"Sema hii tafadhali quoi kingreza"

The Battle of the Kilema moths versus Journey of Hope Team members has almost been won. We have lost a few souls along the way...ninatania tu, (just kidding). There are a lot of bugs, but personally, I don't mind them [Courtney :)]. We have now been at three different schools (Mkyashi, Kilema, and Kisuluni). We were at Kisuluni both yesterday and today. My partner, Ashley, and I had 13 students in the level six class which was a nice change. I think that was because this school primarily has students from the Chagga tribe whose second language is Kiswahili. Even though school is free now, almost every student is really smart and really dedicated to school because they are still used to the concept of school being a privilege compared to back home in Canada where not everyone sees school as a privilege. It was amazing to see the dedication and joy in their eyes as they attended school.

This morning, Ashley and I taught English, Math and Dance. I found that using Swahili words to translate the English words really helped. The best part of today was teaching the students Dance and the game "Simon Says". We taught them the "Macarena" and another dance I learned in elementary school. The game "Simon Says" was difficult to teach at the beginning but i used some Swahili words to explain the game. "Nitasema" means "I will say", "ikwa sijasema" means, "if I don't say" and "nymaza tafadhali" means be quiet please", "sema hii tafadhali quo kingeraza" means, "say this in English please". After repeating the instructions a few times and acting it out, they understood and excelled at it! Emmanuel was a funny student who won the game twice. After the morning block was over, we headed back for lunch.

--Courtney

I think that most people found that today was the best day. Every morning most of us get up and hike Chapel Hill. When we get to the top there is a great view of Mount Kilimanjaro and the sunrise. When we get back we have breakfast then head out for school.

Today, we got to choose what school we went back to and my group went to Kichilioni. Everyone decided to do the schools from Wednesday. We had grade sixes and they knew pretty good English so it was fun to get to know them. We taught them english in the morning and math and gym in the afternoon. During gym we were all dancing to music and it was really fun. We wanted to end off with some fun so we played "Heads up 7up" with the kids and also gave them some candy before we went out for Phys Ed. In Phys Ed we combined with the Gr5 class and most of the girls had a dance party and the boys played a Gr5 vs 6 football game.

--Megan