Joy, Hope & Ants

Before class dancing--notice the lights where there are none.

10/6/10: Alisoun arrived from Scotland last night. We 4 are a creative & cohesive team. She brought a fun & very effective game to show how to keep our minds open to possibilities. We taught the peer counselors energy medicine exercises, used optical illusions to show different perspectives (the teachers spent all lunch puzzling over the images & asked that we leave them at the school), taught the 5 steps in helping others, & began teaching & using EFT to relieve their test anxiety. They created & presented a skit about how they were going to help their fellow students. It was very touching, as they showed how it is now, & how it will change after their training. They are so open & innocent in their sharing & in their questions, one’s heart cannot helped but be deeply touched. The teacher that was helping as an interpreter commented that the skit showed him how the teachers are not sensitive to what might be the cause of student’s lack of focus or resistance, & that they will be making changes. The students continue to thank us over & over again for giving them hope. So many come up to hug us afterwards that we are late to the van. Rwandan hugs are touching first the right cheek, then the left, then the right again, & you can add a little wiggle at the end if you really like someone. A teacher told us about one of the brightest students (he is 23 & a junior) who is a star of compassion in our class. He has paid 100,000 Rwandan Francs to take the test that will allow him to become a senior 6 (last year), but must come up with 20,000 more in two weeks or lose his 100,000 & have to take his junior year over again which he will have to pay for. 20,000 Rwandan Francs is about $45. I wanted each of us to chip in $12 & pay it. The problem with that is there are many other students with similar stories, & if we do it for one, we have to do it for all. If we make one student “special” in terms of money, there is a risk he might not be treated well by the other students.

We ended the day at the school by experiencing bites of the African soldier ants. They latch on & sting until you pull them off. The bites themselves are very small. They can crawl up your leg in a split second! I think they leap. The second day of rain has flushed them out of their nests, & they surround the “office” (outhouse). We can’t avoid them.