Harold and the Purple Crayon & Painting (July 3)

In class today we were able to teach our own lessons, not from their books. I figured this would give them a bit of variety since they’re so used to working out of the same books all of the time. Jess and I read Harold and the Purple Crayon during our English lesson. It’s about a little boy who has a purple crayon and draws everything he wants or needs, like a boat, and a mountain to climb, and pies to eat when he’s hungry, etc. While I read, Jess drew out the story (like she had a purple crayon) on paper that we hung on the board. Katherine, our teacher, had to translate the story after each page in Chichewa so they would understand it better. I’m glad she did that because they all really liked the story and thought it was funny. Afterwards we had them take out their notebooks and draw for us the one place in the world they wanted to go. We hung a few of their pictures on the board with ours (I drew the beach, so did Jess, but she also drew NYC). We collected all of their pictures so we can make a big poster out of them to hang in the classroom next week. Most of the kids drew pictures of different cities and villages in Malawi, but some drew Ameleka (America) and Japani (Japan), haha. It was so interesting to see their perception of what the United States would be like. Some of them looked just like Malawi, others drew big cars, people with guns, and even girls with huge boobs (couldn’t believe that). I was talking with a few of the other people on this trip, and we’ve realized that some people here have a very violent view of America. This guy, KZ, he told Jeff that he was so afraid to come to the states because he was worried he wouldn’t be safe. Jeff asked why and he could only refer to movies like Bad Boys, I Know What You Did Last Summer and other violent/horror type movies. Surprisingly, Bad Boys came on last night! It was great to watch something we were familiar with, but I can definitely see why some people would get that impression of Americans, especially if that’s all they’re used to seeing. For math we took yarn and cut pieces that showed how tall each person in the class was. After, they had to measure their piece of yarn and write down how many centimeters tall they were. It was an exhausting exercise but they had fun.

Around 11 we started paining blackboards! This was great. Jess and I were the only two of the VT group that painted for the entire time and we got every classroom done in only a few hours. The kids kept coming into the rooms to watch us and talk to us, so it was a nice experience to bond with different kids in different standards. Half way through a little boy ran up to me while I was painting and handed me a crumpled up piece of paper. He said it was from a little girl, and then he ran away. It was a note that said, “Hie. First of all I would like you to be my pen pal. I’m a girl in Standard 4B. Please try to answer me tomorrow. I love you. By by.” We got the kids to find the girl and bring her to us, because she was in our class, and she was adorable! We told her that we would both be her pen pals and that we would see her in class on Tuesday (Monday is their independence day). I saved the note, of course, and I was really excited that she wrote to us. All the teachers were anxious to speak with us while we were paining and they were really grateful we could do this for them. I really wish we could have done more, but Jess and I will be laminating a bunch of posters for our class so hopefully that helps brighten the room a bit.

So the Internet still sucks. Luckily, Noel at the front desk called the people and they agreed to reset our Internet cards so we could get back all the minutes we’ve lost since they’re so expensive. Hopefully one of these days I’ll be able to get online, but until then I’m going to try to see how well the Internet café in town works. We have off tomorrow! I’m so glad, we all need a break and some rest. It’ll be my first 4th of July away from home and not doing something totally American, but I think I’ll survive, considering I’m in Africa and that’s pretty incredible. J