You Want Us To Teach Now?!

This morning we arrived at the school with all of our suitcases piled on top of the van (the crazy bus was having problems with exhaust.. go figure). They were full of supplies and the plan was to spend the day unloading the supplies, painting and working on the classrooms. As I have learned in Kenya, NOTHING goes according to the plan. When we arrived the children were not in the classroom we had been teaching them in (a huge cement room the shared with three other classes). Little did we know, the temporary classrooms we were building were done and the children were in the classroom we built them!!! Sooo cool! When we went to "check on" the kids Irene (the teacher) said "Oh, you are here! Please teach." and left us to teach the class!! The three of us quickly found out that 12 of the children were deaf, five could hear and two understood English well enough to speak. Sheesh! We tried to model her teaching style for oh about twp minutes then tossed that idea when the children started hitting each other on the head and pointing everywhere making mad faces and lots of hand movements. I had no idea chaos could be so quite, but it was! We taught them how to sing and sign Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (the only song the three of us knew how to sign) and made little books for them to illustrate. After recess I taught them the Hokey Pokey and used flashcards of their body parts (just like US children, putting their "bottom" in was a winner) and Vanessa had them draw their self-portraits (I am not sure if any of them have seen a mirror in their lives, but the drawings were awesome). In the afternoon I used my HUGE muscles to take down and hammer up a chalkboard (I was wiped after 6 nails!). Then I used my artistic talents to paint two bookshelves (and myself) bright blue.
Tomorrow the safari bus is picking us up at 7AM and we are going on safari!! More from the lap of luxury!