Bry'Chell's month long holiday comes to an end at 7:15 AM tomorrow when the new term begins at St. Mary's. Just about the time her peers in Chicago are getting ready to begin their summer vacation, Bry'Chell is heading back to school.
Her holiday wasn't much of a holiday. She spent a good bit of the time studying math, US History and vocabulary words. However, she did it at her own pace with a lot less structure than the regular school day. Every week she had twenty words, she did one or two sections of history a day and whatever math Fr. Henry assigned.
Bry'Chell also watched more than her share of movies and increased her collection of local Ugandan music. Her schedule was pretty reasonable.
Today when we went to St. Mary's to check in for the new term, I was talking with Sr. Sanyu about Maria, the girl who sells bananas. Maria is in 5th grade. She wants to go to St. Mary's when she finishes primary school. It's more than her family can afford, even for a day scholar. The tuition for the year is about $200 American dollars and that includes the uniform. Maria's family has plenty of bananas, cassava, sweet potatoes and even a few chickens and eggs. What they don't have is cash. Cash is needed for sugar, salt, tea and school fees.
Maria has been coming for tutoring everyday during the break. Bry'Chell does most of it. I've been working with Maria on her times tables. She wants a pair of earrings (called pins here -- don't ask me why.) I told her that she could have them when she could recite her times tables -- 2 x 2 to 12 x 12 without any mistakes. She's still making lots of mistakes, so she didn't get the earrings today. She was pretty mad at me. I think she wanted the earrings for her first day back at school. Oh well, guess she'll have to study more.
Bry'Chell was sympathetic. She remembers when she didn't get the promised bribe for memorizing her times tables because she failed to take me seriously. She told Maria that she should study more.
I'll be she has them down before the end of the week.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment