Once again I have waited far too long between blog posts. And yes, I still have plumbing issues.
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| Me & the Kids at Florence's School Last Year |
Every Wednesday, I have continued to volunteer at a preschool that is in a nearby low-income area and which is run by my neighbor and friend, Florence. Since she has children from 2-7 years old, I was excited to see that she was able to expand her school from 1 to 2 classrooms while I gone. She also has a few assistant teachers who work with her now. A couple weeks ago, I found that she had a felt storyboard book that tells the story of Cinderella, which Florence had never been sure of how to use. I took it home and practiced, and the kids were mesmerized as I ad-libbed the story, adding and removing felt characters, as appropriate. I found it was a particularly effective way of showing how the pumpkin turned into a stagecoach and the mice turned into horses, etc. As I read to kids, I find that many stories don’t really translate across cultures easily, but it was nice to see how Cinderella actually included many familiar characters: a king (they have tribal kings here), a girl who couldn’t afford nice clothes, a “pussycat”, and even a pumpkin (although Ugandan pumpkins are green, so at first some thought it was an apple). I’m not sure how much they understood me, but I tried to bend the story towards: it didn’t matter what she wore or how much money she had, the prince loved her for who she was inside. =) (I decided that the “love at first sight because she was so beautiful” thing wasn’t a great lesson to teach the kids.)
Last week, I brought the older kids (around kindergarten to 1st grade age) kid-friendly scissors so that they could practice their cutting (and safety) skills. I first made them all demonstrate how to walk with scissors. Then I had them all cut out various shapes that I had printed out (I was impressed that they were all able to identify the oval and diamond). I was amazed at how accurate some of their cutting skills were, even the younger ones! It just goes to show that people can be talented in different areas. I then had them lay the cut-outs on the table under a larger piece of paper, which they colored over with crayons. Some turned out better than others, but I think crayon rubbings are always fun. Tomorrow I plan to try to same thing, but without scissors, on the younger kids.
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| Reading to the Kids Last Year (with fellow intern Dan) |
Almost every Saturday, I have been reading books to some of the kids in another low-income neighborhood nearby. Unfortunately many of the younger children still don’t know English, so I feel bad that a lot of the time they can’t follow the story, but I feel like it’s still good exposure for them, and some of the older kids who come by seem to be intrigued by the stories. Because of the language barrier, I try to find stories that have funny sounds or are more interactive (counting or repeating words), and I try to be as creative as possible with different voices. (Culturally-specific idiom-based humor, like in Amelia Bedelia, is completely lost on them.) One of their favorites for me to read is a VeggieTales book, in which I attempt to do all of the different voices (as well as I can remember). I think their (and my) favorite voice is the French Peas. On Saturday, I found one of those books that shows different animals made out of produce, so we had fun trying to identify both the animals (they definitely didn’t know what a penguin was, but impressively the older ones knew octopus and that it lived in the water) and the foods (no kiwis or radishes in the Ugandan diet). It was a book of baby animals, and at the end they show a baby human (I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what it was made out of, though), and we all laughed together because it was obviously a “baby mzungu!”
On an unrelated note, since it’s often sunny and rainy here, I had assumed that there were rainbows here and was assured by several Ugandans that there were, but I had never actually seen one until last month, looking out my back balcony. Beautiful!
