ABC's

Today was a very long day. I woke up at 6:15 to go spend the day at the high school and attend some classes. I observed a couple english classes and a math class, because those are two languages I can understand without translation. The english teacher is very open to me correcting him in class, which I wasn't too comfortable with at first, but he insisted. It's really difficult to speak english in a country where there are hardly any native english speakers, so the teacher is very happy to have me visit.

Later today, my little sister, Boyo, who reminds me of my real little sister, Alyse!, asked me to help her with her ABC's. We've been working on the alphabet for four days now, and tonight, we had a big breakthrough! After having her recite and copy the alphabet several times, I tested her on her memory and had her say each letter as she wrote them and I had tears welling in my eyes as she was doing so. She learned how to say, read and write the alphabet and I helped her!
One thing that I've noticed in the schools here is that the teachers don't have any patience with the kids. This is because there are so many students in the classrooms. It's very tiring to teach, and I've heard all the teachers say that the students are lazy and they have weak minds. The students aren't stupid, but they have to fight against so many other things. In the classroom, they have to battle against 70-80 other students. At home, they have to do chores and deal with other distractions and they're lucky if they have electricity to do their homework at night. There are so many things not conducive to learning, that it makes my head hurt to think of them all.