Tomorrow we'll talk about setting up a wi fi

Right now I’m between the summer school and the start of the actual school year, so to fill in the time right now I’m teaching at a school that’s more of a daycare for youngsters. It’s the same school that I helped renovate. I teach a little bit, but the children only speak Wolof (A native African language. They are taught French when they begin school, but many of the adults here don’t speak French at all). So I have been teaching the kids a little beginner French and numbers. We play lots of games with the kiddies and my guitar has aided me greatly. There is one lady who helps us who speaks Wolof and French so we English to each other, French to her and she Wolofs it to the children. Very awkward setup. Also, she is not afraid to reprimand the kids physically. A lot of the things she does will land you in jail or court in the US. Slapping the kids in the face, hitting them with a little stick she carries around. Although I disagree with how she punishes the kids, it does feel kind of good to see a kid who is being a total brat get wacked on the head with an empty soda bottle. Next Monday I start at yet a different school, which will be the fourth one that I’ve taught at so far. I think I will be there for a while though, because the school year will be starting. Here are some pictures of the care center. The two other girls who are teaching are Julia from Scotland and Jocelyn from Wisconsin.

My family has seen some of the technology that I brought with me here, and they said that they want to give me money to buy some things for them when I come home for Christmas. It’s difficult for me because they don’t understand a lot about computers or technology, so they asked me to get a laptop, but then I asked how fast and how much space they wanted and they were very confused. They also asked me to get them an ipod and I was trying to explain how they need sound files to put on the ipod and complicated by a language barrier, the process was really arduous. I was showing them the difference between left and right click, then right to mp3s and file formatting and I could tell they had no idea what I was trying to explain. Not only that, but I feel like there are a lot of other things that the house would benefit from instead of the technology. For instance, a toilet. Right now we just have a hole in the floor. I could never say this because it would be rude to them, but when they talk to me about buying a computer, I want to tell them that usually the progression of technology goes toilet – computer – ipod, and they were proposing ipod – computer – toilet.

Also, a follow up to a previous post (The Maribou’s curse). It turns out that whatever the good Maribou did with mine and Jocelyn’s hair worked and the curse of insanity (or whatever it was) was lifted from Lamine’s brother. He is acting normal again and will be able to play in the soccer game that his opponents tried to prevent him from playing in with the evil hex. It’s also not too late for Disney to pick up this storyline for a made for tv movie.

Loves,
Steve