Olives Rehabilitation Center

In spite of the name, Olives Rehabilitation Center is actually a school. I think the name derives from the idea that it provides education to children who have otherwise missed out until now. There are many thousands of children in Bombolulu who currently have no access to an education, either because there are far too many schools to service the area or for financial reasons.

Olives was started by a local pastor named Stephen, who we've come to know really well since arriving. He is an inspiring man, and has undergone a lot of hardship throughout his life to get to where he is today. Spending time in Bombolulu slum, children began coming to him in increasing numbers wanting to pray for a school so they could get an education. He has since dedicated his life to Olives, and giving these kids an opportunity.

The classrooms at Olives have no lighting. We normally work with the doors open, unless there is excessive noise outside. It is amazing how your eyes adjust, and working in relative darkness quickly becomes a non-issue. Materials are sparse. There is 1 desk for each 3 kids, and although it is squashy it works. In most subjects, there is 1 textbook per table, although some have much less. We mostly find ourselves using the blackboard and not using the textbooks (except to plan our lessons).

 

The kids have a long day. Grades 4 and above start at 6:30am and leave after 4pm. But there is not a lot to do at home for many of them, so they would probably hang around in the school grounds anyway. One of the keys to teaching the kids is knowing how to engage them and snap them out of their drowsiness.

Where possible, we treat the kids to working outside under the shade of a big tree. Library/reading class is when this normally happens, and it is as much a break for us as the kids. It gets seriously hot inside the classroom! I can be quite animated when teaching maths, and often I'm pouring with sweat by the time the class ends.

We'll do more of this later, but here are a few profiles of kids in our grade 5 class:

Victor: We were warned about Victor when we arrived. He can be a bit disruptive, but he can also be the key to a successful class. He gets really animated, and is the deepest and most insightful kid in our class. He also has a great sense of humour, and is very smart. The flipside is that he's been known to bring lighters to school and use them in class, and when he doesn't want to work he can be tough to manage.

Captain: He is the smartest kid in class, and he works really hard. He always wants to answer questions too. The other day, we were teaching new words in English class, and then separately we got them to write a letter. He used nearly every word he'd previously learned in his letter. He just loves to learn!

Mary: She is the girl we talked about earlier, who got a new dress and a new smile to go along with it! She doesn't find learning easy, but she works very hard. Liz and I always look for opportunities to throw easy questions her way, because she tries really hard and is very eager to please.

So, week 2 is now over. We've decided to stay in town and check into a nice hotel for the weekend, and relax in front of the pool. Work is extremely rewarding but exhausting, and we need to recharge for another week.

Chris