One in Forty-Eight

  Mwanza, Tanzania
Friday, August 1, 2008

Michelle and I on her last night

Thursday, July 30 was Michelle's last day at the orphanage. To be honest, I was personally in denial this was occurring.  The last few days that Michelle was in Mwanza she was doing quite a bit of shopping with Gloria buying things with the money she raised for the orphanage. I did not see her as much those days, but prior to that had literally spent almost twenty-four hours a day with her for the last month. Michelle had hoped she could get through her orphanage good-bye without crying in front of the children. We had discussed previously how it must be harder for the children when volunteers get emotional.  However, when one of her fourth grade boys started crying, she understandably could not hold back.  I too fought as hard as could but found myself tearing up as several of the children cried. We could still hear some of the children's sobs as we headed down the path from HOM, and I knew Michelle's heart was breaking.
 
The moment the calendar turned to August and Michelle took an early taxi to the airport, the fact that I was leaving in two weeks began to sink in.  Although this is as much time as some volunteers spend, I began to feel the clock ticking. Although I miss my husband tremendously, I am realizing that it is going to be much more difficult to leave these children than I anticipated.  In terms of teaching, I am just getting settled. I now feel confident in assessing my students' abilities and have developed fairly effective strategies to facilitate their learning. For obvious reasons, the older students have trust issues, and I am just beginning to feel I have earned this trust.  This is perhaps my most satisfying accomplishment; however, I am leaving in two weeks.  So am I worthy of their trust?
 
My brightest student is Stellah, a fifth-grader who aspires to be a doctor. The day before Michelle left, she and I actually had a very mature conversation (in English) about volunteers coming and going. She explained there have been too many volunteers for her to get attached.  She started listing names and expresses, "There are too many to remember! I can not even write them all letters. It is too many".  I told her I understood, and I had thought before I came that it must be difficult for all the children to keep saying good-bye to their teachers.  Ironically, Stellah is the student whose trust I desired the most and worked the hardest to win.  I feel that we have just begun to establish a relationship.  I teach Salome, Joel and Gloria's oldest daughter, with Stellah.  Salome is also extremely smart and is a talented artist. They are both actually ahead of their grade level, and I am always trying to do creative lessons with them. Imagination, creative play and fantasy stories are not prevalent at all with the children.  Their schoolwork appears to be all memorization and repetition. I have been working with Stellah and Salome on creative writing and other activities that do not follow the mold set by their schoolbooks. They have been doing quite well with this, so I have also begun to spend more time on verbal communication. Their written English is advanced, but I wanted to see how they do conversationally.  During our last few classes, I have encouraged them to ask me questions about anything.  These exercises have led to some very interesting talks about America, Tanzania, AIDS, women in Tanzania and their futures. Stellah shared with me a song in Swahili about all the things a women could do including being president. She loves to sing it at school especially since it makes the boys angry.  I think we have all learned a lot, and I feel a bond forming with Stellah. I know she is mature enough to understand that I am not staying forever, but I only hope she is not angry with herself later for letting me in.

Salome and Stellah

 
Diana is making progress although slowly. I have essentially started at the beginning of the book to make sure she understands the material.  I love seeing her face when she realizes she already knows something. Josef, age nine, is another student who is very far behind.

Josef

He and his two sisters are also the newest additions to HOM.  A few weeks before I arrived, Josef had started coming to the volunteer house looking for food. Jako investigated and discovered their mother was leaving them alone for all but three days of the month as she went away for work.  She would leave some money, but once it was gone, Josef had to go look for food for Mary, age five, and Sese, age three.  He tried to go to school, but repeatedly was sent home for being dirty.  The volunteers took them to HOM and apparently their mother came to visit once but has not been seen again.  Josef is very eager to learn and loves to have class.  However, he is still greatly struggling to learn the alphabet.  English and Swahili have the same alphabet, and he can sing the ABC song. However, he has trouble distinguishing the individual letters.  When I ask him to write a specific letter, he will say the alphabet and try to picture it in his head.  If the letter is early in the alphabet this seems to work, but the farther he gets from A the more this unravels.  I do not know if the difficulty of this is caused by a learning disability or if he was missing school for a very long time.  Unfortunately, I feel he has to master his letters before we can move on with English, and we both struggle with the repetitiveness of studying the alphabet. I will break lessons up by reading to him or doing math, but want him to truly know the alphabet before I leave.  I found some play dough at the house and this week we have been working on making the letters with play dough. He enjoys this, and I have my fingers crossed this will work.  If not, I am not sure how to proceed. I may need to settle for him learning just some of his letters with me.
 
