RSS feedHis whole face is shining
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
The whole thing started while Godfrey and I were making that really long car ride back from Dar es Salaam. I actually have come to enjoy those rides because that's where there's really no one to interrupt us and we can just talk, he gets to listen to good music and try to help me to understand why it's good, and occasionally we can dream up new things. A lot of what we talked about that day revolved around Flora, Mawazo, Fadhili, Elieza and Amy, the five little kids who James was bringing back from the valley. All were orphaned nieces and nephews of Godfrey's. Other family members in the valley were taking care of those kids -- that wasn't the problem -- they had their grandmother and they had other aunts and uncles -- but the primary school in that village really was bad news and it was going to stunt those kids forever. I knew that. I remembered the day that Godfrey took me to the primary school in his village. A huge disappointment, a shell of what it had been ten years ago. Two teachers happened to be there that day. I remembered being so incredibly angry.
I'd like to give them a chance. Like you gave me a chance.
I would have liked to have hugged Godfrey when he said that, but you can't hug someone who's driving a car!
So I just sat there quiet for a moment.
Godfrey you know what Jesus taught a long time ago about it being better to give than to receive. Well I understand that a whole lot more now than I did when I was taught it as a little kid in Sunday School. It really is better to give than to receive. Yup. I gave you a chance. But I got the better end of the deal Godfrey.
No Mzee. And we had fun playfully arguing about who had been more blessed, me or him.
So you give those kids a chance Godfrey. Give them the best chance you possibly can.
It's not that they're not eating, it's not that they have no one to take care of them, they have their grandmother and they have the whole rest of the family. But those kids will never get an education there in that village. And here in this village we have a wonderful primary school with great teachers and they can have a chance at life Mzee. I want to give them that chance.
And so for a couple of hours rather than talking about secondary schools and the college we're going to start and all of those things that normally consume our minds, Godfrey and I spent hours talking about little kids and we bounced from one idea to another, all of which culminated two weeks later with me in my living room talking to 17 of our students from Madisi.
Sarah and Godfrey and I had gone down the list of our 351 students at Madisi. Priority had to go to those who were really in need, whose parents were either too poor to help them or whose parents were already dead. They had to be smart. They had to be hard workers, kids with initiative. They had to come from the 8th or 10th grade classes since the 9th graders needed to concentrate all of their energies on studying for the national exams. And they definitely couldn’t be all boys.
And so carefully we chose them. And then they were all in my living room.
During the three weeks of vacation we want to try something totally new, something I don’t think anyone has ever tried before. We want to run a special school for all of the kids in the five villages around Madisi so we can teach them English. We want to give them a head start. A chance to do better than almost anyone else in the whole country. A chance for once for those of us who are in the village to be number one. And we want the seventeen of you to do this. So, let’s talk for a few minutes and you tell me how you’re going to do it this.
I liked all of the elements of their plan. There would be no tacking up of announcements in the village because most people couldn't read anyway and so they would each go with a list and visit homes and sign kids up. (Great idea!) Every kid would have to pay to come because if it costs something people will value it (I was thrilled to hear them say that!) and yet the amount had to be small so that really no one would not be able to pay it. Five hundred shillings. Fifty cents. But even though they wouldn't tell anyone this, if some kid did come who couldn't pay they just look the other way and not talk about it. (I was really happy to hear that.) A couple of them smiled knowingly at me –- I guess that they have it figured out what we do here. The program would run from 9 until 11 every morning for the three weeks of vacation, and then if it worked out, we would see what we could do in the afternoons after school to do a year round program. They had three days to pull it off.
If you each just find three kids – one kid each day for the next three days – we’ll have 50 students. And with that I shooed them out the door and told them to fan out in the villages.
They showed up Monday morning with 362 kids that they had signed up. Each afternoon after school they’re out signing up even more. Today they had 519 kids. And as if that wouldn’t be enough to thrill me, I’m even happier that Joshua is up there teaching with his friends and he’s absolutely loving it. They have an 18th member of the team. And after school Joshua and his friend Zamu are showing the others how to use the computer and input all of the school data into a spreadsheet. Dolla is their treasurer and accountant. Mseven is their Academic Master. They use six classrooms now, so when one person is teaching, two others are in the room watching so that they can all talk about it during break and help each other.
