I had been looking forward to seeing the friends I made during last year's education mission, and as soon as I arrived I was greeted even more warmly and graciously than I could have imagined, by old friends and new acquaintances alike. Yesterday, I renewed acquaintances with Anne Julie, who is now eleven and in the third grade. Like last year, she helped me count and sort some of the materials we had brought, and I even slipped in a little math instruction while she wasn't looking. Anne Julie is an orphan who lives here at St. Paul's, so she is often with us in the afternoons after school hours. She is a delightful young lady who finds all kinds of ways to help us out, and she is very patient with my tortured French. Though I feel we have become friends in a very genuine sense, there is still no escaping the cultural chasm that is an undercurrent to all of the friendships I have formed here. When we met last year, the first thing Anne Julie said to me was (in French), "My mommy's dead, my daddy's dead, will you give me something to eat?" And this year she began with, "Cadeau?" meaning, "Will you give me something?" (It is a policy of the Colorado Haiti Project that we not give gifts to individuals, and we have done our best to stick to this.) All of this is said in a cheerful and matter-of-fact way, and it is easy to move on quickly to other topics, but still it's there.
I have enjoyed teaching math and also participating in the French, Social Science, and Preschool seminars. Yesterday I distributed the materials I brought for the teachers, which were purchased with an Outreach grant from CU. Notebooks, writing implements, and textbooks in elementary math pedagogy that I had ordered from France. Today we had a lively discussion about the question, "Can you have a mathematical operation without a computation?" and I got to sit in on Dot's preschool seminar. Well, "sit" isn't exactly the word (see photo).
It has been a great few days so far. We are well fed and sleeping in comfortable beds with fans running all night long. I'm looking forward to continuing the math discussion tomorrow, to church Suday morning, and--I hope--swimming Sunday afternoon. But for now, the "Prestige" is calling my name...
~Greta
I have enjoyed teaching math and also participating in the French, Social Science, and Preschool seminars. Yesterday I distributed the materials I brought for the teachers, which were purchased with an Outreach grant from CU. Notebooks, writing implements, and textbooks in elementary math pedagogy that I had ordered from France. Today we had a lively discussion about the question, "Can you have a mathematical operation without a computation?" and I got to sit in on Dot's preschool seminar. Well, "sit" isn't exactly the word (see photo).
It has been a great few days so far. We are well fed and sleeping in comfortable beds with fans running all night long. I'm looking forward to continuing the math discussion tomorrow, to church Suday morning, and--I hope--swimming Sunday afternoon. But for now, the "Prestige" is calling my name...
~Greta
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