The Orphanage, Teaching, and Soccer

Hi all,

I am learning that how I walk away from my experiences (whether I feel optimistic/overwhelmed/happy/sad etc. depends on my perspective. That might seem like an obvious revelation but I think it will be huge for me being able to handle the large ups and downs of the trip. For example, today we visited the orphanage for a second time. There were 4 women working there taking care of 15 babies (2 months to 1 year) and 12 toddlers (from 1 up to maybe 5 year olds). We were sent to the "play room" (play room is in quotes because it was a tiled room with two wooden benches and barred windows) to distract the toddlers while the women were bottle feeding the babies. There were three of us and every toddler wanted to be held, spun around, and bounced at the same time. I had one on each leg and one on my back when I was sitting down. The kids are adorable and a few would repeat everything we said and sang which was fun. Ok, here is where the perspectives lesson comes in. Part of me is very sad for these children and the fact that they do not have parents, the orphanage does not have the man power to give them the attention they deserve (one child had peed herself and one was running around without underwear), and it is not likely that the older ones will be adopted. When I think about this while I am there it is overwhelming But. when I think about the fact that these children are lucky to have food, water, and a place to sleep (which is just not a reality for many kids here) then they are lucky. The women are amazing for doing what they do every day and most of the babies will be adopted. So, there are two sides to the coin! We will be returning tomorrow to help with feeding and dressing the babies. I think this will be a bit easier actually since the babies won't be trying to talk to us in Dagbani. Dave and I will have mastered  diapers by the time we return home.

Teaching:
I am loving it. Some of my lesson ideas flop (such as introducing fractions today. How did my third grade teachers do it? I mean, how do you explain that 1 over 4 means one forth, and that 1/4 plus 1/4 is not 2/8ths its 1/2 (who came up with spelling "half" with the "l" anyway?) haha but I am sure tomorrow will be better. Last week the idea of doing subtraction with more than two numbers was daunting and now they have mastered it with 4 and 5 digit numbers!! We have also covered <,>, and =, and they can write out "one thousand five hundred and fifty two" huzzah! haha It is really satisfying seeing their progress. I am finding that Math is much easier to teach than English so far (but fractions might change that!) In English we are reciting poems, making sentences and acting them out, defining adjectives and coming up with actions for them, and doing jumping jacks every 45 minutes or so to make sure they are paying attention. It is harder to see their progress here but I think they are improving and they seem happy so that's good. They are so eager to learn which makes my job a thousand times easier.

Also, adorable story...two of the girls were writing a note so I took it away from them. The note said "I love you Jenny" in Dagbani and English. One of the older girls was helping the younger one translate. They were extremely embarrassed since the note was about me and I didn't really know how to react since it made me happy but I was supposed to scold them for writing notes during class. So, I ended up giving them a scolding look and then saying thank you. Not very direct feedback but what was I to do!

In case any of you are following soccer the African cup (which is every 4 years)is going on right now. It has been super fun to watch with the Ghanaians. Sadly we just lost in the semi finals because we were not able to finish even though we were completely dominating the game. But we got to see four games here, each of which were good matches. (You sound silly if you call it a "game" not a match here.) If you want to watch the final it will be this Sunday Ivory Coast vs. Zambia.

Ok, that is all for now For those of you who have emailed me, I will get back to you soon. ,I love getting all of the mail.