May 13th to May 24th 2024
Hello again! I’m trying to get back on schedule with my blogs, so I think this is Week 31. This past week, I was able to have some fun at school and outside of the classroom. I went to the beach, played some bingo with my classes, and judged a singing competition.
On Saturday the 18th, I went back to the ACCESS program students and graded their presentations. Their assignment was to compare an American Holiday to a Malagasy Holiday, and they did some really good research on the topic and compared the differences between Easter, New Years, and Mother’s Day. They were pretty nervous to present and many of them read off their paper for the whole thing. But it was a really good experience for them to have. I know they can speak English, I just have to try to get them to have the confidence to do it more often. Anyway, I’m proud of them for presenting especially because I know it was out of their comfort zone.
On Sunday the 19th, there was a big singing competition that was put on by Operation Smile to raise money for children with cleft lip. I was recruited to be one of the judges because all the contestants were required to sing in English. Even though my task was to judge for their pronunciation and the message of their song, I still felt very unqualified to be judging anything related to singing. The other two judges were Saruma, a Peace Corp Volunteer, and Fanohy, an actual professional music teacher. So, between the three of us it was good that there was at least one person who was qualified. The singing competition was a lot of fun, but man it was long. We got to the competition at 3pm and we didn’t leave until 10 pm. It was crazy, but there was no way to make it go faster because there were 65 people that tried out. This was the first round and as judges we were able to cut it down to 30 people for the semi-finals. I was pretty worn out by the end of it but I’m so glad that I got to do it because it’s something that I will always remember when thinking about my time in Madagascar.
Monday was Pentecost which meant that there was no school for the holiday. For the holiday, Saruma and I went with Pastor Miguel and Natalie to the beach because they were having a baptism there for their church. It was a really nice experience and a good relaxful day after a very busy weekend. The beach we went to was Grand Pavois which I had never been to before because it is farther away than the other beaches. I really enjoyed being there because the beach was nicer, and the water was cleaner than the beach I normally go too. Also, I was able to survive a day at the beach without getting any sunburn which I consider an accomplishment considering how close Madagascar is to the equator.
This week I was able to have some fun with my classes as we played some Bingo. I designed a game about why they should learn English, so it was reinforcing the idea to practice English while having fun. All the students really liked it and one of the teachers that I teach with also got into it and played a couple rounds too. This week I also started to say goodbye to some of my classes. I only see each class every two weeks and some of the classes are reviewing for their exams the next time I am supposed to be with them, so I won’t be with their class. It was weird to have to say goodbye. I still have a good amount of time left in Madagascar but having to start the goodbyes definitely made me realize more that I am almost done with my time in Madagascar. I’m sure I’ll start to feel even more emotions as it gets closer to leaving, but right now I’m happy to continue to do what I’m doing.