Our second week of teaching has gone by already! At the
beginning of the week we weren’t able to connect with the taxi driver, so we
decided to walk to the LBI. So Monday
through Thursday Laura and I left the house at 6:30 and walked the 1 ½ hours there
just in time to arrive and start at 8am. Luckily on the way there, it is
downhill. And then on the way back, we take the minibus to the bus depot, so we
only walk the remaining 45 minutes to get home.
The other day on our way to the LBI as we were walking, we passed
a line of bicyclists who each had about 3-4 live goats tied down on the rack on
the back of their bicycles. As the cyclists passed we heard the goats bleating what
sounded like their last cry for help. It’s always interesting to see what
people are transporting.
In the classroom, the students are continuing to learn
quickly and are progressing well with the typing. Here are some highlights from
the classroom:
One day as part of a review, we had them write either some
of the things they’ve learned, or some things they’d like to learn still. One
student typed that he wants to learn how to open an email. So I decided to help him create an email
account. I got him logged into gmail so
he now has his first ever email account!
We realized that only the first class has practiced turning
the computers on so we decided one day that at the end of each class, the
students should turn their computers off so the next class to come in could
practice turning on and off also. Since
the room is so dusty, all of the computers are on the table next to the
monitors. One class came in and a
student sat down at a laptop which was in between two desk tops. He went to
turn it on and instead of pushing the power button on the laptop, he quite naturally
reached to the right and pushed the power button for the computer to the right
of him to turn it on. So he turned on his neighbor’s computer instead of his
laptop. It was quite funny- even he was laughing!
Also in one class, a student decided to try a new game in
the Mavis Beacon typing program. It has penguins standing on icebergs and the
student has to type the word quickly before a shark eats the penguin. It’s difficult
because you have to type the word very quickly and most times the penguin gets
eaten. So when he saw that he just started laughing so hard and another student
started laughing at him and teasing him for typing so slowly (after each game
it tells the student how many words per minute you typed and your accuracy). After being teased, the student called
out, “Competition!” so then it was game on! The two students each pulled up the
same game on their computers and were competing for over an hour to see who
could type faster! They were having a great friendly competition!
Often we have them type their names or they’ll type other
words in Chichewa and the MS Word dictionary doesn’t recognize the word, so it
puts a red line underneath it. This really bothers the students because they
don’t know why it’s there and they want to get rid of the red line. So we
explain to them that the computer thinks the name is spelled wrong, but it’s
your name so it’s not spelled wrong, the computer doesn’t know Chichewa! They
smile and laugh at that! So we show them how to click “ignore” to get rid of
the line.
Laura and I were saying how we’d like to meet the students’
wives and children. We asked the first class of students if we could meet
their families. They said yes sure, so we planned on meeting them after class
that day. I thought it would be something causal, perhaps outside afterwards
for us to just see their wives and their children. At about lunchtime one of
the students tells us that they’d decided it’d be best to meet at 14 hours. He
said all the wives would meet in the classroom.
When our last class was over, we walked over to the
larger classroom and all of the wives and all their kids were inside sitting
down! And the students all came in too so we had a full room of over 60 people!
The kids were absolutely adorable! We told them we were hoping to see and meet
them and asked if they could get in groups by their families so we could see the
kids and wives with their families…so there was a bunch of shuffling around
until all the families were together. Then we asked if they wouldn’t mind going
around and saying the names of their families. The LBI students each stood
up and said their name and introduced their wives and said their kids’ names
all in order. It was so nice of them! And they were all teasing each other and
laughing, which was really nice! Most of them have large families with an
average of about 4 children.
I love the students’ determination with the typing. One student was practicing his typing again and
playing a game. At the end he had 94%
accuracy and 6 wpm. He’s always very positive and so he immediately set a goal for
his next game. He said he wanted to get 100% accuracy and 8wpm. He tried it
again and was so focused and got 99% accuracy and 10 wpm! He was SO close to
100% and he beat his goal for wpm so it was really exciting! The students all
focus very hard and are determined to improve.
At the end of our last class for the day, the students
always hang around and practice typing for extra time since there is no other
class coming in after them. One of the students is more familiar with computers
than the rest and already had a gmail account. So we were showing him other features in gmail
such as chatting and setting up a picture for his profile which Laura took of
him.
Thursday was our last review day in Microsoft Word so I made
up a little chart for them to fill out. We had them each pick their favorite
sports team and make a chart and fill out some information about the team. Then we helped them go onto the internet to do
a google images search for their team and then copy and paste the picture into
their word document. For most of the
students, this was their first time going online.
On Friday, we introduced Power Point. We had them each pick
one of their essays, and start a power point presentation using information
from their essay. It was challenging because it felt like we became English teachers
for the day in addition to teaching computers. We were trying to skim their
essays and help them condense the information…how to title the slides and how
much information to put on a slide. The students were enjoying adding
animations to the slides to make words bounce or spin onto the screen.
Friday after classes we went to Lake Malawi with the nurse, Melissa,
for one overnight. It’s over 90 km to get to the lake from Lilongwe and takes
about an hour and a half driving. I was
very excited that for the FIRST time I got to drive in Africa! I got to drive
stick-shift on the left side of the road! It felt so odd shifting gears with my
left hand instead of my right, and having opposing traffic pass on the right. And
then there were random goats crossing the road and people walking and biking
everywhere.
We walked on the beach Friday night and passed by a whole
shore of fishermen. They were putting their boats in to go out for the night. On the back of the boats are kerosene lamps which
they use to catch the usipa fish which are drawn to the light.
Friday night for dinner we ate some delicious butterfish. I’m not a huge fish fan but even I thought it
was really tasty!
Saturday morning we got up at 5:30 to see the sunrise over Lake Malawi. The fishermen were just coming in.
The sun turned from neon pink to neon orange and was
reflecting over the lake.
We enjoyed a nice day at the beach before returning back to
Lilongwe. I even got to drive part of
the way home!
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