An update on the past month

It has been quite a long time since I have written a blog. I wish I had a good excuse, but it comes down to lack of internet and laziness. A lot has happened in the past month, some good and some bad.

Let's start with my class. My 40 rambunctious students have gone through two sets of exams. Can you imagine as a 6 year old taking 3 exams in one day? Yea, me neither, it is really hard. They rocked through it and I am very happy with the out comes. Almost every student improved form the first/mid-term exam to the second/final exams. There was also a lot of changing in ranking. Some students went up in the class ranking and some went down, but over all I am really proud of the out come. Giving exams to Class II was very difficult and writing exams that will allow the students to achieve without having to feel pressed is hard. For the primary school all the teachers have to write their exam questions on the board and the students have to copy them in their exam booklet and answer the questions. I also had to read the questions aloud and found my self reading the same question 40 times. The final exams for term 2, I decided to take a different approach and have a few of my exams printed. It made a world of a difference, but there is not budgeting for the primary grades to have their exams printed. I found that the students are so worried about writing everything on the board rather than the main focus of answering the questions. We have working reading text with real facts and my students have loved getting to know about different animals and places.

After the exams, we had a few days to grade all the exams and type an over view sheet. I also had to hand write 40 report cards. It was very time consuming, but the students were very exited to receive their marks before their 2 week Easter break. A couple days before we went on break one of my best student's, Noah, father passed. It was very sad and sudden, but I got to go greet the family and pay my respects.

I have been spending most of my Easter break in Freetown with friends and my PARENTS. My parents arrived on Thursday of last week and we went straight to Kabala. On the drive up we got to see an amazing rainstorm. They got to meet a lot of my students and a lot of the school staff. I showed them around town and where we buy our food. We went to a good Friday service where they were introduced to the church and then we had a dinner Friday night with our school staff and friends. People got to meet my parents talk to them about Sierra Leone and about having me here. They were all amazed at how far they travelled just to see me for a short while. We had so much left over food that we invited a lot of the neighborhood boys over to eat. They ate a lot of food and danced around the house. Saturday, we went to the beach for two days. It was so relaxing and beautiful. From there we went to Freetown, the capital city, and I got to take them to some of my favorite places and they got to meet all of my Freetown friends. We ate some really good food and got great tans. I will miss them so much, but it was amazing having them here to see what I am experiencing. It was the push I need to remain focus in my goal of being here to teach these kids and learn new things. IT is crazy to think I only have about a month and a half left.

God Bless
Nikki

A short story about my first village journey....

I wanted to start this blog with a short story of my first trip to the village:

The sun was out and the cool air whipped across my face. It was Saturday morning around 6AM. I heard the constant turning of the motorbike engine. I felt every bump and turn of the road. I saw streams of brown and green as we flew passed the bush and farms. The road to the village Koindabaia was about 10 minutes from my house. In front, was Sarah and Steven leading the way. As the wheels of Steven’s Honda XL kicked dust in our faces, Lansana and I were finally turning onto the road toward my three hours of indescribable peace.

The dirt road was littered with pot holes, rocks, and big puddles, but the motor bike was able to weave through all the bad parts so gracefully. The road was surrounded by green plant life and trees bending every which way zig-zagging toward the bright blue sky. All you could hear was the sounds of insects and the faint buzz of the engine. I felt as if I were flying. Bending up, down and around the hills of Kabala has an overwhelming sense of peace and relaxation. I just sat on the back of Lansana’s bike and enjoyed the cool breeze and sights to see.

About a mile from Koindabaia you can see the two huge trees in the middle of the village. The trees are so big that even if ten people held hands around the trunks of the trees you would not fit. If you were to outline the trunk of the tree it would look like a star with 30 points. We were greeted by Steven’s grandmother and Lansana’s grandmother. Because we were driving back through we only stayed for about 10 minutes and were back on the winding dirt road toward the village of Yara where Steven’s grandfather lives.

Steven’s grandfather greeted us with 3 chickens to take home and some nice cold water. As his family prepared food we walked down a small path to get to the river. Yara has the most beautiful winding river with goldmines down the banks. Followed by 20 children we went to see the sites and to wash our feet. The river was shallow and had many waterfalls. There was one point when one of the kids was pushed in and could not swim, so I had to step into a deeper part to help them out. The most beautiful part of the villages was the ability to unplug from Kabala and the world and to just enjoy the beautiful sites and people.

