Eaten alive

So, as I sit here and think of a title to this blog, I am being eaten alive by invisible mosquitoes.

This past week I've spent more time in the communities. I focused mostly on the community schools, assessing the teachers and even doing teaching. It was the best! I don't remember if I wrote about this already. But it was the best. I love teaching. Love Love Love Love.

On Saturday I did a workshop for the teachers. Can you imagine? This little girl in Nigeria teaching teachers how to teach. The workshop included topics such as Assessment, Classroom Management (including intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation and positive vs. negative reinforcement), Learning Styles, Curriculum Development (short term to long term planning), Taxonomy of Learning (focusing mostly on Cognitive Domain), ... weeeeeeeeeeee.

My highlight has still been spending time in Badia with Pastor Chris and Faith. It's a community lined with brothels. There is a deeply ingrained culture of sex, drugs, and alcohol. And it's a dark community with major strongholds. On Tuesday we had a meeting with women from two of the brothels. We introduced ourselves and were asking how we could support them in caring for their children. After we felt like we spoke enough, we asked how many of them are caring for children, and emphasized either their own or a relative's. No one, not one of the women admitted to having children. The sad part is that most of them do have children. They can't admit to it because it's bad for business. So they hide their children in the deep dark corner of their shack somewhere within the slum. There is a free government school in the area but they won't even dare send their children because then people, even worse the government, will know. These community is so heavy on my heart. But Chris and Faith are doing incredible work. Some of the women came to us afterward in secret saying they have children and want help. We have hope that the women will begin to trust us and see that we don't want to condemn them or steal their children, but we want to love them. There are incredible visions of a care centre there, where children can come, where mothers can come to receive counseling, to just rest, to receive extra lessons, ... it's going to be awesome.

On a completely opposite note, yesterday Lize and I took a day out and went to the beach. The thought of Nigerian beaches is really not a pretty thought... but we were pleasantly surprised when we got to the beautiful white sand and crystal blue waters. That was cut short, though, due to the awful pestering of local people. "Come this way Owebo", "Buy this Owebo", ... all we wanted was peace. So we called a guy we had met recently from South Africa who's living in Nigeria and he picked us up in his sweet ride and took us to the Yacht Club. Yep, you heard it. The YACHT CLUB. It was surreal. We rode on a boat and hung out on the Yacht Club's personal beach.

Nigeria has been an interesting experience. I've loved every second of being in the communities and helping to build the model, supporting and encouraging our people on the ground. There are a lot of things in Nigeria I won't miss. But there are a lot of things I will. This place is just so bizarre that in between fits of anger erupts fits of giggles. This place is just so bizarre.