-----Teaching in Namibia-----: The Return of Mrs. Emma

Monday came with a great light as I returned to school to find Mrs. Emma had returned from her long absence. I saw her sitting in the staff room just before our morning meeting began, and I couldn't be more delighted. It's not that I wasn't having a good time planning and executing lessons with my learners, or that I felt I needed her there, but that I knew my experience was so much richer with her there. I love talking to her during breaks and getting to co-teach and learn from one another. I think her being gone for the time she was gave me just enough time alone in the classroom to get a good feel for what teaching full time here would be like. I enjoyed too getting to choose what I taught and how to organize lessons. It's interesting though to watch Mrs. Emma teach and order things. As I wrote about in my biography of her, she is a great teacher and I am learning from her everyday.

The Monday schedule began as usual this day with a beginning of the week assembly. This particular day, the school leaders were being recognized. There are prefects, class captains (monitors), and scholar patrol (crossing guards). Each of these groups of learners were called forward by grade and individual name to be seen by the school and receive a special pin for all to be able to identify them. Also, the Headboy and Headgirl were chosen. I was so excited, yet not shocked to hear the announcement of my learner Kerly (see biography) as the Headgirl of the school. She is very deserving of the title and will do a great job. She makes me smile whenever I look at her, and I can just feel that she will go places in life, and I wish her the best.

During our planning period, I had the opportunity to interview Mrs. Emma for my biography. I was very pleased that she made it back just in the nick of time for me to do this. I wasn't looking forward to having to write my paper with the little bit of information I did have on her prior to her return (see the biography I posted for more information). It was so great to get to talk to her and ask her many questions. She enjoyed sharing with me and I so enjoyed listening to her speak and taking notes on what she was saying. I got to share with her a little bit also about the United States and my background. After our conversation, I shared with her the portraits from USA that I had been sharing with the classes during home ecology classes. She was so intrigued by them and very glad that that was how I had chosen to use those class times. She agreed to allow me to finish out the lesson I had planned in order to wrap up the portraits with the classes.

I had a few classes of home ecology this day and began them with the song "On a Day Like This" which I love doing. I really want to get some video footage of the kids singing with me. They super love it and so do I. Sometimes when I am walking around during break, I walk past a group of my learners and they start singing it just to see the huge smile that comes upon my face. It was really fun beginning the portrait drawing project with the classes this day. The learners suddenly realized how much effort it had taken my students from USA to put out the quality of product they did. Many of the learners struggled with starting their portraits, but did well once they were able to begin.

During 7D's first math period, I saw again one of the difficulties that comes from having limited funding. There aren't enough of the Hands on Maths books to go around, so consequently, only 5 learners from this class have them. Thus, when Mrs. Emma wants to use this book for the exercises and content it possess, the learners must copy the work themselves (since making copies is also costly). So this particular day, she wanted to use a larger exercise for the lesson, so the learners spent the first 40 minutes of class time copying the content from the chalk board. The 5 learners who had the books just sat and waited during this time.

At the end of the day, I presented Mrs. Emma with the small gifts I had brought for her last week. This consisted of a large desk calendar given to me by my professor to give to my host teacher, and three books of stickers. Mrs. Emma and I had previously had a conversation about how difficult stickers with positive comments like, "good job", "nice", etc. to come by in Namibia, so I went home and looked at the stickers I brought from home and discovered though they were Winnie the Pooh, Disney Princesses, and Sponge Bob, that they had these words on many of them. She was overjoyed at these gifts and put them right into her bag saying how everyone was going to want them and would ask her where she had gotten such a thing. All of these gifts amounted to a grand total of $5.05 plus tax, but they made all the world of difference to Mrs. Emma. I'm thankful for small things that make a big difference.

This school day also ended with a large amount of rain falling just as the learners were released to go home. Many waited under cover at school for a good half hour for the rain to stop so they could walk home without being drenched. We were picked up a bit late by our taxi, so we got to spend some time with the kids under the small covering of the school building. When we made it home, the rain had stopped and the sun came out. I had to go to work however as all of my papers for the end of this class were due for me before I went to bed this night. As per typical of my college career, I got distracted many times in the process of completing my papers, but finish them I did, at about 10:30 at night. Somewhere in there I had some awesome sweet and sour pork Chinese food we ordered. When I laid my head on my pillow that night, I had the joy in my heart of knowing I had finished my college education.

My learner Cindy, very precious, she said, "But Miss Veronica we are chatting, we don't have time for pictures."