My main challenge the last two weeks has been behavior management with one of the nursery girls, Judy.  Most of the other children have learned that I will not tolerate them disturbing the classes.  Judy, on the other hand, will repeatedly enter the classroom, yell, grab books and pencils, and then give you a sinister smile when you get angry.  After several weeks of this behavior, I was reaching the end of my patience. Finally, one day I warned her that I would tell Mama (Gloria) if she did not stop. She grinned at me believing I was bluffing, but did leave the room. Twenty minutes later she returned, and I went to get Gloria.  Of course, Gloria was nowhere to be found reinforcing Judy's belief that I was lying. Using my Swahili dictionary, I managed to tell her that next time she was bad, I was telling Mama.  Salome reiterated my threat in better Swahili.  On the way home, Jako and I discussed Judy as she was also driving him crazy. Although we figured Gloria would spank her, we both agreed that something must be done.  She could not continue to decrease the quality of the other children's learning.  The next day after Judy inevitably disrupted class, I discussed the situation with Gloria. I assumed it would be taken care of, but the following day she was no better.  She came into the classroom and tried to grab pencils away from the students and kept refusing to leave.  Finally I reached my breaking point. I grabbed her hand and physically tried to drag her from the room telling her we were going to Mama. She began to cry and threw herself on the floor. I thought to myself that perhaps Gloria did punish her. As I did not want to drag her all the way across the compound, I left her on the floor until she reappeared, with the same evil grin, five minutes later. I left the room in search of Gloria.  I could not find Gloria, but Joel was actually at home.  My gut told me that he may react more harshly, but I was at my wit's end.  I explained the on-going situation and that I had discussed it with Gloria the previous day. He informed me that he was the disciplinarian of the house and would take care of it.  I walked away hoping I made the right decision.
 
Joel retrieved Judy from the classroom and took her to the side of the building. Several of the other children went to watch, but I guiltily walked to the other side of the compound. I could hear the faint sound of hitting and sobs. A few minutes later, Joel triumphantly walked around the corner with a large stick, doing what I can only describe as a victory dance.  Judy followed slowly behind crying, and I felt sick to my stomach.   I discussed the situation with Jo that night, and she informed of her belief that Judy has some problems.  She believes that she would largely benefit from private school with smaller classrooms.  Unfortunately, private school costs $400 a year and without someone to sponsor Judy there is no way HOM can afford to send her. I asked Jo if she knew anymore about Judy's background that may prove helpful in understanding her better.  Jo opened a computer file containing the only information we have about the children.  Both of Judy's parents died of AIDS and she has no siblings.  The only helpful information it contained was that Judy is about to turn eight.  Yet she is still in the nursery class.  As Jo works full-time now in order to stay in Buswelu, she is not around HOM often and can only speculate that Joel and Gloria must have not felt Judy was ready for school. I suspect that Judy is bored out of her mind being left with the little ones all day and will now be even further behind when she finally does begin school.  I fear then she will be too challenged and perhaps embarrassed at this point and continue acting out. I vowed to have more patience with Judy and to see what I can do in the next couple of weeks to help her. 
 
The next day, Judy was much more subdued.  I made a point to thank her when she silently walked through the room without being disruptive. After my classes I took her to the back of the yard where we could talk alone.  Judy does not know a lot of English, so I used the friendship section of my book to ask her what kind of music and sports she liked. I managed to ask her some other questions about herself and then gave her a big hug. I complimented her behavior again and told her we would talk more tomorrow. Over the last few days, Judy's behavior has drastically improved and I now seek her out for hugs instead of trying to avoid her.  And at last, I am able to teach my classes in peace.  Without the disruptions and with their trust growing, I am getting to know my students better each day.  My teaching enjoyment and my love for these children is growing every minute I spend with them.  I dread abandoning all the progress my students and I have made together. And I cannot bear to think that I will only see these amazing children for two more weeks.  I wonder what will happen to Josef with his big smile and even bigger heart? Stellah could truly be anything she wants if given the opportunity; I so hope that she is able to achieve her dreams. And Judy, I do not know what will become of Judy. I want to use every chance presented to compliment her behavior and give her positive attention.  But I am leaving soon. I feel she has extinguished the patience of the adults around her. She has been much better behaved lately, but will anyone notice? I am only here for two more weeks. And she is one child living in a home with forty-eight other children. However, I believe she desperately needs more patience and attention from caring adults than the other children. But the reality is that they are all only one child in an orphanage of forty-eight children in a country of approximately 3 million orphans who all need the patience and attention of caring adults.  I believe I am a very small part of the solution, but how I wish these children were not a part of such a massive problem.

Snuggling with Judy