On our third day at Ziwa, we headed off the sanctuary to teach at St Vincent's School (pink & blue uniforms) in the village at the end of the road. This tiny private school had only about 20 students per class unlike the 60 typical of public schools. Planning our lessons back in the US was impossible for many reasons including having a difficult time finding out what would be helpful. But on the ground with a little more info from Hassan, our program director, we were able to bring together a lesson based around the book, Beatrice's Goat, that we had brought from the US. This true story of a girl from a nearby town in Uganda who had received a goat from Heifer International thereby earning enough money to go to school (and eventually college in the US) was the perfect centerpiece for our lessons. After reading the book, we rotated around the classrooms: Sara and Nate teaching goat math (addition through division), Mitch and Liz taught a lesson where the students colored and drew pictures related to sentences based on the book, and Tianna and Dan did vocabulary from the book where the students taught us the words in their local language, Luluri. After the classes, Liz and Tianna again led the preschool in games and song. While some preschoolers initially cried at the sight of us- the first white people they had seen- by the time we left, they were all waving goodbye.
A lunch a a local restaurant of goat, matoke (mashed bananas), posho (stiff corn grits), rice and greens, was followed by an afternoon at Ziwa's school, Hakuna Matata (yellow & orange uniforms). Under the baking sun, we played games with the whole school including a modified version of Sharks & Minnows we named Lions & Ugandan Kob (an antelope & the national symbol).
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