Celebrating Every Day

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

Lamentations 3: 22-23

     
As I write my post today, my little friend Abyudi is sitting on my living room floor using a toothpick to eat pieces of mango.  After every bite his eyes get big and he smiles and says "Tamu sanaaaa!" (very tasty).  At not yet three years old, he makes daily trips to my house by himself, knocks on the door and yells "Alleeee!" His smiling face and contagious laughter never fail to make my day.  

We celebrated graduation for our seventh grade class at school this Saturday.  It was an all day event with dancing, singing, speeches, delicious food, and lots and lots of cake.  I wanted to wear something "Tanzanian" for the special day so I had an outfit made by Frank's uncle who is a tailor.  Having things tailored is a very common practice here, and after wearing my outfit on Saturday, I can see why.  It's a pretty cool feeling wearing something that you know was made just for you.  

The more I settle into my routine here the more I realize that I really have no routine.  Every day is different from the last and what you plan on doing may happen and it may not.  Some days I spend hours playing with Abyudi when I had planned on marking exams.  Some days I plan to go home and rest and I end up having English class on the school bus with our two drivers Venance and Hobby.  And some days I plan on teaching 4 classes and end up making a sporadic trip to town.  

This Wednesday I went with my friend Mathayo along with Venance and Hobby to visit a government school in town where Mathayo's mom teaches Special Education.  When Mathayo told me that his mom specialized in teaching children with Autism I immediately asked if we could go and see her class.  Being that for the most part I am confined to the bubble of my home, street, church and school, I didn't really know what to expect.  I knew that private schools were always preferred to government schools and that our school is one of the best, not only in Morogoro, but in all of Tanzania.  But I don't think I really appreciated just how great our school was until I saw the government school.  

With over 900 students, 240 of them being students with special needs, the school is incredibly understaffed and overcrowded.  I peeked into a second grade classroom to see easily sixty or more students packed into the small room, all wearing uniforms and huge smiles.  The special education classrooms were void of any aids or materials to help meet the needs of the students present.  In many of these classes, the students were just sitting in desks sleeping or talking to each other as their teacher tried to conduct a lesson.  We met Mathayo's mom as well as three other women who are teaching Autistic students.  The women took us to their classroom and introduced us to their 7 students who were present that day.  They told me about the challenges these students are facing in their home lives as well as the struggles they face as teachers who are trying to do the best they can with the few resources they have.  As they listed off obstacle after obstacle and as I looked around the room at the seven children they are desperately advocating for, I felt my heart ache.  Day after day these women come to school with joy in their heart and care for these children who other's in this society have deemed hopeless, all while lacking basic teaching necessities.  

Mathayo's mom took us to the section of classrooms designated for the over 50 deaf students attending the school.  The head teacher took us into each classroom and the students greeted us excitedly using sign language.  Their teachers were eager to show off the skills that the students have been learning and tell us about the excellent scores these students are earning on their national exams. These classrooms were happy places.  Because of the size of the deaf population and the specialization needed to teach deaf students, the class sizes were small and the ratio of students to teacher was 5 to 1 as opposed to 60 to 1 in the regular education classrooms.  

Before we left the school, Mathayo's mom and the other women in her class asked me to come and meet with them.  They asked me lots of questions about what special education is like in America and what advice I had for them.  I told them honestly that I was not an expert in this area, but that I wanted to help them.  I asked them to make a list of things that would help them and their students to be successful and that I try to help them attain as many items or resources as I could.  As these words came out of my mouth, I realized I had no idea how I was going to make this happen.  The women hugged me and thanked me profusely for coming to their school, for listening to them, and for agreeing to help them.  I hugged them back tightly and prayed that God would provide the means for me to help these women and their students.  

With every new person I meet and new Swahili word I learn, I am falling more in love with this place that I now call home.  God is at work here, both in the beautiful celebration of graduates and in the classroom bursting at the seems, and I feel extremely blessed that God has called me to be in the middle of it all.  

Mungu akubariki,

Allee