The ride back was just as peaceful and felt as if it went fast. I was able to reflect on the people I met and the places I went. As we came back to Koindabaia we met Steven’s mom and they gave us the gift of rice. The village life is very different from Kabala and it was a wonderful experience.

***(some pictures on facebook)***

The rest of the week has gone very smoothly. Teaching is getting easier, even though the kids are just as rowdy. I got the opportunity to try and pound rice in the village, which was very challenging. On my ride back to Kabala I named the beautiful chicken I was carrying Kevin. We ended up eating him Sunday night when our guest, Kathy, arrived. Kathy has been a missionary for over 20 years in Nigeria. She has come for two weeks to work with accounting at CES and at CRC school. This weekend Krissi, Ansou, Sarah, Steven, and myself are traveling to Freetown for valentines benefit. The dinner/dance will support a women’s home that helps support teenage girls with children. I am very excited for my first trip to Freetown and to go to the beach.

Saying Goodbye to January

As you all may know, today is February 1^st, and I cannot even believe that the month of January has come so quickly to an end. Each week feels as if it goes by faster and faster. Pretty soon it will be June and I will be on my way home.

In my classroom I have been working hard on getting to know my students and understanding where they are academically. I have done pre-assessment in math, given a math test on hundreds, tens and units places, I have also given two spelling tests. The spelling tests have taught me so much about where my students are with letter sounds, words, and blends. I want to make my reading club invitation only that is on Thursdays exclusively for the students that are in the lowest tier. I want to open up another day for students that want to come and practice more work. If these students can’t get more practice of learning how to read then they will have a hard time getting through the next couple years of primary school. In some families there are no materials to help them with their reading skills or they don’t have anyone that can help them read.

Some of my students singing the "Pen Army" song, while doing the hand motions to the song. They are at the "creep on my enemy" part.

The management is getting easier because I have a lot of incentives that I can give and/or take away. I have found that this is a good way to manage them without using the corporal punishment. For example, the students love going to the football games at the end of the week Friday, but if they do not behave then their name goes on the board and they cannot go watch the games. I give them opportunities to redeem themselves, like writing their spelling words, cleaning the classroom, etc. The students responded to this management well all week. I also threaten sending them to class 1, which to them, is a shame and I am sure the class 1 teacher disciplines them a little by making them kneel on the ground in front of the class.

The students are getting so much better at sharing books and I even got them to read in partners this week, which was a huge milestone. It took a couple days for them I am going to change their seats to get the concept, but I was so happy on Thursday when they read in their partners. We also made pictures this week of them at their own market experience because of the book we are reading about Neka, a girl that went to the market. This coming Tuesday, we will be holding our own market in class where other classes can come and buy things from my students.

I am thinking of changing their seats on Monday so the students can sit next to new people and so I can separate the trouble makers. It will be a lot easier to place the students now because I know them better. I know who needs to sit towards the front. Sarah made stools with one legs for her students that cannot sit still, and I think I may have a carpenter make two for me because I have a couple students that need a seat like that. I am planning on changing seats every month, something I have taken from my student teaching experience with Diane and Steve. In RME, religious moral education, we also did some acts of kindness, another activity I have taken from my students teaching experience. I was amazed at some of the things my students had done at home.

This week I have also found out that one of my students has some learning and social struggles due to a disease he has. I wish I knew this before, but I have now given him his own desk right near me and give him some jobs to do around the classroom that allows him to focus on important things and allows him to stay out of trouble.

 

Class 6 and JSS 3 have to take standardized exams in order to move into the next part of their schooling. Because of this the students pay for extra classes that we the teacher go and teach from 4:30 to 6:15. I have taken on English for class 6 and this week was the first week I got to teach it. We discussed verbs and adverbs, and matching appropriate adverbs with verbs. It was actually a lot of fun. I love teaching that age.

This week’s football matches were JSS 1 & SS1 girls vs. JSS2 & JSS 3 girls. Then after the staff played against the school team. We lost very badly, but I got to take a penalty kick and scored the first of the two goals for the staff team. It was still very fun and a great workout. I am feeling slightly sore today.



