Welcome, welcome in our class!

It's been quite some time since I last updated this blog, due to such bad excuses as lack of time, lack of concentration etc.. Anyways, I'm back. I think it's about time that I tell everyone a bit about the work that we are actually doing here in Kenya.

Right now the four of us are volunteering in a place called Mathare Worship Centre. This centre holds a primary school, a daycare, a microfinance program and a clinic for testing and check-ups of HIV patients. We've been working mostly in the school and also a bit in the daycare.

The school is open from 7 in the morning to 5 in the afternoon. It houses a nursery class, a pre-school class, and 1st to 6th grade. The kids usually go crazy when they see us, and they sometimes end up fighting over which classroom we should be in. When we finally enter one, we're usually met by this welcoming poem:
"Welcome, welcome in our class!
Happy to see you,
happy to hear you,
in our class!
Welcome, welcome in our class!"

I've been assigned as the assistent teacher of class 2, a great group of fifteen 7-8 year-olds. They're the best kids ever, kind, crazy, compassionate, clever, I've really fallen in love with every single one of them.
Their classroom is about 3 times 3 metres in size, and holds three benches and a blackboard which tends to fall down. The teachers come and go a bit as they please, so the kids have lots of free time. That's when I step in, to play lion or crocodile, sing songs, draw every animal known to man on the blackboard and anything else I can do to brighten their day.

I might not be a trained teacher, or ever have a lot of experience with kids. But my hope is that for these particular 7-year-olds, having a crazy Norwegian redhead imitating a lion might break the routine of an otherwise discouraging reality.