A gold star

Over the last few weeks I have been feeling kind of down. For the most part I spend my days sitting in the staff room doing nothing, or sitting in the classrooms also doing nothing. As an active person all this sitting around doing nothing has made me feel a little worthless. I didn’t come all the way to Africa to not do anything, so it has been frustrating to say the least. After talking to other volunteers it became apparent that they are having similar experiences and feeling about this integration period. Our schools are on their last term and are obviously anxious for break in December, which seems to mean they don’t want to do a lot of work with us. This is understandable on some level, but at the same time it is discouraging.

So today I was just hanging out in my room being bored and lazy when my grade 4 host sister came for some math help. To be honest I was not all that excited to see her and her younger sister at my door, but I can’t say no to these kids when they want help, especially Amanda. Amanda and her sister Snalo are orphans that were taken in by my host mother. Although they are treated very well, you can tell that they are seen as a little bit lower than the other kids in the family. Amanda does most of the laundry and cleaning for the whole family, while Snalo helps where she can because she is younger. It kind of breaks my heart, so no matter how I am feeling, I never turn Amanda away when she wants help, and her sister always seems to tag along. Today was no different, and even though I really didn’t feel like tutoring, I opened the door wide so they could come on in.

Today the topic was multiplication of multiple digit numbers, which I have yet to see be taught in her class. I have sat in on the grade 4 math class for the last two weeks, and the closest thing I have seen to teaching multiplication was having the learners count by 3s, 5s, and 10s. So multiplying 20 x 40 would be a challenge to say the least. We started slow. I drew out the problems in a grid, stacking the numbers on top of each other, and then asking her what each number times the other number was. After some finger counting she could usually tell me the right answer of 4 x 5 or 3 x 6, but she had no idea where to put those numbers, especially when it came to multiplying 40 by the 2 in 20. After a million examples of me showing her how to carry numbers, and what row to put the answers in, she did every single one of her homework problems right!! Two hours and a whole lot of encouragement later and she could multiply multiple digit numbers by herself, and I couldn’t have been more proud. I decided that now would be the perfect time to break out the gold stars!

I have never seen a little girl so excited to get a sticker and a high five, and it completely lifted my mood. For the first time in a few weeks I actually feel like I am doing something and that I have something to offer the kids here. It is amazing what a little time and encouragement can do. Since I was in such a good mood I decided that I would reward both Amanda and her sister by letting them color in my room away from the rest of the kids in the house. So I broke out the crayons that have so kindly been sent by my friends and family and drew them both beach pictures with a palm tree in the center (for those of you who don’t know, that is the absolute only thing I can draw besides lopsided stick figures). An hour later they are still using every color crayon in the box to fill in their pictures, and I couldn’t be happier sitting here watching them. Who knew one gold star and a box of crayons could make such a difference to me, as well as them.