You know it might have run a bit smoother had I organized it all for them. But I liked telling Mseven on Monday morning a half hour before classes were to start that he was going to be in charge, that he was the Academic Master, that he was my choice, that I knew he could do it, that I wanted it to be the best run school possible. Make decisions. Solve the problems. Delegate responsibility. Imitate the good you’ve seen here at Madisi. Avoid doing what you’ve seen has failed. Above all Mseven do your best. And Godfrey and I stood there and watched Mseven lead.
And so those 18 kids are out there bringing education to 519 others. Our student to teacher ratio is a little high I suppose, the classrooms are a little overcrowded because we never planned on so many, and there are some horrifically poor kids there at the school -- since we have no uniforms you can tell by their bare feet and the clothes that they're wearing -- but Mseven has already gotten the key point. We never turn any kid away. Never.
I've enjoyed it all. I can replay over and over in my mind the video of Mseven organizing his staff and those hundreds of students. I have the snapshots of Josh and Zamu grabbing two computers and taking the gang over to Zamu’s room and the two of them showing everyone else how to enter data into a spreadsheet. My mind will always be able to remember Joshua smiling and saying that he loves to teach. I had to wait until I was 17 to get to teach in Congo. Tanzania has been good to Josh – he’s only 14. I can close my eyes and see Dolla bringing me her accounting book and showing me that it all balances. But what gives me a joy that I can’t quite explain is Mseven’s smile. His whole face is shining.
All 519 of these kids are being given an education, a chance to learn English at a young age and they are loving it. Does it matter if little kids in these villages learn English? Well actually it really does. It’ll mean that for once the poor and those on the bottom and those in the villages might be able to outperform those who have had all of the privileges in life. Or at the very least they’re being given a fighting chance.
But what’s even better is to see those 18 kids. They are getting a chance to give. Jesus said it is better to give than to receive. Well I got new insight into that truth seeing the faces of our eighteen "teachers". Josh was out the door this morning an hour early. Dolla is so confident. Mseven can't stop smiling. The 18 of them make a really great team. They’re on the road, all of them, to doing great things with their lives.
And one day I know that I’ll be able to send Mseven out to a village to organize a secondary school and he’ll do just fine.
The whole thing started while Godfrey and I were making that really long car ride back from Dar es Salaam. I actually have come to enjoy those rides because that's where there's really no one to interrupt us and we can just talk, he gets to listen to good music and try to help me to understand why it's good, and occasionally we can dream up new things. A lot of what we talked about that day revolved around Flora, Mawazo, Fadhili, Elieza and Amy, the five little kids who James was bringing back from the valley. All were orphaned nieces and nephews of Godfrey's. Other family members in the valley were taking care of those kids -- that wasn't the problem -- they had their grandmother and they had other aunts and uncles -- but the primary school in that village really was bad news and it was going to stunt those kids forever. I knew that. I remembered the day that Godfrey took me to the primary school in his village. A huge disappointment, a shell of what it had been ten years ago. Two teachers happened to be there that day. I remembered being so incredibly angry.
I'd like to give them a chance. Like you gave me a chance.
I would have liked to have hugged Godfrey when he said that, but you can't hug someone who's driving a car!
So I just sat there quiet for a moment.
Godfrey you know what Jesus taught a long time ago about it being better to give than to receive. Well I understand that a whole lot more now than I did when I was taught it as a little kid in Sunday School. It really is better to give than to receive. Yup. I gave you a chance. But I got the better end of the deal Godfrey.
No Mzee. And we had fun playfully arguing about who had been more blessed, me or him.
So you give those kids a chance Godfrey. Give them the best chance you possibly can.
It's not that they're not eating, it's not that they have no one to take care of them, they have their grandmother and they have the whole rest of the family. But those kids will never get an education there in that village. And here in this village we have a wonderful primary school with great teachers and they can have a chance at life Mzee. I want to give them that chance.
And so for a couple of hours rather than talking about secondary schools and the college we're going to start and all of those things that normally consume our minds, Godfrey and I spent hours talking about little kids and we bounced from one idea to another, all of which culminated two weeks later with me in my living room talking to 17 of our students from Madisi.
