Today started off real sluggish. I'm never fully awake in the mornings but somehow I made it to Ida's on time and not scraggly looking. We didn't have a formal class today because we had a ton of homework to catch up on (due today, do today) with Ida's help. It was also really clutch to have a Public Health official in my group because she knows what's up. Anyways, our "class" was truncated by Peter the Driver driving/beeping 28 times in case we didn't hear it the last 27 times of his arrival. He always does that, but do trust me that he's a huge sweetheart and will do anything to help the trainees out. We climbed into the car and sped off to... model school!
Model School is one of our bigger assignments where we had to create a lesson plan and teach a health topic in English. The Serehule ladies picked hand washing for the topic and got everything assembled - teaching aids, A+ lesson plans that was created, edited, and activity/question filled, hell Alicia somehow pulled some strings to get our plan printed out! We really did do practically everything to prepare... except for actually practicing it through once. So, we arrived, had a couple of minutes to sit down while the kids ended their break, and got divided into different classrooms. Not going to lie, but the sluggishness from this morning still lingered on me but I guess years of tour guiding helps me get my go-face on in a matter of seconds. So, we went in aaaaaaand pretty much killed it. Class 9C was really the main component to our success - they were comprised mostly of young women in grade 9 with about a handful of young men. Altogether, there was about 30 kids split into 4 rows facing the front. We really didn't prepare for Grade 9 students since our lesson was geared for kids much younger and they all aced their pre-test so there was no need for a post test. They knew the concept of germs, one girl named Fatou was on FIRE with her contributions and knowledge of hand washing so we invited her up to be the teacher, we had so many great questions asked by the students, which leads to a very crucial component of our success - the students were happy to raise their hands and participate. We included a skit where I really got into acting and the drama was about me getting sick from food poisoning. Good thing I just had a personal run-in with that experience less than a week ago. Not only did students ask questions, but Elizabeth, Alicia, and I thought long and hard to create questions that would stimulate critical thinking and wrote everyone's answer on the black board for all to see. We also had an ice breaker/warm up activity to make sure all the kids were awake, unleashed the rice bag drawing of hand washing, demonstrated proper hand washing which they all knew but this is where we identified an area of confusion - the duration of time one should wash their hands. 30 seconds is the recommended but most people don't conveniently have a clock or a watch so we introduced a song to combat this obstacle. It's called "Scrub your hands" to the tune of row, row, row your boat. Luckily, they already knew it so it was a breeze. We called each row up while I raised the roof with the other three rows to sing for them while the group that was up washed their hands. All of the volunteers heard us, I'm sure. I encouraged everyone to scream and yell and sing. We attracted other students to look into our class because we were basically hollering the lyrics and it was the most fun. We saw a special demonstration of critical thinking when one of the guys asked whether it can be any song - as long as it was 30 seconds or more - to wash his hands to. We asked if he'd like to sing his favorite song for us to see if the duration was satisfactory and he actually said he was an artist and would like to sing one of his own original songs! I set the timer while Alicia started washing her hands and his song was about a minute long which was great. It was overall a fantastic experience and it made the three of us beam. The class was stellar and set our day right.
We debriefed, bussed back home, had lunch, and I studied for a bit before returning home. I had a pleasant conversation with Rohi/Alkaloo's daughter, watched as Ida ripped apart her host dad for not supporting his wife in her desire to expand their garden because that meant more work for him and he had like, 5 women against him and relented, hahaha. He said he would do it tomorrow morning so he better. I walked back, my namesake told me to take the skirt she made for me which was way too long to the tailor's (so I did) and make it especially pint sized. I did some chores, took a shower... then my site mate texted me that she wasn't feeling well!!! I grabbed my thermometer and went over to her place to take care of her for a bit. I was able to communicate with her family that she didn't want dinner and wanted to sleep/rest so leave her alone, I hope I got through. Anyways, I walked back, dids ome laundry, ate a little bit of dinner, and went outside to math. Math was hugely successful tonight and I got to have side conversations with the women and made them laugh. How? Because I now have the useful word "ass" in Serehule and I can explain why I'm terrified of having children - that they were, indeed, going to hurt my vagina, and well whatever it takes to make them laugh I'm up to do :)
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