Our first day at the school and hospital

The six of us gathered for breakfast around 8:00. Dan, co-country manager, came in after breakfast. We held the typical morning meeting with the message for the day and the journal reading. Richard volunteered to write the journal for Tuesday and September offered to bring the message for the day. After breakfast all volunteers returned to their rooms for final preparation before starting the day’s work.

Today was our first day at the school and hospital. Margaret, Lori, and I went to the school while Laura, Corey, and September went to the hospital. As Margaret and I are not teachers, today was a bit nervous for us. Around 12:00 we “teachers” returned to the hotel and met the hospital team, and we compared our morning. The first morning at school ended with mixed results. Rich and Margaret found that the morning students were less proficient in English than was expected. There was a need to change the program for the afternoon group. Flexibility is a necessity. Lori played Multiplication Bingo (for other journal readers – this game is used to give practice saying the numbers, from 1-144, in English, not to teach math) with her class and had a good morning with them. The hospital team all had a rewarding time with the children.  September wondered how hard it’s going to be say goodbye to them. Corey had a good time, as he expected, running up and down the corridors with one of the little girls.

After lunch we returned to the hospital and school. Richard and Margaret’s revised program worked better, and the afternoon group is also more proficient in English. We had to go over vowel sounds, an important beginning concept for all the classes. We had them write small sentences and then we played Hangman and Food Jingo. We had a good afternoon at the school.

Entry submitted by: Richard

Message of the Day – September: “Anybody can be great…because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love.” - Martin Luther King, Jr.