Sarah and Godfrey and I had gone down the list of our 351 students at Madisi. Priority had to go to those who were really in need, whose parents were either too poor to help them or whose parents were already dead. They had to be smart. They had to be hard workers, kids with initiative. They had to come from the 8th or 10th grade classes since the 9th graders needed to concentrate all of their energies on studying for the national exams. And they definitely couldn’t be all boys.
And so carefully we chose them. And then they were all in my living room.
During the three weeks of vacation we want to try something totally new, something I don’t think anyone has ever tried before. We want to run a special school for all of the kids in the five villages around Madisi so we can teach them English. We want to give them a head start. A chance to do better than almost anyone else in the whole country. A chance for once for those of us who are in the village to be number one. And we want the seventeen of you to do this. So, let’s talk for a few minutes and you tell me how you’re going to do it this.
I liked all of the elements of their plan. There would be no tacking up of announcements in the village because most people couldn't read anyway and so they would each go with a list and visit homes and sign kids up. (Great idea!) Every kid would have to pay to come because if it costs something people will value it (I was thrilled to hear them say that!) and yet the amount had to be small so that really no one would not be able to pay it. Five hundred shillings. Fifty cents. But even though they wouldn't tell anyone this, if some kid did come who couldn't pay they just look the other way and not talk about it. (I was really happy to hear that.) A couple of them smiled knowingly at me –- I guess that they have it figured out what we do here. The program would run from 9 until 11 every morning for the three weeks of vacation, and then if it worked out, we would see what we could do in the afternoons after school to do a year round program. They had three days to pull it off.
If you each just find three kids – one kid each day for the next three days – we’ll have 50 students. And with that I shooed them out the door and told them to fan out in the villages.
They showed up Monday morning with 362 kids that they had signed up. Each afternoon after school they’re out signing up even more. Today they had 519 kids. And as if that wouldn’t be enough to thrill me, I’m even happier that Joshua is up there teaching with his friends and he’s absolutely loving it. They have an 18th member of the team. And after school Joshua and his friend Zamu are showing the others how to use the computer and input all of the school data into a spreadsheet. Dolla is their treasurer and accountant. Mseven is their Academic Master. They use six classrooms now, so when one person is teaching, two others are in the room watching so that they can all talk about it during break and help each other.
You know it might have run a bit smoother had I organized it all for them. But I liked telling Mseven on Monday morning a half hour before classes were to start that he was going to be in charge, that he was the Academic Master, that he was my choice, that I knew he could do it, that I wanted it to be the best run school possible. Make decisions. Solve the problems. Delegate responsibility. Imitate the good you’ve seen here at Madisi. Avoid doing what you’ve seen has failed. Above all Mseven do your best. And Godfrey and I stood there and watched Mseven lead.
And so those 18 kids are out there bringing education to 519 others. Our student to teacher ratio is a little high I suppose, the classrooms are a little overcrowded because we never planned on so many, and there are some horrifically poor kids there at the school -- since we have no uniforms you can tell by their bare feet and the clothes that they're wearing -- but Mseven has already gotten the key point. We never turn any kid away. Never.
I've enjoyed it all. I can replay over and over in my mind the video of Mseven organizing his staff and those hundreds of students. I have the snapshots of Josh and Zamu grabbing two computers and taking the gang over to Zamu’s room and the two of them showing everyone else how to enter data into a spreadsheet. My mind will always be able to remember Joshua smiling and saying that he loves to teach. I had to wait until I was 17 to get to teach in Congo. Tanzania has been good to Josh – he’s only 14. I can close my eyes and see Dolla bringing me her accounting book and showing me that it all balances. But what gives me a joy that I can’t quite explain is Mseven’s smile. His whole face is shining.
All 519 of these kids are being given an education, a chance to learn English at a young age and they are loving it. Does it matter if little kids in these villages learn English? Well actually it really does. It’ll mean that for once the poor and those on the bottom and those in the villages might be able to outperform those who have had all of the privileges in life. Or at the very least they’re being given a fighting chance.
But what’s even better is to see those 18 kids. They are getting a chance to give. Jesus said it is better to give than to receive. Well I got new insight into that truth seeing the faces of our eighteen "teachers". Josh was out the door this morning an hour early. Dolla is so confident. Mseven can't stop smiling. The 18 of them make a really great team. They’re on the road, all of them, to doing great things with their lives.
And one day I know that I’ll be able to send Mseven out to a village to organize a secondary school and he’ll do just fine.