Krissi and I

This week we also had the privilege of not having to cook very often. Reverend Bahago and Reverend Ezekiel invited us for dinner Wednesday, where we had fufu ground corn flour and cassava flour, which forms a sort of pasty dough that you eat with your hands and dip in soup with chicken. Thursday night, a friend form church, Daniel, invited us from some ground nut soup. Friday, our Guinean friend, Ansou, made us a lovely Guinean dish with potato, fish, and vegetables all mixed together in a stew. Tonight, Saturday, we have a staff dinner at our house for one of our newly married staff members.

It has been a lovely week and I am continuing to learn and growing as a teacher. I have a new found appreciation for small class sizes, whiteboards, and paper. I miss all my friends and family so much. The longer I am here, the more I feel at home. It is hard to believe that one of my life’s dreams, teaching in Africa, is coming true.

God Bless,

Nikki

 

Not so JC Anymore

I am still called a “JC,” just coming, due to the fact that my skin tone is lighter than Sarah and Krissi’s, but I feel nowhere close to a “JC” anymore. Life in Kabala seems normal to me now and I feel like I have been here for longer than two and a half weeks. I am picking up more krio, know how to get places, can find my way around the market, have friends all around town, and have experienced different local hang outs. When I think back to my first day in Kabala I remember how nervous and new everything was, but now it is like second nature. I still like to travel and go places with Sarah and/or Krissi, but I could do it on my own if need be.

This past week teaching was an exciting yet challenging journey. I was on my own with my 40 second graders that can barely understand a word I say. I am till finding my management style because certain things will work for a period of time and then not work in 20 minutes. I have started using a point system that Sarah uses and it has been working well. I have four rows of ten and each row can get points if they are working and quiet. The group with the most points at the end of the week gets a treat. On Friday, I gave pencils to the winning group. I posted some class rules and I covered the whole back wall of my classroom with a word wall that we will begin to use regularly. I am hoping that it will help the students reading, and we will work with the word wall every day during ABC time. I gave my first spelling test this week and also started a reading unit using a small book about a girl going to the market. Each day we read two pages as a class and then do an activity that goes along with what we read. The activities deal with different things like sequencing, comprehension, personal connection, rhyming words, writing and drawing. The spelling words for this coming week are all words I have pulled from the book. In math we are covering units, tens, and hundreds places. The students worked with looking at a number and being able to tell how many units or tens that number has. I plan on giving a quiz Thursday of this week. In health, PE, and Bible a reoccurring theme we have been working on is how to stay healthy, take care of our bodies, and take care of God’s creation. I taught the kids “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” so that they can sing wit when they think about keeping their body healthy. On Wednesday, during PE we went around and picked up trash all around the school compound to emphasize staying healthy and taking care of God's creation. We went into class 3 to learn the Pen Army song. My students love it, and I enjoy them singing about being in a school army, especially while the community is still in a recovery state from the Civil War:

"I'm in the Pen Army,

Yes, Sir!

I'm in the Pen Army,

Yes, Sir!

I will never ride in an armored car,

Shoot in the infantry,

Creep on my enemy,

For I'm in the Pen Army,

Yes, Sir!"

A big challenge I face in my classroom is trying to teach 40 students how to read all at the same time. We have been working on letter sounds and the word wall should help. The book we are reading now the kids have read many times, so I find myself focusing on comprehension and intonation. I have a reading club every Thursday after school; it starts this Thursday. Another challenge I have faced is that my students don’t know how to share or do book work. I have had to teach them where to put books on their two person desks so that they can share the book. I have also had to slowly teach them how to do a math problem out of the math book. The class is making gradual progress. My students find it very hard to understand me at times, so I have to talk very slow and repeat myself a lot.

This past Saturday I got my hair planted. It took eight hours and hurt so bad, but it is very convenient because I don’t have to deal with washing and doing my hair as much. Also during this week I found out that both my parent are coming to visit me in April, and I cannot wait. I can’t wait to show them Kabala and my classroom. I want them to meet some of my students, but we will have to see because they are coming during Easter break. My iPhone was also unlocked this week, so I can now talk to people from home easier and cheaper through “whatssapp.” It is amazing how much you take things for granted like wifi, phones, running water for a shower, and comfort food, like cheese or burgers. While Sarah was in the village this weekend, Krissi and I had some friends over for a game of spoons and some couscous and stir-fry. One of our friends even made French fries and crepes. It was a nice time and we were able to share it with American, Canadian and Salone friends. We even turned on the generator to have some light and iron clothes before our friends arrived. It was a great week and I am sure there will be many more to come.
 

