School

As I write this I am gazing across the Hinnom valley, watching the dusk deepen over Jerusalem. It's a beautiful night, as most nights here are, cool and clear.

It's been a good day. This morning Melissa and I caught a ride with William (who works at the school) and his two daughters to their school where we intend to volunteer every Tuesday morning. Today I ended up trying to tutor a boy named Ameer. He's in second grade and speaks basically no English. Which is why he needs tutoring. It also made tutoring extremely difficult as I speak even less Arabic. It was interesting. He apparently didn't want to be tutored because he did nothing but cry and refuse to look at my for about an hour. (Meanwhile, of course, I was trying different things to get him to stop crying and such.) Eventually I succeeded in getting him to start working on some math. Of course at that point he had to leave for Arabic class. When he came back, though, things seemed to go a little better. He wasn't crying any more, and there were even a couple times I got him to smile and laugh. We finished about one page in the two workbooks he had, and that was pretty much like pulling teeth. He was pretty easily distracted and kept trying to make me promise that we would do the next page tomorrow (not today!) before he would finish the page we were on. At least, I think that's the promise he was trying to elicit. Like I said, I don't speak Arabic.

After that we had to leave to make sure we could get back in time for my Hebrew class. I was sad that I didn't get to help in the math classes I was in last time. We think that maybe next week we can stay a little longer, so maybe I can help in at least one.

During the break I talked to a couple teachers, and, of course, teachers always talk about their students. It reminded me of my students and made me miss all of them terribly. So, if any of you read this, I hope you're doing well, and I expect to hear from you!!

Volunteers

While over here we have the chance to volunteer for half a day a week and one of a few different Christian ministries in and around Jerusalem. Today Diane planned for a few of us to meet with the principle of Jerusalem School in east Jerusalem to see how we could help them out. At 10:00 I left the school with Melissa (the wife of one of the semester undergrad students), Isaiah (another undergrad student) and Bryan (a grad student who's wife works at the school.) We walked through the old city to just outside of Damascus gate where we caught an Arab bus. The bus took us nearly to the check point between Israel and the West Bank. There was no check to get in, so we walked past the check point and then turned up the road that Bryan said was the boundary line between Jerusalem and the West Bank. We could see the wall they're building...

The school is on that boundary road, just barely on the Jerusalem side. It is a Christian school that uses, I think, mostly one of the home school curricula...maybe Apologia? The student body itself (K-12, I think) is well over half Muslim. Because of that, some of them struggle with English (and everything is taught in English). The principle's first thought was to have us help some of them with English. He also mentioned that some might need help in math. Then we went to observe the classrooms of some of the teachers we might help. The few students I met seemed to be pretty similar to all the other children that age I've met. Most of them were pretty friendly, some rather rambunctious and rebellious. Also, it's the month of Ramadan which means that most of them are fasting, so I'm sure they're a little crazier/grumpier/more tired than "normal." It was fun. I'm not sure exactly where I'll be when I go back next week since I will be there on a different day (Tuesday) and at different times (probably about 8-11:30), but I'm sure I'll find something to do.

The school building itself was built by the Coptic church to use as a college, but for some reason they never finished it. It had been empty for something like 12 years before this school moved in this year. It's a pretty nice building. I didn't bring my camera this time, but I'll have to get some pictures next time and put them up.

After that we caught a bus back to Damascus Gate and walked back to school, just in time to grab a sandwich before class. :)

As a side note, I must admit that I'm terribly tired of hearing about the conquests of the various Pharaohs who invaded Canaan. I think I've read or heard about 3 accounts of that and I've seen the same ancient texts on that subject about 5 times now...*sigh* :) As interesting as these first couple weeks have been, they have also been really repetitive in a lot of areas. Pretty much all of the lectures I've attended and articles I've read have overlapped at some point. But hey, maybe I'll learn it really well this way. Let's hope. :) And it is good to see the connections between different subjects.