Busy Week

This week we were split into groups and sent to co-plan, and co-teach, in schools around Okahandja. I was sent with Sarah and Lauren to Aurora Primary School to assist with sixth and seventh grade natural science. On Monday I had to observe Mr. Mbanga (pronounced Bonga). He’s a pretty good teacher and has excellent classroom management without beating the learners (students) or yelling a lot. We co-planned a lesson on electricity for me to teach on Wednesday, because Tuesday was international teachers’ day and there were no classes. Wednesday Mr. Mbanga was absent so I was pawned off onto another teacher for the day. Mr. Ronnie is another good teacher and he showed me the school free lunch program and where they make the maize meal. Thursday Mr. Mbanga was dealing with administrative paperwork and asked me to teach his first and second period. I had planned for sixth graders and these were seventh grade classes. I walked in front of the classroom and started talking about electricity hoping they would know a little already and I can just supplement anything else I wanted to. It worked pretty well, though the topics were a little random and scattered. Mr. Mbanga came in for third period and we co-taught the rest of the day. He would introduce the lesson and talk to the learners, then I would have the class’s attention for how to build a circuit, then he would summarize and close. It was very effective. Friday the seventh graders were cleaning up a foot path and Mr. Mbanga went with them. I was supposed to teach sixth graders at third period but half of the staff was absent (either at the clean up or at teacher training) and I was particularly unmotivated. As I walked out of my second period class I ran into Angelika, one of the Peace Corps supervisors, and she asked if she could sit in on my class. I ended up teaching the entire lesson with Angelika and Sarah observing me. It was actually really helpful and I got some good feedback from them.

The other important event of the week was rain. It rained for the first time I’ve been here last week. There was a large lightning storm, I went outside to watch it and was instantly sand blasted. I decided to just listen to the rain on the tin roof and fall peacefully asleep. It was awesome. Oh and I weigh about 72 kilos (160lbs) now. I attribute this change to a lack of good pizza and beer. Combine that with walking multiple miles every day and it is ridiculously easy to lose weight. I will probably gain some when I go to site and start cooking for myself.

This coming Tuesday we have our language proficiency test. I think I will do pretty well, Afrikaans is a pretty easy language and very similar to English. I’ll still spend most of Sunday and Monday studying though. Next Friday is the swearing in ceremony and then it’s off to Rehoboth for the next two years. I’m really excited and want this week to go by fast.