God Bless!

Nikki

 

 

First Days of Teaching

 The first week of teaching has been an easy transition even though I have been fighting a cold all week. I only had a couple subjects that I taught Monday, and then I taught Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. The teacher that had the class before I got here stayed this week and helped transition the class. He also took care of most of the disciplinary actions, which was very nice for me because corporal punishment is not anywhere close to my specialty.

 This week my students learned a lot about how to keep their body and lives healthy. They also worked with words beginning with A, B, and C. We sing a song: "Alpha A, A, A, what begins with A?" and then each of the four rows gets to give five words that begin with A. We are going to do a letter a day and then move into more challenging sounds like ch, sh, etc. In math, I am teaching them how to count by twos and add two-digit numbers, so my number chart I brought has been very helpful. I did not have to teach at all today, Friday, because we had two soccer games planned for the afternoon that the whole school was going to watch: JSS1 vs. JSS 2 and JSS3 vs. SS1. Since the president is coming into Kabala today, we dismissed the students around 11:30 to get ready to meet as a school and greet the president at 4 as he drives by. The soccer games were moved to this morning. It was fun and very entertaining to watch. I was designated the photo person, so I have a lot of snaps of the game.

The whole school at morning assembly.

                                                                             My class.

 

                                                          JSS 1 vs. JSS 2: JSS 2 won 2-1

 

                                                       JSS3 vs. SS1: JSS3 won 3-2

 

My students Zacharie (left) and Noah (right) best friends,who make me think of my own cousins Zach and Noah. Just a little taste of home everyday :)

 

 

One challenge I faced this week is getting them to share and work out of a book. I will have to teach them how to work on problems in a book, and also teach them how to share. The afternoons are very difficult to get through because the students get a little more wild, but it is nice to have a break in the middle of the afternoon. Another is understanding the krio. I know one very important word that we use a lot: "sabi" which means to know. If the students don't know what I am saying or don't understand the information they will say "Miss Nikki I no sabi." I will often give directions or explain something to them and then ask the if they sabi, if the understand.

I will admit I am a little nervous to have the whole class to myself next week, but I know that it will be a wonderful experience. My students are so used to repeat, repeat, repeat, and just writing and copying down what is on the board. I want to try and change that slowly, so that they can do work on their own, work in partners, and in groups. I also want to teach them all to read. I think I am going to start a reading club on Monday's so that my students can stay and have even more time directed towards learning how to read.

This was only my first week of teaching. I am sure I will have more to tell and so much more to show.

God Bless,
Nikki

First week in Salone

“How da body,” is a common warm greeting here in Kabala, meaning hello, how are you? I have been warmly welcomed by Kabala Christian School, Sarah, Krissi, and a lot of other wonderful people I have met over the past couple of days. I knew that Kabala would be different than life back in the States, and even different from Uganda, but I did not expect this much difference. Sarah is from the US and graduated from Calvin with me. She is a wonderful teacher in Class III and I have loved having that familiarity in a place that is very unfamiliar. Krissi is from Canada and has been involved in the school for over 6 years. She knows the ways of the land and speaks Krio beautifully. I have enjoyed getting to know her and am excited to continue getting to know her. The people of Salone, Sierra Leone, are very kind and welcoming to new comers and especially the school staff. The school is like a small community in the larger community of Kabala, and they have made me feel at home as much as they could. I am greeted as Miss Nikki, and everyone refers my name to Nicky Minaj.

