My first day of School

As some of you know I have been trying for some time to get involved in a good volunteer organization. It seems like living in a huge city in such an undeveloped and poor country volunteer opportunities would be popping out at you from everywhere! But as luck would have it (or I guess I should really sad "as my luck would have it" because I seem to be plagued with a bit of an unlucky streak for a lot of my life. Not that I am at all complaining because my unluckiness is just always a bit, well annoying nothing usually worse than that a a burn or two each time I cook, but I am digressing) ... as luck would have it, I could not successfully find a single organization that needed me. Strange I know, I thought so too. So I have been volunteering 2 mornings a week for 4 hours at the library at an organization here called CSA. Community Service Organization thinking that being involved in something like that I would be bound to hear about some great things to volunteer with around the city. I was wrong. It turns out that most members of this society are rich women with too much time. CSA offers things to do that are more European/American style, to fill your day with not so Egyptian type things. Not that that life is at all bad, maybe well probably for sure if I had kids that would be the life I would want to embrace. But me being me, I want to actually matter to someone other than the 20 or so people it seems come in the library in the 4 hours that I am there. Not that it is bad, I rather enjoy the quiet and peace, and being around books of course, it just isn't all I wanted to do.

A friend of mine at church named Melissa who knew I'd been looking for volunteer stuff (she has too) told me last week about this school she found through AUC, a small school for Sudanese Refugees K-5. If you don't know anything about Sudan and the vast amount of refugees I really encourage you to read up on it immediately. She gave me the address and the name and phone number of the man in charge, Ayman which I called the next day, Thursday. He sounded very nice and we made a plan to meet at the School on Sunday. (Friday is the Sabbath here and Saturday Joe and I went on that tour). Their school is not in session on Sunday they go to school mon-thurs and saturday. But he met me there and talked to me. They count of volunteers to teach as the students do not pay huge fees for school, and they are short volunteers. VERY short. He seemed so happy grinning from ear to ear that I could volunteer so much. He asked if I knew how to play the guitar and sadly I had to tell him no but I do know the piano. Hearing that I think his grin got so wide I can't imagine a bigger one. Ayman told me that they are hoping to get a piano, but they don't have anyone that could play it, and now that I am there maybe they'll get one so I can teach music, he said that the children really want to sing and learn new songs and it is a good way for them to work on their English as well. Then they gave me 2 books of math and asked if I could be ready to teach 4th and 5th grade math the next afternoon. I am planning on volunteering 4 days a week there, either afternoon or morning.

So today after I went to CSA and worked in the library I hopped in a taxi to go to the metro (who initially began in the wrong direction I suppose trying to take me to a different metro stop and charge more... but that is another million stories of taxi adventures). I took the metro one stop down and get off. Then it is about a 10 minute walk to the school through very crowded streets, and the school itself is down an alley. I ended up being early and had to wait for my class to begin. The boy (young man) who was there and I had met yesterday is from Uganda and he's also very nice. Ayman is from Sudan.

The class rooms are tiny, like less than a third the size of classes in the states, really small. There are 2 rows of chairs and 2 long table that look like the same table are are in really old like 1800s movies of schools, wood and old. My 5th grade class had only 4 students but there were 15 4th graders in the next class. The Ugandan man, Kizito, told me that actually both classes have about 20 or more, but they aren't all attending right now because they cannot attend if they do not have a uniform. I can't imagine having 20 children in one of those rooms.

The children do not have books. I only have one. And many do not really have paper, etc. Or wouldn't get it out. Kizito told me after I was done with the classes that most teachers have a difficult time getting the children to behave. I can imagine. I had a terrible time. Not that they were terrible, but they wouldn't stop talking and they wouldn't really keep out their papers if they had them. And I couldn't tell if they were really trying to learn it or not. Overall though they were good, if they did have trouble listening. I think a real barrier was the communication one. Although they do speak english, it isn't as fluent as their arabic, so I think sometimes they genuinely had a bit of trouble understanding me when I would tell them to please write down their answers.

Tomorrow afternoon I am going to go again and teach Bible class to them. I felt a little awkward asking Kizito if I taught it Christian, because I just wasn't sure. He said yes. I am really excited again even though I know now it is going to be difficult. It is what I really want to do here, be part of something that is really helping (at least keep the kids in one room even if they aren't listening very well I hope to teach them something).

I know I am writing such long posts it is just so hard to shorten it even to this much that I can't imagine a shorter version which would be at all understandable. Wish me luck tomorrow! I am going to start in the beginning with the Creation!