Monday-Back to school

Although the safari was very fun and exciting to go on, all of us were happy to go back to the children at Kilimanjaro Children's Foundation. Like us in America, they only have school on the weekdays.

In school, we went to our regular classrooms, and with our regular groups. Instead of starting out the day with the schedule that we planned, we actually got to see the kids work in their classes. We were really impressed that they were learning things that we learned but at a much younger age than we did. In my classroom we did science. The kids, specifically, were learning about animals. Their assignment was to draw the animals and fill in the missing letters. One of the girls I worked with kept on asking for the answer. I didn't give it to her, but I helped her understand what they were supposed to be. I attempted annunciating the word and emphasizing the missing letter, she didn't get it. Then I realized that it was okay, that she should try it on her own, even if it is advanced. She showed me when she was done, besides one, she got them all right.

After they had all gotten their work checked, and the other classes were done with their work too, the kids went out to play with the new balls we brought them. It was really great to see how happy they were to play soccer (football). We also brought a couple of frisbees. A few minutes before lunch was going to be served, one of the frisbees got stuck in the big tree. The kids that got it stuck in the big tree came up to me and showed me what had happened. I then called Harrison, seeing that there was not really a way to get the frisbee out of the tree, because of it's placement around the 35 foot area. He immediately tried to get a soccer ball and throw it at the frisbee. It kind of worked, until he threw it too high and went over the frisbee and landed in the tree. This time it didn't come down. We didn't want to get a third thing stuck in the tree, so we asked Jackie if she could try to climb the tree, if Harrison helped her up. I would have tried to climb the tree too, but of course I chose to wear a skirt that day. Jackie got up to a protruding part of the tree, and she couldn't climb up anymore because there was nowhere to put her feet, or arms. She descended the tree. We started to think of other ways to get the toys down, when this kid, we later found out his name was Idd, started to climb the tree. Now, you have to understand that this is a very awkward tree to climb, and there is nowhere to put your hands or feet until about 20 feet up. None the less, he climbed swiftly up the tree, with no obstacles. He got both the ball and the frisbee down, it was incredible. I later got a picture of him, and the tree. After lunch we went back inside and decorated backpacks. We then continued to leave.

Sorry, I would write more, but we have a meeting planned, and i am late already.

Madeline Aybar