Focolore Adventure

Monday was Focolore School day again and we all went there to help teach in the after-school program. Students are divided by age group and each of us sort of takes on some teaching task. Carrie and Caleb took on the middle group (about 5th grade) and worked on sentence structure and pronouns. Carrie would write a sentence and when one of the students got the words correct, the took a block from the Janga game. Eventually the pile would collapse with a roar of approval from the kids.

Swahili doesn't have separate pronouns for you and me and we and them and so on. The pronoun becomes the prefix of the verb so hello (jumbo) becomes hello all of you (hamjumbo) and so on. So Swahili speakers are very confused by "hello to you" and that often becomes "hello to me". Listening to Grace (the housekeeper) and Sharon (the wife) communicate goes like this:
"Grace, you don't have to make the beans today. I will make the beans"
"OK, Mama, you will make the beans"
Here is what Grace heard: "I won't make the beans, you make the beans" and Grace makes the beans anyway.

Sharon, Annica, Tobie and Dale worked with the little kids on vocabulary. "Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" is a big hit with that crowd. "Hip Hip Hipopatamus waw also a top song on their billboard.

By the way the one in the red in the front is 7 and speaks nearly perfect English. She is going to be President of Tanzania some day.

I had the "Form One" students who are in about 7th grade. You can tell by the picture that they are enthused to be listening to a lecture on "slope of a graph". Some knew the material well and some were not so sure. We graphed rainfall, water in the cistern tanks (more on this later) and sunlight.

The school invited us back on Wednesday for a "send off" of sorts so that should be interesting.

The "you cannot make this stuff up" story for today is that the neighborhood has been under a siege by ditch diggers as they bury new water pipes. There are piles of dirt dug up by teams of 8 to 10 (mostly women). Then new pipes are installed and reburied. Of course they jack hammer (by hand) the concrete driveway aprons and blast thru any sort of asphalt or concrete sidewalks that might be in their way. The sidewalks are left as half gravel, half pavement and the ditches are piles of eroding dirt. Most likely that has stopped the municipal water from flowing and our water ran out Monday morning. On top of each apartment are 3 or 4 large 2000 liter tanks that are filled by the municipal system. When the water stops flowing from the city, these tanks provide the supply. Ours are empty and we will just have to wait and see when the water returns. Last word we had was that the tanks on Block A (where the Stiles reside) were not yet empty as there are fewer people living in that block. So I guess that water (along with electricity) is an option for city living. We filled some 5 gallon buckets and can cook and wash dishes with that water. Time to go back to bed and rest up for another interesting day.