This night we were given an assignment. The assignment was to write about something we had experienced that had a big impact. There were so many things to write about, but I started writing about something little, that I had been thinking about. I ended up writing about one of my students from the Bondeni School at the Farewell Ceremony on Saturday. She kept turning around and smiling at me. So this is what I wrote that night.
It was a smile, a repeated smile, again and again during the Farewell Ceremonies at the Area 2 School on Saturday. She had been one of my fifth grade students at the Bondeni School in the Mathare Valley slum and she kept turning her head, locating me in the crowd and noise, and making sure I smiled back. I guess she was making sure I remembered her. I guess she wanted to be “special”. I remembered and she was special. She had been one of my nearly 90 students that week and we had shared a wonderful time together in the tiny crowded corrugated tin walled classrooms of the Bondeni School and it was ending like it began, with smiles.
I have seen thousands of smiles in the Mathare Valley. Children all over the garbage filled streets chanting, “How are you?” and grasping my hand, my fingers, and my attention. But, mostly these were fleeting moments. As soon as I passed they played out the same game with another “mzungu”. Adults sometimes shyly smiled, “Jambo!” Certainly the members of my team glowed as they went about their duties. We were bathed in friendliness.
The hundreds of children in the Missions of Hope schools dressed in their falling apart blue sweaters and shorts or checkered skirts also became objects of this smiling and welcoming game. Classrooms of kids kept looking up with those big African smiles. Some faces became more recognizable during the week, but there were limited opportunities to find out who they really were as individuals. How do you connect with so many needy souls?
I taught in three different fifth grade classrooms at the Bondeni School. Almost 90 kids became my students. Some faces became very familiar and personalities emerged. It was no different than teaching in Nashua. They became my students. I wanted to know who they were. I felt that it was my job to make the best connections that I could with each of these students. I called on them, praised their responses, smiled, and gave pats on the back or“fist bangs”. “Jims, Jims,” they called out to me: some shyly at first, but eager too, as they came out of their shells. I corrected each student’s writing multiple times as they thrust their work at me repeatedly. I put “smiles” on their work for each bit of correct writing and “stars” for extra work. I wrote comments in their journals, “You are a great writer!” or “Wonderful sentence!” I connected, they responded. It was some of the most wonderful teaching experiences that I have ever had and I loved every minute of it. I could have stayed there for weeks getting to know them better, but the week at Bondeni ended so quickly.
My week teaching the in the Mathare Valley slums was beyond wonderful. I savored every moment and delight in every memory. The whole week worked out perfectly: multiple times better than I could have ever have hoped for in my wildest dreams. Every lesson seemed to work just right: whether I was teaching writing or introducing the kids to math concepts through the hands-on use of tangrams and pentominoes. But I never got to say a real good-bye to the children and teachers that I worked with all week! I thought I would see them the next day, so good-byes were more the standard, “See you tomorrow” good-byes then anything more permanent. But, I didn’t see them on Saturday and “my school” wasn’t at the “Farewell Celebration” either. There had been no official “good-bye”.
Saturday was one of the most beautiful days I have ever experienced. The farewell ceremony of music and dancing was spectacular, but since the school I taught at was a different school than the Area 2 school hosts, just a few on my students showed up in attendance as dancers. Then we danced (well I tried to). One of the fifth grade girls grabbed my hand and pulled me out of my chair. Alice, the head teacher hugged me and handed me a carved Twiga (giraffe) and a t-shirt as part of the thanks. I danced with the first girl and then after a break another girl grabbed my arm. She was the one with the awkward and eager smile. We celebrated. When all was done, we went back to our places. But, every few minutes, she turned, sought me out, and we just grinned at each other. “Yes!” I smiled back. I know you! “Yes, your smile is the thanks and goodbye from and to all my friends at the Bondeni School.” One student and one teacher remembered five days with big smiles. I will always remember my friends that so touched my life in Mathare.” And there was one girl who I got to say “Good-bye” to and I am just so happy that the good-bye was packaged as a big Kenyan smile!
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