Week 9

Week 9 (Week 7 Mulandi)

I cannot believe that this is the last week of Kenya!!!

It has been a crazy experience, and sometimes really difficult, but amazing. I think it hit me on Monday when I got a note from one of my students saying she loved me like a sister and that she wants to be my number one student. She is one of the brightest students in the class and to see her be so thankful for what I have done made it all worth it. I told the class that I would be leaving after this week and some of them looked like they could care less, but a lot of them were really sad and kept asking why I had to go home. It was crazy because I didn’t even think some of them liked me at all.

Tuesday was a pretty normal day, we did some fun sign language and I did the usual teaching thing. It has been kind of hard to plan for this week because we were supposed to have exams all week, but they don’t have enough money to buy the exams. I had 5 students to start the day, because they hadn’t paid their school fees. It is also really difficult to teach something when there are only 5 out of 18 students (4 kids aren’t in my class anymore because of money).  When you try to teach something in smaller groups, they might understand it quicker, but then it is necessary to explain it again and again as each child came in. That was actually kind of nice, because they got a good understanding of the material and individual time with me, but it was really difficult and tiring to explain the same thing 13 times. I guess that is what being a teacher is about! I need more patience J

Towards the end of the week, I had some more interesting experiences. On Thursday, my supervisor from Daystar came to my school. She was going to observe me, but the teachers decided to do exams on Thursday and Friday and wanted to get them done before the weekend. This means that there was no time for teaching, even if it was just one lesson. Since I wasn’t teaching, I just talked to her for an hour and a half about Daystar’s University of Education. It was very interesting and I learned a lot. She said she was so sorry for not coming earlier, but there was some miscommunication. She just became the Head of the department this week. The other lady left Daystar in January and is just now being replaced. This seems to be a common trend in Kenya!

I talked to her a lot about what Kenyan education students have to do. They do 12 weeks of teaching in their third year. Other than that they pretty much just take classes. They get observed a minimum of six times but usually it’s around ten. She also said that they are observed on their marking (how they grade), cleaning, disciplining, arrival time and many more things. The student teachers do not know when they are going to get observed, and the observer stays from 7:00 till 4:30 or 5:00. It seemed like it was pretty intense!

On the last day, it was really sad. I was reading them some books that I had taken with me from home. I had a couple, and when they were good (which was rare) I would read them a book at the end of the day. Since I still had 4 books to read, I decided that I would just stay a little extra and read them the books. I have never seen them so engaged in anything. They absolutely loved it. It was a really good way to end, because they were paying attention and then when I said bye I hugged each one and shook their hands. The teachers were crying and the head teacher called the students in and I told them all goodbye. I was so sad to have to leave those kids. They really are nice and a lot of them really want to learn. The teachers kept saying how good it is for them to have a Muzungu (white) teacher. For a lot of them I am the only white person they have interacted with. I hope I left them with a good impression and that they know I love each one of them.

This experience was a lot of ups and downs. As I sit in the airport in Istanbul thinking about it all, I cannot believe I actually did it. My teachers said I did a great job and I feel like I might have even taught them some things. I am so thankful that God put me in Mulandi school and I will continue to pray for the students and teachers.