Day 19

Tuesday May 5^th 7 pm

It’s only seven o’clock at night and I’m already completely exhausted. My morning started around 5:30 because I left for Sure Prospects 6:30. Dori, Alessa, and I picked up our packed breakfasts and headed out for our day of teaching. We arrived at the school around 7:45 which was in just enough time to get a quick tour and prepare to teach.

Our first class we taught was a class of 50 P1 students. The focus of our lesson was phonics so we began by reading the book Chikca Chicka Boom Boom. The kids loved the silly words and were really engaged in the pictures. After reading the book, we sang our ABCs (which we found out they sing differently) and went over flashcards that we had prepared. It was interesting as we were going through them to notice some things that would be second nature to a student in the United States, like grapes, that they have never heard of. We also gave the students a chance to color/create their own flashcard with a given letter. Overall I think the lesson went much better than expected.

Immediately after P1 we switched gears and went to P2. Their lesson was focused on questioning so we did a picture walk and had them write a question about the book before reading it. The book was titled “Do Superheroes have Teddy Bears?” After reading, they had to write a question about a superhero. Once they understood the concept of question writing they got to write/ask us questions about the United States. It was a great way to integrate the topic we were assigned and the cultural component.

Then we had a nice little break where we met with Francis the headmaster before teaching our final lesson of the day. For P3 the lesson was based around animals. The story of choice was the Lion King and then the students were given the chance to write and illustrate their own story. I was absolutely blown away by some of their creativity and ability. Overall it was a great experience and I couldn’t have asked for better teaching partners and students to have the opportunity of a lifetime with.

After teaching we had to meet up with the rest of the group. We stopped by the supermarket and got pizza, pringles, and some jackfruit for lunch and went to the MUBS guesthouse. While there we talked about our projects for the next day and began to truly prepare for these. Then it was back to Red Chilli where I was lucky enough to sneak in a quick nap and we finished our project preparations.

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After another night of pizza at Red Chilli we had to prepare to go out to Club Silk for a night out on the town. We had a great night at the club with the MUB students and I think it’s safe to say we all bonded a little bit more, but were completely exhausted when we finally got back around 12:30. Probably safe to say one of my favorite days in Uganda. Each day is going by a little bit quicker and I’m not quite ready for this journey of a lifetime to come to an end.
~Mary