School update

                                       
The boys are off school for a few days, as the second term (their first) finished on Tuesday and the third (and last) starts on Monday. Michele had 5 days of end-of-term exams, for all the subjects: French, Kinyarwanda, Science, English, Maths and Social Studies; the six weeks he was in school it was hard work for him to catch up with the rest of the class (in this private school, with American curriculum, they had done much more than in Ireland-England) but he tried his best, with no complaints, and teacher Yoli (Yolinil, Venezuelan born, with a Chinese father, married to a British) is nice, understanding, helpful and encouraging. On exam days, Michele had only half-day, so littleSam came back home by school-bus all by himself, without big bro’ to lean on.

Just before the start of the tests, Michele was named “star student of the week”, in charge of taking care of the class as to commitment and order, especially when lining up: no big achievement, as the new one is just chosen by the previous one, without any special merit, but it’s nice to see him already as accepted as to be chosen and it is a big thing in the class, so he was delighted and we had a nice afternoon writing messages on his page of the scrapbook (pictures of the beaming schoolboy with his trophy and proud brother are in the gallery page).

Tomorrow “open house” for the whole school (with thousands of students… hectic day on the horizon?), aka parents’ meeting with all teachers, basically to get the report cards. From Primary onwards, they seem to be all very focused on the marks, hoping for good percentages (American style) and of course we’re not, but our teacher is not to passionate about the system either, so she hasn’t put too much pressure on the pupils and Michele is taking it all very well.

Sam has had a good deal of catching up to do as well and teacher Belinda is very pleased with his dedication and perseverance and he’s happy and eager to learn, no longer afraid to go and keen on doing his homework, to learn to read, write and count as fast as he can, to reach his mates level.

As we said in earlier posts, school days are very long, but we’re really happy with the school and most of all the two boys are quite happy too, always with good tales and no complaints. Michele has already made good friends and we were supposed to have one at our place last Sunday, but she misbehaved and her mother decided to postpone it all, so maybe next Sunday afternoon.