Habari za mchana! (Good afternoon!)

I have been teaching classes for a couple days now, and it has been really interesting. I have had a couple of days to work the problems out of my schedule and learn how a Tanzanian classroom works—first of all, I adjusted the schedule they gave me, where I was supposed to be teaching seven classes, but the school day only contains six class periods. I am now teaching Standard 7 English and Math, Standard 6 English and Math, and Standard 4 English. In Tanzania, Standard 7 is the highest grade in Primary School before the student advances to Secondary School, where there are 7 more grades he or she must complete before graduating.

I really love the two older classes—there are eight students in Standard 6, and six in Standard 7 so I know all their names already and can give them plenty of individualized attention. My Standard 4 class is a little rowdier and definitely a challenge because they don’t speak as much English as the older kids, but there are some really hard workers in the class. For example, on my first day before I had adjusted my schedule, I was in a Kindergarten classroom (completely over my head) where I was supposed to teach English. The actual teaching wasn’t the hard part… they knew their English ABCs better than I had expected them to, but what are you supposed to do when “Sit down” or “Raise your hand” or any other classroom commands sound like gibberish to them? My two favorites (I’m not picking favorites, but…) from the Standard 4 class came into the kindergarten classroom begging me to come to their room and teach. Evance and Johnson, two of the cutest ten-year-olds you’ve ever seen, practically dragged me to their classroom as I tried to find a teacher more equipped to teach the young ones than myself. They were so excited to learn Math and English and came to my room after class to get extra help.

Evance and Johnson aren’t extremely out of the ordinary here—there are so many bright and motivated students that are begging to learn. While it bothers me that some thirteen-year-olds don’t know their times tables or what equivalent fractions are, it is obvious that their desire to learn has never been hampered by their inconsistent schooling or even their teacher-less classroom. There are two very special boys that I have been giving extra lessons to since my first day here: Lucky and Elia.

They came knocking on my door the first night I was here, wanting extra math lessons. Every day they have returned, attempting every problem I give them and always asking for more. When I had unpacked the books and started organizing the library, they were SO excited to look at all of the brightly colored books and almost started fighting over the stories. I showed them how to check books out from the library and every day since, they have checked out a different storybook, read it, and brought a list of words to me that were in the book that they don’t know. They are so smart and so cute—Lucky checked out Peter Pan from the library the other day and as soon as he opened the book, he started giggling uncontrollably at the pictures of Captain Hook and the crocodile.

As a test for my Standard 4 to see where they were in their English abilities, I asked them to write a letter to a friend in the United States telling them about Tanzania. They got so excited at the prospect of sending a letter to friends in the United States, that I thought it was unfair to not share them--so here are my two best letters.

"Dear friends,

My name is Dott Damien. I am ten age. I live in Usa River. I want to see you when you come to Tanzania. How are you boys and girls? I like to write and to read. 

For sincerely, thank you very much,

Dott"

"Dear friends,

My name is Evance. My life is good. I would like to be a doctor. How is your life? I live in Arusha. My father name is call Senya. My brother name is call John. I am in class four. I want to see you face to face.

Sincerely, 

Evance"

Enjoy and thank you for all of your encouragement and support! I really appreciate it, and I know the kids do too!