it full force again with a few days of outreach in local villages. As of right now, the plan is to visit two different villages, with two different groups of University Students and the Irente Rainbow School Outreach Team. <<<
To lay to rest some of our anxieties we had the most amazing experience yesterday while visiting our friends Susan and Tom at the Irente Children's Home. They are housed in a home just down the road from the home, so we had a driver take us to their place for lunch and a visit. They will be leaving on Monday to go back to Pennsylvania for a while to visit friends and family. While we were sitting around their living room, Neema, one of the older girls (6 years old) who has lived their since birth came by to peek in the window. We quickly invited her in, as she remembered us from last year. She sat down in between Marilyn and I and wanted to be apart of our conversation. Marilyn made the suggestion to show her the books since Neema was of age to start reading. We pulled out the alphabet book first and her little eyes lit up! She immediately started turning the pages and reading each of the words both in English and Swahili. Once she was finished with her she started looking around and asked for "more", so Marilyn pulled out Kisa Cha Tembo na Mbu (The Elephant and the Mosquito). Neema immediately started giggling and Courtney Smith's wonderful cartoon-like illustrations. She began looking at the words as well, and sounding out the letters. Susan was so impressed with Neema's ability to sound out and read the words. She was shocked more so, because Neema has never read aloud to Susan who has worked with her often in both Math and Reading when she is home from boarding school. Neema continued to light up and read the words with my help. She seemed to love the praise from us when she would read a word correctly and once she finished with the Elephant book again asked for more. We continued to read through the rest of the 5 books and enjoyed seeing how excited she was to read them..... the best part about this whole story is yet to come :)
Tom, Susan, Marily, Neema, and I sat down with Susan and Tom's house keeping, Veronica and her almost 2 yr old son, Thomas to eat lunch that Veronica has prepared. While enjoying the wonderful Wali (rice), Pineapple, vegetables, and sauce we noticed something remarkable. Little Thomas, who had been watching Neema's every move while she was reading our books began to point at a little picture book of his own, mimicking what he had seen Neema doing just a little whole ago. It was amazing to see the power that books hold. Here was this toddler, who was pretending to look at the book and its pictures and then try and say the word of the picture. It was just simply the best feeling, both to see our books bring joy to children, and spread awareness of just how important reading and literacy is! We never really know where the materials that we bring over to Tanzania end up, but we know that when we put them in the right hands they are put to good use. Even though the publishing and fundraising took a lot of effort this moment over lunch made it all worth it! To reflect on it now, brings it all back into prospective why it is we work all year to come back to this beautiful country! Tanzania has so much to offer in terms of agriculture, landscape, tourist, and overall spirit, that we hope we can offer our short team services to better educational efforts for children with disabilities. We have big plans for next summer and can't wait to share some of those once some other things fall into place!
We hope you have enjoyed reading and we look forward to sharing our adventures in Zanzibar this weekend! Marilyn and I are setting off at 12:40 this evening to go greet the team at JRO International Airport. After a short snooze, we have appointments for massages in the morning. We figure, we have worked hard hard hard this week and are deserving of some much needed pampering :) After our massages, the team and I are off to Zanzibar. We catch a flight at 1 and will be there by late afternoon. We are staying on the north part of the Island right on the beach. It will be a nice introduction to Tanzania for some of the first-timers on our team :) Pictures will be up soon so check back in!
Hope all is well in the "states"
God is good! Continue to pray for our success, health, and well being!
Until next time, Kwaheri!
P.S. I appologize in advance if there are some grammatical and spelling errors in any (but especially this) post. I am extremely tired this afternoon and looking forward to some good nights rest in Zanzibar!
The following are some pictures of our time at SEKOMU
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