Joy to the World

Yesterday was our last day of modelschool. I taught my kids (sophomore-aged) “Joy to the World” and “Oh Come all ye Faithful.” They loved it! They liked “Joy to the World” way more than “O come”..guess “O come” was too slow for their tastes. But by the end of class, when I had them stand up to sing, “Joy” they were clapping and dancing/swaying along! It was so fun and a good English lesson!

I mentioned earlier that yesterday would be my last day and man, the students were prepared. They wrote out this speech in English to thank me and loaded me down with the following gifts:

-6 Balais (traditional brooms made of dried grasses bundled together)
-5-6 calabash bowls (gourd bowls decorated with a wood burning like technique)
-An awesome purple sparkly headscarf and necklace
-Hand drawn colored map of Chad
-metal cooking pot (!)

So I’m standing up in front of this classroom with all of my loot gathered around my feet, holding my bundle of balais like a beauty queen holding bouquets of flowers (with a purple sparkly headscarf as a crown) and the students did this awesome rhythmic applause thing! It was such a fun day. They all said they’re going to visit me in America.

That’s one of the very sad things about being here, though. Everyone wants to come to America, but the opportunities are so limited. Here are these bright, hardworking kids who want to make something of themselves but the odds are so so stacked against them. I want to tell them that if they work hard they can be whatever they want, but that’s just not true. That is going to be a hard thing for me to deal with, I think. There are a lot of things I’m going to have to toughen my skin about because right now, they kind of break my heart. I guess this is where I’ve really got to try to take everything one day at a time and one kid at a time. Africa is hard!