1st Day of Classes

Today was the first day of classes at Mizpah, I am teaching Form 1 Health, Form 2 Math, and Form 3 Computers. I am also the home room teacher for Form 2. The kids are cheerful and helpful, but VERY QUITE. They say they are just shy around me because I am a Palangi, or a white person. Girls wear red dresses with white ribbons in their hair. Boys wear white shirts and red sulu’s, which are like long skirts, but have pockets. I just wear khaki’s and a polo. Here at Mizpah it is not so different from home, the girls sit on one side and the guys on the other. The girls pay attention and take notes while the guys goof off in the back. There are kids who want to be the best and kids who don’t care at all. Time is giving in class to do homework, but it is spent staring out the windows. And the Teachers have no idea what they are talking about.
While on campus the kids are only suppose to speak English inside and out of the classroom. This makes for a quite fifty minute class period. Most of the classes have been spent try to get the kids to respond to a question, or make any sound at all. I do believe in time the kids will begin to open up and speak up in class. The last twenty minutes of the day are used to clean the room. Floors are swept with brooms made out of sticks and the windows are cleaned with scrap paper. Then the benches are put up on the table, closing prayer is said, and the kids rush out the door to catch the bus. Not knowing if the kids understood the lesson, I am left there to pick up my books and get ready to do it all again the next day.