Krissi, me, and Sarah before church on Sunday, 13 January 2014

 The journey to Kabala was two very long plane rides with a layover in Paris and a quick stop in Liberia, then about a 6 hour drive on paved and dirt roads with pot holes; it was long and dusty. I felt as if I traveled for 72 hours and I was quite tired. Upon arrival to our house, I found myself feeling a little at home with Sarah and Krissi decorating the place all nice and showing me around the area. Our house is only five minutes walking distance to the school. The house has a nice bathroom with a toilet and tub, even though you still wash out of a bucket. We have a gas stove top, and water from a tub on the roof that runs through a piping system in the house. The water is retrieved from the well and then carried up into its holding place.  We have a generator that we turn on very little due to the high expenses of petrol. We rely on candles and flashlights at night for sources of light. We have our own rooms and a room for guests. We had lovely guests from Ireland, Alli and Larry, stay with us last night. They have stayed here a few nights before my arrival, but they went for a hike up Loma Mountain while I was arriving. It is nice to meet new friends and now have places to stay near Dublin if I ever find myself there. Also, we have visitors come by the gate and in the house very often: students, other teachers, friends, etc. We have had guests every night since I have been here, it is nice to have the company. Yesterday some of the kind JSS students came to fill our water tub, so we made them some dinner and they hung around for a long time. Getting internet is very difficult. We have to travel across town to the CES office which is another organization that works with the school. We do not go very often, so please be patient with the updates.

The food is very simple here, it is a lot of the same ideas over and over with different ingredient. Every meal has rice and some type of soup or sauce they put on top. So far I have tried a fish based sauce, which was not my favorite because I do not like fish, cassava leaf, and last night we had ground nut soup. Every sauce has some sort of meat in it. A lot of the locals eat a lot of fish, but we have had beef in our cassava and bush meat, deer hunted in the forest, in our ground nut soup. We also have three live chickens in our compound for when we want to eat them, but you can guess what we have to do to get some chicken meat in our sauce. Every time we want to cook a dinner we go into town to go to the market to buy food and meat, because there is no power to preserve food. We usually walk the 15 minutes to town and take the Okada back, which is the motor bike taxi. The Okada cost about 1,000 Le (Leones), which is about 20 cents in American money.

Thursday, January 8, was my first full day at school. The school has about three buildings with each classroom opening up outside with open windows. There is an office, solar power, a kitchen, a small library, classes I-VI, three classes of junior secondary school and one class of secondary school. I observed in Class I and Class III and quickly found out that this is going to challenge me in ways that I would have never thought. I am excited to start teaching my Class II students and have started to gather the materials to plan. There will be a lot of hard challenges with management and also picking up where the other teacher left off. The management style is very different from the models I have used and seen before. There is a lot of corporal punishment in the management style, but I plan on using other types of management, which will be a challenge. I also plan on doing my own pre-assessment to see where children are and then build off of that and the curriculum they have in place. I want so badly to start implementing things that I have learned over the past couple years, but I will need to gradually introduce some of these ideas because the culture of education is very different here. I have observed that the importance is to memorize everything the teacher teaches you, rather than learning the concepts and building on an understanding the students already have.

Primary School Morning Assembly: The school raises the Sierra Leone flag, along with the American and Canadian flags. 

Friday I spent my whole day in class III with Sarah. She has really thrived in this environment and made her classroom a great place. She has taken the education style here which is very lecture based and transformed it into a more active classroom with group work and more. I have liked being in her classroom because it has taught me a lot about how my class will be and has taught me different things that will work in the classroom. My first teaching experience will be Wednesday the 15^th.

All the students can speak English, but speak Krio whenever they can. I am slowly starting to pick up words and phrases here and there with the help of Sarah, Krissi, and staff and students at the school. That will be another struggle in class II because they do not know much English.

I miss everyone back at home, but just being here the past few days I know this experience will be great and worth the time away from home. Trying to go get internet has been a struggle. Nothing here goes as planned and time is not a huge importance. I have tried to get internet a few times and we have not had a chance.

This Sunday we went to my first church service. It was very loud and energetic. The worship lasted about 2 hours because we had a communion. I was welcomed into the community and introduced to the whole congregation in the middle of service. The service is led by two Nigerian pastors. The service included a lot of singing and worship of praise songs and hymns. We also went to Reverend Bahago’s house for dinner it was a delicious pasta dish.

Monday, 13 January 2014, is a national Muslim holiday so we have no school. The government and the schools follow both Muslim and Christian holidays, so the schools follow the same. I start teaching this Wednesday, so it is nice to have a short week on my first week.

I have also found out that I can put an African sim card in my iPhone so that I can have easier communication with my family and friends. It will cost me credit to use my apps and my Facebook, but it is a lot cheaper than calling home to the States.

God Bless!

Nikki