What an amazing start to our beginning.
We woke up extra early (to a hotel with no electricity) and left for the Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum Secondary School in Kajiado, Kenya. We were greeted by the school's 300 students who prepared Quran recitations, dances (by the students and members of the Masaai tribe) and poems to welcome us as their guests.
During one of the dances, it all got a bit too formal for our taste - I mean, we're here to connect with the students not be put on a pedestal, so what did we do? We joined in, but of course! The whole mood was uplifted then and there when we broke down that barrier, and the girls danced their hearts out.
We introduced our program to the teachers who accepted it graciously, and to the students who just dove straight in as soon as our website was running on their computers.
The girls blew us all away by their level of education (I mean, we set a pretty high standard, and they exceeded even that!) and by their determination to learn and connect with the world. The funny thing was, despite Facebook not being part of the program, all the girls created new email addresses solely to sign into Facebook and connect with us!
During breaks, we had a quick chat with the girls to get to know them better on an informal basis. We wanted to know what their dreams and aspirations are, and what they wanted to be when they grew up. Truly inspirational girls with big, big dreams and a very bright future.
What's even more amazing was that the girls stayed after school hours with us just to set up accounts and ask us more questions that we didn't want to go back to our hotel!
Scroll down for pictures.
 |
| A play prepared for us by the students of the Al Maktoum Academy in Nairobi |
 |
| Here we are! |
 |
| And here's our website! |
 |
| We couldn't help ourselves. We're teachers now, after all. |
 |
| The girls exploring the website with the packages we presented to them |
 |
| Sticking our stenciled-out logo onto their wall while still paying attention to the students' needs |
 |
| The booklet and the website working together to help the girls out |
More videos and pictures will definitely be posted, but for now, we've got an early start tomorrow!
Al Bedaya - signing out.
Students in the UAE tend to be pretty well equipped when it comes to mobile technology. Where on a scale of 1 to 10 are your students when it comes to mobile phone technology?
ReplyDeleteAnd my second question is what is the stand out lesson you learned DAY 2?