WOW! Hey this is Gussie Gordon and I have been given the incredible opportunity to teach in a school called Mnara Primary School in Koru, Kenya. It is about a five minute drive from the Ouko’s home.
I have loved staying with the Ouko famly and getting to know them. After ten minutes you feel like family. Every night we have all shared laughs and eat all different types of traditional Kenyan food as well as some food my mom cooked for everyone.
Although the nights have been fun, we have had an amazing time working in the school together. As some of you might know we brought tons of school supplies and sporting goods with us for the kids here. Over the past few days we have been using the materials and putting our projects into action. The first day we taught at the school, we worked with the first grade teaching them about the human body. We traced their bodies and taught them the parts of the body. We also sang the song head shoulders, knees and toes.
The classrooms in the school are dark and small. They are made out of cement and only have a couple of windows. In each classroom there is an old blackboard with one piece of chalk. There is only one teacher for an average of 60 kids per class. Most of the kids have torn clothes and no shoes to wear. When we walked into the school they all stared at our family like we were aliens because they had never seen white children. They all tried to touch me as if white skin feels different from black skin.
The following day we taught in the second and fifth grade classrooms. In the second grade we played addition bingo with the kids and our little game left the teachers baffled at all of the amazing teaching resources out there. The kids did very well at the game and proved to know their math facts. All of the kids in the school are very smart and talented, but they don’t often get the opportunity to show it. In the fifth grade classroom we filled out “about me” posters consisting of questions like your favorite place, what you want to be when you grow up, your favorite food and about your family. I was so inspired by these kids’ hopes and dreams. Many of them want to be pilots, teachers and doctors when they grow up. The funniest answer to what you want to be when you grow up came from a little boy who wants to be a tourist!
On Friday we started one of our biggest projects which was to create a mural with the sixth and seventh grade. The theme for the mural was learning, reading and what they want to be when they grow up. All of the kids wrote stories and drew pictures about what learning means to them and then we transferred these ideas onto a huge canvas using paints, markers, stickers, felt pieces and buttons. We also started a project with eighth grade where all of the children received hardcover blank books and they decorated and wrote about themselves in the book. I was so excited to do both of these projects because they help all of the kids get to know each other and be creative. They are both unfinished but will be completed on Monday.
On Saturday the kids have class but this Saturday we did something extra special with the kids. We brought all of the sports equipment and we taught the kids baseball, kickball and dodge ball (we also played soccer which they already know). The kids caught on and had a great time. The only thing was they absolutely kicked our butts at soccer. All of us made excuses why we didn’t win, but we were no match for these kids.
Today has been a relaxing day for all of us because there is no school on Sundays. Today we all chatted, read books and went on walks. Tomorrow we will be doing a really fun project! We are doing tie die with the fourth grade class and finishing the mural and journals. I have had an incredible and eye opening experience that I will never ever forget!
Peace Out,
Gussie Gordon