Burundi

Today I spent a few hours at a pre-school type program for Burundi immigrants. (It's not limited to Burundis but that is all they have now.) It's only a couple of hours and is intended mainly to expose the children to English. They also help the parents sign the kids up for kindergarten. When I first got there the kids were playing with playdo. One little boy had made a bracelet for each arm and was running around proudly showing them to each of the adults. I went in the playroom with the toy kitchen where a two year old (with a teddy bear tied to her back like a baby) attentively - almost absorbedly - brused my hair with a miniature pasta ladle. She experimented briefly with a plastic fork, but the ladle proved more effective (I'm guessing).
(this is a pasta ladle, in case you didn't know)
After playing for a little while, everyone cleaned up, washed their hands and sat down for snack. There were orange slices, apple slices, cereal, banana slices and carrots. Some of the kids liked one thing better than others, so some trading was done. The carrots seemed to be the one thing universally liked (which is funny because apparently the middle school aged children threw the carrots away before even trying them). Then everyone circled up and sang songs like ring around the rosie, the wheels on the bus, the hokey pokey. They loved it. The the slightly older kids (I'm guessing ages 3-5) went in one room to do some kind of lesson. (I think it was showing them pictures and/or objects, telling them the name of it and having them repeat it.) The youngest (ages 2 and under, though I think they were all 2) went to the playroom with the toy kitchen.

They also have a program after school to tutor middle schoolers. The kids are placed in grades by their age, not their ability. So some of the kids were in 1st grade at home, but are in 4th grade here. They are having to catch up on several years of learning while learning English. For most of them English is a fourth language. They know the tribal language, the "market" language, and French (because that's the language school is taught in). The guy who runs it said they mostly work on math because it's the least frustrating for them.

They also have a program one night a week to teach English to the mothers. (I guess most of the families don't have any sort of male figurehead).

I only went to the preschool today, but they all sound like really neat things. (And the preschoolers were so adorable!)

Snow!

I didn't see much of the workshop, but what I did see was very cool. The alphabet therapy takes two adults (at least when the kid is first learning); one to present the card choices and one to manage behavior. So the person with the cards will hold up two choices (for example a green card and a yellow card) and will say "Pick green." If the kid picks the right one, everyone claps and makes noises (because the kids really like that) and they put one penny in the container. If the kid picks the wrong one, the person holding the card says "That's yellow, pick green" until the kid picks the right one. Once the kid has 5 pennies in the container, they get to play with a favorite toy for a short time and they get a sticker. Once they get 5 stickers (or 10 or however many the goal was) then they are done with their session and they get to go play. So I got to watch a little of it, but most of the time I was either reading or playing with Louie.
While we were there it started snowing, but it wasn't sticking. By the time we were ready to drive home, it was sticking and was coming down fairly hard. We could still see the street lines (barely) but we couldn't see any of the road signs because the wind was blowing the snow against them and the snow was caking up. Luckily it lightened up after the first hour and turned into rain, so it was much easier to drive.

Memphis

Yesterday I went to Siloam in the afternoon. It was a slow afternoon, so I spent the time filing patient forms.
Today, TJ and I drove to Memphis. She met with some fellow scientists she's collaborating with. They took us to lunch and then talked for a while. Then TJ and I drove around for a while. We drove past the hotel where Martin Luther King Jr. was assasinated. It's been turned into a civil rights museum, but it had closed by the time we got there. So we went to the Peabody Hotel. They have ducks that live on the roof that ride the elevator down to the lobby twice a day. We had gone to see the ducks, but we missed them. So we had dessert at the restaurant indside. It was pretty fancy. The waiter put a napkin in my lap for me right before he brought out the food. They were super nice and super attentive. TJ and I shared a chocolate souffle and an apple briggette. They were delicious. Then we drove to Dyersburg which is about 2 hours north of Memphis. Tomorrow TJ has a workshop on alphabet therapy (which is a way to teach kids with Angelman's how to read). So the two of us will set up tomorrow morning.

Mañana

Fran got in last night. I made a pineapple upsidedown cake for dessert and it was very yummy. The twins had some for breakfast today. Anyway, Fran and I took TJ to work so that we would have a car. This afternoon we have to pick up Louie, TJ, and then a couple people from the airport.

I will go to Siloam tomorrow afternoon for my training and will start volunteering every Thursday afternoon.

Metamorphosis

Not too much been going on here. I haven't started at Siloam yet. I should hear from them tomorrow or Wednesday. Mostly I've been driving around Nashville (almost all of it lost) and helping TJ with Louie. A couple nights ago I went to a play with Lena. It was called Metamorphosis and it was the strangest play I have ever seen. It was about a guy who turns into a dung beetle. The acting was good, but the play was terrible. Last night everyone watched the Oscars which was kinda fun. Today I went to TJ's office and helped a lady down the hall make copies. She had 13 packets that she was going to hand out at some fair/conference type thing, so she needed 50 copies of each packet. And each of the packets were a different colour. But she had a student helper, so the two of us stood around in the copy room all day talking and (of course) copying.

Dinners

I haven't begun volunteering at Siloam yet, but I have been busy. Yesterday was mostly spent cleaning house to get ready for the dinner party. Dave is trying to recruit a surgeon, so we had a dinner for him (the recruit) and his wife. The man is from India, but grew up mostly in the states and his wife grew up in India. They met because they were in a traditional/classical Indian band. They have two little boys (7&4) who play violin and tennis respectively. They seem like really nice people and Dave is really hoping they'll come. So dinner was fun and interesting.

Today, I dropped TJ off at work so I could have the car. I spent some time wandering Nashville and poking my head into various shops. I came back for TJ in the afternoon and we picked Louie up from school. Then we met the twins at their school because their lacrosse team was having a dinner there. TJ left for another dinner with the recruit and a bunch of the Vanderbilt faculty and Louie, the twins and I came home.

Part Two

After a rather long intermission, I have decided what Act II of my year off will be. I am living with my cousins in Nashville TN and will be volunteering at a local clinic. I had the orientation for the clinic this morning. They showed us (myself and the other new volunteers) around. The building is very nice; it's open and has lovely murals on a lot of the walls and gorgeous art from all over. One of the really fascinating things about the clinic is how diverse it's clientele is. 79% of the patients are immigrants or refugees and come from more than 100 countries. They keep a map on the wall and put a pin in each country they have a patient from. It's an impressive number of little black pins covering the map. Anyway, back to the main track, after the tour we watched a short video telling the story of one of the patients to give us a better sense of how the clinic worked. We had morning prayer with the volunteers (they have a short prayer before each work shift) and then filled out applications. (I found it a little odd to have orientation before filling out an application, but that's because orientation is pretty general; once you know what you'll be doing, they have you shadow someone to get more specific training.)

After that (it was only a couple hours) Lena brought me home (since I have no car here) and we all had lunch. Then TJ, Louie and I ran some errands. One of them was to look for [drinking] glasses at an antique store. TJ found some she liked and I found a book. It's a book about Rudyard Kipling, it's 83 years old and it's a first edition. I got it for $14 even though the price written on the inside was $24. So that was cool. When we got back to the house, I started on dinner. I made Rueben sandwiches which turned out very well.

And that has pretty much been my day.

Happy Valentine's Day!