Monday 20 July 2015

Rwanda Day 2 by Kaya and Lowri


Today was an early start, but all were very excited about the first day of teaching, despite being a little nervous. We arrived at the catch up centre a little later than usual at 9am to find some students were sitting their last exam meaning we had an antagonising wait until 9:30am to start teaching!

Kaya’s team (Incredibles) were very confident with the introduction, from giving them lanyards to complete with their names and introducing themselves to the class, with their ages and how many brothers and sisters they had, We also sung the alphabet and counted up to 30 to see their abilities.

Lowri’s team (Team Malala) started off by introducing ourselves and the theme for the week, which is “heroes”. We all completed name badges and tried to ask the children about themselves, but they all were really shy and quiet and didn’t say more than they had to. We swiftly moved on to an English lesson, getting each child to find the word classes in a sentence and then to write their own. Even though hardly anyone said anything, they all completed this task really well. This gave us some hope and encouragement for the rest of the week!

During break time and into ‘all together time’ we got a really good insight into the Rwandan culture, by watching the children all dance, sing and play the drums together- Cathy certainly broke out her dance moves from the 1970s! During ‘all together time’ we all introduced ourselves to the rest of the school and tried to teach them all ‘one finger, one thumb’ even though half of our team couldn’t even do it!

Kaya’s team (Incredibles) certainly enjoyed the educational activities session after by playing maths splat on the chalk board, VS each other in teams and rewarding with stickers this encouraged them much more. After spending the majority of the time from this session playing maths splat, we had to force them to move on to playing with the math jigsaw pieces and banagrams and word tiles, all the children really enjoyed this and wanted to continue playing, it was great to see them so enthusiastic!
Lowri’s team (Team Malala) then started a few maths worksheets. They completed them with so much ease – it was actually really great to see them being more involved, even though they were still very quiet. We had to give them more work sheets as they finished the first ones extremely quickly! We could definitely see that they enjoyed maths more than anything else – the beauty of maths being the same in every language! After that, we moved on to a story building game in an attempt to get the children to talk to us. They seemed to get more involved as the lesson went on, which was a great relief, and even some of the children volunteered to read the story aloud at the end of the session which was great to see.

We then came back to the apartments for lunch, food being amazing as it always has been so far! Afterwards, we went back to catch up centre for the afternoon activities.
Kaya’s team (Incredibles) decorated their lanyards with team names and their own names, colouring in and showing off their own drawing skills which were pretty good! We also introduced them to our team song which is in the jungle, they seem to have mastered the… Oh wimbo way part, and we are still learning the rest of the in the jungle song to perform at the end of the week in the celebrations. We also did some hokey cokey in a massive circle which got all the children excited. We went to use the parachute but ran out of time, so luckily Kaya saved the day by singing and teaching the children some team chants such as ‘everywhere we go’ The children LOVE singing!

Lowri’s team (Team Malala) split into two groups – one going outside to play with Frisbees and skipping ropes and the other staying inside to do some craft work and make their own loom band bracelets. The children LOVE loom bands, most of them were showing us new ways to make bracelets, instead of us teaching them! They also had lots of fun with the Frisbees, laughing at my (Lowri’s) attempt to try and throw one in a straight line, or even catch one at all! To end the day, we all came inside (mainly to hide from the heat!) and we either played with jigsaws or drew our idea of what Rwanda is to us. Such a great way to end the day!

We are just preparing to wind down for the day which has been very tiring and exciting, and are preparing our equipment for tomorrow, which is going to be another action packed day!

Kaya- Personally, I have found today pretty emotional. From coming on the first team trip to Rwanda in 2013, it is really exciting to be back again 2 years later! Today when I arrived at the school, a group of the children came up to me and recognised me! 2 of them even remembered my name and I actually saw some of the original children, this was actually pretty overwhelming and I did have a few tears in my eyes!

Much love and hugs,

Kaya and Lowri


























12 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi Natalie (and everybody) well it certainly looks like you have had a busy day. It is so lovely to be able to see photographs of the activities you have done with the children today. So proud of what you are doing and the differnce it is making to the childen's lives. Can't wait to see more!
All our love Mam Dad and Rachel xxxxx

Unknown said...

Hi Tracy.

Glad to see you arrived safe and well. We are really proud of what you are doing for those who are not as privileged as we are.
The youngsters look very happy to see you, keep up the good work and take care.
love mam and dad.

Unknown said...

Nathan Barclay
Hi Kaya,
Love reading the updates back in rainy England, and its great to hear that you are having lots of success with your teaching. Keep the updates coming and keep up the great work.
Tell Kaya I love her <3

Unknown said...

Hello sarah t. Good to see you working with the children and making a difference to them. So proud of the hard work you are doing for them. Keep up the good work. I love you xxx

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Duncan Weir said...

Aislinn - good to hear about your first day of teaching and to see your photo. If the pupils are quiet, put some music on and dance like Dad dances and that will get them laughing! Mum, Holly, James .... And Dad. Xxxx

Unknown said...

Dear Emma H what fantastic photos of you all working with the children today, it is a wonderful thing that you are doing and it sounds like the kids really enjoyed their first day with the Incredible's - well done. I know that you are finding it very challenging being away from home but you can do this darling, I have every faith in you, go make yourself proud. Looking forward to tomorrow's installment on the blog, loads of love Mum xx

Unknown said...

Hi Kaya we are so proud of u them children are so lucky having some one like u teaching them your doing so we'll love and miss u
Mum nan Shan Mia xx
Ps Mia missing u so much and wonts to get on a airplane to come and get u x

Unknown said...

Hi All

It's great to see you all having a great time and no doubt working hard.
Fantastic to see a blog from Genie yesterday and to see that both her & Cathy are making a difference with all the other CRED team members.
Missing you at home, have a great time. I'll keep checking the blog for updates.

Pete XX

Jan said...

Great to see all the photos and see that so much has happened already. It will be a rewarding week I'm sure. We keep reading the blog. Well done all. Jan and Laurence Potter X

Duncan Weir said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Gary S said...

i'm glad your nerves didn't get the better of you. you look like your having fun. we have been reading the blog and passing info on to the family. we are very proud of you well done nicky and gary short