Well yesterday I had a nice surprise. On my way back from town I sat next to a gentleman who started talking to me about me being a student and how he never went far in education, but he was now teaching English to neighborhood kids. I thought that was pretty cool and he said that I was welcome to come anytime to sit in a class. I told him that [since] I had nothing to do for the rest of the day today would be good, so we went to his house. He lives in Sinza which is far from the university by road, but a 15 minute walk through the back roads. Anyway, we got to his place and I met his wife and six children and looked at the classroom, which consisted of a tin roof with wooden benches set on the dried dirt front yard. One by one the students came around until there were approximately 30 students ranging in ages of 5 to 13 or so.

After a while he finally got the class started and taught them tenses which I was ashamed to kinda be relearning myself as I sat there. He used the word "eat" as the word to be changed. They would make ten sentences on the board and then read them aloud as a class, which meant scream them aloud. The funniest had to be, "You like to eat rotten mangoes" which caught a lot of people passing by on the street who in turn busted out laughing. Well the teaching continued till about 5pm or so, then they took a break, for their attention spans needed it.

Mwalimu Khana and I walked around the corner to get a drink and he was telling me about how the school got started. He worked for various companies until there was no more work, and during that time he was also teaching his children to speak "proper English." Over time people started to ask him if he could teach their children. So he did and they were paying him too. Then he said that there are many that come and don't pay, but he can't do anything about it because, "What am I supposed do--tell these kids to leave, then see their parents the next day on the street? What are we going to talk about?" I liked his attitude that if he could make enough [money] to earn a living then that was enough for him.

As we were walking back to the class we passed a small clinic when a nurse called him over and in Swahili told him maybe her children would be coming to school. As we walked away he laughed and said that because people have seen me, a white person, that there would be more students popping in. It is kind of sad but as he says, "It'll be a long time before that mentality dies out." So we went back and the students read stories for the next 30 minutes until 6 pm. [Afterwards], Khana and his children walked me to the dala dala so I could return to the university, but I'm sure that I will be back in English class in the near future! --John