Teacher Workshop Week 1

This has been an adventurous week. When we first arrived we had no sleeping bags so we slept on rocks for about a week. We had no running water so in order to take a shower or cook we had to travel to the well and fetch buckets of water. There are no toilets, just an outhouse. There is no electricity so you must get everything done before the sun sets. Cory slaughtered a goat and we were able to feed the whole community. The women here are treated like property. They are circumsized and have their bottom teeth pulled out. They fetch the water, cook, clean, tend the children, plant, water the plants- basically any chore you can think of. The men sit on their "special chairs" made out of wood under the shade. They sunbathe naked and have many wives. They are very lazy and it makes me sick to my stomache. If a woman gets caught sitting on the "chair" they are beaten and must sacrifice one of their goats.

I can't be totally pessimistic, education is improving, and will be even more with the XO's OLPC has donated. More girls are being allowed to attend instead of getting married when they turn 13.

We started teaching the teachers about the XO and its programs from 3pm to 5pm every day. The first day was very fustrating because they could not grasp the concept of the mouse. It took about 30 minutes just for them to get a hang of clicking and dragging the mouse. We started with record and write. Then we tried to get them to copy and paste a picture into write and illustrate a story- big mistake for the first day. Each day got better and better. The second day we taught speak and wikipedia which they really enjoyed. Then we taught them memorize and calculate. They made their own memorize game by matching a swahili word with an english one

i.e. Jambo-Hello Asante-Thank you

We moved on to ruler, implode, and moon activity. We have accomplished so much in only four days. We decided that we will start teaching the children in the morning and continue the teacher workshops from 3-5pm each day. I also decided that I am going to start an after school program where we will go more in depth with the XO's so that they will fully understand the functions. Some of the OLPC team have become full time teachers- they have taught english, science, and of course computer science. The solar panels we installed are a huge success and we were able to also put in a light so that the children can learn at night.

All is well!