Same

My next port of call is Same to visit a married couple, Travis and Rebecca.  Same is another example of a mountain city.  It has electricity and running water.  There is a restaurant and a standing market called a Loja.  Travis and Rebekah live in large house with a nice covered porch and a lush green lawn.

The house came furnished with chairs and tables and a couch.  They get by without a television.  Each of them has a touch of the artist.  Travis is writing children’s stories and learning to play guitar and Rebekah draws.  This is the first location where we will be starting the curriculum in a pilot school.  Travis has agreed to be a volunteer mentor.  Rebekah works with a health NGO but wishes she had more to do as well. 

They take me on a tour of the town.  They are more well known than the volunteers In Ainaro.  I have arrived late in the evening.  Jumar introduces himself and then goes to the rooms he and Duarte have arranged.  I stay with the volunteers.

The next day we head to the school.  All of us, in the white land rover. The mentoring program is more important than ever because I have found out that our expected budget is much smaller than the one we had planned for. We need big results or we will have to spend our time finding other backers.

The school is older than the one in Same, perhaps it survived the fires in 2001.  The schools mascot is a fish on a book with a pencil in its mouth.  No one finds this as hilarious as I do.  Our being there is much anticipated and the teacher who attended our training is nervously waiting with his principal and all the children from the school.

Jumar gives a short speech in Bahasa and I follow him up in broken Tetun.  We introduced Travis and Rebekah to the Entrepreneurial Teacher and explain their role.  He looks much relieved.

Soon it is just our team, the teacher and a class room full of children.  It is our first live fire test of the curriculum.  The teacher begins to flounder and Viriato, our consultant steps in.  He begins to teach helping the teacher over the rough spots.  And the children are getting it.  We get to one of the simple games and they start to grin.  It is working, not well, but it is working.

And I sit in the back of the class in a ridiculously small desk grinning.  Wishing I had more hands with which to pat myself on the back.