Two things we did while we were in Niamey (the capital city of Niger...the place where we spent majority of our time when we weren't in the villages) were AIDS education & awareness, and ESL.
We did AIDS education and awareness for 2 mornings in a row, each class was 2 hours long. That is quite a lot of time to fill up!!!! (I was sick and bed-ridden the second morning however, so I missed out on that one. Stinkin head-cold!!!) Anyways, we went into the main school in the city and taught Junior High students all about AIDS and HIV. We tried to make our classes as interactive and interesting as possible....so we'd each talk at different times, explaining different things, and we also did little quizzes and played this one game involving candy as an illustration, that seemed to go over well(Who doesnt like an illustration involving candy??) . The classrooms had about 50-60 students in them, so they were quite large, and the students were lots of fun after. Everyone wants your email, and to "talk" and take pictures...even though the language barrier was more than an obstacle!! It was an affirming class to teach, because for the most part, the students were quite well educated in the area of AIDS and HIV. I would bet you a million dollars that they know more in the school in Niger about the epidemic than the Canadian students here would. Niger doesn't suffer with AIDS as much as other countries do, but there is still work to be done to keep it from growing. Here are a few shots from the class.
During the evening for 3 nights from 8-10pm we would teach English classes at this Christian outreach centre for university students and adults. We were well prepared for this part of our ministry ahead of time...we knew there would be a beginner's group and an intermediate group. But what we didn't know was how actually advanced this group of people would be!!! They were all well educated, and for the most part had very impressive English. So...we had to throw ALL our lesson plans out the window and change it all on the spot! A little nerve racking, BUT everything turned out really well. We focused a lot on conversation and pronunciation, breaking into about 3 groups of 10. These people just needed someone to practice their English with so that is exactly what we did! The age range was 20-40 I would say, so it was interesting talking with them, and learning about their way of life, and their jobs, and culture, etc. On the last night we did a fun night, where we played pictionary on the chalk board, and a modified version of the game Taboo...creating lots of laughs. And overall it was a success!
1 comment:
I hope you didn't teach them the Canadian version of "about" and "pasta!" I think it would have been hilarious to play a version of taboo... sounds like it was an awesome time.
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