July 24: a post script.

Not as-written in my journal... but context for what happens next.

As part of last night's mental machinations, Meggie helped us make a plan for tomorrow. Why do we need a plan? Because we're going back - back to Mr. Msugu's classroom. At dinner, after we shared our roses and our thorns, we got our assignments for the next day. We go back to class together, then Meggie meets with the P.E. teacher to plan that day and all next week's afternoon classes; I'll go to meet with the school secretary/headmaster's assistant. In the afternoon, Meggie will run the P.E. classes and I'll go back to working on the septic tank. Other volunteers will be in various primary school classes, the kindergarten, with the secondary school librarian, or with scary and cranky Academic Office Mistress Madame Sbarra.

So we talk through it. We talk through our mistakes of the day, and plan how to avoid making them again. We don't want to continue undermining Mr. M by letting him have us teach; we need to empower him by observing how he teaches, but saying we want to learn his style of teaching now that he saw our American style of teaching. I tell Meggie I don't know if I can even tell him this; I tell her that reentering the classroom might be all I have within me and verbally setting a boundary may be beyond me at this point. She says she's able to do the heavy lifting for us tomorrow, and I am grateful. Armed with a plan, and a possible apology to Mr. M for not taking the time to assess the level of his students and sit back in the classroom, I am able to fall asleep.